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HISTORY 


OF 


ENGLISH    LITERATURE. 


BY  H.  A.  TAINE,  D.C.L. 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH  BY  H.  VAN  LAUN, 

One  of  the  Masters  at  the  Edinburgh  Academy. 


COMPLETE  IN  ONE  VOLUME. 


NEW  YORK: 
JOHN    WURTELE    LOVELL, 

No.  24  BOND  STREET. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  NEW  EDITION. 


THIS  edition  of  TAINE'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  has  been 
carefully  revised  and  compared  with  the  original.  All  the  quotations  have 
been  collated  and  verified  anew,  and  no  trouble  has  been  spared  to  make 
it  as  accurate  as  possible 

For  the  favorable  reception  this  translation  has  met  with  from  the  press 
and  the  public,  I  feel  much  inflebtsd.  ,  '«,•'  ',  ;  '  '  •*  ' 

A  : :  •':  %:  •  *'.'-: :    :.•:"''?•  VAN 
/•*.  r  :•:.-*;*./*::.  fc :  /.  \ 

THE  ACADEMY, 
EDINBURGH,  May  31,  1873, 


H*N*Y  MORSE  STEPHEN* 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

PACK. 

Historical  documents  serve  only  as  a  clue  to  reconstruct  the  visible  individual 17 

The  outer  man  is  only  a  clue  to  study  the  inner,  invisible  man 19 

The  state  and  the  actions  of  the  inner  and  invisible  man  have  their  causes  in  certain 

general  ways  of  thought  and  feeling 20 

Chief  causes  of  thoughts  and  feelings.    Their  historical  effects 22 

The  three  primordial  forces — 

I.  Race 23 

II.  Surroundings 24 

III.  Epoch 25 

Historv   is  a  mechanical  and  psychological    problem.      Within  certain   limits   man    can 

foretell 26 

Production  of  the  results  of  a  primordial  cause.      Common  elements.      Composition  of 

groups.     Law  of  mutual  dependence.     Law  of  proportional  influences 27 

Law  of  formation  of  a  group.     Examples  and  indications 29 

General    problem    and    future  of  history.    Psychological  method.      Value   of  literature. 

Purpose  in  writing  tlus  book 30 


BOOK  I.-— THE  SOURCE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

€ty  Siaxan*. 

I.  Their  original  country— Soil,  sea,  sky,  climate— Their  new  country — A  moist  land 

and  a  thankless  soil — Influence  of  climate  on  character 33 

II.  Their  bodily  structure — Food — Manners — Uncultivated  instincts,  German  and  Eng- 

lish       35 

III.  Noble  instincts  in    Germany — The  individual — The  family — The  state — Religion 

— The  Edda — Tragi-heroic  conception  of  the  world  and  of  mankind 38 

IV.  Noble   instincts  in    England— Warrior  -and    chieftain — Husband   and   wife — The 

poem  of  Beowulf — Barbarian  society  and  the  barbarian  hero 42 

V.  Pagan  poems — Kind  and  force  of  sentiments — Bent  of  mind  and  speech — Force  of 

impression  ;  harshness  of  expression 45 

VI.  Christian    poems — Wherein    the    Saxons   are    predisposed    to   Christianity — How 

converted — Their  view  of  Christianity — Hymns  of  Csedmon — Funeral  hymn 
— Poem  of  Judith — Paraphrase  of  the  Bible  47 

VII.  Why  Latin  culture  took  no  hold  on  the  Saxons — Reasons  drawn   from  the  Saxon 

conquest — Bede,  Alcuin,  Alfred — Translations — Chronicles — Compilations — 
Impotence  of  Latin  writers — Reasons  drawn  from  the  Saxon  character — Adhelm 
— Alcuin — Latin  verse — Poetic  dialogues — Bad  taste  of  the  Latin  writers....  51 

VIII.  Contrast  of  German  and  Latin  races — Character  of  the  Saxon  race — Its  endurance 

under  the  Norman  conquest 55 


515143 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER  II. 


PACK. 

I.  Formation  and  character  of  Feudalism  ..........................................     56 

II.  The  Norman  invasion  ;  character  of    the  Normans  —  Contrast  with  the  Saxons  — 

The  Normans  are  French  —  How  they  became  so  —  Their  taste  and  architecture 

—  Their   spirit   of    inquiry  and   their  literature  —  Chivalry  and    amusements  — 
Their  tactics  and  their  success  .............................................     56 

III.  Bent  of  the  French   genius  —  Two  principal  characteristics;  clear  and  consecutive 

ideas  —  Psychological  form  of  French  genius  —  Prosaic  histories  ;  lack  of 
color  and  passion,  ease  and  discursiveness  —  Natural  logic  and  clearness, 
soberness,  grace  and  delicacy,  refinement  and  cynicism  —  Order  and  charm  —  The 
nature  of  the  beauty  and  of  the  ideas  which  the  French  have  introduced  —  .  60 

IV.  The  Normans  in   England  —  Their  position  and  their  tyranny  —  They  implant  their 

literature  and  language  —  They  forget   the  same  —  Learn    English   by  degrees 

—  Gradually  English  becomes  gallicised  .....................................      04 

V.      They  translate  French  works  into  English  —  Opinion  of    Sir  John  Mandeville  — 

Layamon,  Robert  of  Gloucester,  Robert  de  Brunne  —  They  imitate  in  English 
the  French  literature—  Moral  manuals,  chansons,  fabliaux,  Gestes—  Brightness, 
frivolity,  and  futility  of  this  French  literature  —  Barbarity  and  ignorance  of 
the  feudal  civilization  —  Geste  of  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  and  voyages  of  Sir 
John  Mandeville  —  Poorness  of  the  literature  introduced  and  implanted  in 
England  —  Why  it  has  not  endured  on  the  Continent  or  in  England  ............  67 

VI.  The  Saxons  in  England  —  Endurance  of  the  Saxon  nation,  and  formation  of  the 
English  constitution  —  Endurance  of  the  Saxon  character,  and  formation  of  the 
Engl  ish  character  ..........................................................  73 

VII-IX.  Comparison  of  the  ideal  hero  in  France  and  England  —  Fabliaux  of  Reynard, 
and  ballads  of  Robin  Hood  —  How  the  Saxon  character  makes  way  for  and 
supports  political  liberty  —  Comparison  of  the  condition  of  the  Commons  in 
France  and  England  —  Theory  of  the  English  constitution,  by  Sir  John 
Fortescue  —  How  the  Saxon  constitution  makes  way  for  and  supports  political 
liberty  —  Situation  of  the  Church,  and  precursors  of  the  Reformation  in  Eng- 
land —  Piers  Plowman  and  Wycliffe—  How  the  Saxon  character  and  the  situ- 
ation of  the  Norman  Church  made  way  for  religious  reform  —  Incompleteness 
and  importance  of  the  national  literature  —  Why  it  has  not  endured  .........  75 


CHAPTER  III. 


I.  Chaucer  —  His  education  —  His  political  and  social  life  —  Wherein  his  talent  was 

serviceable  —  He  paints  the  second  feudal  society  ----  ._  ............  .^  ..........     85 

II.  How  the   midd'e   age   degenerated  —  Decline  of  the   serious  element  in  manners, 

books,  and  works  of  art  —  Need  of  excitement  —  Analogies  of  architecture  and 
literature  ..................................................................  85 

III.  Wherein  Chaucer  belongs  to  the  middle  age  —  Romantic  and  ornamental  poems  — 

Le  Roman  de  la  Rose  —  Troilns  and  Cressida  —  Canterbury  Tales  — 
Order  of  description  and  events  —  The  House  of  Fame  —  Fantastic  dreams 
and  visions—  Love  poems  —  Troilus  and  Cressida  —  Exaggerated  development 
of  love  in  the  middle  age  —  Why  the  mind  took  this  path  —  Mystic  love  —  The 
Flower  and  the  Leaf—  Sensual  love  —  Troilus  and  Cressida  .................  86 

IV.  Wherein  Chaucer  is  French  —  Satirical  and  jovial  poems  —  Canterbury  Tales  —  The 

Wife  of  Bath  and  marriage—  The  mendicant  friar  and  religion  —  Buffoonery, 
waggery,  and  coarseness  in  the  middle  age  ...................  .•••/•.  ..........  $J 

V.  Wherein  Chaucer  was  English  and  original  —  Idea  of  character  and  individual  —  Van 

Eyck  and  Chaucer  contemporary  —  Prologue  to  Canterbury  Tales  —  Portraits 
of  the  franklin,  monk,  miller,  citizen,  knight,  squire,  prioress,  the  good  clerk-^ 
Connection  of  events  and  characters—  General  idea  —  Importance  of  the  same 

—  Chaucer  a  precursor  of  the  Reformation  —  He  halts  by  the  way  —  Tediousness 
and  Childishness  —  Causes  of  this  feebleness  —  His  prose,  and  scholastic  notion 

—  How  he  is  isolated  in  his  age  ...................    ......................  -  .     96 

VI.  Connection   of  philosophy   and  poetry  —  How    general    notions   failed   under  the 

scholastic  philosophy  —  Why  poetry  failed  —  Comparison  of  civilization  and 
decadence  in  the  middle  age,  and  in  Spain  —  Extinction  of  the  English  literature 

—  Translators  —  Rhyming  chroniclers  —  Didactic  poets  —  Compilers  of  moralities 

—  Gower  —  Occleve  —  Lydgate  —  Analogy  of   taste   in  costumes,  buildings,  and 
literature  —  Sad  notion  of  fate,  and  human  misery  —  Hawes  —  Barclay  —  Skelton 

—  Elements  of  the  Reformation  and  ci  the  Renaissance  ......................   iea 


CONTENTS. 
BOOK   II.—  THE  RENAISSANCE. 

CHAPTER  I. 


§  i.  MANNERS  OF  THE  TIME. 

PAGE. 

I.  Idea  \rhich  men  had  formed  of  the  world,  since  the  dissolution  of  the  old 
society—  How  and  why  human  inventiveness  reappears  —  The  form  of  the  spirit 
of  the  Renaissance  —  The  representation  of  objects  is  imitative,  characteristic, 
and  complete  ...........  .................................................  107 

II  Why  the  ideal  changes  —  Improvement  of  the  state  of  man  in  Europe  —  In  England 
—  Peace  —  Industry  —  Commerce  —  Pasturage  —  Agriculture  —  Growth  of  public 
wealth  —  Buildings  and  furniture  —  The  palace,  meals  and  habits  —  Court 
pageantries  —  Celebrations  under  Elizabeth  —  Masques  under  James  1  ..........  108 

III.  Manners  of  the  people  —  Pageants  —  Theatres  —  Village  feasts  —  Pagan  development.   112 

IV.  Models  —  The  ancients  —  Translation  and  study  of  classical  authors  —  Sympathy  for 

the  manners  and  mythology  of  the  ancients  —  The  moderns  —  Taste  for  Italian 
writings  and  ideas  —  Poetry  and  painting  in  Italy  were  pagan  —  The  ideal  is  the 
strong  and  happy  man,  limited  by  the  present  life  ...........................  113 

§  2.  POETRY. 

I.  The  English  Renaissance  is  the  Renaissance  of  the  Saxon  genius  ................   116 

II.  The  forerunners  —  The  Earl  of  Surrey  —  His  feudal  and  chivalrous  life  —  His  English 

individual  character  —  His  serious  and  melancholy  poems  —  His  conception  of 
inward  love  ................................................................  1  16 

III.  His  style  —  His   masters,   Petrach  and   Virgil  —  His    progress,    power,   precocious 

perfection  —  Birth  of  art  —  Weaknesses,  imitation,  research  —  Art  incomplete.  .  .  .   118 

IV.  Growth  and  completion  of  art  —  Euphiies  and  fashion  —  Style  and  spirit  of  the   Re- 

naissance —  Copiousness  and  irregularity  —  How  manners,  style,  and  spirit  'corres- 
pond —  Sir  Philip  Sydney  —  His  education,  life,  character  —  His  learning,  gravity, 
generosity,  forcible  expression  —  The  A  readies.  —  Exaggeration  and  mannerism  of 
sentiments  and  style  —  Defence  of  Poesie  —  Eloquence  and  energy  —  His  sonnets 

—  Wherein  the  body  and  the  passions  of   the  Renaissance  differ  from  those  of 
the  moderns  —  Sensual  love  —  Mystical  love  ..................................   120 

V.  Pastoral  poetry  —  The  great  number  of  poets  —  Spirit  and  force  of  the  poetry—  State 

of  mind  which  produces  it  —  Love  of  the  country  —  Reappearance  of  the  ancient 
gods  —  Enthusiasm  for  beauty  —  Picture  of  ingenuous  and  happy  love  —  Shak- 
speare,  Jonson,  Fletcher,  Drayton,  Marlowe,  Warner,  Breton,  Lodge,  Greene 

—  How  the  transformation  of  the  people  transforms  art  ........................    126 

VI.  Ideal   poetry  —  Spenser  —  His  life  —  His  character  —  His  platonism  —  His  Hymns  of 

love  and  beauty  —  Copiousness  of  his  imagination—  How  far  it  was  suited  for 
the  epic  —  Wherein  it  was  allied  tc  the  "faerie"  —  His  tentatives  —  Shepherd's 
Calendar  —  His  short  poems  —  His  masterpiece  —  The  faerie  Queene  —  His  epic 
is  allegorical  and  yet  life-like  —  It  embraces  Christian  chivalry  and  the  Pagan 
Olympus  —  How  it  combines  these  .................................  ,  .........  131 

VII.  The  Faerie  Queene  —  Impossible  events  —  How  they  appear  natural  —  Belphcebe  and 

Chrysogone  —  Fairy  and  gigantic  pictures  and  landscapes—  Why  they  must  be  so 

—  The  cave  of  Mammon,  and  the  gardens  of   Acrasia  —  How  Spenser  composes 

—  Wherein  the  art  of  the  Renaissance  is  complete  ....  ........................   135 

§  3.  PROSE. 

1  Limit  of  the  poetry  —  Changes  in  society  and  manners  —  How  the  return  to  nature 
becomes  an  appeal  to  the  senses  —  Corresponding  changes  in  poetry  —  How  agree- 
ablenesss  replaces  energy  —  How  prettiness  replaces  the  beautiful  —  Refinements 

—  Carew,    Suckling,    Herrick  —  Affectation  —  Quarles,    Herbert,    Babington, 
Donne,  Cowley  —  Begininng  of  the  classic  style,  and  drawing-room  life  ........    143 

How  poetry  passed  into  prose  —  Connection  of  science  and  art  —  In  Italy  —  In 
England  —  How  the  triumph  of  nature  develops  the  exercise  of  the  natural  reason 
—Scholars,  historians,  speakers,  compilers,  politicians,  antiquaries,  philoso- 
phers, theologians—  The  abundance  of  talent,  and  the  rarity  ol  fine  works  — 
Superfluousness,  punctiliousness,  and  pedantry  of  the  style  —  Originality,  preci- 
sion, energy,  and  richness  of  the  style  —  How,  unlike  the  classical  writers,  they 
represent  the  individual,  not  the  idea  ......................................  147 

III.  Robert  Burton  —  His  life  and  character—  Vastness  and  confusion  of  his  acquirements 

—  His  subject,  the   Anatomy  of  Melancholy  —  Scholastic  divisions  —  Medley  of 
moral  and  medical  science  ..................................................   149 

IV.  Sir  Thomas  Browne—  His  talent  —  His  imagination   is  that    of    a  North-man  — 


II. 


6  CONTENTS. 

PACK. 

Hydrtotaphiti,  Religio  Medici—  His  ideas,  curiosity,  and  doubts  belong  to  the 
age  of  the  Renaissance  —  Pseudodoxia  —  Effects  of  this  activity  and  this  direction 
of  the  public  mind  ................    .......................................   151 

V«  Francis  Bacon  —  His  talent  —  His  originality  —  Concentration  and  brightness  of  his 
style  —  Comparisons  and  aphorisms  —  The  Essays  —  His  style  not  argumentative, 
but  intuitive  —  His  practical  good  sense  —  Turning-point  of  his  rhilosophy  —  The 
object  of  science  is  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  man  —  New  Atlantis  — 
The  idea  is  in  accordance  with  the  state  of  affairs  and  the  spirit  of  the  times 
—  It  completes  the  Renaissance  —  It  introduces  a  new  method  —  The  Organum 
—Where  Bacon  stopped  —  Limits  of  the  spirit  of  the  age  —  How  the  conception 
of  the  world,  which  had  been  poetic,  became  mechanical  —  How  the  Renaissance 
ended  in  the  establishment  of  positive  science  ................................  153 

CHAPTER  II. 


I.  The  public  —  The  stage  ........................................................   158 

II.  Manners  of  the  sixteenth  century  —  Violent  and  complete  expansion  of  nature,...   160 
III*     English  manners  —  Expansion  of  the  energetic  and  gloomy  character  ..............   163 

IV.      The  poets  —  General  harmony  between  the  character  of  a  poet  and  that  of  his  age 

—  Nash,  Decker,  Kyd,  Peele,  Lodge,  Greene  —  Their  condition  and  life  —  Mar- 
lowe —  His  life—  His  works  —  Tamburlaine  —  The  Jew  of  Malta  —  Edward 
II.—Faustus—H\s  conception  of  man  .......................................  166 

V*  Formation  of  this  drama  —  The"  process  and  character  of  this  art  —  Imitative 
sympathy,  which  depicts  by  expressive  examples  —  Contrast  of  classical  and 
Germanic  art  —  Psychological  construction  and  proper  sphere  of  these  two  arts.  173 

VI*  Male  characters  —  Furious  passions  —  Tragical  events  —  Exaggerated  characters  — 
The  Duke  of  Milan  by  Massinger  —  Ford's  A  nnabella  —  Webster's  Duchess  of 
Malfi  and  Vittoria  Corombona  —  Female  characters  —  Germainic  idea  of  love 
and  marriage  —  Euphrasia,  Bianca,  Arethusa,  Ordella,  Aspasia  Amoret,  in 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  —  Penthea  in  Ford  —  Agreement  of  the  moral  and 
physical  type  ..............................................................  176 

CHAPTER  III. 


I.  The  masters  of  the  school,  in  the  school  and  in  their  age  —  Jonson  —  His  mood  — 

Character  —  Education  —  First  efforts  —  Struggles  —  Poverty—  Sickness  —  Death.  186 

II.  Learning  —  Classical   tastes  —  Didactic  characters  —  Good  management  of  his   plots 

—  Freedom  and  precision  of  his  style  —  Vigor  of  his  will  and  passion  ...........   188 

III.  Dramas  —  Catiline  and  Sejanus  —  How  he  was  able  to  depict  the  personages  and 

the  passions  of  the  Roman  decadence  .............................  ..........   igj 

IV.  Comedies  —  His    reformation  and    theory    of    the    theatre—  Satirical    comedies  — 

Volpone  —  Why  these  comedies  are  serious  and  warlike—  How  they  depict  the 
passions  of   the   Renaissance  —  His  farces  —  The  Silent   Woman  —  Why  these 
comedies  are  energetic  and  rude  —  How  they  conform  with  the  tastes  of  the 
Renaissance  ............................................................   194 

V«  Limits  of  his  talent  —  Wherein  he  is  inferior  to  Moliere  —  Want  of  higher  philosophy 
and  comic  gayety  —  His  imagination  and  fancy  —  The  Staple  of  News  and 
Cynthia1  's  Revels  —  How  he  treats  the  comedy  of  society,  and  lyrical  comedy 

—  His  smaller  poems  —  His  masques  —  Theatrical  and  picturesque  manners  of 
the  court  —  The  3ad  Shepherd—  How  Jonson  remains  a  poet  to  his  death  ......  200 

VI.  General  idea  of  Shakspeare  —  The  fundamental  idea  in  Shakspeare  —  Conditions  of 
human  reason  —  Shakspeare's  master  faculty  —  Conditions  of  exact  represen- 

tation ...................................................................    203 

CHAPTER  IV. 


I,  Life  and  character  of  Shakspeare  —  Family  —  Youth  —  Marriage  —  He  becomes  an 

actor  —  A  donis  —  Sonnets  —  Loves—  Humor—  Conversation—  Melancholy  —  The 
constitution  of  the  productive  and  sympathetic  character  —  Prudence  —  Fortune 
—  Retirement  .................  ...  .......  .  ............  .....................  204 

II.  Style  —  Images  —  Excesses  —  Incongruities  —  Copiousness  —  Difference  between   the 

creative  and  analytic  conception  ...........................................  an 


CONTENTS.  7 

PACK. 

III.  Manners— Familiar  intercourse— Violent  bearing— Harsh  language— Conversation 

and  action — Agreement  of  manners  and  style ••.••  2 14 

IV.  The  dramatis  personce — All  of  the  same  family — Brutes  and  idiots — Caliban,  Ajax, 

Cloten,  Polonius,  the  Nurse — How  the  mechanical   imagination  can   precede 

or  survive  reason ••••. •• /•  217 

V.  Men   of   wit— Difference  between   the  wit  of  reasoners  and  of  artists— Mercutio, 

Beatrice,  Rosalind,  Benedict,  the  clowns — Falstaff 22f 

VI.  Women  — Desdemona,    Virginia,  Juliet,    Miranda,     Imogen,   Cordelia,    Ophelia, 

Volumnia— How  Shakspeare  represents  love— Why  he  bases  virtue  on 
instinct  or  passion *,"","  V • 223 

VII.  Villains — I  ago,  Richard  III. — How  excessive  lusts  and  tne  lack  of  conscience  are 

the  natural  province  of  the  impassioned  imagination 224 

VIII.  Principal  characters — Excess  and  disease  of  the  imagination — Lear,  Othello,   Cleo- 

patra, Coriolanus,  Macbeth,  Hamlet— Comparison  of  Shakspeare's  psychol- 
ogy with  that  of  the  French  tragic  authors :  •  •  2*J 

IX.  Fancy— Agreement  of  imagination  with   observation  in  Shakspeare— Interesting 

nature 'of  sentimental  and  romantic  comedy— A  s  you  like  it— Idea  of  exist- 
ence— Midsummer  Nights  Dream— Idea,  of  love— Harmony  of  all  parts 
of  the  work— Harmony  between  the  artist  and  his  work 232 

CHAPTER  V. 


of  the  conscience— Renewal  of  heart— Suppression  of  ceremonies— Transfer-  ^ 
mation  of  the  clergy 
III.     Reforrr     ' 
cle 
convulsions — me  translation  01  tne  DIUIC — ixuw  ui^i.wai  v..v,..»o  »..-  ~ — ...... 

sentiments  are  in  accordance  with  contemporary  manners  and  with  the  English 
character—  The  Prayer  Book—  Moral  and  manly  feeling  of  the  prayers  and 
church  service— Preaching— Latimer— His  education— Character— Familiar  and 


UllUICll  SCI  Vl^C 1  icav.lllll£, j-.a.iii»i>-.  — — .          . 

persuasive  eloquence— Death— The  martyrs  under  Mary— England  thencel< 
Protestant ...  : '  •  *  *  * ' ',"  ' ' .'.  '."' 

IV.  The  Anglicans— Close  connection  between  religion  and  society— How  the  religious 

sentiment  penetrates  literature— How  the  sentiment  of  the  beautiful  subsists  in 
religion— Hooker— His  breadth  of  mind  and  the  ^nessT°f_hls  jgJSllSi;! 

V.  The 

VI.  Bunyan — H.~  — ,  _r.--.7 f 

England 27> 

CHAPTER  VI. 


I.  General  idea  of  his  mind  and  character— Family— Education— Studies— Travels—  ^ 

II.  Effect's  a°  concentrated  'and  "solitary    character— Austerity— Inexperience— 

Marriage— Children— Domestic  Troubles •••;••-.• 

III.  Combative  energy— Polemic  against  the  bishops—  Against  the  king—  Enthusia 

and    sternness— Theories  on    government,  church,  and  education— btoi       n 
and  virtue— Old  age,  occupations,  person 

IV.  Milton's  residence  in  London  and  the  country— General  appearance •  " 

V.  Milton  as  a  prose-writer— Changes  during  three  centuries  in  countenances 

ideas-Heaviness  of  his  logic-  The  Doctrine  and  Discipline  of  Dn'orce- 

Heavy  Humor— Animadversions  upon  the  Remonstrant  s  Defence—^ 

ness  oi  discussion-^/,^  '^'it"^™*™^'™**^ 


since—  fioi  hrgiveTpoeTry  a  moral  tone— Profane  poems- 
Ptnseroso—Cotnus—Lycidas— Religious  poems— Paradise  Lost—^ 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE, 

of  a  genuine  epic  —  They  are  not  to  be  met  with  in  the  age  or  i:  the  poet  —  Com- 
parison of  Adam  and  Eve  with  an  English  family—  Comparison  of  God  and  the 
angels  to  a  monarch's  court  —  The  rest  of  the  poem  —  Comparison  between  the 
sentiments  of  Satan  and  the  republican  passions  —  Lyrical  and  moral  character 
of  the  scenery  —  Loftiness  and  sense  of  the  moral  ideas  —  Situation  of  the  poet 
and  the  poem  between  two  ages  —  Composition  of  his  genius  and  his  work  ......  193 

BOOK  III.—  THE   CLASSIC  AGE. 

CHAPTER  I. 


i.  THE  ROISTERERS. 

I.  The  excesses  of  Puritanism  —  How  they  induce  excesses  of  sensuality  .............  309 

II.  Picture  of  these  manners  by  a  stranger  —  The  Memoir  es  de  Grammont  —  Difference 

of  debauchery  in  France  and  England  ......................................  311 

IlJ       Butler's  Hudibras  —  Platitude  of  his  comic  style,  and  harshness  of  his  rancorous 

style  ...............  ...............................................  -----  ...  313 

IV.  Baseness,  cruelty,  brutality,  debauchery,  of  the  court  —  Rochester,  his  life,  poems, 

style,  morals  ..............................................................   314 

V.  Philosophy  consonant  with  these  manners  —  Hobbes,  his  spirit  and  his  style  —  His 

curtailments  and  his  discoveries  —  His  mathematical  method  —  In  how  much  he 
resembles  Descartes  —  His  morality,  esthetics,  politics,  logic,  psychology, 
metaphysics  —  Spirit  and  aim  of  his  philosophy  ...............................  318 

VI.  The  theatre  —  Alteration  in  taste,  and  in  the  public  —  Audiences  before  and  after 

the  Restoration  .......................................................  .....   321 

VII.  Dryden  —  Disparity  of  his  comedies  —  Unskilfulness  of  his  indecencies—  How  he 

translates  Moliere's  A  mphitryon  ......    ....................................   322 

VIII    \\fycherley  —  Life  —  Character  —  Melancholy,  greed,  immodesty  —  Love  in  a   Wood, 
Cormtry  Wife,  Dancing  Master  —  Licentious  pictures,  and  repugnant  details 


— His  energy  and  realism — Parts  of  Olivia  and  Manly  in  his  Plain  Dealer 
Certain  words  of  Milton's  Paradise  Lost 


324 


THE  WORLDLINGS. 


I.  Appearance  of  the  worldly  life  in  Europe — Its  conditions  and  causes — How  it  was 

established  in  England — Etiquette,  amusements,  conversations,  manners,  and 
talents  of  the  drawing-room 329 

II.  Dawn  of  the  classic  spirit  in  Europe — Its  origin — Its  nature — Difference  of  conver- 

sation under  Elizabeth  and  Charles  II 331 

III.  Sir  William  Temple — His  life,  character,  spirit,  and  style 332 

IV.  Writers  of  fashion — Their  correct  language  and  gallant  bearing — Sir  Charles  Sed- 

ley,  the  Earl  of  Dorset,  Edmund  Waller — His  opinions  and  style — Wherein 
consists  his  polish — Wherein  he  is  not  sufficiently  polished — Culture  of  style — 
Lack  of  poetry — Character  of  monarchical  and  classic  style 335 

V.  Sir  John  Denham — His  poem  of  Cooper's  Hill—  Oratorical  swell  of  his  verse — 

English  seriousness  of  his  moral  preoccupations — How  people  of  fashion  and 
literary  men  followed  then  the  fashions  of  France 339 

VI.  The  comic-authors — Comparison  of  this  theatre  with  that  of  Moliere — Arrange- 

ment of  ideas  in  Moliere — General  ideas  in  Moliere— How  in  Moliere  the  odious 
is_concealed,  while  the  truth  is  depicted — How  in  Moliere  the  honest  man  is 
still  the  man  of  the  world — How  the  respectable  man  of  Moliere  is  a  French 
type 340 

VII.  Action — Complication  of  intrigues — Frivolity  of  purpose — Crudeness  of  the  charac- 

ters— Crossness  of  manners — Wherein  consists  the  talent  of  Wycherley,  Con- 
greve,  Vanbrugh,  and  Farquhar — Kind  of  characters  they  are  able  to  produce.  344 
VIII.  Natural  characters — Sir  John  Brute,  the  husband  ;  Squire  Sullen — Sir  Tunbelly, 
the   father — Miss  Hoyden,   the   young   lady — Squire  Humphry,    the   young 
gentleman — Idea  of  nature  according  to  this  theatre 346 

IX.  Artificial  characters — Women  of  the  world — Miss  Prue,  Lady   Wishfort^  Lady 

Pliant,  Mrs.  Millamant — Men  of  the  world — Mirabftt-—\&t&  of  soci«ty  ac- 
cording to  this  theatre — Why  this  culture  and  this  literature  have  not  produced 
durable  works — Wherein  they  are  opposed  to  the  English  character — Transfor- 
mation of  taste  and  manners 34& 

X.  The  continuation  of  comedy — Sheridan — Life — Talent —  The  School  for  Scandal — 

How  comedy  degenerates  and  is  extinguished — Causes  of  the  decay  of  the 
theatre  in  Europe  and  in  England 35? 


CONTENTS.  g 

CHAPTER  II. 

jlrgbm 

PAGB. 

I.  Dryden's  beginnings  —  Close  of  the  poetic  age  —  Cause  of  literary  decline  and  regen- 

eration ........................................................  ..........  359 

II.  Family  —  Education  —  Studies  —  Reading  —  Habits  —  Position  —  Character  —  Audience 

—  Friendships  —  Quarrels  —  Harmony  of  his  life  and  talent.  .  .  .................  360 

III.  The  theatres  re-opened  and  transformed  —  The  new  public  and  the   new  taste  —  Dra- 

matic theories  of  Dryden  —  His  judgment  of  the  old  English  theatre  —  His  judg- 
ment of  the  new  French  theatre  —  Composite  works  —  Incongruities  of  his  drama 

—  Tyrannic  Love  —  Crossness  of  his  characters  —  The  Indian  Emperor  A  ureng- 
zebe,   A  Imanzor  .........................................................  361 

IV.  Style   of  his  drama  —  Rhymed  verse  —  Flowery  diction  —  Pedantic  tirades  —  Want  of 

agreement  between  the  classical  .style  and  romantic  events  —  How  Dryden  bor- 
rows and  mars  the  inventions  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton  —  Why  this  drama  fell 
to  the  ground  .............................................................  367 

V.  Merits   of   this   drama  —  Characters   of  Antony  and  Don   Sebastian  —  Otway  —  Life 

—  Works  ..................................  ................................  370 

VI.  Dryden  as  a  writer  —  Kind,  scope,  and  limits   of  his  mind  —  Clumsiness  in  flattery 

and  obscenity  —  Heaviness  in  dissertation  and  discussion  —  Vigor  and  funda- 
mental uprightness  .....  .  .....................  .  .  .........................  375 

VII.  How  literature   in   England    is  occupied    with     politics    and    religion  —  Political 

poems  of  Dryden,  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  The  Medal  —  Religious  poems, 
Religio  Laid,  The  Hind  and  the  Panther  —  Bitterness  and  virulence  of  these 
poems  —  Mac  Flecknoe  .......................  ..............................  378 

VIII.  Rise  of  the  art  of  writing  —  Difference  between  the  stamp  of  mind  of  the  artistic  and 

classic  ages  —  Dryden's  manner  of  writing  —  Sustained  and  oratorical  diction..  381 

IX.  Lack  of  general  ideas  in  this  age  and  this  stamp  of  mind  —  Dryden's   translations- 

Adaptations  —  Imitations  —  Tales  and  letters  —  Faults  —  Merits  —  Gravity  of  his 
character,  brilliancy  of  his  inspiration,  fits  and  starts  of  poetic  eloquence  — 
A  lexander1  s  Feast,  a  song  in  honor  of  St.  Cecilia's  Day  .....................  382 

X.  Dryden's   latter  days  —  Wretchedness  —  Poverty  —  Wherein   his  work  is  incomplete 

—Death  ..................................  .  ......  ..........................  386 

CHAPTER  III. 


I.  The  moral  revolution  of  the  seventeenth  century  —  It  advances  side  by  side  with 

the  political  revolution  .....................    ...............................  386 

II.  Brutality  of  the  people  —  Gin   Riots  —  Corruption   of  the  great  —  Political  manners 

—  Treachery  under  William  III.  and  Anne  —  Venality  under  Walpole  and  Bute 

—  Private  manners  —  The  roisterers  —  The  atheists  —  Chesterfied's  Letters  —  His 
polish  and  morality  —  Gay's  Beggars'  Opera  —  His  elegance  and  satire  ........   387 

III.  Principles  of  civilization   in    France  and  ^England—  Conversation  in  France;   how 

it  ends  in  a  revolution  —  Moral  sense  in  England  ;  how  it  ends  in  a  reformation,  391 

IV.  Religion  —  Visible   signs  —  Its   profound   sentiment  —  Religion     popular  —  Lifelike  — 

Arians  —  Methodists  ......................................................   394 

V.  The  pulpit  —  Mediocrity  and  efficacy  of  preaching  —  Tillotson  —  His   heaviness  and 

solidity  —  Barrow  —  His  abundance  and  minuteness  —  South  —  His  harshness  and 
energy  —  Comparison   of   French   and  English  preachers  ......................  397 

VI.  Theology  —  Comparison  of  the  French  and   English  apologetics  —  Sherlock,    Stil 

" 


Price,    Hutcheson 

VII.  The   Constitution — Sentiment  of  right — Locke's   Essay  on  Government — Theory 

of  personal  right  accepted — Maintained  by  temperament,  pride,  and  interest 
— Theory  of  personal  right  applied—  Put  in  practice  by  elections,  the  press,  the 
tribunals \ 4°5 

VIII.  Parliamentary  eloquence — Its  energy  and  harshness — Lord  Chatham— Junius — Fox 

—Sheridan— Pitt— Burke . • •   4°8 

IX.  Issue  of  the  century's  labors — Economic  and  moral  transformation — Comparison  of 

Reynolds'  and  Lely's  portraits — Contrary  doctrines  and  tendencies  in  France 
and  England — Revolutionists  and  Conservatives — Judgment  of  Burke  and  the 
English  people  on  the  French  revolution 4*3 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER  IV. 


PACK. 

I          Addison  and  Swift  in  their  epoch — Wherein  they  are  alike  and  unlil  e 416 

II.  The  man — Education  and  culture — Latin  verses — Voyage   in  France  and  Italy — 

Letter  from.  Italy  to  Lord  HaLfax — Remarks  on  Italy — Dialogues  on 
Medals — Campaign — Gentleness  and  kindness — Success  and  happiness 417 

III.  Gravity  and  rationality — Solid  studies  and   exact   observation — His  knowledge   of 

men  and  business  habits— Nobility  of  his  character  and  conduct — Elevation 
of  his  morality  and  religion — How  his  life  and  character  have  contributed  to 
the  pleasantness  and  usefulness  of  his  writings 420 

IV.  The  moralist — His  essays  are   all   moral — Against  gross,  sensual,   or  worldly  life — 

This  morality  is  practical,  and  yet  commonplace  and  desultory — How  it  relies 
on  reason  and  calculation — How  it  has  for  its  end  satisfaction  in  this  world  and 
happiness  in  the  other — Speculative  meanness  of  his  religious  conception — 
Practical  excellence  of  his  religious  conception 421 

V.  The  literary  man — Harmony  of  morality  and  elegance — The  style  that  suits  men  of 

the  world — Merits  of  this  style — Inconveniences — Addison  as  a  critic — His 
judgment  of  Paradise  Lost — Agreement  of  his  art  and  criticism — Limits  of  clas- 
sical criticism  and  art — What  is  lacking  in  the  eloquence  of  Addison,  of  the 
Englishman  and  of  the  moralist 426 

VI.  Grave  pleasantry  —  Humor — Serious  and  fertile   imagination — Sir  Roger    de 

Cover  ley — The  religious  and  the  poetical  sentiment — Vision  of  Mir  za — How 
the  Germanic  element  subsists  under  Latin  culture 429 

CHAPTER  V. 


I.  Swift's    de*but — Character — Pride — Sensitiveness — His  life  in  Sir  William    Tem- 

ple's house — At  Lord  Berkeley's — Political  life — Influence — Failure — Private 
life — Lovemaking — Despair  and  insanity 434 

II.  His  wit — His   power,  and   its  limits — Prosaic  and  positive  mind — Holding  a  posi- 

tion between  vulgarity  and  genius — Why  destructive. 439 

III.  The  pamphleteer — How  literature  now  concerns  itself  with  politics — Difference  of 

parties  and  pamphlets  in  France  and  England — Conditions  of  the  literary  pamph- 
let— Of  the  effective  pamphlet — Special  and  practical  pamphlets — The  Ex- 
amine*—  The  Drapier^s  Letters — A  Short  Character  of  Thomas  Earl 
of  Wharton — A  n  A  rgument  against  A  bolishing  Christianity — Political 
invective — Personal  defamation — Incisive  common  sense— Grave  irony 441 

IV.  The  poet — Comparison  of  Swift  and  Voltaire — Gravity  and  harshness  of  his  jests — 

Bickerstaff — Coarseness  of  his  galantry — Cadenus  and  Vanessa — His  prosaic 
and  realistic  poetry — The  Grand  Question  Debated — Energy  and  sadness  of 
his  shorter  poems —  Verses  on  his  own  Death — His  excesses 445 

V.  The    narrator  and  philosopher — A    Tale  of  a    Tub — H's    opinion   on   religion, 

science, philosophy  and  reason — How  he  maligns  human  intelligence — Gulliver9^ 
Travels — His  opinion  on  society,  government,  rank,  and  professions — How 
he  maligns  human  nature — Last  pamphlets — Composition  of  his  character  and 
genius 450 

CHAPTER  VI. 

f%  Jfofottsta. 

I.         Characteristic  of  the  English  novel — How  it  differs  from  others 456 

IL  De  Foe — His  life — Energy,  devotion,  his  share  in  politics — Spirit — Difference  of 
old  and  modern  realists — Works — Career — Aim — Robinson  Crusoe — How  this 
character  is  English — Inner  enthusiasm — Obstinate  will — Patience  in  work 
— Methodical  common  sense — Religious  emotions — Final  piety 457 

III.  Circumstances  which  gave   rise  to  the  novels  of  the  eighteenth  century — All  these 

novels  are  moral  fictions  and  studies  of  character — Connection  of  the  essay  and 
the  novel — Two  principal  notions  in  morality — How  they  produce  two  kinds 
of  novels 461 

IV.  Richardson — Condition  and  character — Connection  of  his  perspicacity  and  his  rigor 

— Talent,  minuteness,  combinations — Pamela — Her  mood — Principles— The 
English  wife — Clarissa  Harlowe — The  Harlowe  family — Despotic  and  unsocia- 
ble characteristics  in  England — Lovelace — Haughty  and  militant  characteristics 
in  England — Clarissa — Her  energy,  coolness,  logic — Her  pedantry  and  scruple* 


CONTENTS,  H 

PAGB. 

— Sir  Charles  Grandison — Incongruities  of  automatic  and  edifying  heroes — 
Richardson  as  a  preacher — Prolixity,  prudery,  emphasis 463 

V.  Fielding — Mood,  character,  and  life — Joseph  Andrews — His  conception  of  nature 

—  Tom  Jones  —Character  of   the   squire — Fielding's   heroes — Amelia — Faults 
in  her  conception 469 

VI.  Smollett — Roderick  Random — Peregrine   Pickle — Comparison   of   Smollett   and 

Le   Sage — Conception  of   life — Harshness   of  his  heroes — Coarseness   of  his 
pictures — Standing  out  of  his  characters — Humphrey  Clinker 47^ 

VII.  Sterne — Excessive  study  of  human  particularities — Sterne's  character — Eccentricity 

—Sensibility— Obscenity— Why  he  depicts  the  diseases  and  degeneracies  of  human 
nature 476 

VIII.  Goldsmith — Purification  of  the  novel — Picture  of  citizen  life,  upright  happiness, 

Protestant  virtue —  The  Vicar  of  IVakefield — The  English  clergyman 47$ 

IX.  Samuel   Johnson — His  authority — Person — Manners — Life — Doctrines — His  opin- 

ion about  Voltaire  and  Rousseau — Style — Works 480 

X.  Hogarth — Moral   and  realistic  painting — Contrast  of   English  temperament  and 

morality — How  morality  has  disciplined  temperament 484 

CHAPTER  VII. 


I.  Rule  and  realm  of  the  classical  spirit — Its  characters,  works,  scope,  and  limits- 

How  it  is  centred  in  Pope . 486 

[I.  Pope — Education — Precocity — Beginnings — Pastoral  peoms — Essay  on  Criticism 
— Personal  appearance — Mode  of  life — Character — Mediocrity  of  his  passions 
and  ideas — Largeness  of  his  vanity  and  talent — Independent  fortune  and 
assiduous  labor 487 

III.  Epist'e  of  Eloisato  Abelard — What  the  passions  become  in  artificial  poetry — The 

Rafie  of  the  Lock — Society  and  the  language  of  society  in  France  and  England 
— Wherein  Pope's  badinage  is  painful  and  displeasing — The  Dunciad—Gb- 
scenity  and  vulgarities — WTherein  the  English  imagination  and  drawing-room 
wit  are  irreconcilable. 49C 

IV.  Descriptive  talent — Oratorical  talent — Didactic  poems — Why  these  poems  are  the 

final  work  of  the  classical  spirit — The  Essay  on  Man — His  deism  and  optimism 
— Value  of  his  conceptions — How  they  are  connected  with  the  dominant 
style — How  they  are  deformed  in  Pope's  hands — Methods  and  perfection 
of  his  style — Excellence  of  his  portraits — Why  they  are  superior — Translation 
of  the  Iliad—  Change  of  taste  during  the  past  century 495 

V.  Incongruity  of  the  English  mind  and  the  classical   decorum — Prior — Gay — Ancient 

pastoral  impossible  in  northern  climates— Conception  of  the  country  natural  in 
England — Thomson 499 

VI.  Discredit   of    the  drawing-room — Appearance  of   the   man   of  feeling — Why  the 

return  to  nature  took  place  earlier  in  England  than  in  France — Sterne — 
Richardson — Mackenzie — Macpherson — Gray,  Akenside,  Beattie,  Collins, 
Young,  Shenstone — Persistence  of  the  classical  form — Domination  of  the 
period — Johnson — The  historical  school — Robertson,  Gibbon,  Hume — Their 
talent  and  their  limits — Beginning  of  the  modern  age 501 

BOOK  IV.— MODERN  LIFE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

f  bm  mtfr  |)r0krx:tx0tt8. 

I*  Changes  in  society — Rise  of  democracy — The  French  Revolution — Desire  of 
getting  on — Changes  in  the  human  mind — New  notion  of  causes — German  philos- 
ophy— Craving  for  the  beyond S°f 

II.  Robert    Burns — His  country — Family — Youth — Wretchedness — His  yearnings  and 

efforts — Invectives  against  society  and  church— The  Jolly  Beggars  — Attack* 
on  conventional  cant — His  idea  of  natural  life — Of  moral  life — Talent — 
Spontaneity — Style — Innovations—  Success — Affectations — Studied  letters  and 
academic  verse — Farmer's  life— Employment  in  the  Excise — Disgust — Excesses 
—Death 510 

III.  Conservative    rule   in    England— At  first  the  Revolution  affects  the  style  only— 

Cowper — Sickly  refinement— Despair — Madness — Retiiement —  The  Task — 
Modern  idea  of  poetry — Of  style ...  519 

IV.  The    Romantic   school — Its  pretensions—  Its  tentatives — The  two  ideas  of  modern 

literature — History  enters  into  literature — Lamb,  Coleridge,  Southey,  Moore 


12  CONTENTS. 

PAG* 

— Faults  of  this  school — Why  it  succeeded  less  in  England  than  elsewhere 
— Sir  Walter  Scott — Education — Antiquarian  studies — Aristocratic  t£  stes — Life 
— Poems — Novels — Incompleteness  of  his  historical  imitations — Excellence  of 
his  national  pictures — His  interiors — Amiable  raillery — Moral  aim — Place  in 
modern  civilization — Development  of  the  novel  in  England — Realism  and 

uprightness — Wherein   this  school  is  cockneyfied  and  English 523 

V«  Philosophy  enters  into  literature — Wordsworth — Character — Condition — Life — 
Painting  of  the  moral  life  in  the  vulgar  life — Introduction  of  the  colorless 
style  and  psychological  divisions— Faults  of  this  kind  of  literature — Loftiness 
of  Wordsworth's  sonnets —  The  Excursion—  Austere  beauty  of  this  Protestant 
poetry — Shelley — Imprudences — Theories — Fancy — Pantheism — Ideal  charac- 
ters— Life-like  scenery— General  tendency  of  the  new  literature — Gradual 
introduction  of  continental  ideas 531 

CHAPTER  II. 


I.  The  Man — Family — Impassioned  character — Precocious  loves — Life  of  excess — 

Combative  character — Revolt  against  opinion— English  Bards  and  Scotch 
Reviewers — Bravado  and  rashness  —  Marriage — Extravagance  of  adverse 
opinion — Departure — Political  life  in  Italy — Sorrows  and  violence 538 

II.  The  poet — Reasons   for  writing — Manner   of  writing — How  his  poetry  is  personal 

— Classical  taste — How  this  gift  served  him — Childe  Harold— The  hero — The 
scenery— The  style 543 

III.  His  short  poems — Oratorical  manner — Melodramatic  effects — Truth  of  his  descrip- 

tions of  scenery — Sincerity  of  sentiments — Pictures  of  sad  and  extreme  emotions 
— Dominant  idea  of  death  and  despair — Mazeppa,  The  Prisoner  of  Chilian^ 
The  Siege  of  Corinth^  The  Corsair,  Lara — Analogy  of  this  conception  with 
the  Edda  and  Shakspeare — Darkness 546 

IV.  Manfred—  Comparison  of  Manfred  and  Faust — Conception  of  legend   and   life  in 

Goethe — Symbolical  and  philosophical  character  of  Faust — Wherein  Byron 
is  inferior  to  Goethe — Wherein  he  is  superior — Conception  of  character  and 
action  in  Byron — Dramatic  character  of  his  poem — Contrast  between  the  uni- 
versal and  the  personal  poet 551 

V.  Scandal  in  England— Constraint  and  hypocrisy  of  manners — How  and  by  what  law 

moral  conceptions  vary — Life  and  morals  of  the  south — Beppo — Don  Juan — 
Transformation  of  Byron's  talent  and  style — Picture  of  sensuous  beauty  and 
happinesss — Haidde — How  he  combats  British  cant — Human  hypocrisy — His 
idea  of  man — Of  woman — Donna  Julia — The  shipwreck — The  capture  of  Ismail 
— Naturalness  and  variety  of  his  style — Excess  and  wearing  out  of  his  poetic 
vein — His  drama — Departure  for  Greece,  and  death 556 

VI.  Position  of  Byron  in  his  age — Disease  of  the  age — Divine  conceptions  of  happiness 

and  life — The  conception  of  such  happiness  by  literature — By  the  sciences — 
Future  stability  of  reason — Modern  conception  of  nature 563 

CHAPTER  III. ' 

alto  i 


I.  The  past — The  Saxon  invasion — How  it  established  the  race  and  dete  mined  the 

character — The  Norman  Conquest — How  it  modified  the  character  and  estab- 
lished the  Constitution j6| 

II.  The  Renaissance — How  it  manifested  the  national  mind — The  Reformation — How 

it  fixed  the  ideal — The  Restoration — How  it  imported  classical  culture  and  mis- 
led the  national  mind — The  Revolution — How  it  developed  classical  culture 
and  restored  the  national  mind 566 

III.  The  modern  age — How  European  ideas  widened  the  national  mould 568 


I.  The  present — Concordances  of  observation   and  history — Sky — Soil — Products — 

Man 569 

II.  Commerce — Industry 573 

III.  Agriculture 576 

IV.  Society — Family — Arts — Philosophy — Religion 578 

V.  What  forces  have  produced  the  present  civilization,  and  are  working  out  the  future 

civilization 58 


CONTENTS.  13 

BOOK  V.— MODERN  AUTHORS. 

PACK. 

INTRODUCTORY  NOTB 583 

CHAPTER  I. 

L— Jlklum 

§  i. — THE  AUTHOR. 

I.  Connection  of  the  different  elements  of  each  talent — Importance  of  the  imaginative 

faculty .-584 

II.  Lucidity  and  intensity  of  imagination   in   Dickens — Boldness  and  vehemence  of  his 

fancy — How  with  him  inanimate  objects  are  personified  and  impassioned — 
Wherein  his  conception  is  akin  to  intuition — How  he  describes  idiots  and  mad- 
men    585 

III.  The  objects  to  which  he  directs  his  enthusiasm — His  trivialities  and  minuteness — 

Wherein  he  resembles  the  painters  of  his  country — Wherein  he  differs  from 
George  Sand — Miss  Ruth  and  Genevieve — A  journey  in  a  coach 589 

IV.  Vehemence   of  the  emotions  which   this  kind  of  imagination  must  produce — His 

pathos — Stephen,  the  factory  hand — His  humor — Why  he  attains  to  buffoonery 
and  caricature — Recklessness  and  nervous  exaggeration  of  his  gayety 591 

§  2. — THE  PUBLIC. 

I.  English  novels  are  compelled  to  be  moral — Wherein  this  constraint  modifies  the  idea 
of  love — Comparison  of  love  in  George  Sand  and  Dickens — Pictures  of  the 
young  girl  and  the  wife — Wherein  this  constraint  qualifies  the  idea  of  passion — 
Comparison  of  passions  in  Balzac  and  Dickens — Inconvenience  of  this  foregone 
conclusion — How  comic  or  odious  masks  are  substituted  for  natural  characters 
— Comparison  of  Pecksniff 'and  Tartuffe — Why  unity  of  action  is  absent  in 
Dickens 594 

§  3. — THE  CHARACTERS. 

I.  Two  classes  of  characters— Natural  and  instinctive  characters — Artificial  and  posi- 

tive characters— Preference  of  Dickens  for  the  first — Aversion  against  the 
second 597 

II.  The  hypocrite — Mr.  Pecksniff — Wherein  he  is  English — Comparison  of  Pecksniff 

and  Tarttijfe — The  positive  man — Mr.  Gradgrind — The  proud  man — Mr.  Dom- 
bey — Wherein  these  characters  are  English 598 

III.  Children — Wanting  in   French   literature — Little  Joas  and  David  Copperfield— 

Men  of  the  lower  orders 601 

IV.  The  ideal  man   according  to  Dickens — Wherein   this   conception  corresponds  to  a 

public  need — Opposition  of  culture  and  nature  in  England — Reassertion  of  sen- 
sitiveness and  instinct  oppressed  by  conventionalism  and  rule — Success  of 
Dickens 6oa 

CHAPTER  II. 

f  \t  $fohl  tonimtueb-. — f  Jjatkerag. 

I.  Abundance  and  excellence  of  novels  of  manners  in  England — Superiority  of  Dickens 

and  Thackeray — Comparison  between  them 603 

§  i. — THE  SATIRIST. 

II.  The  satirist — His  moral  intentions — His  moral  dissertations 603 

III.  Comparison  of  raillery  in   France  and   England — Difference  of  the  two  tempera- 

ments, tastes,  and  minds t 606 

IV.  Superiority  of   Thackeray  in   bitter  and  serious  satire — Serious  irony — Literary 

snobs — Miss  Blanche  A  mory — Serious  caricature — Miss  Hoggarty 607 

V.  Solidity  and  precision  of  this  satirical   conception — Resemblance  of  Thackeray  and 

Swift— The  duties  of  an  ambassador 6n 

VI.  Misanthropy  of  Thackeray — Silliness   of  his   heroines — Silliness  of  love — Inbred 

vice  of  human  generosities  and  exaltations » 612 

VII.  His  levelling  tendencies— A  want  of  characters  and  society  in  England— Aversions 

and  preferences— The  snob  and  the  aristocrat— Portraits  of  the  king,  the  great 
court  noble,  the  county  gentleman,  the  town  gentleman — Advantages  of  this 
aristocratic  institution — Exaggeration  of  the  satire 613 


14  CONTENTS. 

§  2.  —  THB  ARTIST. 

PAGE. 

VIII.  The  artist—  Idea  of  pure  art—  Wherein  satire  injures  art—  Whereir  it  diminishes  the 

interest  —  Wherein  it  falsifies  the  characters  —  Comparison  cf  Thackeray  and 
Balzac  —  Valerie  Marneffe  and  Rebecca  Sharp  ..............................  618 

IX.  Attainment  of  pure  art—  Portrait  of  Henry  Esmond—  Historical  talent  of  Thack- 

eray —  Conception  of  ideal  man  ............................................   6za 

X.  Literature  is  a  definition  of  man  —  The  definition  according  to  Thackeray  —  Wherein 

it  differs  from  the  truth  .....................................................  625 

CHAPTER  III. 

(Kritkigm  mtfr  fSbi0rg.  —  Ulacaalag. 

I.  The  vocation  and  position  of  Macaulay  in  England  ..................  .  ...........    627 

II.  His  Essays—  Agreeable  character  and  utility  of   the  style  —  Opinions  —  Philosophy. 

Wherein  it  is  English  and  practical  —  His  Essay  on  Bacon  —  The  true  object, 
according  to  him,  of  the  sciences  —  Comparison  of  Bacon  with  the  ancients..  627 

III.  His  criticism  —  Moral  prejudices  —  Comparison  of  criticism  in  France  and  England  — 

Why  he  is  religious  —  Connection  of  religion  and  Liberalism  in  England  — 
Macaulay'  s  Liberalism  —  Essay  on  Church  and  State  .......................  629 

IV.  His  passion  for  political   liberty  —  How  he  is  the   orator  and  historian  of  the  Whig 

party  —  Essays  on  the  Revolution  and  the  Striarts  ...........................  63  1 

V.  His  talent  —  Taste  for  demonstration  —  Taste  for  development  —  Oratorical  character 

of  his  mind  —  Wherein  he  differs  from  classic  orators  —  His  estimation  for  par- 
ticular facts,  experiment  on  the  senses,  personal  reminiscences  —  Importance  of 
decisive  phenomena  in  every  branch  of  knowledge  —  Essays  on  Warren  Has- 
tings and  Clive  ...........................................................  633 

VI.  English  marks  of  his  talent  —  Rudeness  —  Humor  —  Poetry  .......    ................  63  7 

VII.  His  work  —  Harmony  of  his  talent,  opinion,  and  work  —  Universality,  unity,  interest 

of  his  history  —  Picture  of  the  Highlands  —  James  If.  in  Ireland—  The  Act  of 
Toleration  —  The  Massacre  of  Glencoe  —  Traces  of  amplification  and  rhetoric.  640 

VIII.  Comparison  of  Macaulay  with  French  historians  —  Wherein  he  is  classical  —  Wherein 

he  is  English  —  Intermediate  position  of  his  mind  between  the  Latin  and  the 
Germanic  mind  ..........................................................  647 

CHAPTER  IV. 


§  i.  —  STYLE  AND  MIND. 

ECCENTRIC  AND  IMPORTANT   POSITION   OF  CARLYLE  IN   ENGLAND. 

I.  His  strangenesses,  obscurities,  violence  —  Fancy  and  enthusiasm  —  Crudeness  and 

buffooneries  ..............................................................  648 

II.  Humor  —  Wherein  it  consists  —  It  is  Germanic  —  Grotesque  and  tragic  pictures  — 

Dandies  and  Poor  Slaves  —  The  Pigs'  Catechism  —  Extreme  tension  of  his  mind 
and  nerves  .......    ....................................................  650 

III.  Barriers  which  hold  and  direct  him  —  Perception  of  the  real  and  of  the  sublime  ----  654 

IV.  His  passion  for  exact  and  demonstrated  fact  —  His  search  after  extinguished  feel- 

ings —  Vehemence  of  his  emotion  and  sympathy  —  Intensity  of  belief  and  vision 

—  Past  and  Present  —  Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches  —  Historical  mysticism 

—  Grandeur  and  sadness  of  his  visions  —  How  he  represents  the  world  after  his 
own  mind  ................................  .................................   654 

V.  Every  object  is  a  group,  and  every  employment  of  human  thought  is  the  reproduc- 

tion of  a  group  —  Two  principal  modes  of  reproducing  it,  and  two  principal 
modes  of  mind  —  Classification  —  Intuition  —  Inconvenience  of  the  second  process 

—  It  is  obscure,  hazardous,  destitute  of  proofs  —  It  tends  to  affectation  and  ex- 
aggeration—Hardness and  presumption  which  it  provokes—  Advantages  of  this 
kind  of  mind  —  Alone  capable  of  reproducing  the  object  —  Most  favorable  to 
original  invention  —  The  use  made  of  it  by  Carlyle  .  .........................  656 

§  2.  —  VOCATION. 

INTRODUCTION  OF  GERMAN  IDEAS  IN  EUROPE  AND  ENGLAND  —  GERMAN 
STUDIES  OF  CARLYLE. 

I.  Appearance  of  original  forms  of  mind  —  How  they  act  and  result  —  Artistic  genius 

of  the  Renaissance  —  Oratorical  genius  of  the  classic  age  —  Philosophical  genius 
of  the  modern  age  —  Probable  analogy  of  the  three  ages  .....................  5j8 


CONTENTS.  !ij 

PAGE. 

II.  Wherein  consists  the  modern  and  German  form  of  mind — How  the  aptitude  for 

universal  ideas  has  renewed  the  science  of  language,  mythology,  aesthetics, 
nistory,  exegesis,  theology,  and  metaphysics — How  the  metaphysical  bent  has 
transformed  poetry 65$ 

III.  Capital  idea  derived  thence — Conception  of  essential  and  complimentary  parts — 

New  conception  of  nature  and  man 66« 

IV.  Inconvenience   of   this   aptitude — Gratuitous  hypothesis  and  vague  abstraction — 

Transient  discredit  of  German  speculations 660 

V«  How  each  nation  may  reforge  them — Ancient  examples:  Spain  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries — The  Puritans  and  Jansenists  in  the  seventeenth 
century — France  in  the  eighteenth  century — By  what  roads  these  ideas  may 

enter  France — Positivism — Criticism 661 

VI.  By  what  roads  these  ideas  may  enter  England — Exact  and  positive  mind — Im- 
passioned and  poetic  inspiration — Road  followed  by  Carlyle 66r 

§  3. — PHILOSOPHY,  MORALITY,  AND  CRITICISM. 

HIS  METHOD   IS   MORAL,    NOT   SCIENTIFIC— WHEREIN    HE   RESEMBLES   THK 
PURITANS — SARTOR   RESARTUS. 

I.  Sensible  things  are  but  appearances — Divine  and  mysterious  character  of  existence 

— His  metaphysics 663 

II.  How  we  may  form  into  one  another,  positive,  poetic,  spiritualistic,  and  mystical 

ideas — How  in  Carlyle  German  metaphysics  are  altered  into  English  Puri- 
tanism    664 

III.  Moral  character  of  this  mysticism— Conception  of  duty — Conception  of  God..   ..     665 

IV.  Conception   of    Christianity — Genuine   and  conventional   Christianity — Other  re- 

ligions— Limit  and  scope  of  doctrine 665 

V.  Criticism — What  weight  it  gives  to  writers — What  class  of  writers  it  exalts — What 

class  of  writers  it  depreciates — His  aesthetics — His  judgment  of  Voltaire 667 

VI.  Future  of  Criticism — Wherein  it  is  contrary  to  the  prejudices  of  the  age  and  of  its 

vocation — Taste  has  but  a  relative  authority 668 

§  4. — CONCEPTION  OF  HISTORY. 

I.  Supreme  importance  of  great  men — They  are  revealers — They  must  be  venerated..  669 

II.  Connection  between  this  and  the  German  conception — Wherein  Carlyle  is  imitative 

— Wherein  he  is  original — Scope  of  his  conception 669 

III.  How  genuine  history  is  that  of  heroic  sentiments — Genuine  historians  are  artists 

and  psychologists 670 

IV.  His  history  of   Cromwell — Why   it  is   only  composed  of  texts  connected  by  a 

commentary — Its  novelty  and  worth — How  we  should  consider  Cromwell  and 
the  Puritans  —  Importance  of  Puritanism  in  modern  civilization  —  Carlyle 
admires  it  unreservedly 671 

V.  His  history  of  the  French  Revolution — Severity  of  his  judgment — Wherein  he  has 

sight  of  the  truth,  and  wherein  he  is  unjust 672 

VI.  His  judgment  of  modern  England — Against  the  taste  for  comfort  and  the  lukewarm- 

ness  of  convictions — Gloomy  forebodings  for  the  future  of  modern  democracy 
— Against  the  authority  of  votes — Monarchical  theory 673 

VII.  Criticism  of  these  theories — Dangers  of  enthusiam — Comparison  of  Carlyle  and 

Macaulay .  674 

CHAPTER  V, 

f  InI0s0pks-— ^tnart  pill 

I.  Philosophy  in  England— Organization  of  positive  science— Lack  of  general  ideas  675 

II.  Why  metaphysics  are  wanting — Authority  of  religion . .......   675 

III.  Indications  and  splendor  of  free  thought — New  exegesis — Stuart  Mill — His  works 

— His  order  of  mind — To  what  school  of  philosophers  he  belongs — Value  of 
higher  speculation  in  human  civilization 676 

§  i. — EXPERIENCE. 

I.  Object  of  logic — Wherein  it  is  distinguished  from  psychology  and  metaphysics 677 

II.  What  is  a  judgment? — What  do  we  know  of  the  external  and  inner  worlds ? — The 

whole  object  of  science  is  to  add  or  connect  facts 678 

III.  The  system  based  on  this  view  of  the  nature  of  our  knowledge 680 


i6 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

IV.  Theory  of  definitions — Its  importance — Refutation  of  the  old  theory — There  are 

no  definitions  of  things,  but  of  names  only 680 

V.  Theory   of  proof — Ordinary  theory — Its  refutation — What  is   the   really  funda- 

mental part  of  a  syllogism  ? , 682 

VI.  Theory  of  axioms — Ordinary  theory — Its  refutation — Axioms  are  only  truths  of 

experience  of  a  certain  class 683 

VII.  Theory  of   induction — The   cause   of  a   fact  is  only  its  invariable   antecedent — 

Experience  alone  proves  the  stability  of  the  laws  of  nature — What  is  a  law? — 
By  what  methods  are  laws  discovered  ? — The  methods  of  agreement,  of  dif- 
ferences, of  residues,  of  concomitant  variations 685 

VIII.  Examples  and  applications — Theory  of  dew 688 

IX.  Deduction — Its  province  and  method 690 

X.  Comparison  of  the  methods  of  induction  and  deduction — Ancient  employment  of 

the  first — Modern  use  of  the  second — Sciences  requiring  the  first — Sciences 
requiring  the  second — Positive  character  of  Mill's  work — His  predecessors.  . . .  690 

XI.  Limits  of  our  knowledge — It  is  not  certain  that  all  events  happen  according  to  laws 

— Chance  in  nature 691 

§  2. — ABSTRACTION. 

I.  Agreement  of  this  philosophy  with  the  English  mind — Alliance  of  the  positive  and 

religious  spirits — By  what  faculty  we  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  causation. ...  694 

II.  There   are   no   substances   or  forces,  but   only  facts  and   laws — Abstraction — Its 

nature — Its  part  in  science 694 

III.  Theory  of  definitions — They  explain  the  abstract  generating  elements  of  things 695 

IV.  Theory  of  proof — The  basis  of  proof  in  syllogism  is  an  abstract  law 696 

V.  Theory  of  axioms — Axioms  are  relations  between  abstract  truths — They  may  be 

reduced  to  the  axiom  of  identity 697 

VI.  Theory  of  induction— Its  methods  are  of  elimination  or  abstraction 698 

VII.  The  two  great  operations  of  the  mind,  experience  and  abstraction — The  two  great 

manifestations  of  things,  sensible  facts  and  abstract  laws — Why  we  ought  to 
pass  from  the  first  to  the  second — Meaning  and  extent  of  the  axiom  of  causa- 
tion   698 

VIII.  It  is  possible  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  first  elements — Error  of  German  meta- 

physicians— They  have  neglected  the  element  of  chance,  and  of  local  perturba- 
tions— What  might  be  known  by  philosophizing  ant — Idea  and  limits  of  meta- 
physics^—Its  state  in  the  three  thinking  nations  699 

IX.  A  morning  in  Oxford 701 

CHAPTER  VI. 

|P  oxirg* — fentgsoit* 

I.  Talent  and  work — First  attempts — Wherein  he  was  opposed  to  preceding  poets—- 

Wherein he  carried  on  their  spirit 702 

II.  First  period— Female  characters — Delicacy  and  refinement  of  sentiment  and  style 

— Variety  of  his  emotions  and  of  his  subjects — Literary  curiosity  and  poetic 
dilettantism —  The  Dying'  Swan —  The  L otos-Eaters 702 

III.  Second   period — Popularity,  good   fortune,  and   life— Permanent  sensibility  and 

virgin  freshness  of  the  poetic  temperament — Wherein  he  is  at  one  with  nature 
— Locksley  //<?//— Change  of  subject  and  style — Violent  outbreak  and  personal 
feeling — Maud 704 

IV.  Return  of  Tennyson  to  his  first  style — In  Memoriam — Elegance,  coldness,  and 

iengthiness  of  this  poem — The  subject  and  the  talent  must  harmonize — What 
subjects  agree  with  the  dilettante  artist — The  Princess — Comparison  with  As 
Yoii  Like  It — Fanciful  and  picturesque  world — How  Tennyson  repeats  the 
dreams  and  the  style  of  the  Renaissance ....  706 

V.  How  Tennyson  repeats  the  ingenuousness  and  simplicity  of   the  old  epic — The 

Idylls  of  the  King—  Why  he  has  restored  the  epic  of  the  Round  Table — Purity 
and  elevation  of  his  models  and  his  poetry — Elaine — Morte  d*  Arthii? — Want 
of  individual  and  absorbing  passion — Flexibility  and  disinterestedness  of  his 
mind — Talent  for  metamorphosis,  embellishment,  and  refinement 709 

VI.  His  public — Society  in  England— Country  comfort — Elegance — Education-— Habits 

— Wherein  Tennyson  suits  such  a  society — Society  in  France — Parisian  life — 
Its  pleasures — Display — Conversation — Boldness  of  mind — Wherein  Alfred  de 
Musset  suits  such  a  society — Comparison  of  the  two  societies  and  of  the  two 
poets  712 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  historian  might  place  himself  for  a  given  period,  say  a  series  of  ages,  «*»in  the  human 
soul,  or  with  some  particular  people  ;  he  might  study,  describe,  relate,  all  the  events, 
all  the  transformations,  all  the  revolutions  which  had  been  accomplished  in  the  internal 
man  ;  and  when  he  had  finished  his  work,  he  would  have  a  history  of  civilization  amongst 
the  people  and  in  the  period  he  had  selected. — GUIZOT,  Civilization  in  E^^rope,  p.  25. 


HISTORY  has  been  transformed,  within 
a  hundred  years  in  Germany,  within 
sixty  years  in  France,  and  that  by  the 
study  of  their  literatures. 

It  was  perceived  that  a  literary  work 
is  not  a  mere  individual  play  of  imagin- 
ation, the  isolated  caprice  of  an  excited 
brain,  but  a  transcript  of  contemporary 
manners,  a  manifestation  of  a  certain 
kind  of  mind.  It  was  concluded  that 
we  might  recover,  from  the  monuments 
of  literature,  a  knowledge  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  men  thought  and  felt  cen- 
turies ago.  The  attempt  was  made, 
and  it  succeeded. 

Pondering  on  these  modes  of  feeling 
and  thought,  men  decided  that  they  were 
facts  of  the  highest  kind.  They  saw 
that  these  facts  bore  reference  to  the 
most  important  occurrences,  that  they 
explained  and  were  explained  by  them, 
that  it  was  necessary  thenceforth  to 
give  them  a  rank,  and  a  most  impor- 
tant rank,  in  history.  This  rank  they 
have  received,  and  from  that  moment 
history  has  undergone  a  complete 
t.hange  :  in  its  subject-matter,  its  sys- 
tem, its  machinery,  the  appreciation  of 
laws  and  )f  causes.  It  is  this  change, 
such  as  it  is  and  must  be,  that  we  shall 
hci<:  endeavor  to  exhibit. 


I. 


What  is  your  first  remark  on  turning 
over  the  great,  stiff  leaves  of  a  folio, 
the  yellow  sheets  of  a  manuscript, — a 
poem,  a  code  of  laws,  a  confession  of 
faith?  This,  you  say,  did  not  come 


into  existence  all  alone.  It  is  but  a 
mould,  like  a  fossil  shell,  an  imprint, 
like  one  of  those  shapes  embossed  in 
stone  by  an  animal  which  lived  and 
perished.  Under  the  shell  there  was 
an  animal,  and  behind  the  document 
there  was  a  man.  Why  do  you  study 
the  shell,  except  to  bring  before  you 
the  animal  ?  So  you  study  the  docu- 
ment only  to  know  the  man.  The  shell 
and  the  document  are  lifeless  wrecks, 
valuable  only  as  a  clue  to  the  entire 
and  living  existence.  We  must  get 
hold  of  this  existence,  endeavor  to  re- 
create it.  It  is  a  mistake  to  study  the 
document,  as  if  it  were  isolated.  This 
were  to  treat  things  like  a  simple 
scholar,  to  fall  into  the  error  of  the 
bibliomaniac.  Neither  mythology  nor 
languages  exist  in  themselves ;  but  only 
men,  who  arrange  words  and  imagery 
according  to  the  necessities  of  their 
organs  and  the  original  bent  of  their 
intellects.  A  dogma  is  nothing  in  it- 
self ;  look  at  the  people  who  have 
made  it, — a  portrait,  for  instance,  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  say  the  stern  power- 
ful face  of  an  English  archbishop  or 
martyr.  Nothing  exists  except  through 
some  individual  man  ;  it  is  this  indi- 
vidual with  whom  we  must  become  ac- 
quainted. When  we  have  established 
the  parentage  of  dogmas,  or  the  classi- 
fication of  poems,  or  the  progress  of 
constitutions,  or  the  transformation  of 
idioms,  we  have  only  cleared  the  soil : 
genuine  history  is  brought  into  exist- 
ence only  when  the  historian  begins  tc 
unravel,  across  the  lapse  of  time,  the 


i8 


TION. 


living  rialv  toiling,;  laipa^pif>ned!,  /eft- 
trenched  in  his  customs,  with'h'is  Vbicfc 
and  features,  his  gestures  and  his  dress, 
distinct  and  complete  as  he  from  whom 
we  have  just  parted  in  the  street.  Let 
us  endeavor,  then,  to  annihilate  as  far 
as  possible  this  great  interval  of  time, 
which  prevents  us  from  seeing  man 
with  our  eyes,  with  the  eyes  of  our 
head.  What  have  we  under  the  fair 
glazed  pages  of  a  modern  poem  ?  A 
modern  poet,  who  has  studied  and 
travelled,  a  man  like  Alfred  de  Musset, 
Victor  Hugo,  Lamartine,  or  Heine,  in 
a  black  coat  and  gloves,  welcomed  by 
the  ladies,  and  making  every  evening 
his  fifty  bows  and  his  score  of  bon- 
mots  in  society,  reading  the  papers  in 
the  morning,  lodging  as  a  rule  on  a 
second  floor;  not  over  gay,  because  he 
has  nerves,  and  especially  because,  in 
this  dense  democracy  where  we  choke 
one  another,  the  discredit  of  the  dig- 
nities of  office  has  exaggerated  his  pre- 
tensions while  increasing  his  impor- 
tance, and  because  the  keenness  of  his 
feelings  in  general  disposes  him  some- 
what to  believe  himself  a  deity.  This 
is  what  we  take  note  of  under  modern 
Meditations  or  Sonnets.  Even  so, 
under  a  tragedy  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury we  have  a  poet,  like  Racine  for  in- 
stance, elegant,  staid,  a  courtier,  a  fine 
talker,  with  a  majestic  wig  and  rib- 
boned shoes,  at  heart  a  royalist  and  a 
Christian,  who  says,  "  God  has  been 
so  gracious  to  me,  that  in  whatever 
company  I  find  myself  I  never  have 
occasion  to  blush  for  the  gospel  or  the 
king ;  "  *  clever  at  entertaining  the 
prince,  and  rendering  for  him  into  good 
French  the  "  old  French  of  Amyot ;  " 
very  respectful  to  the  great,  always 
"  knowing  his  place  ;  "  as  assiduous 
and  reserved  at  Marly  as  at  Versailles, 
ami  dst  the  regular  pleasures  of  polished 
and  ornate  nature,  amidst  the  saluta- 
tions, gi  aces,  airs,  and  fopperies  of  the 
braided  lords,  who  rose  early  in  the 
morning  to  obtain  the  promise  of  being 
a]  /pointed  to  some  office  in  case  of  the 
death  of  the  present  holder,  and 
amongst  charming  ladies  who  count 

*  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  in  her  Historical 
and  Moral  View  of  the  French  Revolution,  p. 
25,  says,  in  quoting  this  passage,  "  What  could 
be  expected  from  the  courtier  who  could  write 
in  these  terms  to  Madame  de  Main  tenon. — TR. 


tfteir  genealogies  on  their  fingers  in 
'o°rder  to  obtain  the  right  of  sitting 
down  in  the  presence  of  tl  e  King  or 
Queen.  On  that  head  consult  St.  Si- 
mon and  the  engravings  of  Perelle,  as 
for  the  present  age  you  have  consulted 
Balzac  and  the  water-colors  of  Eugene 
Lami.  Similarly,  when  we  read  a 
Greek  tragedy,  our  first  care  should  be 
to  realize  to  ourselves  the  Greeks,  that 
is,  the  men  who  live  half  naked,  in  the 
gymnasia,  or  in  the  public  squares, 
under  a  glowing  sky,  face  to  face  with 
the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  noble 
landscapes,  bent  on  making  their 
bodies  lithe  and  strong,  on  conversing, 
discussing,  voting,  carrying  on  patri- 
otic piracies,  nevertheless  lazy  and  tem- 
perate, with  three  urns  for  their  furni- 
ture, two  anchovies  in  a  jar  of  oil  for 
their  food,  waited  on  by  slaves,  so  as 
to  give  them  leisure  to  cultivate  their 
understanding  and  exercise  their  limbs, 
with  no  desire  beyond  that  of  having 
the  most  beautiful  town,  the  most 
beautiful  processions,  the  most  beauti- 
ful ideas,  the  most  beautiful  men.  On 
this  subject,  a  statue  such  as  the  Me- 
leager  or  the  Theseus  of  the  Parthenon, 
or  still  more,  the  sight  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, blue  and  lustrous  as  a  silken 
tunic,  and  the  islands  that  stud  it  with 
their  massive  marble  outlines  :  add  to 
these  twenty  select  phrases  from  Plato 
and  Aristophanes,  and  they  will  teach 
you  much  more  than  a  multitude  of 
dissertations  and  commentaries.  And 
so  again,  in  order  to  understand  an 
Indian  Purana,  begin  by  imagining  to 
yourself  the  father  of  a  family,  who, 
"  having  seen  a  son  on  his  son's  knees," 
retires,  according  to  the  law,  into  soli- 
tude, with  an  axe  and  a  pitcher  under 
a  banyan  tree,  by  the  brook-side,  talks 
no  more,  adds  fast  to  fast,  dwells  naked 
between  four  fires,  and  under  that  ter- 
rible sun,  which  devours  and  renews 
without  end  all  things  living ;  who,  for 
weeks  at  a  time,  fixes  his  imagination 
first  upon  the  feet  of  Brahma,  next 
upon  his  knee,  next  upon  his  thigh, 
next  upon  his  navel,  and  so  on,  until, 
beneath  the  strain  of  this  intense  medi- 
tation, hallucinations  begin  to  appear, 
until  all  the  forms  of  existence,  mingled 
and  transformed  the  one  with  the  other, 
quaver  before  a  sight  dazzled  and  gid- 
dy, until  the  motionless  man,  catching 


INTRODUCTION. 


in  his  breath,  with  fixed  gaze,  beholds 
the  universe  vanishing  like  a  smoke  in 
the  universal  void  of  Being  into  which 
he  hopes  to  be  absorbed.  To  this  end 
a  voyage  to  India  would  be  the  best 
instructor ;  or  for  want  of  better,  the 
accounts  of  travellers,  books  of  ge- 
ography, botany,  ethnology,  will  serve 
their  turn.  In  each  case  the  search 
must  be  the  same.  Language,  legisla- 
tion, creeds,  are  only  abstract  things : 
the  complete  thing  is  the  man  who  acts, 
the  man  corporeal  and  visible,  who 
eats,  walks,  rights,  labors.  Leave  aside 
the  theory  and  the  mechanism  of  con- 
stitutions, religions  and  their  systems, 
and  try  to  see  men  in  their  workshops, 
in  their  offices,  in  their  fields,  with  their 
sky  and  soil,  their  houses,  their  dress, 
cultivations,  meals,  as  you  do  when, 
landing  in  England  or  Italy,  you  look 
at  faces  and  motions,  roads  and  inns, 
a  citizen  taking  his  walk,  a  workman 
drinking.  Our  great  care  should  be  to 
supply  as  much  as  possible  the  want 
of  present,  personal,  direct,  and  sen- 
sible observation  which  we  can  no 
longer  practise ;  for  it  is  the  only 
means  of  knowing  men.  Let  us  make 
the  past  present :  in  order  to  judge  of 
a  thing,  it  must  be  before  us  ;  there  is 
no  experience  in  respect  of  what  is  ab- 
sent. Doubtless  this  reconstruction  is 
always  incomplete  ;  it  can  produce  only 
incomplete  judgments ;  but  that  we 
cannot  help.  It  is  better  to  have  an 
imperfect  knowledge  than  none  at  all ; 
and  there  is  no  other  means  of  ac- 
quainting ourselves  approximately  with 
the  events  of  other  days,  than  to  see  ap- 
i  proximately  the  men  of  other  days. 

This  is  the  first  step  in  history  ;  it 
was  made  in  Europe  at  the  revival  of 
imagination,  toward  the  close  of  the 
last  century,  by  Lessing  and  Walter 
Scott  ;  a  little  later  in  France,  by 
Chateaubriand,  Augustin  Thierry, 
M  ichelet,  and  others.  And  now  for  the 
second  step. 

II. 

When  you  consider  with  your  eyes 
the  visible  man,  what  do  you  look  for  ? 
The  man  invisible.  The  words  which 
enter  your  ears,  the  gestures,  the  mo- 
tions of  his  head,  the  clothes  he  wears, 
visible  acts  and  deeds  of  every  kind, 
are  expressions  merely ;  somewhat  is 


revealed  beneath  them,  and  that  is  a 
soul.  An  inner  man  is  concealed  be- 
neath the  outer  man  ;  the  second  does 
but  reveal  the  first.  You  look  at  his 
house,  furniture,  dress ;  and  that  in 
order  to  discover  in  them  the  marks  of 
his  habits  and  tastes,  the  degree  of  his 
refinement  or  rusticity,  his  extravagance 
or  his  economy,  his  stupidity  or  his 
acuteness.  You  listen  to  his  conver- 
sation, and  you  note  the  inflexions  of  his 
voice,  the  changes  in  his  attitudes  ;  ami 
that  in  order  to  judge  of  his  vivacity, 
his  self-forgetfulness  or  his  gayety,  his 
energy  or  his  constraint.  You  consider 
his  writings,  his  artistic  productions, 
his  business  transactions  or  political 
ventures  ;  and  that  in  order  to  measure 
the  scope  and  limits  of  his  intelligence, 
his  inventiveness,  his  coolness,  to  find 
out  the  order,  the  character,  the  general 
force  of  his  ideas,  the  mode  in  which 
he  thinks  and  resolves.  All  these  ex- 
ternals are  but  avenues  converging  to- 
wards a  centre  ;  you  enter  them  simply 
in  order  to  reach  that  centre ;  and  that 
centre  is  the  genuine  man,  I  mean  that 
mass  of  faculties  and  feelings  which 
are  the  inner  man.  We  have  reached 
a  new  world,  which  is  infinite,  because 
every  action  which  we  see  involves  an 
infinite  association  of  reasonings,  emo- 
tions, sensations  new  and  old,  which 
have  served  to  bring  it  to  light,  and 
which,  like  great  rocks  deep-seated  in 
the  ground,  find  in  it  their  end  and 
their  level.  This  underworld  is  a  new 
subject-matter,  proper  to  the  historian. 
If  his  critical  education  is  sufficient,  he 
can  lay  bare,  under  every  detail  of 
architecture,  every  stroke  in  a  picture, 
every  phrase  in  a  writing,  the  special 
sensation  whence  detail,  stroke,  or 
phrase  had  issue  ;  he  is  present  at  the 
drama  which  was  enacted  in  the  soul 
of  artist  or  writer;  the  choice  of  a 
word,  the  brevity  or  length  of  a  sen- 
tence, the  nature  of  a  metaphor,  the 
accent  of  a  verse,  the  development  of 
an  argument — every  thing  is  a  symbol 
to  him  ;  while  his  eyes  read  the  text, 
his  soul  and  mind  pursue  the  continu- 
ous development  and  the  everchanging 
succession  of  the  emotions  and  con- 
ceptions out  of  which  the  text  has 
sprung  :  in  short,  he  works  out  its  psy-  , 
chology.  If  you  would  observe  this 
operation,  consider  the  originator  and 


20 


INTRODUCTION. 


model  of  all  grand  contemporary  cul- 
ture, Goethe,  who,  before  writing  Iphi- 
genia,  employed  day  after  day  in  mak- 
ing drawings  of  the  most  finished  stat- 
ues, and  who  at  last,  his  eyes  filled  with 
the  noble  forms  of  ancient  scenery,  his 
mind  penetrated  by  the  harmonious 
loveliness  of  antique  life,  succeeded  in 
reproducing  so  exactly  in  himself  the 
habits  and  peculiarities  of  the  Greek 
imagination,  that  he  gives  us  almost  the 
twin  sister  of  the  Antigone  of  Sopho- 
cles, and  the  goddesses  of  Phidias. 
This  precise  and  proved  interpretation 
of  past  sensations  has  given  to  history, 
in  our  days,  a  second  birth;  hardly 
any  thing  of  the  sort  was  known  to  the 
preceding  century.  They  thought  men 
of  every  race  and  century  were  all  but 
identical ;  the  Greek,  the  barbarian, 
the  Hindoo,  the  man  of  the  Renais- 
sance, and  the  man  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  as  if  they  had  been  turned  out 
of  a  common  mould ;  and  all  in  con- 
formity to  a  certain  abstract  concep- 
tion, which  served  for  the  whole  human 
race.  They  knew  man,  but  not  men; 
they  had  not  penetrated  to  the  soul  ; 
they  had  not  seen  the  infinite  diversity 
and  marvellous  complexity  of  souls  ; 
they  did  not  know  that  the  moral  con- 
stitution of  a  people  or  an  age  is  as 
particular  and  distinct  as  the  physical 
structure  of  a  family  of  plants  or  an 
order  of  animals.  Now-a-days,  history, 
like  zoology,  has  found  its  anatomy; 
and  whatever  the  branch  of  history  to 
which  you  devote  yourself,  philology, 
linguistic  lore,  mythology,  it  is  by  these 
means  you  must  strive  to  produce  new 
fruit.  Amid  so  many  writers  who,  since 
the  time  of  Herder,  Ottfried  Miiller,  and 
Goethe,  have  continued  and  still  im- 
prove this  great  method,  let  the  read- 
er consider  only  two  historians  and 
two  works,  Carlyle's  Cromwell,  and 
Sainte  -  Beuve's  Port-Royal :  he  will 
see  with  what  fairness,  exactness,  depth 
:»f  insight,  a  man  may  discover  a  soul 
beneath  its  actions  and  its  works  ;  how 
behind  the  old  general,  in  place  of  a 
vulgar  hypocritical  schemer,  we  re- 
cover a  man  troubled  with  the  obscure 
reveries  of  a  melancholic  imagination, 
but  with  practical  instincts  and  facul- 
ties, English  to  the  core,  strange  and 
incomprehensible  to  one  who  lias  not 
,  studied  the  climate  and  the  race  ;  how, 


with  about  a  hundred  meagre  letters 
and  a  score  of  mutilated  speeches,  we 
may  follow  him  from  his  farm  and 
team,  to  the  general's  tent  and  to  the 
Protector's  throne,  in  his  transmutation 
and  development,  in  his  pricks  of  con- 
science and  his  political  sagacity,  until 
the  machinery  of  his  mind  and  actions 
becomes  visible,  and  the  inner  tragedy, 
ever  changing  and  renewed,  which  ex- 
ercised this  great,  darkling  soul,  passes, 
like  one  of  Shakspeare's,  through  'he 
soul  of  the  looker-on.  He  'wiil  see  'in 
the  other  case)  how,  behind  the  squab- 
bles of  the  monastery,  or  the  contuma- 
cies of  nuns,  he  may  find  a  great  prov- 
ince of  human  psychology  ;  how  about 
fifty  characters,  that  had  been  buried 
under  the  uniformity  of  a  circumspect 
narrative,  reappear  in  the  light  of  day, 
each  with  its  own  specialty  and  its 
countless  diversities ;  how,  beneath 
theological  disquisitions  and  monoto- 
nous sermons,  we  can  unearth  the  beat- 
ings of  living  hearts,  the  convulsions 
and  apathies  of  monastic  life,  the  un- 
foreseen reassertions  and  wavy  tur- 
moil of  nature,  the  inroads  of  sur- 
rounding worldliness,  the  intermittent 
victories  of  grace,  with  such  a  variety 
of  lights  and  shades,  that  the  most  ex- 
haustive description  and  the  most  elas- 
tic style  can  hardly  gather  the  inex- 
haustible harvest,  which  the  critic  has 
caused  to  spring  up  on  this  abandoned 
field.  And  so  it  is  throughout.  Ger- 
many, with  its  genius  so  pliant,  so  com- 
prehensive, so  apt  for  transformation, 
so  well  calculated  to  reproduce  the 
most  remote  and  anomalous  conditions 
of  human  thought ;  England,  with  its 
intellect  so  precise,  so  well  calculated 
to  grapple  closely  with  moral  questions, 
to  render  them  exact  by  figures,  weights 
and  measures,  geography,  statistics,  by 
quotation  and  by  common  sense  ; 
France,  with  her  Parisian  culture, 
with  her  drawing-room  manners,  with 
her  untiring  analysis  of  characters  and 
actions,  her  irony  so  ready  to  hit  upon 
a  weakness,  her  finesse  so  practised 
in  the  discrimination  of  shades  of 
thought ; — all  have  worked  the  same 
soil,  and  we  begin  to  understand  that 
there  is  no  region  of  history  where  it  is 
not  imperative  to  till  this  deep  level, 
if  we  would  see  a  serviceable  harvest 
rise  between  the  furrows. 


INTRO  D  UCTION. 


This  is  the  second  step  ;  we  are  in  a 
fair  way  to  its  completion.  It  is  the 
fit  work  of  the  contemporary  critic. 
No  one  has  done  it  so  justly  and  grand- 
ly as  Sainte-Beuve  :  in  this  respect  we 
are  all  his  pupils;  his  r..'-rhod  has 
revolutionized,  in  our  days,  in  books, 
and  even  in  newspapers,  every  kind  of 
literary,  of  philosophical  and  religious 
criticism.  From  it  we  must  set  out  in 
order  to  begin  the  further  develop- 
ment. I  have  more  than  once  endea- 
vored to  indicate  this  development ; 
the:e  is  here,  in  my  mind,  a  new  path 
open  to  history,  and  I  will  try  to  de- 
scribe it  more  in  detail. 

III. 

When  you  have  observed  and  noted 
in  man  one,  two,  three,  then  a  multi- 
tude of  sensations,  does  this  suffice,  or 
does  youTTchowledge  appear  com- 
plete ?  Is  Psychology  only  a  series  of 
observations  ?  No ;  here  as  else- 
where we  must  search  out  the  causes 
after  we  have  collected  the  facts.  No 
matter  if  the  facts  be  physical  or  mor- 
al, they  all  have  their  causes  ;*  there  is 
a  cause  for  ambition,  for  courage,  for 
truth,  as  there  is  for  digestion,  for  mus- 
cular movement,  for  animal  heat.  Vice 
and  virtue  are  products,  like  vitriol 
and  sugar  ;  and  every  complex  phenom- 
enon arises  from  other  more  simple 
phenomena  on  which  it  hangs.  Let 
us  then  seek  the  simple  phenomena  for 
moral  qualities,  as  we  seek  them  for 
physical  qualities  ;  and  let  us  take  the 
first  fact  that  presents  itself :  for  ex- 
ample, religious  music,  that  of  a  Pro- 
testant Church.  There  is  an  inner 
cause  which  has  turned  the  spirit  of 
the  faithful  toward  these  grave  and 
monotonous  melodies,  a  cause  broader 
than  its  effect ;  I  mean  the  general 
idea  of  the  true,  external  worship 
which  man  owes  to  God.  It  is  this 
which  has  modelled  the  architecture  of 
Protestant  places  of  worship,  thrown 
down  the  statues,  removed  the  pictures, 
destroved  the  ornaments,  curtailed  the 
ceremonies,  shut  up  the  worshippers 
in  high  pews  which  prevent  them  from 
seeing  any  thing,  and  regulated  the 
thousand  details  of  decoration,  posture, 
and  general  externals.  This  again 
comes  from  another  more  general 


cause,  the  idea  of  human  conduct  in 
all  its  comprehensiveness,  internal  and 
external,  prayers,  actions,  duties  of 
every  kind  which  man  owes  to  God  ; 
it  is  this  which  has  enthroned  the  doc- 
trine of  grace,  lowered  the  status  01 
the  clergy,  transformed  the  sacraments, 
suppressed  various  practices,  and 
changed  religion  from  a  discipline  to 
a  morality.  This  second  idea  in  its 
turn  depends  upon  a  third  still  more 
general,  that  of  moral  perfection,  such 
as  is  met  with  in  the  perfect  God,  the 
unerring  judge,  the  stern  watcher  of 
souls,  before  whom  every  soul  is  sin- 
ful, worthy  of  punishment,  incapable  of 
virtue  or  salvation,  except  by  the  pow- 
er of  conscience  which  He  calls  forth, 
and  the  renewal  of  heart  which  He 
produces.  That  is  the  master  idea, 
which  consists  in  erecting  duty  into  an 
absolute  king  of  human  life^  and  in 
prostrating  all  ideal  models  before  a 
moral  model.  Here  we  track  the  root 
of  man  ;  for  to  explain  this  conception 
it  is  necessary  to  consider  the  race  it-  ' 
self,  the  German  and  Northman,  the 
structure  of  his  character  and  mind, 
his  general  processes  of  thought  and 
feeling,  the  sluggishness  and  coldness 
of  sensation  which  prevent  his  falling 
easily  and  headlong  under  the  sway  of 
pleasure,  the  bluntness  of  his  taste,  the 
irregularity  and  revolutions  of  his  con- 
ception, which  arrest  in  him  the  birth 
of  fair  dispositions  and  harmonious 
forms,  the  disdain  of  appearances,  the 
desire  for  truth,  the  attachment  to  bare 
and  abstract  ideas,  which  develop  in 
him  conscience,  at  the  expense  of  all 
else.  There  the  search  is  at  an  end ; 
we  have  arrived  at  a  primitive  disposi- 
tion ;  at  a  feature  peculiar  to  all  the 
sensations,  and  to  all  the  conceptions 
of  a  century  or  a  race,  at  a  particular- 
ity inseparable  from  all  the  motions  of 
his  intellect  and  his  heart.  Here  lie 
the  grand  causes,  for  they  are  the  uni- 
versal and  permanent  causes,  present 
at  every  moment  and  in  every  case, 
everywhere  and  always  acting,  inde- 
structible, and  finally  infallibly  supreme, 
since  the  accidents  which  thwart  them, 
being  limited  and  partial,  end  by  yield- 
ing to  the  dull  and  incessant  repetition 
of  their  efforts  ;  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  general  structure  of  things,  and 
the  grand  features  of  events,  are  their 


22 


INTRODUCTION. 


work ;  and  religions,  philosophies, 
poetries,  industries,  the  framework  of 
society  and  of  families,  are  in  fact  only 
the  imprints  stamped  by  their  seal. 

IV. 

There  is,  then,  a  system  in  human 
sentiments  and  ideas  :  and  this  system 
has  for  its  motive  power  certain  gener- 
al tiaits,  certain  characteristics  of  the 
inteJect  and  the  heart  common  to  men 
of  <>ne  race,  age,  or  country.  As  in 
mineralogy  the  crystals,  however  di- 
verse, spring  from  certain  simple  phys- 
ical forms,  so  in  history,  civilizations, 
however  diverse,  are  derived  from  cer- 
tain simple  spiritual  forms.  The  one 
are  explained  by  a  primitive  geometri- 
cal element,  as  the  others  are  by  a 
primitive  psychological  element.  In 
order  to  master  the  classification  of 
mineralogical  systems,  we  must  first 
consider  a  regular  and  general  solid, 
its  sides  and  angles,  and  observe  in 
this  the  numberless  transformations  of 
which  it  is  capable.  So,  if  you  would 
realize  the  system  of  historical  varie- 
ties, consider  first  a  human  soul  gen- 
erally, with  its  two  or  three  fundamen- 
tal faculties,  and  in  this  compendium 
you  will  perceive  the  principal  forms 
which  it  can  present.  After  all,  this 
kind  of  ideal  picture,  geometrical  as 
well  as  psychological,  is  not  very  com- 
plex, and  we  speedily  see  the  limits  of 
the  outline  in  which  civilizations,  like 
crystals,  are  constrained  to  exist. 

What  is  really  the  mental  structure 
of  man  ?  Images  or  representations  of 
things,  which  float  within  him,  exist  for 
a  time,  are  effaced,  and  return  again, 
after  he  has  been  looking  upon  a  tree,  an 
animal,  any  visible  object.  This  is  the 
subject-matter,  the  development  where- 
of is  double,  either  speculative  or  prac- 
tical, according  as  the  representations 
resolve  themselves  into  a  general  con- 
ception or  an  active  resolution.  Here 
vie  have  the  whole  of  man  in  an 
abridgment ;  and  in  this  limited  circle 
human  diversities  meet,  sometimes  in 
the  womb  of  the  primordial  matter, 
sometimes  in  the  twofold  primordial 
development.  However  minute  in 
their  elements,  they  are  enormous  in 
the  aggregate,  and  the  least  alteration 
in  the  factors  produces  vast  alteration 


in  the  results.  According  as  the  rep- 
resentation is  clear  and  as  it  were 
punched  out  or  confused  and  faintly 
defined,  according  as  it  embraces  a 
great  or  small  number  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  object,  according  as  it 
is  violent  and  accompanied  by  im- 
pulses, or  quiet  and  surrounded  by 
calm,  all  the  operations  and  processes 
of  the  human  machine  are  transformed. 
So,  again,  according  as  the  ulterior  de- 
velopment of  the  representation  varies, 
the  whole  human  development  varie-. 
If  the  general  conception  in  which  it 
results  is  a  mere  dry  notation  (in 
Chinese  fashion),  language  becomes  a 
sort  of  algebra,  religion  and  poetry 
dwindle,  philosophy  is  reduced  to  a 
kind  of  moral  and  practical  common 
sense,  science  to  a  collection  of  utilita- 
rian formulas,  classifications,  mnemon- 
ics, and  the  whole  intellect  takes  a 
positive  bent.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
general  representation  in  which  the 
conception  results  is  a  poetical  and 
figurative  creation,  a  living  symbol,  as 
among  the  Aryan  races,  'language 
becomes  a  sort  of  delicately-shaded 
and  colored  epic  poem,  in  which  every 
word  is  a  person,  poetry  and  religion 
assume  a  magnificent  and  inexhaustible 
grandeur,  metaphysics  are  widely  and 
subtly  developed,  without  regard  to 
positive  applications ;  the  whole  in- 
tellect, in  spite  of  the  inevitable  devia- 
tions and  shortcomings  of  its  effort,  is 
smitten  with  the  beautiful  and  the 
sublime,  and  conceives  an  ideal  capa- 
ble by  its  nobleness  and  its  harmony 
of  rallying  round  it  the  tenderness  and 
enthusiasm  of  the  human  race.  If, 
again,  the  general  conception  in  which 
the  representation  results  is  poetical 
but  not  graduated ;  if  man  arrives  at 
it  not  by  an  uninterrupted  gradation, 
but  by  a  quick  intuition  ;  if  the  original 
operation  is  not  a  regular  development, 
but  a  violent  explosion, — then,  as  with 
the  Semitic  races,  metaphysics  are 
absent,  religion  conceives  God  only 
as  a  king  solitary  and  devouring, 
science  cannot  grow,  the  intellect  is  too 
rigid  and  unbending  to  reproduce  the 
delicate  operations  of  nature,  poetry 
can  give  birth  only  to  vehement  and 
grandiose  exclamations,  language  can« 
not  unfold  the  web  of  argument  and  of 
eloquence,  man  is  reduced  to  a  lyric  en 


INTRO  D  UCTION. 


thusiasm,  an  unchecked  passion,  a 
fanatical  ar.d  limited  action.  In  this 
interval  between  the  particular  repre- 
sentation and  the  universal  conception 
are  found  the  germs  of  the  greatest 
human  differences.  Some  races,  as 
the  classical,  pass  from  the  first  to  the 
second  by  a  graduated  scale  of  ideas, 
regularly  arranged,  and  general  by 
degrees ;  others,  as  the  Germanic, 
traverse  the  same  ground  by  leaps, 
without  uniformity,  after  vague  and 
prolonged  groping.  Some,  like  the 
Romans  and  English,  halt  at  the  first 
steps  ;  others,  like  the  Hindoos  and 
Germans,  mount  to  the  last.  If,  again, 
after  considering  the  passage  from  the 
representation  to  the  idea,  we  consider 
that  from  the  representation  to  the  res- 
olution, we  find  elementary  differences 
of  the  like  importance  and  the  like 
order,  according  as  the  impression  is 
/  sharp,  as  in  southern  climates,  or  dull, 
as  in  northern  ;  according  as  it  results 
in  instant  action,  as  among  barbarians, 
or  slowly,  as  in  civilized  nations  ;  as  it 
is  capable  or  not  of  growth,  inequality, 
persistence,  and  relations.  The  whole 
network  of  human  passions,  the  chances 
of  peace  and  public  security,  the  sources 
of  labor  and  action,  spring  from  hence. 
Such  is  the  case  with  all  primordial 
,  differences:  their  issues  embrace  an 
entire  civilization ;  and  we  may  com- 
pare them  to  those  algebraical  formu- 
las which,  in  a  narrow  limit,  contain  in 
advance  the  whole  curve  of  which  they 
form  the  law.  Not  that  this  law  is 
always  developed  to  its  issue  ;  there 
are  perturbing  forces ;  but  when  it  is 
so,  it  is  not  that  the  law  was  false,  but 
that  it  was  not  single.  New  elements 
become  mingled  with  the  old ;  great 
forces  from  without  counteract  the 
primitive.  The  race  emigrates,  like 
the  Aryan,  and  the  change  of  climate 
has  altered  in  its  case  the  whole  econo- 
my, intelligence,  and  organization  of 
society.  The  people  has  been  con- 
quered, like  the  Saxon  nation,  and  a 
new  political  structure  has  imposed  on 
it  customs,  capacities,  and  inclinations 
which  it  had  not.  The  nation  has  in- 
stalled itself  in  the  midst  of  a  conquer- 
ed people,  downtrodden  and  threat- 
ening, like  the  ancient  Spartans  ;  and 
the  necessity  of  living  like  troops  in 
the  field  has  violently  distorted  in  an 


unique  direction  the  whole  moral  and 
social  constitution.  In  each  case  the 
mechanism  of  human  history  is  the 
same.  We  continually  find,  as  the 
original  mainspring,  some  very  general 
disposition  of  mind  and  soul,  innate " 
and  appended  by  nature  to  the  race,  or 
acquired  and  produced  by  some  circum- 
stance acting  upon  the  race.  These 
mainsprings,  once  admitted,  produce 
their  effect  gradually:  I  mean  that 
after  some  centuries  they  bring  the 
nation  into  a  new  condition,  religious, 
literary,  social,  economic ;  a  new 
condition  which,  combined  with  their 
renewed  effort,  produces  another  con- 
dition, sometimes  good,  sometimes  bad, 
sometimes  slowly,  sometimes  quickly, 
and  so  forth ;  so  that  we  may  regard 
the  whole  progress  of  each  distinct 
civilization  as  the  effect  of  a  perma- 
nent force  which,  at  every  stage,  varies 
its  operation  by  modifying  the  circum- 
stances of  its  action. 

V. 

Three  different  sources  contribute  to 
produce  this  elementary  moral  state- 
race,  surroundings,  and  epoch.  What 
we  call  the  race  are  the  innate  and 
hereditary  dispositions  which  man 
brings  with  him  into  the  world,  and 
which,  as  a  rule,  are  united  with  the 
marked  differences  in  the  temperament 
and  structure  of  the  body.  They  vary 
with  various  peoples.  There  is  a  nat- 
ural variety  of  men,  as  of  oxen  and 
horses,  some  brave  and  intelligent,  some 
timid  and  dependent,  some  capable  of 
superior  conceptions  and  creations, 
some  reduced  to  rudimentary  ideas  and 
inventions,  some  more  specially  fitted 
to  special  works,  and  gifted  more  richly 
with  particular  instincts,  as  we  meet  with 
species  of  dogs  better  favored  than 
others, — these  for  coursing,  those  for 
fighting,  those  for  hunting,  these  again 
for  house  dogs  or  shepherds'  dogs. 
We  have  here  a  distinct  force, — so  dis 
tinct,  that  amidst  the  vast  deviations 
which  the  other  two  motive  forces  pro- 
duce in  him,  one  can  recognize  it  still ; 
and  a  race,  like  the  old  Aryans,  scat- 
tered from  the  Ganges  as  far  as  the 
Hebrides,  settled  in  every  clime,  and 
every  stage  of  civilization,  transformed 
by  thirty  centuries  of  revolutions,  never- 


INTRODUCTION. 


theless  manifests  in  its  languages,  re- 
ligions, literatures,  philosophies,  the 
community  of  blood  and  of  intellect 
which  to  this  day  binds  its  offshoots 
together.  Different  as  they  are,  their 
parentage  is  not  obliterated ;  barbarism, 
culture  and  grafting,  differences  of  sky 
and  soil,  fortunes  good  and  bad,  have 
labored  in  vain :  the  great  marks  of 
the  original  model  have  remained,  and 
we  find  again  the  two  or  three  princi- 
pal lineaments  of  the  primitive  stamp 
underneath  the  secondary  imprints 
which  time  has  laid  upon  them.  There 
is  nothing  astonishing  in  this  extraordi- 
nary tenacity.  Although  the  vastness 
of  the  distance  lets  us  but  half  per- 
ceive— and  by  a  doubtful  light — the 
origin  of  species,*  the  events  of  history 
sufficiently  illumine  the  events  anterior 
to  history,  to  explain  the  almost  im- 
movable steadfastness  of  the  primordial 
marks.  When  we  meet  with  them,  fif- 
teen, twenty,  thirty  centuries  before 
our  era,  in  an  Aryan,  an  Egyptian,  a 
Chinese,  they  represent  the  work  of  a 
great  many  ages,  perhaps  of  several 
•myriads  of  centuries.  For  as  soon  as 
an  animal  begins  to  exist,  it  has  to  rec- 
oncile itself  with  its  surroundings ;  it 
breathes  and  renews  itself,  is  differ- 
ently affected  according  to  the  varia- 
tions in  air,  food,  temperature.  Dif- 
ferent climate  and  situation  bring  it 
various  needs,  and  consequently  a 
different  course  of  activity  ;  and  this, 
again,  a  different  set  of  habits  ;  and 
still  again,  a  different  set  of  aptitudes 
and  instincts.  Man,  forced  to  accom- 
modate himself  to  circumstances,  con- 
tracts a  temperament  and  a  character 
corresponding  to  them  ;  and  his  char- 
acter, like  his  temperament,  is  so  much 
more  stable,  as  the  external  impression 
is  made  upon  him  by  more  numerous 
lepetitions,  and  is  transmitted  to  his 
progeny  by  a  more  ancient  descent.  So 
that  at  any  moment  we  may  consider 
the  character  of  a  people  as  an  abridg- 
ment of  all  its  preceding  actions  and 
sensations  ;  that  is,  as  a  quantity  and 
as  a  weight,  not  infinite,!  since  every 
thing  in  nature  is  finite,  but  dispropor- 
tioned  to  the  rest,and  almost  impossible 

*  Darwin,  The  Origin  of  Species.    Prosper 
Lucas,  de  PHertdite. 
t  Spinoza,  Ethics,  Part  iv.  axiom. 


to  lift,  since  every  moment  of  an  almost 
infinite  past  has  contributed  to  increase 
it,  and  because,  in  order  to  raise  the 
scale,  one  must  place  in  the  opposite 
scale  a  still  greater  number  of  actions 
and  sensations.  Such  is  the  first  and 
richest  source  of  these  master-faculties 
from  which  historical  events. take  their 
rise  ;  and  one  sees  at  the  outset,  that 
if  it  be  powerful,  it  is  because  this  is 
no  simple  spring,  but  a  kind  of  lake,  a 
deep  reservoir  wherein  other  springs 
have,  for  a  multitude  of  centuries,  dis 
charged  their  several  streams. 

Having  thus  outlined  the  interior 
structure  of  a  race,  we  must  consider 
the  surroundings  in  which  it  exists. 
For  man  is  not  alone  in  the  world  ;  na- 
ture surrounds  him,  and  his  fellow-men 
surround  him  ;  accidental  and  secon- 
dary tendencies  overlay  his  primitive 
tendencies,  and  physical  or  social  cir- 
cumstances disturb  or  confirm  the 
character  committed  to  their  charge. 
Sometimes  the  climate  has  had  its 
effect.  Though  we  can  follow  but 
obscurely  the  Aryan  peoples  from  their 
common  fatherland  to  their  final  settle- 
ments, we  can  yet  assert  that  the  pro- 
found differences  which  are  manifest 
between  the  German  races  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  Greek  and  Latin  on  the 
other,  arise  for  the  most  part  from  the 
difference  between  the  countries  in 
which  they  are  settled  :  some  in  cold 
moist  lands,  deep  in  rugged  marshy 
forests  or  on  the  shores  of  a  wild  ocean, 
beset  by  melancholy  or  violent  sensa- 
tions, prone  to  drunkenness  and  glut- 
tony, bent  on  a  fighting,  blood-spilling 
life  ;  others,  again,  within  the  loveliest 
landscapes,  on  a  bright  and  pleasant 
sea-coast,  enticed  to  navigation  and 
commerce,  exempt  from  gross  cravings 
of  the  stomach,  inclined  from  the  be- 
ginning to  social  ways,  to  a  settled 
organization  of  the  state,  to  feelings 
and  dispositions  such  as  develop  the 
art  of  oratory,  the  talent  for  enjoyment, 
the  inventions  of  science,  letters,  arts. 
Sometimes  the  state  policy  has  been  at 
work,  as  in  the  two  Italian  civilizations  : 
the  first  wholly  turned  to  action,  con- 
quest, government,  legislation,  on  ac- 
count of  the  original  site  of  its  city  of 
refuge,  its  border-land  emporium,  its 
armed  aristocracy,  who,  by  importing 
and  drilling  strangers  and  conquered, 


INTRODUCTION. 


25 


created  two  hostile  armies,  having  no 
escape  from  its  internal  discords  and 
its  greedy  instincts  but  in  systematic 
warfare  ;  the  other,  shut  out  from  uni- 
.ty  and  any  great  political  ambition  by 
the  stability  of  its  municipal  character, 
the  cosmopolitan  position  of  its  pope, 
and  the  military  intervention  of  neigh 
be  ri.ig  nations,  directed  by  the  whole 
Lent  of  its  magnificent  and  harmonious 
genius  towards  the  worship  of  pleasure 
and  beauty.  Sometimes  the  social 
conditions  have  impressed  their  mark, 
as  eighteen  centuries  ago  by  Chris- 
tianity, and  twenty-five  centuries  ago 
by  Buddhism,  when  around  the  Medi- 
terranean, as  well  as  in  Hindostan, 
the  extreme  results  of  Aryan  conquest 
and  civilization  induced  intolerable  op- 
pression, the  subjugation  of  the  indi- 
vidual, utter  despair,  the  thought  that 
the  world  was  cursed,  with  the  devel- 
opment of  metaphysics  and  myth,  so 
that  man  in  this  dungeon  of  misery, 
feeling  his  heart  softened,  begot  the 
idea  of  abnegation,  charity,  tender 
love,  gentleness,  humility,  brotherly 
love — there,  in  a  notion  of  universal 
nothingness,  here  under  the  Father- 
hood of  God.  Look  around  you  upon 
the  regulating  instincts  and  faculties 
implanted  in  a  race — in  short,  the  mood 
of  intelligence  in  which  it  thinks  and 
acts  at  the  present  time  :  you  will  dis- 
cover most  often  the  work  of  some 
one  of  these  prolonged  situations, 
these  surrounding  circumstances,  per- 
sistent and  gigantic  pressures,  brought 
to  bear  upon  an  aggregate  of  men  who, 
singly  and  together,  from  generation 
to  generation,  are  continually  moulded 
and  modelled  by  their  action ;  in 
Spain,  a  crusade  against  the  Mussul- 
mans which  lasted  eight  centuries,  pro- 
tracted even  beyond  and  until  the  ex- 
haustion of  the  nation  by  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Moors,  the  spoliation  of  the 
Jews,  the  establishment  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, the  Catholic  wars;  in  England,  a 
political  establishment  of  eight  centu- 
ries, which  keeps  a  man  erect  and  re- 
spectful, in  independence  and  obedi- 
ence, and  accustoms  him  to  strive 
unitedly,  under  the  authority  of  the 
law  ;  in  France,  a  Latin  organizatipn, 
which,  imposed  first  upon  docile  bar- 
barians, then  shattered  in  the  universal 
crash,  was  reformed  from  within  under 


a  lurking  conspiracy  of  the  national 
instinct,  was  developed  under  heredi- 
tary kings,  ends  in  a  sort  of  levelling 
republic,  centralized,  J  administrative, 
under  dynasties  exposed  to  revolution. 
These  are  the  most  efficacious  of  the 
visible  causes  which  mould  the  primi- 
tive man:  they  are  to  nations  what 
education,  career,  condition,  abode,  are 
to  individuals  ;  and  they  seem  to  com- 
prehend everything,  since  they  com- 
prehend all  external  powers  which 
mould  human  matter,  and  by  which 
the  external  acts  on  the  internal. 

There  is  yet  a  third  rank  of  causes ; 
for,  with  the  forces  within  and  .with- 
out, there  is  the  work  which  they  have 
already  produced  together,  and  this 
work  itself  contributes  to  produce  that 
which  follows.  Beside  the  permanent 
impulse  and  the  given  surroundings, 
there  is  the  acquired  momentum. 
When  the  national  T±nratrteT~anet"stn> 
rounding  circumstances  operate,  it  is 
not  upon  a  tabula  rasa,  but  on  a  ground 
on  which  marks  are  already  impressed. 
According  as  one  takes  the  ground  at 
one  moment  or  another,  the  imprint  is 
different ;  and  this  is  the  cause  that 
the  total  effect  is  different.  Consider, 
for  instance,  two  epochs  of  a  literature 
or  art, — French  tragedy  under  Cor- 
neille  and  under  Voltaire,  the  Greek 
drama  under  ^schylus  and  under 
Euripides,  Italian  painting  under  da 
Vinci  and  under  Guido.  Truly,  at 
either  of  these  two  extreme  points  the 
general  idea  has  not  changed ;  it  is 
always  the  same  human  type  which  is 
its  subject  of  representation  or  paint- 
ing ;  the  mould  of  verse,  the  structure 
of  the  drama,  the  form  of  body  has  en- 
dured. But  among  several  differences 
there  is  this,  that  the  one  artist  is  the 
precurspj,  the  other  the  successor  ;  the 
first  has  no  model,  the  second  has  ;  (he 
first  sees  objects  face  to  face,  the  sec- 
ond sees  them  through  the  first ;  that 
many  great  branches  of  art  are  lost, 
many  details  are  perfected,  that  sim- 
plicity and  grandeur  of  impressior. 
have  diminished,  pleasing  and  refined 
forms  have  increased, — in  short,  that 
the  first  work  has  influenced  the  sec- 
ond. Thus  it  is  with  a  people  as  with 
a  plant ;  the  same  sap,  under  the  same 
temperature,  and  in  the  same  soil,  pro- 
2 


26 


INTRODUCTION. 


duces,  at  different  steps  of  its  progres- 
sive development,  different  formations, 
buds,  flowers,  fruits,  seed-vessels,  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  one  which  fol- 
lows must  always  be  preceded  by  the 
former,  and  must  spring  up  from  its 
death.  And  if  now  you  consider  no 
longer  a  brief  epoch,  as  our  own  time, 
"hut  one  of  those  wide  intervals  which 
embrace  one  or  more  centuries,  like  the 
middle  ages,  or  our  last  classic  age, 
the  conclusion  will  be  similar.  A  cer- 
tain dominant  idea  has  had  sway ;  men, 
for  two,  fof  "fiver  hundred  years,  have 
taken  to  themselves  a  certain  ideal 
model  of  man  :  in  the  middle  ages,  the 
knight  and  the  monk ;  in  our  classic 
age,  the  courtier,  the  man  who  speaks 
well.  This  creative  and  universal  idea 
is  displayed  over  the  whole  field  of  ac- 
tion and  thought ;  and  after  covering 
the  world  with  its  involuntarily  syste- 
matic works,  it  has  faded,  it  has  died 
away,  and  lo,  a  new  idea  springs  up, 
destined  to  a  like  domination,  and  as 
manifold  creations.  And  here  remem- 
ber that  the  second  depends  in  part 
upon  the  first,  and  that  the  first,  uniting 
its  effect  with  those  of  national  genius 
and  surrounding  circumstances,imposes 
on  each  new  creation  its  bent  and  direc- 
tion. The  great  historical  currents  are 
formed  after  this  law — the  long  domi- 
nations of  one  intellectual  pattern,  or  a 
master  idea,  such  as  the  period  of 
spontaneous  creations  called  the  Re- 
naissance, or  the  period  of  oratorical 
models  called  the  Classical  Age,  or  the 
series  of  mystical  systems  called  the 
Alexandrian  and  Christian  eras,  or  the 
series  of  mythological  efflorescences 
which  we  meet  with  in  the  infancy 
of  the  German,  people,  of  the  Indian 
and  the  Greek.  Here  as  elsewhere  we 
have  but  a  mechanical  problem  ;  the 
total  effect  is  a  result,  depending  en- 
tirely on  the  magnitude  and  direction 
of  the  producing  causes.  The  only 
difference  which  separates  these  moral 
problems  from  physical  ones  is,  that 
the  magnitude  and  direction  cannot  be 
valued  or  computed  in  the  first  as  in 
the  second.  If  a  need  or  a  faculty  is 
a  quantity,  capable  of  degrees,  like  a 
pressure  or  a  weight,  this  quantity  is 
not  measurable  like  the  pressure  or  the 
weight.  We  cannot  define  it  in  an  ex- 
act or  approximative  formula ;  we  can- 


not have  more,  or  give  more,  in  respect 
of  it,  than  a  literary  impression;  we 
are  limited  to  marking  and  quoting  the 
salient  points  by  which  it  is  manifested, 
and  which  indicate  approximately  and 
roughly  the  part  of  the  scale  which  is 
its  position.  But  though  the  means  of 
notation  are  not  the  same  in  the  moral 
and  physical  sciences,  yet  as  in  both 
the  matter  is  the  same,  equally  made 
up  of  forces,  magnitudes,  and  direc- 
tions, we  may  say  that  in  both  the  ^nal 
result  is  produced  after  the  same 
method.  It  is  great  or  small,  as  tH- 
fundamental  forces  are  great  or  small 
and  act  more  or  less  exactly  in  the 
same  sense,  according  as  the  distinct 
effects  of  race,  circumstance,  and  epoch 
combine  to  add  the  one  to  the  other, 
or  to  annul  one  another.  Thus  are 
explained  the  long  impotences  and  the 
brilliant  triumphs  which  make  their  ap- 
pearance irregularly  and  without  visible 
cause  in  the  life  of  a  people ;  they  are 
caused  by  internal  concords  or  contra- 
rieties. There  was  such  a  concord 
when  in  the  seventeenth  century  the 
sociable  character  and  the  conversa- 
tional aptitude,  innate  in  France,  en- 
countered the  drawing-room  manners 
and  the  epoch  of  oratorical  analysis  ; 
when  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  pro- 
found and  pliant  genius  of  Germany 
encountered  the  age  of  philosophical 
systems  and  of  cosmopolitan  criticism 
There  was  such  a  contrariety  when  in 
the  seventeenth  century  the  harsh  and 
lonely  English  genius  tried  blunderingly 
to  adopt  a  new-born  politeness  ;  when 
in  the  sixteenth  century  the  lucid  and 
prosaic  French  spirit  tried  vainly  to 
bring  forth  a  living  poetry.  That  hid- 
den concord  of  creative  forces  produced 
the  finished  urbanity  and  the  noble  and 
regular  literature  under  Louis  XIV. 
and  Bossuet,  the  grand  metaphysics 
and  broad  critical  sympathy  of  Hegel 
and  Goethe.  That  hidden  contrariety 
of  creative  forces  produced  the  imper 
feet  literature,  the  scandalous  comedy, 
the  abortive  drama  under  Dryden  and 
Wycherley,  the  feeble  Greek  importa- 
tions, the  groping  elaborate  efforts,  the 
scant  half-graces  under  Ronsard  anc^ 
the  Pleiad.  So  much  we  can  say  with 
confidence,  that  the  unknown  creations 
towards  which  the  current  of  the  cen- 
turies conducts  us,  will  be  raised  up 


INTRODUCTION. 


27 


and  regulated  altogether  by  the  three 
primordial  forces;  that  if  these  forces 
could  be  measured  and  computed,  we 
might  deduce  from  them  as  from  a 
formula  the  characteristics  of  future 
civilization ;  and  that  if,  in  spite  of  the 
evident  crudeness  of  our  notations,  and 
the  fundamental  inexactness  of  our 
measures,  we  try  now  to  form  some 
;idea  of  our  general  destiny,  it  is  upon 
ian  examination  of  these  forces  that  we 
imust  base  our  prophecy.  For  in 
enumerating  them,  we  traverse  the 
complete  circle  of  the  agencies;  and 

<when  we  have  considered  RACE,  SUR- 
ROUNDINGS, and  EPOCH,  which  are  the 
internal  mainsprings,  the  external  pres- 
sure, and  the  acquired  momentum,  we 

j  have  exhausted  not  only  the  whole  of 

!the  actual  causes,  but  also  the  whole  of 
the  possible  causes  of  motion. 

VI. 

It  remains  for  us  to  examine  how 
these  causes,  when  applied  to  a  nation 
or  an  age,  produce  their  results.  As  a 
spring,  rising  from  a  height  and  flowing 
downwards  spreads  its  streams,  accord- 
ing to  the  depth  of  the  descent,  stage 
after  stage,  until  it  reaches  the  lowest 
level  of  the  soil,  so  the  disposition  of 
intellect  or  soul  impressed  on  a  peo- 
,  pie  by  race,  circumstance,  or  epoch, 
spreads  in  different  proportions  and  by 
regular  descents,  down  the  diverse 
orders  of  facts  which  make  up  its  civil- 
ization.* If  we  arrange  the  map  of  a 
country,  starting  from  the  watershed, 
we  find  that  below  this  common  point 
the  streams  are  divided  into  five  or  six 
principal  basins,  then  each  of  these 
into  several  secondary  basins,  and  so 
on,  until  the  whole  country  with  its 
thousand  details  is  included  in  the 
ramifications  of  this  network.  So,  if 
we  arrange  the  psychological  map  of 
the  events  and  sensations  of  a  human 
civilization,  we  find  first  of  all  five  or 
six  well-defined  provinces — religion,  art, 
philosophy,  the  state,  the  family,  the 
industries  ;  then  in  each  of  these  prov- 
inces natural  departments ;  and  in 

*  For  this  scale  of  co-ordinate  effects,  consult 
Renan,  Langues  Semitiques,  ch.  i.;  Mommsen, 
Comparison  between  tJte  Greek  and  Roman 
Civilizations,  ch.  ii.  vol.  i.  3d  ed.  ;  Tocque- 
ville,  Consequences  de  la  Democratic  en 
A  mirique,  vol.  iii. 


each  of  these,  smaller  territories,  until 
we  arrive  at  the  numberless  details  of 
life  such  as  may  be  observed  within 
and  around  us  every  day.  If  now  we 
examine  and  compare  these  diverse 
groups  of  facts,  we  find  first  of  all  that 
they  are  made  up  of  parts,  and  that  all 
have  parts  in  common.  Let  us  take 
first  the  three  chief  works  of  human 
intelligence — religion,  art,  philosophy 
What  is  a  philosophy  but  a  concep- 
tion of  nature  and  its  primordial 
causes,  under  the  form  of  abstrac- 
tions and  formulas  ?  What  is  there 
at  the  bottom  of  a  religion  or  of  an  art 
but  a  conception  of  this  same  nature 
and  of  these  same  causes  under  form 
of  symbols  more  or  less  precise,  and 
personages  more  or  less  marked ;  with 
this  difference,  that  in  the  first  we  be- 
lieve that  they  exist,  in  the  second  we 
believe  that  they  do  not  exist  ?  Let 
the  reader  consider  a  few  of  the  great 
creations  of  the  intelligence  in  India, 
Scandinavia,  Persia,  Rome,  Greece, 
and  he  will  see  that,  throughout,  art  is 
a  kind  of  philosophy  made  sensible, 
religion  a  poem  taken  for  true,  philoso- 
phy an  art  and  a  religion  dried  up,  and 
reduced  to  simple  ideas.  There  is 
therefore,  at  the  core  of  each  of  these 
three  groups,  a  common  element,  the 
conception  of  the  world  and  its  princi- 
ples ;  and  if  they  differ  among  them- 
selves, it  is  because  each  combines  with 
the  common,  a  distinct  element :  now 
the  power  of  abstraction,  again  the 
power  to  personify  and  to  believe,  and 
finally  the  power  to  personify  and  not 
believe.  Let  us  now  take  the  two  chief 
works  of  human  association,  the  family 
and  the  state.  What  forms  the  state 
but  a  sentiment  of  obedience,  by  which 
the  many  unite  under  the  authority  of 
a  chief  ?  And  what  forms  the  family  / 
but  the  sentiment  of  obedience  by 
which  wife  and  children  act  under  the 
direction  of  a  father  and  husband  ? 
The  family  is  a  natural  state,  primitive 
and  restrained,  as  the  state  is  an  art^fi- 
cial  family,  ulterior  and  expanded  ;  and 
underneath  the  differences  arising  from 
the  number,  origin,  and  condition  of  its 
members,  we  discover  in  the  small 
society  as  in  the  great,  a  like  disposition 
of  the  fundamental  intelligence  which 
assimilates  and  unites  them.  Now 
suppose  that  this  element  receives  from 


28 


IN  TROD  UCTION. 


circumstance,  race,  or  epoch  certain 
special  marks,  it  is  clear  that  all  the 
groups  into  which  it  enters  will  be 
modified  proportionately.  If  the  senti- 
ment of  obedience  is  merely  fear,*  you 
will  find,  as  in  most  Oriental  states,  a 
brutal  despotism,  exaggerated  punish- 
ment, oppression  of  the  subject,  ser- 
vility of  manners,  insecurity  of  property, 
impoverished  production,  the  slavery 
of  women,  and  the  customs  of  the 
harem.  If  the  sentiment  of  obedience 
has  its  root  in  the  instinct  of  order, 
sociality,  and  honor,  you  will  find,  as 
in  France,  a  perfect  military  organiza- 
tion, a  fine  administrative  hierarchy,  a 
want  of  public  spirit  with  occasional 
jerks  of  patriotism,  ready  docility  of  the 
subject  with  a  revolutionary  impatience, 
the  cringing  courtier  with  the  coun- 
ter efforts  of  the  high-bred  man,  the 
refined  pleasure  of  conversation  and 
society  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  worry 
at  the  fireside  and  among  the  family 
on  the  other,  the  equality  of  husband 
and  wife,  the  imperfection  of  the 
married  state,  and  consequently  the 
necessary  constraint  of  the  law.  If, 
again,  the  sentiment  of  obedience  has 
its  root  in  the  instinct  of  subordination 
and  the  idea  of  duty,  you  will  find,  as 
among  the  Germans,  security  and  hap- 
piness in  the  household,  a  solid  basis 
of  domestic  life,  a  tardy  and  incomplete 
development  of  social  and  conversa- 
tional life,  an  innate  respect  for  estab- 
lished dignities,  a  superstitious  rev- 
erence for  the  past,  the  keeping  up  of 
social  inequalities,  natural  and  habitual 
regard  for  the  law,  So  in  a  race,  ac- 
cording as  the  aptitude  for  general 
ideas  varies,  religion,  art,  and  philoso- 
phy vary.  If  man  is  naturally  inclined 
to  the  widest  universal  conceptions, 
and  apt  to  disturb  them  at  the  same 
time  by  the  nervous  delicacy  of  his  over- 
sensitive organization,  you  will  find, 
as  in  India,  an  astonishing  abundance 
of  gigantic  religious  creations,  a  glow- 
ing outgrowth  of  vast  and  transparent 
epic  poems,  a  strange  tangle  of  subtle 
and  imaginative  philosophies,  all  so 
well  interwoven,  and  so  penetrated 
with  a  common  essence,  as  to  be  in- 
stantly recognized,  by  their  breadth, 
their  coloring,  and  their  want  of  order, 

*  Montesquieu,  Esprit  des  Lois,  Principes 
des  trois  gouvernements. 


as  the  products  of  the  same  climate 
and  the  same  intelligence.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  man  naturallj  .staid 
and  balanced  in  mind  limits  of  his 
own  accord  the  scope  of  his  ideas,  in 
order  the  better  to  define  their  form, 
you  will  find,  as  in  Greece,  a  theology 
of  artists  and  tale-tellers ;  distinctive 
gods,  soon  considered  distinct  from 
things,  and  transformed,  almost  at  the 
outset,  into  recognized  personages;  the 
sentiment  of  universal  unity  all  but 
effaced,  and  barely  preserved  in  the 
vague  notion  of  Destiny  ;  a  philosophy 
rather  close  and  delicate  than  grand 
and  systematic,  with  shortcomings  in 
higher  metaphysics,*  but  incomparable 
for  logic,  sophistry,  and  morals ;  poetry 
and  arts  superior  for  clearness,  artless- 
ness,  just  proportions,  truth,  and  beau- 
ty, to  all  that  have  ever  been  known. 
If,  once  more,  man,  reduced  to  narrow 
conceptions,  and  deprived  of  all  specu 
lative  refinement,  is  at  the  same  time 
altogether  absorbed  and  straitened  by 
practical  occupations,  you  will  find,  as 
in  Rome,  rudimentary  deities,  mere 
hollow  names,  serving  to  designate  the 
trivial  details  of  agriculture,  genera- 
tion, household  concerns,  customs 
about  marriage,  rural  life,  producing  a 
mythology,  hence  a  philosophy,  a 
poetry,  either  worth  nothing  or  borrow- 
ed. Here,  as  everywhere,  the  law  of 
.mutual  dependence  t  comes  into  play. 
A  civilization  forms  a  body,  and  its 
parts  are  connected  with  each  other 
like  the  parts  of  an  organic  body.  As 
in  an  animal,  instincts,  teeth,  limbs, 
osseous  structure,  muscular  envelope, 
are  mutually  connected,  so  that  a  change 
in  one  produces  a  corresponding  change 
in  the  rest,  and  a  clever  naturalist  can  by 
a  process  of  reasoning  reconstruct  out  of 
a  few  fragments  almost  the  whole  body ; 
even  so  in  a  civilization,  religion,  phi- 
losophy, the  organization  of  the  family, 
literature,  the  arts,  make  up  a  system 
in  which  every  local  change  induces  a 

*  The  Alexandrian  philosophy  had  its  birth 
from  the  West.  The  metaphysical  notions  of 
Aristotle  are  isolated  ;  moreover,  with  him  as 
with  Plato,  they  are  but  a  sketch.  By  way  of 
contrast  consider  the  systematic  vigor  of  Plo- 
tinus,  Proclus,  Schelline:,  and  Hegel,  or  the 
wonderful  boldness  of  Brahminical  and  Budd 
histic  speculation. 

t  I  have  endeavored  on  several  occasions  to 
give  expression  to  this  law,  notably  in  the 
preface  to  Essais  de  Critiqzte  et  d'llistoire* 


INTRODUCTION. 


general  change,  so  that  an  experienced 
historian,  studying  some  particular 
part  of  it,  sees  in  advance  and  half  pre- 
dicts the  character  of  the  rest.  There 
is  nothing  vague  in  this  interdepen- 
dence. In  the  living  body  the  regula- 
tor is,  first,  its  tendency  to  manifest  a 
certain  primary  type  ;  then  its  necessi- 
ty for  organs  whereby  to  satisfy  its 
wants  and  to  be  in  harmony  with  itself 
in  order  that  it  may  live.  In  a  civiliza- 
tion, the  regulator  is  the  presence,  in 
everv  great  human  creation,  of  a  pro- 
ductive element,  present  also  in  other 
surrounding  creations, —  to  wit,  some 
faculty,  aptitude  disposition,  effective 
and  discernible,  which,  being  possess- 
ed of  its  proper  character,  introduces  it 
into  all  the  operations  in  which  it 
assists,  and,  according  to  its  variations, 
causes  all  the  works  in  which  it  co- 
operates to  vary  also. 

VII. 

At  this  point  we  can  obtain  a  glimpse 
of  the  principal  features  of  human 
transformations,  and  begin  to  search 
for  the  general  laws  which  regulate, 
not  events  only,  but  classes  of  events, 
not  such  and  such  religion  or  literature, 
but  a  group  of  literatures  or  religions. 
If,  for  instance,  it  were  admitted  that  a 
religion  is  a  metaphysical  poem,  ac- 
companied by  belief;  and  remarking 
at  the  same  time  that  there  are  certain 
epochs,  races,  and  circumstances  in 
which  belief,  the  poetical  and  metaphys- 
ical faculty,  show  themselves  with  an 
unwonted  vigor :  if  we  consider  that 
Christianity  and  Buddhism  were  pro- 
duced at  periods  of  high  philosophical 
conceptions,  and  amid  such  miseries  as 
raised  up  the  fanatics  of  the  Cevennes  ; 
if  we  recognize,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
primitive  religions  are  born  at  the  awak- 
ening of  human  reason,  during  the  rich- 
est blossoming  of  human  imagination,  at 
a  time  of  the  fairest  artlessness  and  the 
greatest  credulity  ;  it  we  consider,  also, 
that  Mohammedanism  appeared  with 
the  dawning  of  poetic  prose,  and  the 
conception  of  national  unity,  amongst  a 
people  destitute  of  science,  at  a  period 
of  sudden  development  of  the  intellect, 
— we  might  then  conclude  that  a  reli- 
gion is  born,  declines,  is  reformed  and 
transformed  according  as  circumstances 


confirm  and  combine  with  moie  or  less 
exactitude  and  force  its  three  genera- 
tive instincts  ;  and  we  should  under- 
stand why  it  is  endemic  in  India,  amidst 
imaginative,  philosophic,  eminently  fa- 
natic brains  :  why  it  blossomed  forth 
so  strangely  and  grandly  in  the  middle 
ages,-  amidst  an  oppressive  organiza- 
tion, new  tongues  and  literatures  ;  why 
it  was  aroused  in  the  sixteenth  century 
with  a  new  character  and  heroic  enthu- 
siasm, amid  universal  regeneration,  and 
during  the  awakening  of  the  German 
races  ;  why  it  breaks  out  into  eccentric 
sects  amid  the  coarse  American  fle- 
mocracy,  and  under  the  bureaucratic 
Russian  despotism ;  why,  in  short,  it 
is  spread,  at  the  present  day.  over 
Europe  in  such  different  dimensions 
and  such  various  characteristics,  ac- 
cording to  the  differences  of  race  and 
civilization.  And  so  for  every  kind  of 
human  production — for  literature,  mu- 
sic, the  fine  arts,  philosophy,  science, 
the  state,  industries,  and  the  rest. 
Each  of  these  has  for  its  direct  cause  a 
moral  disposition,  or  a  combination  of 
moral  dispositions :  the  cause  given, 
they  appear ;  the  cause  withdrawn, 
they  vanish  :  the  weakness  or  inten- 
sity of  the  cause  measures  their  weak- 
ness or  intensity.  They  are  bound  up 
with  their  causes,  as  a  physical  phenom- 
enon with  its  condition,  as  the  dew 
with  the  fall  of  the  variable  temper- 
ature, as  dilatation  with  heat.  There 
are  similarly  connected  data  in  the 
moral  as  in  the  physical  world,  as 
rigorously  bound  together,  and  as 
universally  extended  in  the  one  as  in 
the  other.  Whatever  in  the  one 
case  produces,  alters,  or  suppresses 
the  first  term,  produces,  alters,  or 
suppresses  the  second  as  a  neces- 
sary consequence.  Whatever  lowers 
the  surrounding  temperature,  deposits 
the  dew.  Whatever  develops  cre- 
dulity side  by  side  with  a  poetical 
conception  of  the  world,  engenders 
religion.  Thus  phenomena  have  been 
produced ;  thus  they  will  be  produced. 
As  soon  as  we  know  the  sufficient 
and  necessary  condition  of  one  of 
these  vast  occurrences,  our  understand- 
ing grasps  the  future  as  well  as  the 
past.  We  can  say  with  confidence  in 
what  circumstances  it  will  reappear 
foretell  without  presumption  many  por 


INTRODUCTION. 


tions  of  its  future  history,  and  sketch 
cautiously  some  features  of  its  ulterior 
development. 

VIII. 

History  now  attempts,  or  rather  is 
very  near  attempting  this  method  of 
research.  The  question  propounded 
nowadays  is  of  this  kind.  Given  a  lit- 
erature, philosophy,  society,  art,  group 
of  arts,  what  is  the  moral  condition 
which  produced  it  ?  what  the  condi- 
tions of  race,  epoch,  circumstance,  the 
most  fitted  to  produce  this  moral  con- 
dition ?  There  is  a  distinct  moral  con- 
dition for  each  of  these  formations, 
and  for  each  of  their  branches  ;  one 
for  art  in  general,  one  for  each  kind  of 
art — for  architecture,  painting,  sculp- 
ture, music,  poetry;  each  has  its  spe- 
cial germ  in  the  wide  field  of  human 
psychology ;  each  has  its  law,  and  it  is  by 
virtue  of  this  law  that  we  see  it  raised, 
by  chance,  as  it  seems,  wholly  alone, 
amid  the  miscarriage  of  its  neighbors, 
like  painting  in  Flanders  and  Holland 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  poetry  in 
England  in  the  sixteenth,  music  in 
Germany  in  the  eighteenth.  At  this 
moment,  and  in  these  countries,  the 
conditions  have  been  fulfilled  for  one 
art,  not  for  others,  and  a  single  branch 
has  budded  in  the  general  barrenness. 
History  .must  search  nowadays  for 
these  rules  of  human  growth ;  with  the 
special  psychology  of  each  special  for- 
mation it  must  occupy  itself ;  the  fin- 
ished picture  of  these  characteristic 
conditions  it  must  now  labor  to  com- 
pose. No  task  is  more  delicate  or 
more  difficult  ;  Montesquieu  tried  it, 
but  in  his  time  history  was  too  new  to 
admit  of  his  success  ;  they  had  not  yet 
even  a  suspicion  of  the  road  necessary 
to  be  travelled,  and  hardly  now  do  we 
begin  to  catch  sight  of  it.  Just  as  in 
its  elements  astronomy  is  a  mechanical 
and  physiology  a  chemical  problem,  so 
history  in  its  elements  is  a  psychological 
problem.  There  is  a  particular  system 
of  inner  impressions  and  operations 
which  makes  an  artist,  a  believer,  a 
musician,  a  painter,  a  man  in  a  no- 
madic or  social  state ;  and  of  each 
the  birth  and  growth,  the  energy,  the 
connection  of  ideas  and  emotions,  are 
different :  each  has  his  moral  history 


and  his  special  structure  with  some 
governing  disposition  and  some  domi- 
nant feature.  To  explain  each,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  write  a  chapter 
of  psychological  analysis,  and  barely 
yet  has  such  a  method  been  rudely 
sketched.  One  man  alone,  Stendhal, 
with  a  peculiar  bent  of  mind  and  a 
strange  education,  has  undertaken  it, 
and  to  this  day  the  majority  of  readers 
find  his  books  paradoxical  and  ob- 
scure :  his  talent  and  his  ideas  were 
premature  ;  his  admirable  divinations 
were  not  understood,  any  more  than  his 
profound  sayings  thrown  out  cursorily, 
or  the  astonishing  precision  of  his  sys- 
tem and  of  his  logic.  It  was  not  per- 
ceived that,  under  the  exterior  of  a 
conversationalist  and  a  man  of  the 
world,  he  explained  the  most  compli- 
cated of  esoteric  mechanisms  ;  that  he 
laid  his  finger  on  the  mainsprings  ; 
that  he  introduced  into  the  history  of 
the  heart  scientific  processes,  the  art 
of  notation,  decomposition,  deduction  ; 
that  he  first  marked  the  fundamental 
causes  of  nationality,  climate,  tempera- 
ment ;  in  short,  that  he  treated  senti- 
ments as  they  should  be  treated, — in 
the  manner  of  the  naturalist,  and  of  the 
natural  philosopher,  who  classifies  and 
weighs  forces.  For  this  very  reason 
he  was  considered  dry  and  eccentric  : 
he  remained  solitary,  writing  novels, 
voyages,  notes,  for  which  he  sought 
ancl  obtained  a  score  of  readers.  And 
yet  we  find  in  his  books  at  the  present 
day  essays  the  most  suitable  to  open 
the  path  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
describe.  No  one  has  better  taught 
us  how  to  open  our  eyes  and  see,  to 
see  first  the  men  that  surround  us  and 
the  life  that  is  present,  then  the  ancient 
and  authentic  documents,  to  read  be- 
tween the  black  and  white  lines  of  the 
pages,  to  recognize  beneath  the  old 
impression,  under  the  scribbling  of  a 
text,  the  precise  sentiment,  the  move- 
ment of  ideas,  the  state  of  mind  in 
which  they  were  written.  In  his  wri- 
tings, in  Sainte-Beuve,  in  the  German 
critics,  the  reader  will  see  all  the 
wealth  that  may  be  drawn  from  a 
literary  work:  when  the  work  is  rich, 
and  people  know  how  to  interpret  it, 
we  find  there  the  psychology  of  a  soul, 
frequently  of  an  age,  now  and  then  of 
a  race.  In  this  light,  a  great  poem,  a 


INTR  OD  UC  TION. 


3T 


fine  novel,  the  confessions  of  a  supe- 
rior man,  are  more  instructive  than  a 
heap  of  historians  with  their  histor- 
ies. I  would  give  fifty  volumes  of 
charters  and  a  hundred  volumes  of 
state  papers  for  the  memoirs  of  Cel- 
lini, the  epistles  of  St.  Paul,  the  Table- 
talk  of  Luther,  or  the  comedies  of 
Aristophanes.  In  this  consists  the 
importance  of  literary  works  :  they  are 
instructive  because  they  are  beautiful ; 
their  utility  grows  with  their  perfection ; 
and  if  they  furnish  documents  it  is  be- 
cause they  are  monuments.  The  more 
!  .a  book  brings  sentiments  into  light,  the 
;  more  itts'a  work  of  literature  ;  for  the 
;.  proper  office  of  literature  is  to  make 
;  sentiments  visible.  The  more  a  book 
represents  important  sentiments,  the 
higher  is  its  place  in  literature  ;  for  it 
is  by  representing  the  mode  of  being 
of  a  whole  nation  and  a  whole  age, 
that  a  writer  rallies  round  him  the 
sympathies  of  an  entire  age  and  an 
entire  nation.  This  is  why,  amid  the 
writings  which  set  before  our  eyes 
the  sentiments  of  preceding  genera- 
tions, a  literature,  and  notably  a  grand 
literature,  is  incomparably  the  best.  It 
resembles  those  admirable  apparatus 
of  extraordinary  sensibility,  by  which 
physicians  disentangle  and  measure  the 
most  recondite  and  delicate  changes  of 
a  body.  Constitutions,  religions,  do 
not  approach  it  in  importance  ;  the  ar- 
ticles of  a  code  of  laws  and  of  a  creed 
only  show  us  the  spirit  roughly  and 
without  delicacy.  If  there  are  any 
writings  in  which  politics  and  dogma 
are  fwll  of  life,  it  is  in  the  eloquent 
discourses  of  the  pulpit  and  the  trib- 
une, memoirs,  unrestrained  confes- 
sions; and  all  this  belongs  to  litera- 
ture :  so  that,  in  addition  to  itself,  it 
his  all  the  advantage  of  other  works. 
It  is  then  chiefly  by  the  study  of  litera-" 
.t/res  that  one  may  construct  a  moral 
history,  and  advance  toward  the  knowl- 
edge of  psychological  laws,  from  which 
events  spring. 

I  intjnd  to  vviite  the  history  of  a  lit- 
erature, and  to  seek  in  it  for^  the  psy- 


chology of  a  people  :  if  I  have  chosen 
this  nation  in  particular,  it  is  not  with- 
out a  reason.  I  had  to  find  a  people 
with  a  grand  and  complete  literature, 
and  this  is  rare :  there  are  few  nations 
who  have,  during  their  whole  existence, 
really  thought  and  written.  Among 
the  ancients,  the  Latin  literature  is 
worth  nothing  at  the  outset,  then 
it  borrowed  and  became  imitative. 
Among  the  moderns,  German  litera- 
ture does  not  exist  for  nearly  two  cen- 
turies.* Italian  literature  and  Spanish 
literature  end  at  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Only  ijviont 
Greece,  modern  France  and  Erg. and, 
offer  a  complete  series  of  great  signifi- 
cant monuments.  I  have  chosen  Eng- 
land, because  being  still  living,  and 
subject  to  direct  examination,  it  may 
be  better  studied  than  a  destroyed 
civilization,  of  which  we  retain  but  the 
relics,  and  because,  being  different 
from  France,  it  has  in  the  eyes  of  a 
Frenchman  a  more  distinct  character. 
Besides,  there  is  a  peculiarity  in  this 
civilization,  that  apart  from  its  spon- 
taneous development,  it  presents  a 
forced  deviation,  it  has  suffered  the 
last  and  most  effectual  of  all  conquests, 
and  the  three  grounds  whence  it  has 
sprung,  race,  climate,  the  Norman  in- 
vasion, may  be  observed  in  its  remains 
with  perfect  exactness ;  so  that  we  may 
examine  in  this  history  the  two  most 
powerful  moving  springs  of  human 
transformation,  natural  bent  and  con- 
straining force,  we  may  examine  them 
without  uncertainty  or  gap,  in  a  series 
of  authentic  and  unmutilated  memo- 
rials. 

I  have  endeavored  to  define  these 
primary  springs,  to  exhibit  their  grad- 
ual effects,  to  explain  how  they  have 
ended  by  bringing  to  light  great  polit- 
ical, religious,  and  literary  works,  and 
by  developing  the  recondite  mechanism 
whereby  the  Saxon  barbarian  has  been 
transformed  into  the  Englishman  of 
to-day. 

*  From  1550  to  1750, 


HISTORY   OF   ENGLISH   LITERATURE. 


BOOK  I. 
THE    SOURCE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


I. 

As  you  coast  the  North  Sea  from  the 
Scheldt  to  Jutland,  you  will  mark  in 
the  first  place  that  the  characteristic 
feature  is  the  want  of  slope  ;  marsh, 
waste,  shoal  ;  the  rivers  hardly  drag 
themselves  along,  swollen  and  sluggish, 
with  long,  black-looking  waves  ;  the 
flooding  stream  oozes  over  the  banks, 
and  appears  further  on  in  stagnant 
pools.  In  Holland  the  soil  is  but  a 
sediment  of  mud  ;  here  and  there  only 
does  the  earth  cover  it  with  a  crust, 
shallow  and  brittle,  the  mere  alluvium 
of  the  river,  which  the  river  seems 
ever  about  to  destroy.  Thick  clouds 
hover  above,  being  fed  by  ceaseless 
exhalations.  They  lazily  turn  their 
violet  flanks,  grow  black,  suddenly 
descend  in  heavy  showers  ;  the  vapor, 
like  a  furnace-smoke,  crawls  forever 
on  the  horizon.  Thus  watered,  plants 
multiply  ;  in  the  angle  between  Jut- 
land and  the  continent,  in  a  fat  muddy 
soil,  "  the  verdure  is  as  fresh  as  that  of 
England."*  Immense  forests  covered 
the  land  even  after  the  eleventh  cen- 
*  Malte-Brun,  iv.  398.  Not  counting  bays, 
gulfs,  and  canals,  the  sixteenth  part  of  the 
country  is  covered  by  water.  The  dialect  of 
Jutland  hears  still  a  great  resemblance  to  Eng- 
lish. 


tury.  The  sap  of  this  humid  country, 
thick  and  potent,  circulates  in  man  as 
in  the  plants  ;  man's  respiration,  nutri- 
tion, sensations  and  habits  affect  also 
his  faculties  and  his  frame. 

The  land  produced  after  this  fashion 
has  one  enemy,  to  wit,  the  sea.  Hol- 
land maintains  its  existence  only  by 
virtue  of  its  dykes.  In  1654  those  in 
Jutland  burst,  and  fifteen  thousand  of 
the  inhabitants  were  swallowed  up. 
One  need  only  see  the  blast  of  the 
North  swirl  down  upon  the  low  level 
of  the  soil,  wan  and  ominous  :  *  the  vast 
yellow  sea  dashes  against  the  narrow 
belt  of  flat  coast  which  seems  incapa- 
ble of  a  moment's  resistance  ;  the  wind 
howls  and  bellows  ;  the  sea-mews  cry ; 
the  poor  little  ships  flee  as  fast  as  they 
can,  bending  almost  to  the  gunwale, 
and  endeavor  to  find  a  refuge  in  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  which  seems  as 
hostile  as  the  sea.  A  sad  and  ore- 
carious  existence,  as  it  were  face  to 
face  with  a  beast  of  prey.  The  Fi  is- 
ians,  in  their  ancient  laws,  speak  al- 
ready of  the  league  they  have  made 

*  See  Ruysdaal's  painting  in  Mr.  Baring's 
collection.  Of  the  three  Saxon  islands  North 
Strandt,  Busen,  and  Heligoland,  North  Strandt 
was  inundated  by  the  sea  in  1300,  1483,  1532, 
1615,  and  almost  destroyed  in  1634.  Busen  is 
a  level  plain,  beaten  by  storms,  which  it  has 
been  found  necessary  to  surround  by  a  dyke. 
Heligoland  was  laid  waste  by  the  sea  in  800, 
1300,  1500,  1649,  the  last  time  so  violently  that 
only  a  portion  of  it  remained. — Turner,  Hist. 
ofAngl.  Saxons,  1852,  i.  97. 
2* 


34 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK 


against  "  the  ferocious  ocean."  Even 
in  a  calm  this  sea  is  unsafe.  "  Before 
me  rolleth  a  waste  of  water  .  .  .  and 
above  me  go  rolling  the  storm-clouds, 
the  formless  dark  grey  daughters  of 
air,  which  from  the  sea,  in  cloudy 
buckets  scoop  up  the  water,  ever  wea- 
ried lifting  and  lifting,  and  then  pour  it 
again  in  the  sea,  a  mournful  wearisome 
business.  Over  the  sea,  flat  on  his 
face,  lies  the  monstrous,  terrible  North 
wind,  sighing  and  sinking  his  voice  as 
in  secret,  like  an  old  grumbler,  for  once 
in  good  humor,  unto  the  ocean  he 
talks,  and  he  tells  her  wonderful  sto- 
nes." *  Rain,  wind,  and  surge  leave 
room  for  naught  but  gloomy  and  melan- 
choly thoughts.  The  very  joy  of  the  bil- 
lows has  in  it  an  inexplicable  restless- 
ness and  harshness.  From  Holland  to 
Jutland,  a  string  of  small,  deluged 
islands  t  bears  witness  to  their  rav- 
ages ;  the  shifting  sands  which  the  tide 
drifts  up  obstruct  and  impede  the 
banks  and  entrance  of  the  rivers.  \ 
The  first  Roman  fleet,  a  thousand  sail, 
perished  there ;  to  this  day  ships 
wait  a  month  or  more  in  sight  of  port, 
tossed  upon  the  great  white  waves, 
not  daring  to  risk  themselves  in  the 
shifting,  winding  channel,  notorious 
for  its  wrecks.  In  winter  a  breastplate 
of  ice  covers  the  two  streams ;  the  sea 
drives  back  the  frozen  masses  as  they 
descend ;  they  pile  themselves  with  a 
crash  upon  the  sand-banks,  and  sway 
to  and  fro  ;  now  and  then  you  may  see 
a  vessel,  seized  as  in  a  vice,  split  in 
two  beneath  their  violence.  Picture, 
in  this  foggy  clime,  amid  hoar-frost 
and  storm,  in  these  marshes  and  for- 
ests, half-naked  savages,  a  kind  of 
wild  beasts,  fishers  and  hunters,  but 
especially  hunters  of  men ;  these  are 
iriey,  Saxons,  Angles,  Jutes,  Frisians  ;  § 
latter  on,  Danes,  who  during  the  fifth 
and  the  ninth  centuries,  with  their 
swDrds  and  battle-axes,  took  and  kept 
the  island  of  Britain. 

A  rude  and  foggy  land,  like  their 
own,  except  in  the  depth  of  its  sea  and 

*  Heine,  The  North  Sea,  translated  by 
Charles  G.  Leland.  See  Tacitus,  A  nn.  book 
2,  for  the  impressions  of  the  Romans,  u  trucu- 
lentia  coeli." 

t  Watten,  Platen,  Sande,  Diineninseln. 

j  Nine  or  ten  miles  out,  near  Heligoland, 
are  the  nearest  soundings  of  about  fifty  fathoms. 

§  Palgrav  Saxon  Commonwealth^  vol.  i. 


the. safety  of  its  coasts,  which  one  day 
will  call  up  real  fleets  and  mighty  ves- 
sels ;  green  England — the  word  rises 
to  the  lips  and  expresses  all.  Here 
also  moisture  pervades  every  thing; 
even  in  summer  the  mist  rises ;  even 
on  clear  days  you  perceive  it  fresh  from 
the  great  sea-girdle,  or  nsing  from  vast 
but  ever  slushy  meadows,  undulating 
with  hill  and  dale,  intersected  with 
hedges  to  the  limit  of  the  horizon. 
Here  and  there  a  sunbeam  strides  on 
the  higher  grasses  with  burning  flash, 
and  the  splendor  of  the  verdure  daz- 
zles and  almost  blinds  you.  The  over- 
flowing water  straightens  the  flabby 
stems  ;  they  grow  up,  rank,  weak,  and 
filled  with  sap ;  a  sap  ever  renewed, 
for  the  gray  mists  creep  under  a  stra- 
tum of  motionless  vapor,  and  at  dis- 
tant intervals  the  rim  of  heaven  is 
drenched  by  heavy  showers.  "  There 
are  yet  commons  as  at  the  time  of  the 
Conquest,  deserted,  abandoned,*  wild, 
covered  with  furze  and  thorny  plants, 
with  here  and  there  a  horse  grazing  in 
solitude.  Joyless  scene,  unproductive 
soil !  t  What  a  labor  it  has  been  to 
humanize  it !  What  impression  it  must 
have  made  on  the  men  of  the  South, 
the  Romans  of  Caesar!  I  thought, 
when  I  saw  it,  of  the  ancient  Saxons, 
wanderers  from  West  and  North,  who 
came  to  settle  in  this  land  of  marsh 
and  fogs,  on  the  border  of  primeval 
forests,  on  the  banks  of  these  great 
muddy  streams,  which  roll  down  their 
slime  to  meet  the  waves.}  They  must 
have  lived  as  hunters  and  swineherds ; 
growing,  as  before,  brawny,  fierce, 
gloomy.  Take  civilization  from  this 
soil,  and  there  will  remain  to  the  in- 
habitants only  war,  the  chase,  gluttony 
drunkenness.  Smiling  love,  sweet 
poetic  dreams,  art,  refined  and  nimble 
thought,  are  for  the  happy  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean.  Here  the  bar- 
barian, ill  housed  in  his  mud-hovel, 
who  hears  the  rain  pattering  whole 
days  among  the  oak  leaves  —  wh;it 
dreams  can  he  have,  gazing  upon  tis 
mud-pools  and  his  sombre  sky  ?  " 

*  Notes  of  a  Jortrney  in  England. 

t  Le"once  de  Layergne,  De  C  A  griculktr* 
anglaise.  "The  soil  is  much  worse  than  that 
of  France." 

t  There  are  at  least  four  rivers  in  England 
passing  by  the  name  of  "  Ouse,"  which  is  only 
another  form  of  "  ooze." — TR. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


35 


II. 


Huge  white  bodies,  cool-blooded, 
with  fierce  blue  eyes,  reddish  flaxen 
hair ;  ravenous  stomachs,  filled  with 
meat  and  cheese,  heated  by  strong 
drinks ;  of  a  cold  temperament,  slow 
to  love,*  home-stayers,  prone  to  brutal 
drunkenness  :  these  are  to  this  day  the 
features  which  descent  and  climate 
preserve  in  the  race,  and  these  are 
what  the  Roman  historians  discovered 
in  their  former  country.  There  is  no 
living,  in  these  lands,  without  abun- 
dance of  solid  food ;  bad  weather 
keeps  people  at  home  ;  strong  drinks 
are  necessary  to  cheer  them ;  the 
senses  become  blunted,  the  muscles 
are  braced,  the  will  vigorous.  In 
every  country  the  body  of  man  is  root- 
ed deep  into  the  soil  of  nature  ;  and  in 
this  instance  still  deeper,  because,  be- 
ing uncultivated,  he  is  less  removed 
from  nature.  In  Germany,  storm- 
beaten,  in  wretched  boats  of  hide,  amid 
the  hardships  and  dangers  of  seafaring 
life,  they  were  pre-eminently  adapted 
for  endurance  and  enterprise,  inured 
to  misfortune,  scorners  of  danger. 
Pirates  at  first :  of  all  kinds  of  hunting 
the  man-hunt  is  most  pro'fitable  and 
most  noble ;  they  left  the  care  of  the 
land  and  flocks  to  the  women  and 
slaves ;  seafaring,  war,  and  pillage  t 
was  their  whole  idea  of  a  freeman's 
work.  They  dashed  to  sea  in  their 
two-sailed  barks,  landed  anywhere, 
killed  every  thing ;  and  having  sacri- 
ficed in  honor  of  their  gods  the  tithe  of 
their  prisoners,  and  leaving  behind 
them  the  red  light  of  their  burnings, 
went  farther  on  to  begin  again. 
"  Lord,"  says  a  certain  litany,  "  deliver 
us  from  the  fury  of  the  Jutes."  "  Of 
all  barbarians  J  these  are  strongest  of 
body  and  heart,  the  most  formidable," 
— we  mav  add,  the  most  cruelly  fero- 
~*uiis.  When  murder  becomes  a  trade, 

*  Tacitus,  De  moribus  Germanorum,  pas- 
ttm:  Diem  noctemqiie  continuare  potando, 
nuMi  probrum. — Sera  juvenum  Venus — Totos 
dies  juxta  focum  atque  ignem  agunt.  Dargaud, 
Voyage  en  Danemark.  "  They  take  six  meals 
per  day,  the  first  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
One  should  see  the  faces  and  meals  at  Ham- 
burg and  Amsterdam." 

t  Bede,  v.  10.  Sidonius,  viii.  6.  Lingard, 
Hist,  of  England,  1854,  i.  chap.  2. 

$  Zozimos,  iii.  147.  Amm.  Marcellinus, 
xxviii.  526. 


it  becomes  a  pleasure.  About  the 
eighth  century,  the  final  decay  of  the 
great  Roman  corpse  which  Charle- 
magne had  tried  to  revive,  and  which 
was  settling  down  into  corruption, 
called  them  like  vultures  to  the  prey. 
Those  who  had  remained  in  Denmark, 
with  their  brothers  of  Norway,  fanati 
cal  pagans,  incensed  against  the  Chris • 
tians,  made  a  descent  on  all  the  sur- 
rounding coasts.  Their  sea-kings,* 
"who  had  never  slept  under  the  smoky 
rafters  of  a  roof,  who  had  never  drained 
the  ale-horn  by  an  inhabited  hearth," 
laughed  at  wind  and  storms,  and  sang : 
"  The  blast  of  the  tempest  aids  our 
oars ;  the  bellowing  of  heaven,  the 
howling  of  the  thunder,  hurt  us  not ; 
the  hurricane  is  our  servant,  and 
drives  us  whither  we  wish  to  go/'  "  We 
hewed  with  our  swords,"  says  a  song 
attributed  to  Ragnar  Lodbrog;  "was 
it  not  like  that  hour  when  my  bright 
bride  I  seated  by  me  on  the  couch  ?  " 
One  of  them,  at  the  monastery  of 
Peterborough,  kills  with  his  own  hand 
all  the  monks,  to  the  number  of  eighty- 
four  ;  others,  having  taken  King  ./Ella, 
divided  his  ribs  from  the  spine,  drew 
his  lungs  out,  and  threw  salt  into  his 
wounds.  Harold  Harefoot,  having 
seized  his  rival  Alfred,  with  six  hun- 
dred men,  had  them  maimed,  blinded, 
hamstrung,  scalped,  or  embowelled.t 
Torture  and  carnage,  greed  of  danger, 
fury  of  destruction,  obstinate  and 
frenzied  bravery  of  an  over-strong 
temperament,  the  unchaining  of  the 
butcherly  instincts, — such  traits  meet 
us  at  every  step  in  the  old  Sagas, 
The  daughter  of  the  Danish  Jarl,  see- 
ing  Egil  taking  his  seat  near  her,  re- 
pels him  with  scorn,  reproaching  him 
with  "seldom  having  provided  the 
wolves  with  hot  meat,  with  never  hav.* 
ing  seen  for  the  whole  autumn  a  raven 
croaking  over  the  carnage."  But  Egil 
seized  her  and  pacified  her  by  singing; 
"  I  have  marched  with  my  bloody 
sword,  and  the  raven  has  followed  me, 
Furiously  we  fought,  the  fire  passed 
over  the  dwellings  of  men ;  we  have 

*  Aug.  Thierry,  Hist.  S.  Edmundl,  vi.  441. 
See  Ynglingasaga,  and  especially  Egil's  Saga. 

t  Lingard,  Hist,  of  England,  i.  164,  says, 
however,  "  Every  tenth  man  out  of  the  six 
hundred  received  his  liberty,  and  of  the  rest  a 
few  were  selected  for  slavery."  — TR. 


36  THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


sent  to  sleep  in  blood  those  who  kept 
the  gates."  From  such  table-talk, 
and  such  maidenly  tastes,  we  may 
judge  of  the  rest.* 

Behold  them  now  in  Eng;land,  more 
settled  and  wealthier  :  do  you  expect 
to  find  them  much  changed  i*  Changed 
it  may  be,  but  for  the  worse,  like  the 
Franks,  like  all  barbarians  who  pass 
from  action  to  enjoyment.  They  are 


more  gluttonous,  carving  their  hogs, 
filling  themselves  with  flesh,  swallow- 
ing down  deep  draughts  of  mead,  ale, 
spiced  wines,  all  the  strong,  coarse 
drinks  which  they  can  procure,  and  so 
they  are  cheered  and  stimulated.  Add 
to  this  the  pleasure  of  the  fight.  Not 
easily  with  such  instincts  can  they  at- 
tain to  culture ;  to  find  a  natural  and 
ready  culture,  we  must  look  amongst 
the  sober  and  sprightly  populations  of 
the  south.  Here  the  sluggish  and 
heavy  t  temperament  remains  long 
buried  in  a  brutal  life ;  people  of  the 
Latin  race  never  at  a  first  glance  see 
in  them  aught  but  large  gross  beasts, 
clumsy  and  ridiculous  when  not  dan- 
gerous and  enraged.  Up  to  the  six- 
teenth century,  says  an  old  historian, 
the  great  body  of  the  nation  were  little 
else  than  herdsmen,  keepers  of  cattle 
and  sheep  ;  up  to  the  end  of  the  eigh- 
teenth drunkenness  was  the  recreation 
of  the  higher  ranks ;  it  is  still  that  of 
the  lower  ;  and  all  the  refinement  and 
softening  influence  of  civilization  have 
not  abolished  amongst  them  the  use  of 
the  rod  and  the  fist.  If  the  carnivor- 
ous, warlike,  drinking  savage,  proof 
against  the  climate,  still  shows  beneath 
the  conventions  of  our  modern  society 
and  the  softness  of  our  modern  polish, 
imagine  what  he  must  have  been  when, 
landing  with  his  band  upon  a  wasted 
or  desert  country,  and  becoming  for 
the  first  time  a  settler,  he  saw  extend- 
ing to  the  horizon  the  common  pas- 

*  Franks,  Frisians,  Saxons,  Danes,  Norwe- 
gians, Icelanders,  are  one  and  the  same  people. 
Their  language,  laws,  religion,  poetry,  differ 
but  little.  The  more  northern  continue  longest 
in  their  primitive  manners.  Germany  in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  Denmark  and  Nor- 
way in  the  seventh  and  eighth,  Iceland  in  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  present  the  same 
condition,  and  the  muniments  cf  each  country 
will  fill  up  the  gaps  that  exist  in  the  history  of 
the  others. 

t  Tacitus,  De  mor.  Gertn  x  cii. :  Gens  nee 
astuta  nee  callida. 


tures  of  the  border  country,  and  the 
great  primitive  forests  which  furnished 
stags  for  the  chase  and  acorns  for  his 
pigs.  The  ancient  histories  tell  us 
that  they  had  a  great  and  a  coarse  ap- 
petite.* Even  at  the  time  of  the  Con- 
quest the  custom  of  drinking  to  excess 
was  a  common  vice  with  men  of  the 
highest  rank,  and  they  passed  in  this 
way  whole  days  and  nights  without  in- 
termission. Henry  of  Huntingdon,  in 
the  twelfth  century,  lamenting  tru 
ancient  hospitality,  says  that  the  .Nor- 
man kings  provided  their  courtiers 
with  only  one  meal  a  day,  while  the 
Saxon  kings  used  to  provide  four.  One 
day,  when  Athelstan  went  with  his 
nobles  to  visit  his  relative  Ethelfleda, 
the  provision  of  mead  was  exhausted 
at  the  first  salutation,  owing  to  the 
copiousness  of  the  draughts ;  but 
Dunstan,  forecasting  the  extent  of  the 
royal  appetite,  had  furnished  the 
house,  so  that  the  cup-bearers,  as  is 
the  custom  at  royal  feasts,  were  able 
the  whole  day  to  serve  it  out  in  horns 
and  other  vessels,  and  the  liquor  was 
not  found  to  be  deficient.  When  the 
guests  were  satisfied,  the  harp  passed 
from  hand  to  hand,  and  the  rude  har- 
mony of  their  deep  voices  swelled  un- 
der the  vaulted  roof.  The  monasteries 
themselves  in  Edgard's  time  kept  up 
games,  songs,  and  dances  till  midnight. 
To  shout,  to  drink,  to  gesticulate,  to 
feel  their  veins  heated  and  swollen  with 
wine,  to  hear  and  see  around  them  the 
riotous  orgies,  this  was  the  first  need 
of  the  Barbarians. t  The  heavy  hu- 
man brute  gluts  himself  with  sensations 
and  with  noise. 

For  such  appetites  there  was  a 
stronger  food, — I  mean  blows  and  bat- 
tle. In  vain  they  attached  themselves 
to  the  soil,  became  tillers  of  the  ground, 
in  distinct  communities  and  distinct  re- 
gions, shut  up  |  in  their  march  with 

*  W.  of  Malmesbury.  Henry  of  Hunting- 
don, vi.  365. 

t  Tacitus,  De  moribus  Germanorum,  xxii. 
xxiii. 

$  Kemble,  Saxons  in  England,  1849,  i.  70, 
ii.  184.  "The  Acts  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  parlia- 
ment are  a  series  of  treaties  of  peace  between 
all  the  associations  which  make  up  the  State  ; 
a  continual  revision  and  renewal  of  the  alliances 
offensive  and  defensive  of  all  the  free  men. 
They  are  universally  matual  contracts  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  frid  or  peace." 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


37 


their  kindred  and  comrades,  bound  to- 
gether, separated  from  the  mass,  en- 
closed by  sacred  landmarks,  by  prime- 
val oaks  on  which  they  cut  the  figures 
of  birds  and  beasts,  by  poles  set  up  in 
the  midst  of  the  marsh,  which  whoso- 
ever removed  was  punished  with  cruel 
tortures.  In  vain  these  Marches  and 
Ga's  *  were  grouped  into  states,  and 
finally  formed  a  half-regulated  society, 
with  assemblies  and  laws,  under  the 
lead  of  a  single  king  ;  its  very  structure 
indicates  the  necessities  to  supply 
which  it  was  created.  They  united  in 
order  to  maintain  peace;  treaties  of 
peace  occupy  their  Parliaments;  pro- 
visions for  peace  are  the  matter  of  their 
laws.  War  was  waged  daily  and  every- 
where ;  the  aim  of  life  was,  not  to  be 
slain,  ransomed,  mutilated,  pillaged, 
hung  and  of  course,  if  it  was  a  woman, 
violated.!  Every  man  was  obliged  to 
appear  armed,  and  to  be  ready,  with 
his  burgh  or  his  township,  to  repel 
marauders,  who  went  about  in  bands. \ 
The  animal  was  yet  too  powerful,  too 
impetuous,  too  untamed.  Anger  and 
covetousness  in  the  first  place  brought 
him  upon  his  prey.  Their  history,  I 
mean  that  of  the  Heptarchy,  is  like  a 
history  of  "  kites  and  crows."  §  They 
slew  the  Britons,  or  reduced  them  to 
slavery,  fought  the  remnant  of  the 
Welsh,  Irish,  and  Ficts,  massacred  one 
another,  were  hewn  down  and  cut  to 
pieces  by  the  Danes.  In  a  hundred 
years,  out  of  fourteen  kings  of  Nor- 
thumbria,  seven  were  slain  and  six 
deposed.  Penda  of  Mercia  killed  five 
kings,  and  in  order  to  take  the  town  of 
Bamborough,  demolished  all  the  neigh- 
boring villages,  heaped  their  ruins  into 
an  immense  pile,  sufficient  to  burn  all 
the  inhabitants,  undertook  to  exter- 
minate the  Northumbrians,  and  per- 
ished himself  by  the  sword  at  the  age 

*  A  large  district ;  the  word  is  still  existing 
/n  German,  as  Rheingau,  Breisgau. — TR. 

t  Turner,  Hist,  of  the  Anglo-Sax,  ii.  440, 
Laws  of  Ina. 

%  Such  a  band,  consisted  of  thirty-five  men  or 
more. 

§  Milton's  expression.  Lingard's  History, 
\.  chap,  j  This  history  bears  much  resem- 
blance to  that  of  the  Franks  in  Gaul.  See 
Gregory  of  Tours.  The  Saxons,  like  the 
Franks,  somewhat  softened,  but  rather  degene- 
rated, were  pillaged  and  massacred  by  those  of 
theh-  northern  brothers  who  still  remained  in  a 
savage  state. 


of  eighty.  Many  amongst  them  were 
put  to  death  by  the  thanes  ;  one  thane 
was  burned  alive  ;  brothers  slew  one 
another  treacherously.  With  us  civil- 
ization has  interposed,  between  the  de- 
sire and  its  fulfilment,  the  counteract- 
ing and  softening  preventive  of  reflec- 
tion and  calculation  ;  here,  the  impulse 
is  sudden,  and  murder  and  every  kind 
of  excess  spring  from  it  instantaneous- 
ly, King  Edwy*  having  married  El- 
giva,  his  relation  within  the  prohibited 
degrees,  quitted  the  hall  where  he  was 
drinking  on  the  very  day  of  his  coro- 
nation, to  be  with  her.  The  nobles 
thought  themselves  insulted,  and  im- 
mediately Abbot  Dunstan  went  him- 
self to  seek  the  young  man.  "  He 
found  the  adulteress,"  says  the  monk 
Osbern,  "  her  mother,  and  the  king  to- 
gether on  the  bed  of  debauch.  He 
dragged  the  king  thence  violently,  and 
setting  the  crown  upon  his  head, 
brought  him  back  to  the  nobles."  Af- 
terwards Elgiva  sent  men  to  put  out 
Dunstan's  eyes,  and  then,  in  a  revolt, 
saved  herself  and  the  king  by  hiding 
in  the  country ;  but  the  men  of  the 
North  having  seized  her,  "  hamstrung 
her,  and  then  subjected  her  to  the 
death  which  she  deserved."  t  Barbar- 
ity follows  barbarity.  At  Bristol,  at 
the  time  of  the  Conquest,  as  we  are 
told  by  an  historian  of  the  time,  }  it 
was  the  custom  to  buy  men  and  women 
in  all  parts  of  England,  and  to  carry 
them  to  Ireland  for  sale  in  order  to 
make  money.  The  buyers  usually 
made  the  young  women  pregnant,  and 
took  them  to  market  in  that  condition, 
in  order  to  ensure  a  better  price. 
"  You  might  have  seen  with  sorrow 
long  files  of  young  people  of  both 
sexes  and  of  the  greatest  beauty,  bound 
with  ropes,  and  daily  exposed  for  sale. 
.  .  .  They  sold  in  this  manner  as 
slaves  their  nearest  relatives,  and 
even  their  own  children."  And  the 
chronicler  adds  that,  having  abandoned 
this  practice,  they  "thus  set  an  ex- 
ample to  all  the  rest  of  England." 
Would  you  know  the  manners  of  the 

*  Vita  S.  Dunstani,  Anglia  Sacra,  ii. 

t  It  is  amusing  to  compare  the  story  of  Edwy 
and  Elgiva  in  Turner,  ii.  216,  etc.,  and  then  in 
Lingard,  i.  132,  etc.  The  first  accuses  Dun- 
stan, the  other  defends  him. — TR. 

t  Life  of  Bishop  Wolstan. 


3  g  THE  SOURCE. 

highest  ranks,  in  the  family  of  the  last 
king  ?  *  At  a  feast  in  the  king's  hall, 
Harold  was  serving  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor with  wine,  when  Tostig,  his 
brother,  moved  by  envy,  seized  him  by 
the  hair.  They  were  separated.  Tos- 
tig went  to  Hereford,  where  Harold 
had  ordered  a  royal  banquet  to  be  pre- 
pared. There  he  seized  his  brother's 
attendants,  and  cutting  off  their  heads 
and  limbs,  he  placed  them  in  the  ves- 
sels of  wine,  ale,  mead,  and  cider,  and 
sent  a  message  to  the  king  :  "  If  you 
go  to  your  farm,  you  will  find  there 
plenty  of  salt  meat,  but  you  will  do 
well  to  carry  some  more  with  you." 
Harold's  other  brother,  Sweyn,  had 
violated  the  abbess  Elgiva,  assassinated 
Beorn  the  thane,  and  being  banished 
from  the  country,  had  turned  pirate. 
When  we  regard  their  deeds  of  vio- 
lence, their  ferocity,  their  cannibal  jests, 
we  see  that  they  were  not  far  removed 
from  the  sea-kings,  or  from  the  follow- 
ers of  Odin,  who  ate  raw  flesh,  hung 
men  as  victims  on  the  sacred  trees  of 
Upsala,  and  killed  themselves  to  make 
sure  of  dying  as  they  had  lived,  in 
blood.  A  score  of  times  the  old  fero- 
cious instinct  reappears  beneath  the 
thin  crust  of  Christianity,  In  the 
eleventh  century,  Siward,  t  the  great 
Earl  of  Northumberland,  was  afflicted 
with  a  dysentery  ;  and  feeling  his  death 
near,  exclaimed,  "  What  a  shame  for 
me  not  to  have  been  permitted  to  die 
in  so  many  battles,  and  to  end  thus  by 
a  cow's  death !  At  least  put  on  my 
breastplate,  gird  on  my  sword,  set  my 
helmet  on  my  head,  my  shield  in  my 
left  hand,  my  battle-axe  in  my  right, 
so  that  a  stout  warrior,  like  myself, 
may  die  as  a  warrior."  They  did  as 
he  bade,  and  thus  died  he  honorably 
.11  his  armor.  They  had  made  one 
Step,  and  only  one,  from  barbarism. 

III. 

Under  this  native  barbarism  there 
were  noble  dispositions,  unknown  to 

*  Tantae  saevitiae  erant  fratres  illi  quod,  cum 
alicujus  nitidam  villam  conspicerent,  domina- 
torem  de  nocte  interfici  juberent,  totamque  pro- 
geniem  illius  possessionemque  defunct}  obtin- 
erent.  Turner,  iii.  27,  Henry  of  Huntingdon, 
vi.  367- 

t  "  Pene  gigas  statura,"  says  the  chronicler. 
H.  of  Huntingdon,  vi.  367.  Kemble,  i.  393. 
Turner,  ii.  318. 


[BOOR  1 


the  Roman  world,  which  were  destined 
to  produce  a  better  people  out  of  its 
ruins.  In  the  first  place,  "a  certain 
earnestness,  which  leads  them  out  of 
frivolous  sentiments  to  i  oble  ones."  * 
From  their  origin  in  Germany  this  is 
what  we  find  them,  severe  in  manners, 
with  grave  inclinations  and  a  manly 
dignity.  They  live  solitary,  each  one 
near  the  spring  or  the  wood  which  has 
taken  his  fancy. t  Even  in  villages 
the  cottages  were  detached  ;  they  must 
have  independence  and  free  air.  The? 
had  no  taste  for  voluptuousness  ;  love 
was  tardy,  education  severe,  their  food 
simple  ;  all  the  recreation  they  indulged 
in  was  the  hunting  of  the  aurochs, 
and  a  dance  amongst  naked  swords. 
Violent  intoxication  and  perilous  wa- 
gers were  their  weakest  points ;  they 
sought  in  preference  not  mild  pleasures, 
but  strong  excitement.  In  every  thing, 
even  in  their  rude  and  masculine  in- 
stincts, they  were  men.  Each  in  his 
own  home,  on  his  land  and  in  his  hut, 
was  his  own  master,  upright  and  free, 
in  no  wise  restrained  or  shackled.  If 
the  commonweal  received  any  thing 
from  him,  it  was  because  he  gave  it. 
He  gave  his  vote  in  arms  in  all  great 
conferences,  passed  judgment  in  the  as- 
sembly, made  alliances  and  wars  on 
his  own  account,  moved  from  place 
to  place,  showed  activity  and  daring.  J 
The  modern  Englishman  existed  entire 
in  this  Saxon.  If  he  bends,  it  is  be- 
cause he  is  quite  willing  to  bend ;  he  is 
no  less  capable  of  self-denial  than  of 
independence ;  self-sacrifice  is  not  un- 
common, a  man  cares  not  for  his  blood 
or  his  life.  In  Homer  the  warrior 
often  gives  way,  and  is  not  blamed  if 
he  flees.  In  the  Sagas,  in  the  Edda, 
he  must  be  over-brave ;  in  Germany 
the  coward  is  drowned  in  the  mud, 
under  a  hurdle.  Through  all  out- 
breaks of  primitive  brutality  gleams 
obscurely  the  grand  idea  of  duty, 
which  is,  the  self-constraint  exercised 
in  view  of  some  noble  end.  Marriage 
was  pure  amongst  them,  chastity  in- 
stinctive. Amongst  the  Saxons  the 
adulterer  was  punished  by  death  ;  the 

*  Grimm,  Mythology,  £3,  Preface. 

t  Tacitus,  xx.  xxiii.  xi.  xii.  xiii.  et  passim. 
We  may  still  see  the  traces  of  this  taste  in 
English  dwellings. 

t  Tacitus,  xiii. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


39 


adulteress  was  obliged  to  hang  herself, 
or  was  stabbed  by  the  knives  of  her 
companions.  The  wives  of  the  Cim- 
brians,  when  they  could  not  obtain 
from  Marius  assurawce  of  their  chas- 
t'ty,  slew  themselves  with  their  own 
hands.  They  thought  there  was  some- 
thing sacred  in  a  woman ;  they  mar- 
ried but  one,  and  kept  faith  with  her. 
In  fifteen  centuries  the  idea  of  mar- 
riage is  unchanged  amongst  them. 
The  wife,  on  entering  her  husband's 
home,  is  aware  that  she  gives  herself 
altogether,  *  "  that  she  will  have  but 
one  body,  one  life  with  him ;  that  she 
will  have  no  thought,  no  desire  beyond : 
that  she  will  be  the  companion  of  his 
perils  and  labors  ;  that  she  will  suffer 
and  dare  as  much  as  he,  both  in  peace 
and  war."  And  he,  like  her,  knows 
that  he  gives  himself.  Having  chosen 
his  chief,  he  forgets  himself  in  him,  as- 
signs to  him  his  own  glory,  serves  him 
to  the  death.  "  He  is  infamous  as  long 
as  he  lives,  who  returns  from  the  field  of 
battle  without  his  chief."  t  It  was  on 
this  voluntary  subordination  that  feu- 
dal society  was  based.  Man  in  this  race, 
can  accept  a  superior,  can  be  capable 
of  devotion  and  respect.  Thrown 
back  upon  himself  by  the  gloom  and 
severity  of  his  climate,  he  has  dis- 
covered moral  beauty,  while  others 
discover  sensuous  beauty.  This  kind 
of  naked  brute,  who  lies  all  day  by  his 
fireside,  sluggish  and  dirty,  always  eat- 
ing and  drinking,  \  whose  rusty  facul- 
ties cannot  follow  the  clear  and  fine 
outlines  of  happily  created  poetic 
forms,  catches  a  glimpse  of  the  sub- 
lime in  his  troubled  dreams.  He  does 
not  see  it,  but  simply  feels  it ;  his  re- 
ligion is  already  within,  as  it  will  be  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  when  he  will 
cast  off  the  sensuous  worship  im- 
ported from  Rome,  and  hallow  the 
faith  o*  *he  heart.  §  His  gods  are  not 
enclosed  in  walls ;  he  has  no  idols. 
WL^c  he  designates  by  divine  names,  is 
something  invisible  and  grand,  which 
floats  through  nature,  and  is  conceived 
beyond  nature,  ||  a  mysterious  infinity 

*  Tacitus,  xix.  viii.  xvi.     Kemble,  i.  232. 

t  Tacitus,  xiv. 

t  "  In  omni  domo,  nudi  et  sordid!.  .  .  .  Plus 
per  otiuni  transigunt,  dediti  somno,  ciboque  ; 
totos  dies  juxta  focum  atque  ignem  agunt." 

§  Grimm,  53,  Preface.     Tacitus,  x. 

U  Deorum  nominibus  appellant  secretum  il- 


which  the  sense  cannot  touch,  but 
which  "  reverence  alone  can  feel ;  " 
and  when,  later  on,  the  legends  define 
and  alter  this  vague  divination  of  nat- 
ural powers,  one  idea  remains  at  the 
bottom  of  this  chaos  of  giant-dreams, 
namely,  that  the  world  is  a  warfare, 
and  heroism  the  highest  good. 

In  the  beginning,  say  the  old  Ice- 
landic legends,*  there  were  two  worlds, 
Niflheim  the  frozen,  and  Muspell  the 
burning.  From  the  falling  snow-flakes 
was  born  the  giant  Ymir.  "  There 
was  in  times  of  old,  where  Ymir  dwelt, 
nor  sand  nor  sea,  nor  gelid  waves ; 
earth  existed  not,  nor  heaven  above  , 
'twas  a  chaotic  chasm,  and  grass  no- 
where." There  was  but  Ymir,  the 
horrible  frozen  Ocean,  with  his  chil- 
dren, sprung  from  his  feet  and  his  arm- 
pits ;  then  their  shapeless  progeny, 
Terrors  of  the  abyss,  barren  Moun- 
tains, Whirlwinds  of  the  North,  and 
other  malevolent  beings,  enemies  of 
the  sun  and  of  life ;  then  the  cow  And- 
humbla,  born  also  of  melting  snow, 
brings  to  light,  whilst  licking  the  hoar- 
frost from  the  rocks,  a  man  Bur,  whose 
grandsons  kill  the  giant  Ymir.  "  From 
his  flesh  the  earth  was  formed,  and 
from  his  bones  the  hills,  the  heaven 
from  the  skull  of  that  ice-cold  giant, 
and  from  his  blood  the  sea ;  but  of  his 
brains  the  heavy  clouds  are  all  crea- 
ted." Then  arose  war  between  the 
monsters  of  winter  and  the  luminous 
fertile  gods,  Odin  the  founder,  Baldur 
the  mild  and  benevolent,  Thor  the 
summer-thunder,  who  purifies  the  air, 
and  nourishes  the  earth  with  showers. 
Long  fought  the  gods  against  the 
frozen  Jotuns,  against  the  dark  bestial 
powers,  the  Wolf  Fenrir,  the  great 
Serpent,  whom  they  drown  in  the  sea, 
the  treacherous  Loki,  whom  they  bind 
to  the  rocks,  beneath  a  viper  whose 
venom  drops  continually  on  his  face. 
Long  will  the  heroes,  who  by  a  bloody 

lud,  quod  sola  reverentia  vident."  Later  on, 
at  Upsala  for  instance,  they  had  images  (Adam 
of  Bremen,  Historia  Ecclesiastica).  Wuotan 
(Odin)  signifies  etymologically  the  All-Power- 
ful, him  who  penetrates  and  circulates  through 
every  tiling  (Grimm,  Mythol^). 

*  Scemundar  Edda,  Snorra  Edda,  ed. 
Copenhagen,  three  vols.  passim.  Mr.  Berg- 
mann  has  translated  several  of  these  poems 
into  French,  which  Mr.  Taine  quotes.  The 
translator  has  generally  made  use  of  the  editio* 
of  Mr.  Thorpe,  London,  1866. 


THE  SOURCE. 


[Booic  i. 


death  deserve  to  be  placed  "in  the 
halls  of  Odin,  and  there  wage  a  com- 
bat every  day,"  assist  the  gods  in  their 
mighty  war.  A  day  will,  howeve^ 
arrive  when  gods  and  men  will  be 
conquered.  Then 

*'  trembles  Yggdrasil's  ash  yet  standing ; 
groans  that  ancient  tree,  and  the  Jotun  Loki 
is  loosed.  The  shadows  groan  on  the  ways  oJ 
Hel,*  until  the  fire  of  Surt  has  consumed  the 
tree.  Hrym  steers  from  the  east,  the  waters 
rise,  the  mundane  snake  is  coiled  in  jotun- 
rage.  The  worm  beats  the  water,  and  the 
eagle  screams  ;  the  pale  of  beak  tears  carcases; 
(the  ship)  Naglfar  is  loosed.  Surt  from  the 
South  comes  with  flickering  flame  ;  shines  from 
his  sword  the  Val-god's  sun.  The  stony  hills 
are  dashed  together,  the  giantesses  totter  ;  men 
tread  the  path  of  He!,  and  heaven  is  cloven. 
The  sun  darkens,  earth  in  ocean  sinks,  fall 
from  heaven  the  bright  stars,  fire's  breath  as- 
sails the  all-nourishing  tree,  towering  fire  plays 
against  heaven  itself."  t 

The  gods  perish,  devoured  one  by  one 
by  the  monsters ;  and  the  celestial 
legend,  sad  and  grand  now  like  the 
life  of  man,  bears  witness  to  the 
hearts  of  warriors  and  heroes. 

There  is  no  fear  of  pain,  no  care  for 
life ;  they  count  it  as  dross  when  the 
idea  has  seized  upon  them.  The 
trembling  of  the  nerves,  the  repugnance 
of  animal  instinct  which  starts  back 
before  wounds  and  death,  are  all  lost 
in  an  irresistible  determination.  See 
how  in  their  epic  J  the  sublime  springs 
up  amid  the  horrible,  like  a  bright 
purple  flower  amid  a  pool  of  blood. 
Sigurd  has  plunged  his  sword  into  the 
dragon  Fafnir,  and  at  that  very  mo- 
ment they  looked  on  one  another  ;  and 
Fafnir  asks,  as  he  dies,  "  Who  art 
thou  ?  and  who  is  thy  father  ?  and  what 
thy  kin,  that  thou  wert  so  hardy  as  to 
beai  weapons  against  me  ? "  "A 
hardy  heart  urged  me  on  thereto,  and 
a  strong  hand  and  this  sharp  sword. 
....  Seldom  halh  hardy  eld  a  faint- 
heart youth."  After  this  triumphant 
eagle's  cry  &  ?urd  cuts  out  the  worm's 

*  Hel,  the  goddess  of  death,  born  of  Loki 
and  Angrboda. — TR. 

t  Thorpe,  The  Edda  ofScemund,  TheVala?  s 
Prophecy,  str.  48-56,  p.  q  et  passim. 

%  Fafnismal  Edda.  This  epic  is  common  to 
the  Northern  races,  as  is  the  Iliad  to  the 
Greek  populations,  and  is  found  almost  entire 
in  Germany  in  the  Nibelungen  Lied.  The 
translator  has  also  used  Magnusson  and  Mor- 
ris' poetical  version  of  the  Volsunga  Saga, 
and  certain  songs  of  the  Elder  Eddat  London, 
1870. 


heart ;  but  Regin,  brother  of  Fafnir 
drinks  blood  from  the  wound,  and  falls 
asleep.  Sigurd,  who  was  roasting  the 
heart,  raises  his  finger  thoughtlessly  to 
his  lips.  Forthwith  he  understands 
the  language  of  the  birds.  The  eagles 
scream  above  him  in  the  branches. 
They  warn  him  to  mistrust  Regin. 
Sigurd  cuts  off  the  latter's  head,  eats 
of  Fafnir's  heart,  drinks  his  blood  and 
his  brother's.  Amongst  all  these  mur- 
ders their  courage  and  poetry  g— w. 
Sigurd  has  subdued  Brynhild,  the  un- 
tamed maiden,  by  passing  through  the 
flaming  fire  ;  they  share  one  couch  for 
three  nights,  his  naked  sword  betwixt 
them.  "  Nor  the  damsel  did  he  kiss, 
nor  did  the  Tlunnish  king  to  his  arm 
lift  her.  He  the  blooming  maid  to 
Giuki's  son  delivered,"  because,  ac- 
cording to  his  oath,  he  must  send  her 
to  her  betrothed  Gunnar,  She,  setting 
her  love  upon  him,  "Alone  she  sat 
without,  at  eve  of  day,  began  aloud 
with  herself  to  speak  :  '  Sigurd  must 
be  mine  ;  I  must  die,  or  that  blooming 
youth  clasp  in  my  arms. '  "  But  seeing 
him  married,  she  brings  about  his 
death.  <:  Laughed  then  Brynhild, 
Budli's  daughter,  once  only,  from  her 
whole  soul,  when  in  her  bed  she  lis- 
tened to  the  loud  lament  of  Giuki's 
daughter."  She  put  on  her  golden 
corslet,  pierced  herself  with  the  sword's 
point,  and  as  a  last  request  said  : 

"  Let  in  the  plain  be  raised  a  pile  so  spacious, 
:hat  for  us  all  like  room  may  be  ;  let  them  burn 
:he  Hun  (Sigurd)  on  the  one  side  of  me,  on  the 
other  side  my  household  slaves,  with  collars 
splendid,  two  at  our  heads,  and  two  hawks ; 
et  also  lie  between  us  both  the  keen-edged 
sword,  as  when  we  both  one  couch  ascended ; 
also  five  female  thralls,  eight  male  slaves  of 
;entle  birth  fostered  with  me."  * 

All  were  burnt  together ;  yet  Gudrun 
the  widow  continued  motionless  by  the 
corpse,  and  could  not  weep.  The 
wives  of  the  jarls  came  to  console  her, 
and  each  of  them  told  her  own  sorrows, 
all  the  calamities  of  great  devastations 
and  the  old  life  of  barbarism. 

"  Then  spoke  Giaflang,  Giuki's  sister :  '  Lo, 
up  on  earth  I  live  most  loveless,  who  of  five 
mates  must  see  the  ending,  of  daughters  twain 
and  three  sisters,  of  brethern  eight,  and  abide 
>ehind  lonely.'  Then  spake  Herborg,  Queen 


*  Thorpe,    The  Edda  of  Scemund,   Third 
lay  of  Sigurd  Fafnicidet  str.  62-64,  p.  83. 


CHAP.  L] 


THE  SAXONS. 


of  Hunland :  '  Crueller  tale  have  I  to  tell  of 
my  seven  sons,  down  in  the  Southlands,  and 
the  eight  man,  my  mate,  felled  in  the  death- 
mead.  Father  and  mother,  and  four  brothers 
on  the  wide  sea  the  winds  and  death  played 
with  ;  the  billows  beat  on  the  bulwark  boards. 
Alone  must  I  sing  o'er  them,  alone  must  I 
array  them,  alone  must  my  hands  deal  with 
their  departing ,  and  all  this  was  in  one  sea- 
son's wearing,  and  none  was  left  for  love  or 
solace.  Then  was  I  bound  a  prey  of  the  battle 
when  that  same  season  wore  to  its  ending  ;  as 
a  tiring  may  must  I  bind  the  shoon  of  the 
duke's  high  dame,  every  day  at  dawning. 
From  her  jealous  hate  gat  I  heavy  mocking, 
cruel  lashes  she  laid  upon  me.'  "  * 

All  was  in  vain  ;  no  word  could  draw 
tears  from  those  dry  eyes.  They  were 
obliged  to  lay  the  bloody  corpse  be- 
fore her,  ere  her  tears  would  come. 
Then  tears  flowed  through  the  pillow ; 
as  "  the  geese  withal  that  were  in  the 
home-field,  the  fair  fowls  the  may 
owned,  fell  a-screaming."  She  would 
have  died,  like  Sigrun,  on  the  corpse 
of  him  whom  alone  she  had  loved,  if 
they  had  not  deprived  her  of  memory 
by  a  magic  potion.  Thus  affected, 
she  departs  in  order  to  marry  Atli, 
king  of  the  Huns;  and  yet  she  goes 
against  her  will,  with  gloomy  forebod- 
ings ;  for  murder  begets  murder ;  and 
her  brothers,  the  murderers  of  Sigurd, 
having  been  drawn  to  Atli's  court, 
fall  in  their  turn  into  a  snare  like  that 
which  they  had  themselves  laid.  Then 
Gunnar  was  bound,  and  they  tried  to 
make  him  deliver  up  the  treasure.  He 
answers  with  a  barbarian's  laugh  : 

" '  Hogni's  heart  in  my  hand  shall  lie,  cut 
bloody  from  the  breast  of  the  valiant  chief,  the 
king's  son,  with  a  dull-edged  knife.'  They  the 
heart  cut  out  from  Hialli's  breast ;  on  a  dish, 
bleeding,  laid  it,  and  it  to  Gunnar  bare.  Then 
said  Gunnar,  lord  of  men:  'Here  have  I  the 
heart  of  the  timid  Hialli,  unlike  the  heart  of 
the  bold  Hb'gni ;  for  much  it  trembles  as  in  the 
aish  it  lies ;  it  trembles  more  by  half  while  in 
his  breast  it  lay."  Hogni  laughed  when  to  his 
heart  they  cut  the  living  crest-crasher  ;  no  la- 
ment uttered  he.  All  bleeding  on  a  dish  they 
laid  it,  and  it  to  Gunnar  bare.  Calmly  said 
Gunnar,  the  warrior  Niflung  :  '  Here  have  I 
the  heart  of  the  bold  Hogni,  unlike  the  heart 
of  the  timid  Hialli  ;  for  it  little  trembles  as  in 
the  dish  it  lies :  it  trembled  less  while  in  his 
breast  it  lay.  So  far  shalt  thou,  Atli!  be  from 
the  eyes  of  men  as  thou  wilt  from  the  treasures 
be.  In  my  power  alone  is  all  the  hidden  Ni- 
flung's  gold,  now  that  Hogni  lives  not.  Ever 


*  Magnusson  and  Morris,  Story  of  the  Vol~ 
rungs  and  NibehwgS)  Lamentation  of  Gud- 
run,  rx  118  et  passim. 


was  I  wavering  while  we  both  lived  ;  now  am 
I  so  no  longer,  as  I  alone  survive.' "  * 

It  was  the  last  insult  of  the  self-confident 
man,  who  values  neither  his  own  life 
nor  that  of  another,  so  that  he  can 
satiate  his  vengeance.  They  cast  him 
into  the  serpent's  den,  and  there  he 
died,  striking  his  harp  with  his  foot. 
But  the  inextinguishable  flame  of  ven- 
geance passed  from  his  heart  to  that 
of  his  sister.  Corpse  after  corpse  fall 
on  each  other  ;  a  mighty  fury  hurls 
them  open-eyed  to  death.  She  killed 
the  children  she  had  by  Atli,  and  one 
day  on  his  return  from  the  carnage, 
gave  him  their  hearts  to  eat,  served  in 
honey,  and  laughed  coldly  as  she  told 
him  on  what  he  had  fed.  "Uproar 
was  on  the  benches,  portentous  the 
cry  of  men,  noise  beneath  the  costly 
hangings.  The  children  of  the  Huns 
wept;  all  wept  save  Gudrun,  who 
never  wept  or  for  her  bear-fierce 
brothers,  or  for  her  dear  sons,  young, 
simple."!  Judge  from  this  heap  of 
ruin  and  carnage  to  what  excess'  the 
will  is  strung.  There  were  men  amongst 
them,  Berserkirs,£  who  in  battle  seized 
with  a  sort  of  madness,  showed  a 
sudden  and  superhuman  strength,  and 
ceased  to  feel  their  wounds.  This  is 
the  conception  of  a  hero  as  engendered 
by  this  race  in  its  infancy.  Is  it  not 
strange  to  see  them  place  their  happi- 
ness in  battle,  their  beauty  in  death  ? 
Is  there  any  people,  Hindoo,  Persian, 
Greek,  or  Gallic,  which  has  formed  so 
tragic  a  conception  of  life  ?  Is  there 
any  which  has  peopled  its  infantine 
mind  with  such  gloomy  dreams?  Is 
there  any  which  has  so  entirely  banished 
from  its  dreams  the  sweetness  of  en- 
joyment, and  the  softness  of  pleasure  ? 
Endeavors,  tenacious  and  mournful  en- 
deavors, an  ecstasy  of  endeavors — such 
was  their  chosen  condition.  Carlyle 
said  well,  that  in  the  sombre  obstinacy 
of  an  English  laborer  still  survives 
the  tacit  rage  of  the  Scandinavian 
warrior.  Strife  for  strife's  sake— such 
is  their  pleasure.  With  what  sadness, 
madness,  destruction,  such  a  disposi- 

*  Thorpe,  The  Edda  of  Samund,  Lay  oj 
Itli,  str.  21-27,  P-  IJ7- 

t  ibid.  str.  38,  p.  119. 

%  This  word  signifies  men  who  fovight  without 
a  breastplate,  perhaps  in  shirts  only  :  Scottice 
"Baresarks/'— TR. 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I, 


tion  breaks  its  bonds,  we  shall  see  in 
Shakespeare  and  Byron ;  with  what 
vigor  and  purpose  it  can  limit  and  em- 
ploy itself  when  possessed  by  moral 
ideas,  we  shall  see  in  the  case  of  the 
Puritans. 

IV. 

They  have  established  themselves  in 
England ;  and  however  disordered  the 
society  which  binds  them  together,  it 
is  founded,  as  in  Germany,  on  generous 
sentiment.  War  is  at  every  door,  I  am 
aware,  but  warlike  virtues  are  within 
every  house  ;  courage  chiefly,  then 
fidelity.  Under  the  brute  there  is  a 
free  man,  and  a  man  of  spirit.  There 
is  no  man  amongst  them  who,  at  his 
own  risk,*  will  not  make  alliance,  go 
forth  to  fight,  undertake  adventures. 
There  is  no  group  of  free  men  amongst 
them,  who,  in  their  Witenagemote,  is 
not  forever  concluding  alliances  one 
with  another.  Every  clan,  in  its  own 
district,  forms  a  league  of  which  all  the 
members,  "  brothers  of  the  sword," 
defend  each  other,  and  demand  re- 
venge for  the  spilling  of  blood,  at  the 
price  of  their  own.  Every  chief  in  his 
hall  reckons  that  he  has  friends,  not 
mercenaries,  in  the  faithful  ones  who 
drink  his  beer,  and  who,  having  re- 
ceived as  marks  of  his  esteem  and 
confidence,  bracelets,  swords,  and 
suits  of  armor,  will  cast  themselves 
between  him  and  danger  on  the  day  of 
baltle.t  Independence  and  boldness 
rage  amongst  this  young  nation  with 
violence  and  excess ;  but  these  are  of 
themselves  noble  things  ;  and  no  less 
noble  are  the  sentiments  which  serve 
them  for  discipline, — to  wit,  affection- 
ate devotion,  and  respect  for  plighted 
faith.  These  appear  in  their  laws,  and 
break  forth  in  their  poetry.  Amongst 
them  greatness  of  heart  gives  matter 
for  imagination.  Their  characters  are 
not  selfish  and  shifty,  like  those  of 
Homer.  They  are  brave  hearts,  simple 
and  strong,  faithful  to  their  relatives, 
to  their  master  in  arms,  firm  and  stead- 
fast to  enemies  and  friends,  abounding 
in  courage,  and  ready  for  sacrifice. 
"  Old  as  I  am,"  says  one,  "  I  will  not 

*  See  the  Life  of  Sweyn,  of  Hereward,  etc., 
even  up  to  the  time  of  the  Conquest. 
+  Beowulf,  passim.  Death  of  J3yrhtnoth. 


budge  hence.  I  mean  to  die  by  my 
lord's  side,  near  this  man  I  have  loved 
so  much.  He  kept  his  word,  the  word 
he  had  given  to  his  chief,  to  the  distrib- 
utor of  gifts,  promising  him  that  they 
should  return  to  the  town,  safe  and 
sound  to  their  homes,  or  that  they 
would  fall  both  together,  in  the  thick 
of  the  carnage,  covered  with  wounds. 
He  lies  by  his  master's  side,  like  a 
faithful  servant."  Though  awkward 
in  speech,  their  old  poets  find  touch- 
ing words  when  they  have  to  paint 
these  manly  friendships.  We  cannot 
without  emotion  hear  them  relate  ho^ 
the  old  "king  embraced  the  best  ot 
his  thanes,  and  put  his  arms  about  his 
neck,  how  the  tears  flowed  down  the 
cheeks  of  the  greyhaired  chief.  .  .  . 
The  valiant  man  was  so  dear  to  him. 
He  could  not  stop  the  flood  which 
mounted  from  his  breast.  In  his  heart, 
deep  in  the  chords  of  his  soul,  he 
sighed  in  secret  after  the  beloved  man." 
Few  as  are  the  songs  which  remain  to 
us,  they  return  to  this  subject  again 
and  again.  The  wanderer  in  a  reverie 
dreams  about  his  lord :  *  It  seems 
to  him  in  his  spirit  as  if  he  kisses  and 
embraces  him,  and  lays  head  and  hands 
upon  his  knees,  as  oft  before  in  the 
olden  time,  when  he  rejoiced  in  his 
gifts.  Then  he  wakes — a  man  with- 
out friends.  He  sees  before  him  the 
desert  tracks,  the  sea-birds  dipping  in 
the  waves,  stretching  wide  their  wings, 
the  frost  and  the  snow,  mingled  with 
falling  hail.  Then  his  heart's  wounds 
press  more  heavily.  Then  the  exile 
says : — 

"In  blithe  habits  full  oft  we,  too,  agreed  that 
nought  else  should  divide  us  except  death  alone  ; 
at  length  this  is  changed,  and  as  if  it  had  never 
been  is  now  our  friendship.  To  endure  enmi- 
ties man  orders  me  to  dwell  in  the  bowers  of 
the  forest,  under  the  oak-tree  in  this  earthy 
cave.  Cold  is  this  earth-dwelling  :  I  am  quite 
wearied  out.  Dim  are  the  dells,  high  up  are 
the  mountains,  a  bitter  city  of  twigs,  with  briars 
overgrown,  a  joyless  abode.  .  .  .  My  friends 
are  in  the  earth  ;  those  loved  in  life,  the  tomb 
holds  them.  The  grave  is  guarding,  while  I 
above  alone  am  going.  Under  the  oak-tree, 
beyond  this  earth-cave,  there  I  must  tit  the 
long  summer-day." 

Amid  their  perilous  mode  of  life,  and 
the  perpetual  appeal  to  arms,  there 

*  The  Wanderer,  the  Exile's  Song,  Codex 
Exoniensis,  published  by  Thorpe. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


43 


exists  no  sentiment  more  warm  than 
friendship,  nor  any  virtue  stronger  loy- 
alty. 

Thus  supported  by  powerful  affec- 
tion and  trysted  word,  society  is  kept 
wholesome.  Marriage  is  like  the  state. 
We  find  women  associating  with  the 
men,  at  their  feasts,  sober  and  re- 
spected.* She  speaks,  and  they  listen 
to  her ;  no  need  for  concealing  or  en- 
sluving  her,  in  order  to  restrain  or 
retain  her.  She  is  a  person,  and  not 
a  thing.  The  law  demands  her  con- 
sent to  marriage,  surrounds  her  with 
guarantees,  accords  her  protection. 
She  can  inherit,  possess,  bequeath,  ap- 
ptar  in  courts  of  justice,  in  county 
assemblies,  in  the  great  congress  of 
the  elders.  Frequently  the  name  of 
the  queen  and  of  several  other  ladies 
is  inscribed  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
Witenagemote.  Law  and  tradition 
maintain  her  integrity,  as  if  she  were  a 
man,  and  side  by  side  with  men.  Her 
affections  captivate  her,  as  if  she  were 
a  man,  and  side  by  side  with  men.  In 
Alfred  t  there  is  a  portrait  of  the  wife, 
which  for  purity  and  elevation  equals 
ah  that  we  can  devise  with  our  modern 
refinements.  "  Thy  wife  now  lives  for 
thee — for  thee  alone.  She  has  enough 
of  all  kind  of  wealth  for  this  present 
life,  but  she  scorns  them  all  for  thy 
sake  alone.  She  has  forsaken  them 
all,  because  she  had  not  tiiee  with 
them.  Thy  absence  makes  her  think 
that  all  she  possesses  is  naught.  Thus, 
for  love  of  thee,  she  is  wasted  away, 
and  lies  near  death  for  tears  and  grief." 
Already,  in  the  legends  of  the  Edda, 
we  have  seen  the  maiden  Sigrun  at 
the  tomb  of  Helgi,  "  as  glad  as  the 
voracious  hawks  of  Odin,  when  they 
nf  slaughter  know,  of  warm  prey," 
desiring  to  sleep  still  in  the  arms  of 
death,  and  die  at  last  on  his  giave. 
Nothing  here  like  the  love  we  find  in 
rr.e  primitive  poetry  of  France,  Prov- 
ence, Spain,  and  Greece.  There  is  an 
absence  of  gayety,  of  delight ;  outside 
of  marriage  it  is  only  a  ferocious  ap- 
petite, an  outbreak  of  the  instinct  of 
the  beast.  It  appears  nowhere  with 
its  charm  and  its  smile;  there  is  no 
love  song  in  this  ancient  poetry.  The 

*  Turner,  Hist.  Angl.  Sax.  iii.  63, 
t  Alfred  borrows  his  portrait  from  Boethius, 
but  almost  entirely  rewrites  it. 


reason  is,  that  with  them  love  is  not 
an  amusement  and  a  pleasure,  but  a 
promise  and  a  devotion.  All  is  grave, 
even  sombre,  in  civil  relations  as  well 
as  in  conjugal  society.  As  in  Germany, 
amid  the  sadness  of  a  melancholic 
temperament  and  the  savagery  of  a 
barbarous  life,  the  most  tragic  human 
faculties,  the  deep  power  of  love  and 
the  grand  power  of  will,  are  the  only 
ones  that  sway  and  act. 

This  is  why  the  hero,  as  in  Ger- 
many, is  truly  heroic.  Let  us  speak 
of  him  at  length ;  we  pcssess  one  of 
their  poems,  that  of  Beowulf,  almost 
entire.  Here  are  the  stories,  which 
the  thanes,  seated  on  their  stools,  by 
the  light  of  their  torches,  listened  to 
as  they  drank  the  ale  of  their  king  ;  we 
can  glean  thence  their  manners  and 
sentiments,  as  in  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  those  of  the  Greeks.  Beowulf 
is  a  hero,  a  knight-errant  before  the 
days  of  chivalry,  as  the  leaders  of  the 
German  bands  were  feudal  chiefs  be- 
fore the  institution  of  feudalism.*  He 
has  "  rowed  upon  the  sea,  his  naked 
sword  hard  in  his  hand,  amidst  the 
fierce  waves  and  coldest  of  storms,  and 
the  rage  of  winter  hurtled  over  the 
waves  of  the  deep."  The  sea-monsters, 
"the  many-colored  foes,  drew  him  to 
the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  held  him 
fast  in  their  gripe."  But  he  reached 
"  the  wretches  with  his  point  and  with 
his  war-bill."  "  The  mighty  sea-beast 
received  the  war-rush  through  his 
hands,"  and  he  slew  nine  Nicors  (sea- 
monsters).  And  now  behold  him,  as 
he  comes  across  the  waves  to  succor 
the  old  King  Hrothgar,  who  with  his 
vassals  sits  afflicted  in  his  great  mead- 
hall,  high  and  curved  with  pinnacles. 
For  "  a  grim  stranger,  Grendel,  a 
mighty  haunter  of  the  marshes,"  had 
entered  his  hall  during  the  night,  seized 
thirty  of  the  thanes  who  were  asleep, 
and  returned  in  his  war-craft  with  their 
carcasses  ;  for  twelve  years  the  dread- 
ful ogre,  the  beastly  and  greedy  crea- 
ture, father  of  Orks  and  Jotuns,  de- 
voured men  and  emptied  the  best  of 

*  Kemble  thinks  that  the  origin  of  this  poem 
is  very  ancient,  perhaps  contemporary  with  the 
invasion  of  the  Angles  and  Saxons,  but  that 
the  version  we  possess  is  later  than  the  seventh 
century.— Kemble' s  Beowulf,  text  and  transla- 
tion, 1833.  The  characters  are  Danish. 


44 


THE  SOURCE 


[BOOK  I. 


houses.  Beowulf,  the  great  warrior, 
offers  to  grapple  with  the  fiend,  and 
foe  to  foe  contend  for  life,  without  the 
bearing  of  either  sword  or  ample  shield, 
for  he  has  "  learned  also  that  the 
wretch  for  his  cursed  hide  recketh  not 
of  weapons,"  asking  only  that  if  death 
takes  him,  they  will  bear  forth  his 
bloody  corpse  and  bury  it ;  mark  his 
fen-dwelling,  and  send  to  Hygelac,  his 
chief,  the  best  of  war-shrouds  that 
guards  his  breast. 

He  is  lying  in  the  hall,  "  trusting  in 
his  proud  strength  ;  and  when  the  mists 
of  night  arose,  lo,  Grendel  comes,  tears 
open  the  door,"  seized  a  sleeping  war- 
rior: "  he  tore  him -unawares,  he  bit 
his  body,  he  drank  the  blood  from  the 
veins,  he  swallowed  him  with  continual 
tearings."  But  Beowulf  seized  him  in 
turn,  and  "  raised  himself  upon  his 
elbow." 

"  The  lordly  hall  thundered,  the  ale  was 
spilled  .  .  .  both  were  enraged ;  savage  and 
strong  warders ;  the  house  resounded ;  then 
was  it  a  great  wonder  that  the  wine-hall  with- 
stood the  beasts  of  war,  that  it  fell  not  upon 
the  earth,  the  fair  palace  ;  but  it  was  thus  fast. 
.  .  .  The  noise  arose,  new  enough  ;  a  fearful 
terror  fell  on  the  North  Danes,  on  each  of 
those  who  from  the  wall  heard  the  outcry, 
God's  denier  sing_  his  dreadful  lay,  his  song  of 
defeat,  lament  his  wound.*  .  .  .  The  foul 
wretch  awaited  the  mortal  wound ;  a  mighty 
gash  was  evident  upon  his  shoulder  ;  the  sinews 
sprung  asunder,  the  junctures  of  the  bones 
burst ;  success  in  war  was  given  to  Beowulf. 
Thence  must  Grendel  fly  sick  unto  death, 
among  the  refuges  of  the  fens,  to  seek  his  joy- 
less dwelling.  He  all  the  better  knew  that  the 
end  of  his  life,  the  number  of  his  days  was  gone 
by."t 

For  he  had  left  on  the  ground,  "  hand, 
arm,  and  shoulder ;"  and  "  in  the  lake 
or  Nicors,  where  he  was  driven,  the 
rough  wave  was  boiling  with  blood,  the 
foul  spring  of  waves  all  mingled,  hot 
with  poison  ;  the  dye,  discolored  with 
death,  bubbled  with  warlike  gore." 
There  remained  a  female  monster,  his 
mother,  who  like  him  "  was  doomed  to 
inhabit  the  terror  of  waters,  the  cold 
streams,"  who  came  by  night,  and 
amidst  drawn  swords  tore  and  devoured 
another  man,  ^Eschere,  the  king's  best 
friend.  A  lamentation  arose  in  the 
palace,  and  Beowulf  offered  himself 
again.  They  went  to  the  den,  a  hidden 

*  Kemble's  Beowulf,  xi.  p.  32. 
t  Ibid.  xii.  p.  34. 


land,  the  refuge  of  the  wolf,  near  the 
windy  promontories,  where  a  mountain 
stream  rusheth  downwards  under  the 
darkness  of  the  hills,  a  flood  beneath 
the  earth  ;  the  wood  fast  by  its  roots 
overshadoweth  the  water ;  there  may 
one  by  night  behold  a  marvel,  fire  upon 
the  flood  :  the  stepper  over  the  heath, 
when  wearied  out  by  the  hounds,  sooner 
will  give  up  his  soul,  his  life  upon  the 
brink,  than  plunge  therein  to  hide  his 
head.  Strange  dragons  and  serpents 
swam  there ;  "  from  time  to  time  the 
horn  sang  a  dirge,  a  terrible  song." 
Beowulf  plunged  into  the  wave,  de- 
scended, passed  monsters  who  tore  his 
coat  of  mail,  to  the  ogress,  the  hateful 
manslayer,  who,  seizing  him  in  her 
grasp,  bore  him  off  to  her  dwelling. 
A  pale  gleam  shone  brightly,  and  there, 
face  to  face,  the  good  champion  per- 
ceived 

"  the  she-wolf  of  the  abyss,  the  mighty  sea- 
woman  ;  he  gave  the  war-onset  with  his  battle- 
bill  ;  he  held  not  back  the  swing  of  the  sword, 
so  that  on  her  head  the  nng-mail  sang  aloud  a 
greedy  war-song.  .  .  .  The  beam  of  war  would 
not  bite.  Then  caught  the  prince  of  the  War- 
Geats  Grendel's  mother  by  the  shoulder  .  .  . 
twisted  the  homicide,  so  that  she  bent  upon  the 
the  floor.  .  .  .  She  drew  her  knife  broad, 
brown-edged  (and  tried  to  pierce),  the  twisted 
breast-net  which  protected  his  life.  .  .  .  Then 
saw  he  among  the  weapons  a  bill  fortunate  in 
victory,  an  old  gigantic  sword,  doughty  of  edge, 
ready  for  use,  the  work  of  giants.  He  seized 
the  belted  hilt ;  the  warrior  of  the  Scyldings, 
fierce  and  savage  whirled  the  ring-mail  ;  de- 
spairing of  life,  he  struck  furiously,  so  that  it 
frappled  hard  with  her  about  her  neck ;  it 
roke  the  bone-rings,  the  bill  passed  through 
all  the  doomed  body  ;  she  sank  upon  the  floor ; 
the  sword  was  bloody,  the  man  rejoiced  in  his 
deed  ;  the  beam  shone,  light  stood  within,  even 
as  from  heaven  mildly  shines  the  lamp  of  the 
firmament."  * 

Then  he  saw  Grendel  dead  in  a  corner 
of  the  hall ;  and  four  of  his  companions, 
having  with  difficulty  raised  the  mon- 
strous head,  bore  it  by  the  hair  to  the 
palace  of  the  king. 

That  was  his  first  labor;  and  the 
rest  of  his  life  was  similar.  When  he 
had  reigned  fifty  years  on  earth,  a 
dragon,  who  had  been  robbed  of  his 
treasure,  came  from  the  hill  and  burn- 
ed men  and  houses  "  with  waves  of 
fire."  "  Then  did  the  refuge  of  earls 
command  to  make  for  him  a  variegated 
shield,  all  of  iron  :  he  knew  well  enough 

*  Beowulf,  xxii.  xxiii.  p.  62  et  passim. 


:HAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


45 


that  a  shield  of  wood  could  not  help 
him,  lindenwood  opposed  to  fire.  . 
The  prince  of  rings  was  then  too 
proud  to  seek  the  wide  flier  with  a 
troop,  with  a  large  company ;  he  feared 
not  for  himself  that  battle,  nor  did  he 
make  any  account  of  the  dragon's  war, 
his  laboriousness  and  valor."  And  yet 
he  was  sad,  and  went  unwillingly,  for 
he  was  "fated  to  abide  the  end." 
Then  "he  was  ware  of  a  cavern,  a 
mound  under  the  earth,  nigh  to  the 
sea  wave,  the  clashing  of  waters,  which 
cave  was  full  within  of  embossed  orna- 
ments and  wires.  .  .  .  Then  the  king, 
hard  in  war  sat  upon  the  promontory, 
whilst  he,  the  prince  of  the  Geats,  bade 
farewell  to  his  household  comrades.  .  . 
I,  the  old  guardian  of  my  people, 
seek  a  feud/'  He  "  let  words  proceed 
from  his  breast,"  the  dragon  came, 
vomiting  fire  ;  the  blade  bit  not  his 
body,  and  the  king  "  suffered  painfully, 
involved  in  fire."  His  comrades  had 
"  turned  to  the  wood,  to  save  their 
lives,"  all  save  Wiglaf,  who  "  went 
through  the  fatal  smoke,"  knowing 
well  "  that  it  was  not  the  old  custom  " 
to  abandon  relation  and  prince,  "  that 
he  alone  .  .  .  shall  suffer  distress, 
shall  sink  in  battle."  "  The  worm  came 
furious,  the  foul  insidious  stranger,  va- 
riegated with  waves  of  fire,  .  .  .  hot 
and  warlike  fierce,  he  clutched  the 
whole  neck  with  bitter  banes  ;  he  was 
bloodied  with  life-gore,  the  blood  boil- 
ed in  waves."*  They,  with  their 
swords,  carved  the  worm  in  the  midst. 
Yet  the  wound  of  the  king  became 
burning  and  swelled ;  "  he  soon  dis- 
covered that  poison  boiled  in  his 
breast  within,  and  sat  by  the  wall  upon 
a  stone  ;  "  "  he  looked  upon  the  work 
of  giants,  how  the  eternal  cavern  held 
within  stone  arches  fast  upon  pillars." 
Then  he  said — 

"  I  have  held  this  people  fifty  years ;  there 
was  not  any  king  of  my  neighbors,  who  dared 
to  greet  me  with  warriors,  to  oppress  me  with 
terror.  ...  I  held  mine  own  well,  I  sought 
not  treacherous  malice,  nor  swore  unjustly 
many  oaths  ;  on  account  of  all  this,  I,  sick  with 
mortal  wounds,  may  have  joy.  .  .  .  Now  do 
thou  go  immediately  to  behold  the  hoard  under 
the  hoary  stone,  my  dear  Wiglaf.  .  .  .  Now,  I 
have  purchased  with  my  death  a  hoard  of  treas- 
ures ;  it  will  be  yet  <£  A  Ivantage  at  the  need  of 
the  people.  ...  I  give  thanks  .  .  .  that  I 


*  Beowulf*  xxxiii.-xxxvi.  p.  94  et passim. 


might  before  my  dying  day  obtain  such  for  my 
peoples  .  .  .  longer  may  I  not  here  be."* 

This  is  thorough  and  real  generosity, 
not  exaggerated  and  pretended,  as  it 
will  be  later  on  in  the  romantic  imagi- 
nations of  babbling  clerics,  mere  com- 
posers of  adventure.  Fiction  as  yet  is 
not  far  removed  from  fact :  the  man 
breathes  manifest  beneath  the  hero. 
Rude  as  the  poetry  is,  its  hero  is  grand  ; 
he  is  so,  simply  by  his  deeds'.  Faithful, 
first  to  his  prince,  then  to  his  people, 
he  went  alone,  in  a  strange  land,  to 
venture  himself  for  the  delivery  of  his 
fellow-men  ;  he  forgets  himself  in  death, 
while  thinking  only  that  it  profits  others, 
"  Each  one  of  us,"  he  says  in  one  place, 
"  must  abide  the  end  of  his  present 
life."  Let,  therefore,  each  do  justice, 
if  he  can,  before  his  death.  Compare 
with  him  the  monsters  whom  he 
destroys,  the  last  traditions  of  the 
ancient  wars  against  inferior  races,  and 
of  the  primitive  religion ;  think  of  his 
life  of  danger,  nights  upon  the  waves, 
man  grappling  with  the  brute  creation ; 
man's  indomitable  will  crushing  the 
breasts  of  beasts ;  man's  powerful 
muscles  which,  when  exerted,  tear  the 
flesh  of  the  monsters :  you  will  see 
reappear  through  the  mist  of  legends, 
and  under  the  light  of  poetry,  the  val- 
iant men  who,  amid  the  madness  of  war 
and  the  raging  of  their  own  mood,  be- 
gan to  settle  a  people  and  to  found  a 
state. 

V. 

One  poem  nearly  whole  and  two  or 
three  fragments  are  all  that  remain  of 
this  lay-poetry  of  England.  The  rest 
of  the  pagan  current,  German  and  bar- 
barian, was  arrested  or  overwhelmed, 
first  by  the  influx  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, then  by  the  conquest  of  the 
Norman-French.  But  what  remain* 
more  than  suffices  to  show  the  strange 
and  powerful  poetic  genius  of  the  race, 
and  to  exhibit  beforehand  the  flower  in 
the  bud. 

If  there  has  ever  been  anywhere  a 
deep  and  serious  poetic  sentiment,  it  is 
here.  They  do  not  speak,  they  sing, 

*  Beowulf^  xxxvii.  xxxviii.  p.  no  et  passim. 
I  have  throughout  always  used  the  very  words 
of  Kembie's  translation. — TR. 


46  THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  i 


or  rather  they  shout.  Each  little  verse 
is  an  acclamation,  which  breaks  forth 
like  a  growl ;  their  strong  breasts  heave 
with  a  groan  of  anger  or  enthusiasm, 
and  a  vehement  or  indistinct  phrase  or 
expression  rises  suddenly,  almost  in 
spite  of  them,  to  their  lips.  There  is 
no  art,  no  natural  talent,  for  describing 
singly  and  in  order  the  different  parts 
of  an  object  or  an  event.  The  fifty 
rays  of  light  which  every  phenomenon 
emits  in  succession  to  a  regular  and 
well-directed  intellect,  come  to  them  at 
once  in  a  glowing  and  confused  mass, 
disabling  them  by  their  force  and  con- 
vergence. Listen  to  their  genuine  war- 
chants,  unchecked  and  violent,  as  be- 
came their  terrible  voices.  To  this 
day,  at  this  distance  of  time,  separated 
as  they  are  by  manners,  speech,  ten 
centuries,  we  seem  to  hear  them 
still  :— 

"The  army  goes  forth:  the  birds  sing,  the 
cricket  chirps,  the  war-weapons  sound,  the 
lance  clangs  against  the  shield.  Now  shineth 
the  moon,  wandering  under  the  sky.  Now 
arise  deeds  of  woe,  which  the  enmity  of  this 
people  prepares  to  do.  .  .  .  Then  in  the  court 
came  the  tumult  of  war-carnage.  They  seized 
with  their  hands  the  hollow  wood  of  the  shield. 
They  smote  through  the  bones  of  the  head. 
The  roofs  of  the  castle  resounded,  until  Garulf 
fell  in  battle,  the  first  of  earth-dwelling  men, 
son  of  Guthlaf.  Aorund  him  lay  many  brave 
men  dying.  The  raven  whirled  about,  dark 
and  sombre,  like  a  willow  leaf.  There  was  a 
sparkling  of  blades,  as  if  all  Finsburg  were  on 
fire.  Never  have  I  heard  of  a  more  worthy 
battle  in  war."  * 

This  is  the  song  on  Athelstan's  vic- 
tory at  Brunanburh : 

"  Here  Athelstan  king,  of  earls  the  lord,  the 
giver  of  the  bracelets  of  the  nobles,  and  his 
brother  also,  Edmund  the  agtheling,  the  Elder 
a  lasting  glory  won  by  slaughter  in  battle,  with 
the  edges  of  swords,  at  Brunanburh.  The  wall 
of  shields  they  cleaved,  they  hewed  the  noble 
banners :  with  the  rest  of  the  family,  the  chil- 
dren of  Edward.  .  .  .  Pursuing,  they  destroyed 
the  Scottish  people  and  the  ship-fleet.  .  .  .  The 
field  was  colored  with  the  warrior's  blood! 
After  that  the  sun  on  high,  .  .  .  the  greatest 
star!  glided  over  the  earth,  God's  candle 
bright!  till  the  noble  creature  hastened  to  her 
setting.  There  lay  soldiers  many  with  darts 
struck  down,  Northern  men  over  their  shields 
shot.  So  were  the  Scots ;  weary  of  ruddy 
battle.  .  .  .  The  screamers  of  war  they  left  be- 


*  Conybeare's  Illustrations  of  A  nglo-Saxon 
Poetry,  1826,  Battle  of  Finsborough^  p.  175. 
The  complete  collection  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry 
has  been  published  by  M.  Grein. 


hind  ;  the  raven  to  enjoy,  the  dismal  kite,  and 
the  black  raven  with  horned  beak,  and  the 
hoarse  toad  ;  the  eagle,  afterwards  to  feast  on 
the  white  flesh  ;  the  greedy  battle-hawk,  and 
the  grey  beast,  the  wolf  in  the  wood."  * 

Here  all  is  imagery.  In  their  im- 
passioned minds  events  are  not  baid, 
with  the  dry  propriety  of  an  exact  de- 
scription ;  each  fits  in  with  its  pomp  of 
sound,  shape,  coloring ;  it  is  almost  a 
vision  which  is  raised,  complete,  with 
its  accompanying  emotions,  joy,  fury, 
excitement.  In  their  speech,  arrows 
are  "  the  serpents  of  Hel,  shot  from 
bows  of  horn  ;  "  ships  are  "  great  sea- 
steeds,"  the  sea  is  "  a  chalice  of  waves," 
the  helmet  is  "  the  castle  of  the  head  : " 
they  need  an  extraordinary  speech  to 
express  their  vehement  sensations,  so 
that  after  a  time,  in  Iceland,  where 
this  kind  of  poetry  was  carried  on  to 
excess,  the  earlier  inspiration  failed, 
art  replaced  nature,  the  Skalds  were 
reduced  to  a  distorted  and  obscure 
jargon.  But  whatever  be  the  imagery, 
here  as  in  Iceland,  though  unique,  it  is 
too  feeble.  The  poets  have  not  satis- 
fied their  inner  emotion  if  it  is  only  ex- 
pressed by  a  single  word.  Time  after 
time  they  return  to  and  repeat  their 
idea.  "  The  sun  on  high,  the  great 
star,  God's  brilliant  candle,  the  noble 
creature  !  "  Four  times  successively 
they  employ  the  same  thought,  and 
each  time  under  a  new  aspect.  All  its 
different  aspects  rise  simultaneously 
before  the  barbarian's  eyes,  and  each 
word  was  like  a  fit  of  the  semi-hallucina- 
tion which  possessed  him.  Verily,  in 
such  a  condition,  the  regularity  of 
speech  and  of  ideas  is  disturbed  at 
every  turn.  The  succession  of  thought 
in  the  visionary  is  not  the  same  as  in  a 
reasoning  mind.  One  color  induces 
another;  from  sound  he  passes  to 
sound  ;  his  imagination  is  like  a  diorama 
of  unexplained  pictures.  His  phrases 
recur  and  change  :  he  emits  the  word 
that  comes  to  his  lips  without  hesita- 
tion ;  he  leaps  over  wide  intervals  from 
idea  to  idea.  The  more  his  mind  is 
transported,  the  quicker  and  wider  the 
intervals  traversed.  With  one  spring 
he  visits  the  poles  of  his  horizon,  and 
touches  in  one  moment  objects  which 
seemed  to  have  the  world  between 

*  Turner,  Hist,  of  Anglo-Sax  ens ^  iii.  boo*, 
9,  ch.  i.  p.  245. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


47 


them.  His  ideas  are  entangled  with- 
out order;  without  notice,  abruptly, 
the  poet  will  return  to  the  idea  he  has 
quitted,  and  insert  it  in  the  thought  to 
which  he  is  giving  expression.  It  is 
impossible  to  translate  these  incon- 
gruous ideas,  which  quite  disconcert 
our  modern  style.  At  times  they  are 
unintelligible.*  Articles,  particles, 
every  thing  capable  of  illuminating 
thought,  of  marking  the  connection  of 
terms,  of  producing  regularity  of  ideas, 
all  rational  and  logical  artifices,  are 
neglected.t  Passion  bellows  forth  like 
a  great  shapeless  beast ;  and  that  is  all. 
It  rises  and  starts  in  little  abrupt  lines  ; 
it  is  the  acme  of  barbarism.  Homer's 
happy  poetry  is  copiously  developed, 
in  full  narrative,  with  rich  and  extend- 
ed imagery.  All  the  details  of  a  com- 
plete picture  are  not  too  much  for  him ; 
he  loves  to  look  at  things,  he  lingers 
over  them,  rejoices  in  their  beauty, 
dresses  them  in  splendid  words  ;  he  is 
like  the  Greek  girls,  who  thought 
themselves  ugly  if  they  did  not  bedeck 
arms  and  shoulders  with  all  the  gold 
coins  from  their  purse,  and  all  the 
treasures  from  their  caskets  ;  his  long 
verses  flow  by  with  their  cadences,  and 
spread  out  like  a  purple  robe  under  an 
Ionian  sun.  Here  the  clumsy-fingered 
poet  crowds  and  clashes  his  ideas  in  a 
narrow  measure  ;  if  measure  there  be, 
he  barely  observes  it ;  all  his  ornament 
is  three  words  beginning  with  the  same 
letter.  His  chief  care  is  to  abridge, 
to  imprison  thought  in  a  kind  of  muti- 
lated cry.J  The  force  of  the  internal 
impression,  which,  not  knowing  how  to 
unfold  itself,  becomes  condensed  and 
doubled  by  accumulation ;  the  harsh- 
ness of  the  outward  expression,  which, 
subservient  to  the  energy  and  shocks 
of  the  inner  sentiment,  seeks  only  to 

*  The  cleverest  Anglo-Saxon  scholars,  Tur- 
ner, Conybeare,  Thorpe,  recognize  this  diffi- 
culty. 

t  Turner,  iii.  231,  et  passim.  The  transla- 
tions in  French,  however  literal,  do  injustice  to 
the  text ;  that  language  is  too  clear,  too  logical. 
No  Frenchman  can  understand  this  extraordi- 
nary phase  of  intellect,  except  by  taking  a  dic- 
tionary, and  deciphering  some  pages  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  for  a  fortnight. 

J  Turner  remarks  that  the  same  idea  ex- 
pressed by  King  Alfred,  in  prose  and  then  in 
verse,  takes  in  the  first  case  seven  words,  in  the 
second  five.— History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
iii.  ass* 


exhibit  it  intact  and  original,  in  spite  of 
and  at  the  expense  of  all  order  and 
beauty, — such  are  the  characteristics 
of  their  poetry,  and  these  also  will  be 
the  characteristics  of  the  poetry  which 
is  to  follow. 

VI. 

A  race  so  constituted  was  predisposed 
to  Christianity,  by  its  gloom,  its  aver- 
sion to  sensual  and  reckless  living,  its 
inclination  for  the  serious  and  sublime. 
When  their  sedentary  habits  had  recon- 
ciled their  souls  to  a  long  period  of 
ease,  and  weakened  the  fury  which  fed 
their  sanguinary  religion,  they  readily 
inclined  to  a  new  faith.  The  vague 
adoration  of  the  great  powers  of  nature, 
which  eternally  fight  for  mutual  de- 
struction, and,  when  destroyed,  rise  up 
again  to  the  combat,  had  long  since 
disappeared  in  the  dim  distance.  So- 
ciety, on  its  formation,  introduced  the 
idea  of  peace  and  the  need  for  justice, 
and  the  war-gods  faded  from  the  minds 
of  men,  with  the  passions  which  had 
created  them.  A  century  and  a  half 
after  the  invasion  by  the  Saxons,* 
Roman  missionaries,  bearing  a  silver 
cross  with  a  picture  of  Christ,  came  in 
procession  chanting  a  litany.  Present- 
ly the  high  priest  of  the  Northumbrians 
declared  in  presence  of  the  nobles  that 
the  old  gods  were  powerless,  and  con- 
fessed that  formerly  "  he  knew  nothing 
of  that  which  he  adored ; "  and  he 
among  the  first,  lance  in  hand,  assisted 
to  demolish  their  temple.  Then  a 
chief  rose  in  the  assembly,  and  said  : 

"You  remember,  it  may  be,  O  king,  that 
which  sometimes  happens  in  winter  when  you 
are  seated  at  table  with  your  earls  and  thanes. 
Your  fire  is  lighted,  and  your  hall  warmed,  and 
without  is  rain  and  snow  and  storm.  Then 
comes  a  swallow  flying  across  the  hall ;  he 
enters  by  one  door,  and  leaves  by  another. 
The  brief  moment  while  he  is  within  is  pleasant 
to  him  ;  he  feels  not  rain  nor  cheerless  winter 
weather ;  but  the  moment  is  brief — the  bird 
flies  away  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  he 
passes  from  winter  to  winter.  Such,  methinks, 
is  the  life  of  man  on  earth,  compared  with  the 
uncertain  time  beyond.  It  appears  for  awhile  ; 
but  what  is  the  time  which  comes  after — the 
time  which  was  before  ?  We  know  not.  If, 
then,  this  new  doctrine  may  teach  us  somewhat 
of  greater  certainty,  it  were  well  that  we  should 
regard  it." 


*  596-625.    Aug.  Thierry,  i.  81 ;  Bede,  xii.  a« 


48  THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I. 


This  restlessness,  this  feeling  of  the 
infinite  and  dark  beyond,  this  sober, 
melancholy  eloquence,  were  the  har- 
bingers of  spiritual  life.*  We  find 
nothing  like  it  amongst  the  nations  of 
the  south,  naturally  pagan,  and  preoc- 
cupied with  the  present  life.  These 
utter  barbarians  embrace  Christianity 
straightway,  through  sheer  force  of 
mood  and  clime.  To  no  purpose  are 
they  brutal,  heavy,  shackled  by  infan- 
tine superstitions,  capable,  like  King 
Canute,  of  buying  for  a  hundred  golden 
talents  the  arm  of  Augustine.  They 
possess  the  idea  of  God.  This  grand 
God  of  the  Bible,  omnipotent  and 
unique,  who  disappears  almost  entirely 
in  the  middle  ages,t  obscured  by  His 
court  and  His  family,  endures  amongst 
them  in  spite  of  absurd  or  grotesque 
legends.  They  do  not  blot  Him  out 
under  pious  romances,  by  the  elevation 
of  the  saints,  or  under  feminine  caress- 
es, to  benefit  the  infant  Jesus  and  the 
Virgin.  Their  grandeur  and  their 
seventy  raise  them  to  His  high  level  ; 
they  are  not  tempted,  like  artistic  and 
talkative  nations,  to  replace  religion 
by  a  fair  and  agreeable  narrative. 
More  than  any  race  in  Europe,  they 
approach,  by  the  simplicity  and  energy 
of  their  conceptions,  the  old  Hebraic 
spirit.  Enthusiasm  is  their  natural 
condition;  and  their  new  Deity  fills 
them  with  admiration,  as  their  ancient 
deities  inspired  them  with  fury.  They 
have  hymns,  genuine  odes,  which  are 
but  a  concrete  of  exclamations.  They 
have  no  development ;  they  are  in- 
capable of  restraining  or  explaining 
their  passion ;  it  bursts  forth,  in  rap- 
tures, at  the  vision  of  the  Almighty. 
The  heart  alone  speaks  here — a  strong, 
barbarous  heart.  Caedmon,  their  old 
poet,J  says  Bede,  was  a  more  ignorant 
man  than  the  others,  who  knew  no 
poetry  ;  so  that  in  the  hall,  when  they 
handed  him  the  harp,  he  was  obliged  to 
withdraw,  being  unable  to  sing  like  his 
companions.  Once,  keeping  night- 
watch  over  the  stable,  he  fell  asleep. 
A  stranger  appeared  to  him,  and  asked 
him  to  sing  something,  and  these  words 

*  Jouffroy,  Problem  of  Human  Destiny. 

t  Michelet,  preface  to  La  Renaissance  ', 
Diclron,  Histoire  de  Dieu. 

t  About  630.  See  Codex  Exoniensis, 
Thorpe. 


came  into  his  head :  "  Now  we  ought 
to  praise  the  Lord  of  heaven,  the  power 
of  the  Creator,  and  His  skill,  the  deeds 
of  the  Father  of  glory  ;  how  He,  being 
eternal  God,  is  the  author  of  all  mar- 
vels ;  who,  almighty  guardian  of  the 
human  race,  created  first  for  the  sons 
of  men  the  heavens  as  the  roof  of  their 
dwelling,  and  then  the  earth/'  Re- 
membering this  when  he  woke,*  he 
came  to  the  town,  and  they  brought 
him  before  the  learned  men,  before  the 
abbess  Hilda,  who,  when  they  had 
heard  him,  thought  that  he  had  received 
a  gift  from  heaven,  and  made  him  a 
monk,  in  the  abbey.  There  he  spent 
his  life  listening  to  portions  of  Holy 
Writ,  which  were  explained  to  him  in 
Saxon,  "  ruminating  over  them  like  a 
pure  animal,  turned  them  into  most 
sweet  verse."  Thus  is  true  poetry 
born.  These  men  pray  with  all  the 
emotion  of  a  new  soul' ;  they  kneel  ; 
they  adore  ;  the  less  they  know  the 
more  they  think.  Some  one  has  said 
that  the  first  and  most  sincere  hymn  is 
this  one  word  O !  Theirs  were  hardly 
longer ;  they  only  repeated  time  after 
time  some  deep  passionate  word,  with 
monotonous  vehemence.  "  In  heaven 
art  Thou,  our  aid  and  succor,  resplen- 
dent with  happiness !  All  things  bow 
before  thee,  before  the  glory  of  Thy 
Spirit.  With  one  voice  they  call  upon 
Christ ;  they  all  cry  :  Holy,  holy  art 
thou,  King  of  the  angels  of  heaven, 
our  Lord  !  and  Thy  judgments  are  just 
and  great :  they  reign  forever  and  in 
all  places,  in  the  multitude  of  Thy 
works."  We  are  reminded  of  the 
songs  of  the  servants  of  Odin,  ton- 
sured now,  and  clad  in  the  garments 
of  monks.  Their  poetry  is  the  same  ; 
they  think  of  God,  as  of  Odin,  in  a 
string  of  short,  accumulated,  passion- 
ate images,  like  a  succession  of  light- 
ning-flashes ;  the  Christian  hymns  are 
a  sequel  to  the  pagan.  One  of  them, 
Adhelm,  stood  on  a  bridge  leading  to 
the  town  where  he  lived,  and  repeated 
warlike  and  profane  odes  as  well  as 
religious  poetry,  in  order  to  attract  and 
instruct  the  men  of  his  time.  He 
could  do  it  without  changing  his  key. 
In  one  of  them,  a  funeral  song,  Death 
speaks.  It  was  one  of  the  last  Sax- 
on compositions,  containing  a  terrible 
*  Bede,  iv.  24. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


49 


Christianity,  which  seems  at  the  same 
time  to  have  sprung  from  the  black- 
est depths  of  the  Edda.  The  brief 
metre  sounds  abruptly,  with  measured 
stroke,  like  the  passing  bell.  It  is  as  if 
we  hear  the  dull  resounding  responses 
which  roll  through  the  church,  while 
the  rain  beats  on  the  dim  glass,  and 
the  broken  clouds  sail  mournfully  in 
the  sky;  and  our  eyes,  glued  to  the 
pale  face  of  a  dead  man,  feel  before- 
hand the  horror  of  the  damp  grave 
into  which  the  living  are  about  to  cast 
him. 

"  For  thee  was  a  house  built  ere  thou  wert 
born  ;  for  thee  was  a  mould  shapen  ere  thou  of 
thy  mother  earnest.  Its  height  is  not  deter- 
mined, nor  its  depth  measured  ;  nor  is  it  closed 
up  (however  long  it  may  be)  until  I  thee  bring 
where  thou  shalt  remain  ;  until  I  shall  measure 
thee  and  the  sod  of  the  earth.  Thy  house  is 
not  highly  built ;  it  is  unhigh  and  low.  When 
thou  art  in  it,  the  heel-ways  are  low,  the  side- 
ways unhigh.  The  roof  is  built  thy  breast  full 
nigh  ;  so  thou  shalt  in  earth  dwell  full  cold, 
dim,  and  dark.  Doorless  is  that  house,  and 
dark  it  is  within.  There  thou  art  fast  detained, 
and  Death  holds  the  key.  Loathly  is  that 
earth-house,  and  grim  to  dwell  in.  There  thou 
shalt  dwell,  and  worms  shall  share  thee.  Thus 
thou  art  laid,  and  leavest  thy  friends.  Thou 
hast  no  friend  that  will  come  to  thee,  who  will 
ever  inquire  how  that  house  liketh  thee,  who 
shall  ever  open  for  thee  the  door.,  and  seek 
thee,  for  soon  thou  becomest  loathly  and  hate- 
ful to  look  upon."  * 

Has  Jeremy  Taylor  a  more  gloomy 
picture  ?  The  two  religious  poetries, 
Christian  and  pagan,  are  so  like,  that 
one  might  mingle  their  incongruities, 
images,  and  legends.  In  Beowulf,  alto- 
gether pagan,  the  Deity  appears  as 
Odin,  more  mighty  and  serene,  and 
differs  from  the  other  only  as  a  peace- 
ful Bretwalda  t  differs  from  an  adven- 
turous and  heroic  bandit-chief.  The 
Scandinavian  monsters,  Jotuns,  ene- 
mies of  the  ^Esir,J  have  not  vanished  ; 
but  they  descend  from  Cain,  and  the 
giants  drowned  by  the  flood.  §  Their 
n«.  vv  hell  is  nearly  the  ancient  Nastrand,|| 

*  Conybeare's  Illustrations,  p.  271. 
t  Bretwalda  was  a  species  of  war-king,  or 
temporary  and  elective  chief  of  all  the  Saxons. 

%  The  /Esir  (sing.  As)  are  the  gods  of  the 
Scandinavian  nations,  of  whom  Odin  was  the 
chief.— TR. 

§  Kemble,  i.  i.  xii.  In  this  chapter  he  has 
collected  many  features  which  show  the  en- 
durance of  the  ancient  mythology. 

II  Nastrand  is  the  strand  or  shore  of  the 
dead.-TR. 


"  a  dwelling  deadly  cold,  full  of  blood} 
eagles  and  pale  adders;"  and  the 
dreadful  last  day  of  judgment,  when 
all  will  crumble  into  dust,  and  make 
way  for  a  purer  world,  resembles  the 
final  destruction  of  Edda,  that  "  twi- 
light of  the  gods,"  which  will  end  in  a 
victorious  regeneration,  an  everlasting 
joy  "  under  a  fairer  sun." 

By  this  natural  conformity  they 
were  able  to  make  their  religious 
poems  indeed  poems.  Power  in  spir- 
itual productions  arises  only  from  the 
sincerity  of  personal  and  original  sen- 
timent. If  they  can  relate  religious 
tragedies,  it  is  because  their  soul  was 
tragic,  and  in  a  degree  biblical.  They 
introduce  into  their  verses,  like  the  old 
prophets  of  Israel,  their  fierce  vehe- 
mence, their  murderous  hatreds,  their 
fanaticism,  all  the  shudderings  of  their 
flesh  and  blood.  One  of  them,  whose 
poem  is  mutilated,  has  related  the  his- 
tory of  Judith — with  what  inspiration 
we  shall  see.  It  needed  a  barbarian 
to  display  in  such  strong  light  excesses, 
tumult,  murder,  vengeance  and  combat. 

"Then  was  Holof ernes  exhilarated  with 
wine  ;  in  the  halls  of  his  guests  he  laughed  and 
shouted,  he  roared  and  dinned.  Then  might 
the  children  of  men  afar  off  hear  how  the  stern 
one  stormed  and  clamored,  animated  and  elated 
with  wine.  He  admonished  amply  that  they 
should  bear  it  well  to  those  sitting  on  the 
bench.  So  was  the  wicked  one  over  all  the 
day,  the  lord  and  his  men,  drunk  with  wine, 
the  stern  dispenser  of  wealth  ;  till  that  they 
swimming  lay  over  drunk,  all  his  nobility,  as 
they  were  death-slain."  * 

The  night  having  arrived,  he  com- 
mands them  to  bring  into  his  tent  "  the 
illustrious  virgin  ;  "  then,  going  in  to 
visit  her,  he  falls  drunk  on  his  bed. 
The  moment  was  come  for  "  the  maid 
of  the  Creator,  the  holy  woman." 

"  She  took  the  heathen  man  fast  by  his  h?ir ; 
she  drew  him  by  his  limbs  towards  her  disgrace- 
fully ;  and  the  mischief-ful  odious  man  at  her 
pleasure  laid  :  so  as  the  wretch  she  might  the 
easiest  well  command.  She  with  the  twisted 
locks  struck  the  hateful  enemy,  meditating 
hate,  with  the  red  sword,  till  she  had  haif  cut 
off  his  neck  ;  so  that  he  lay  in  a  swoon,  drunk 
and  mortally  wounded.  He  was  not  then  dead, 
not  entirely  lifeless.  She  struck  then  earnest, 
the  woman  illustrious  in  strength,  another  time 
the  heathen  hound,  till  that  his  head  rolled 
Forth  upon  the  floor.  The  foul  one  lay  without 
a  coffer  ;  backward  his  spirit  turned  under  the 


*  Turner,  Hist,  of  A  nglo-SaxonS)  iii.  book 
9,  ch.  3,  p.  271. 

3 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


abyss,  and  there  was  plunged  below,  with  sul- 
phur fastened  ;  forever  afterwards  wounded 
by  worms.  Bound  in  torments,  hard  imprisoned, 
in  hell  he  burns.  After  his  course  he  need  not 
hope,  with  darkness  overwhelmed,  that  he  may 
escape  from  that  mansion  of  worms  ;  but  there 
he  shall  remain ;  ever  and  ever,  without  end, 
henceforth  in  that  cavern-house,  void  of  the 
joys  of  hope."  * 

Has  any  one  ever  heard  a  sterner 
accent  of  satisfied  hate  ?  When  Clo- 
vis  listened  to  the  Passion  play,  he 
cried,  "  Why  was  I  not  there  with  my 
Franks  !  "  So  here  the  old  warrior  in 
stinct  swelled  into  flame  over  the  He 
brew  wars.  As  soon  as  Judith  re- 
turned, 

"  Men  under  helms  (went  out)  from  the  holy 
city  at  the  dawn  itself.  They  dinned  shields  ; 
men  roared  loudly.  At  this  rejoiced  the  lank 
wolf  in  the  wood,  and  the  wan  raven,  the  fowl 
greedy  of  slaughter,  both  from  the  west,  that  the 
sons  of  men  for  them  should  have  thought  to 
prepare  their  fill  on  corpses.  And  to  them  flew 
in  their  paths  the  active  deyourer,  the  eagle, 
hoary  in  his  feathers.  The  willowed  kite,  with 
his  horned  beak,  sang  the  song  of  Hilda.  The 
noble  warriors  proceeded,  they  in  mail,  to  the 
battle,  furnished  with  shields,  with  swelling 
banners.  .  .  .  They  then  speedily  let  fly  forth 
showers  of  arrows,  the  serpents  of  Hilda,  from 
their  horn  bows;  the  spears  on  the  ground  hard 
stormed.  Loud  raged  the  plunderers  of  battle  ; 
they  sent  their  darts  into  the  throng  of  the 
chiefs.  .  .  .  They  that  awhile  before  the  re- 

E  roach  of  the  foreigners,  the  taunts  of  the 
eathen  endured."  t 

Amongst  all  these  unknown  poets  } 
there  is  one  whose  name  we  know, 
Caedmon,  perhaps  the  old  Caedmon 
who  wrote  the  first  hymn ;  like  him, 
at  all  events,  who,  paraphrasing  the 
Bible  with  a  barbarian's  vigor  and 
sublimity,  has  shown  the  grandeur  and 
fury  of  the  sentiment  with  which  the 
men  of  these  times  entered  into 
their  new  religion.  He  also  sings 
when  he  speaks;  when  he  mentions 
the  ark,  it  is  with  a  profusion  of  poetic 
names,  "  the  floating  house,  the  greatest 
of  floating  chambers,  the  wooden  for- 
tress, the  moving  roof,  the  cavern  the 
great  sea-chest,"  and  many  more. 
Every  time  he  thinks  of  it,  he  sees  it 
with  his  mind,  like  a  quick  luminous 
vision,  and  each  time  under  a  new 
aspect,  now  undulating  on  the  muddy 

*  Turner,  Hist,  of  Anglo- Saxons y  iii.  book 
9,  ch.  3,  p.  272. 
t  Id.  p.  274. 
t  Grein,   Bibliothek    der  A  ngeheechsischen 


waves,  between  two  ridges  of  foam, 
now  casting  over  the  water  its  enor- 
mous shadow,  black  and  high  like  a 
castle,  "  now  enclosing  in  its  cavernous 
sides "  the  endless  swarm  of  caged 
beasts.  Like  the  others,  he  wrestles 
with  god  in  his  heart ;  triumphs  like  a 
warrior  over  destruction  and  victory  ; 
and  in  relating  the  death  of  Pharaoh, 
can  hardly  speak  from  anger,  or  see 
because  the  blood  mounts  to  his  eyes : 

"  The  folk  was  affrighted,  the  flood-dres^ 
seized  on  their  sad  souls ;  ocean  wailed  with 
death,  the  mountain  heights  were  with  blood 
besteamed,  the  sea  foamed  gore,  crying  was  in 
the  waves,  the  water  full  of  weapons,  a  death- 
mist  rose ;  the  Egyptians  were  turned  back ; 
trembling  they  fled,  they  felt  fear  ;  would  that 
host  gladly  find  their  homes  ;  their  vaunt  grew 
sadder :  against  them,  as  a  cloud,  rose  the  fell 
rolling  of  the  waves  ;  there  came  not  any  of 
that  host  to  home,  but  from  behind  inclosed 
them  fate  with  the  wave.  Where  ways  ere  lay 
sea  raged.  Their  might  was  merged,  the 
streams  stood,  the  storm  rose  high  to  heaven  ; 
the  loudest  army-cry  the  hostile  uttered  ;  the 
air  above  was  thickened  with  dying  voices.  .  .  . 
Ocean  raged,  drew  itself  up  on  high,  the  storms 
rose,  the  corpses  rolled."  * 

Is  the  song  of  the  Exodus  more 
abrupt,  more  vehement,  or  more 
savage  ?  These  men  can  speak  of  the 
creation  like  the  Bible,  because  they 
speak  of  destruction  like  the  Bible, 
They  have  only  to  look  into  their  own 
hearts,  in  order  to  discover  an  emo- 
tion sufficiently  strong  to  raise  their 
souls  to  the  height  of  their  Creator. 
This  emotion  existed  already  in  their 
pagan  legends  ;  and  Caedmon,  in  order 
to  recount  the  origin  of  things,  has 
only  to  turn  to  the  ancient  dreams, 
such  as  have  been  preserved  in  the 
prophecies  of  the  Edda. 

lf  There  had  not  here  as  yet,  save  cavern- 
shade,  aught  been  ;  but  this  wide  abyss  stood 
deep  and  dim,  strange  to  its  Lord,  idle  and  use- 
less ;  on  which  looked  with  his  eyes  the  Kine 
firm  of  mind,  and  beheld  those  places  void  ol 
joys  ;  saw  the  dark  cloud  lower  in  eternal  night, 
swart  under  heaven,  dark  and  waste,  until  this 
worldly  creation  through  the  word  existed  of 
the  Glory-King.  .  .  .  The  earth  as  yet  was  not 
green  with  grass  ;  ocean  cover' d,  swart  in  eter- 
nal night,  far  and  wide  the  dusky  ways."  t 

In  this  manner  will  Milton  hereafter 
speak,  the  descendant  of  the  Hebrew 

*  Thorpe,  C(zdmon>  1832,  xlvii.  p.  206. 

t  Thorpe,  Ccedmon^  ii.  p.  7.  A  likeness  ex- 
ists between  this  song  and  corresponding  por« 
tions  of  the  Edda. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


seers,  last  of  the  Scandinavian  seers, 
but  assisted  in  the  development  of 
his  thought  by  all  the  resources  of 
Latin  culture  and  civilization.  And 
yet  he  will  add  nothing  to  the  prim- 
itive sentiment.  Religious  instinct  is 
not  acquired ;  it  belongs  to  the  blood, 
and  is  inherited  with  it.  So  it  is  with 
other  instincts ;  pride  in  the  first  place, 
indomitable  self-conscious  energy, 
which  sets  man  in  opposition  to  all  domi- 
nation, and  inures  him  against  all 
pain.  Milton's  Satan  exists  already  in 
Casdmon's,  as  the  picture  exists  in  the 
sketch ;  because  both  have  their  model 
in  the  race  ;  and  Caedmon  found  his 
originals  in  the  northern  warriors,  as 
Milton  did  in  the  Puritans  : 

"  Why  shall  I  for  his  favor  serve,  bend  to 
him  in  such  vassalage?  I  may  be  a  god  as  he. 
Stand  by  me,  strong  associates,  who  will  not 
fail  me  in  the  strife.  Heroes  stern  of  mood, 
they  have  chosen  me  for  chief,  renowned  war- 
riors !  with  such  may  one  devise  counsel,  with 
such  capture  his  adherents  ;  they  are  my  zeal- 
ous friends,  faithful  in  their  thoughts  ;  I  may 
be  their  chieftain,  sway  in  this  realm  ;  thus  to 
me  it  seemeth  not  right  that  I  in  aught  need 
cringe  to  God  for  any  good  J  I  will  no  longer 
be  his  vassal."* 

He  is  overcome :  shall  he  be  sub- 
dued? He  is  cast  into  the  place 
"  where  torment  they  suffer,  burning 
heat  intense,  in  midst  of  hell,  fire  and 
broad  flames  :  so  also  the  bitter  seeks 
smoke  and  darkness  ;  "  will  he  repent  ? 
At  first  he  is  astonished,  he  despairs  ; 
but  it  is  a  hero's  despair. 

"This  narrow  place  is  most  unlike  that  other 
that  we  ere  knew,t  high  in  heaven's  kingdom, 
which  my  master  bestow'd  on  me.  .  .  .  Oh, 
had  I  power  of  my  hands,  and  might  one  season 
be  without,  be  one  winter's  space,  then  with 
this  host  I — But  around  me  lie  iron  bonds, 
presseth  this  cord  of  chain :  I  am  powerless ! 
me  have  so  hard  the  claps  of  hell,  so  firmly 
grasped !  Here  is  a  vast  fire  above  and  under- 
neath, never  did  I  see  a  loathlier  landskip  ;  the 
flame  abateth  not,  hot  over  hell.  Me  hath  the 
clasping  of  these  rings,  this  hard-polish'd  band, 
impeded  in  my  course,  debarr'd  me  from  my 
way  ;  my  feet  are  bound,  my  hands  manacled, 
-  .  ,  so  that  with  aught  I  cannot  from  these 
jmb-Donds  escape."  J 

A  s  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  against 
God,  it  is  His  new  creature,  man,  whom 
he  must  attack.  To  him  who  has  lost 

*  Thorpe,  Ceedmon,  iv.  p.  18. 

t  This  is  Milton's  opening  also.  (See  Para- 
dise Lost,  Book  i.  verse  242,  etc.)  One  would 
think  that  he  must  have  had  some  knowledge 
of  Caedmon  from  the  translation  of  Junius. 

$  Thorpe,  Ccedmon^  iv.  p.  23. 


every  thing,  vengeance  is  left ;  and  if 
the  conquered  can  enjoy  this,  he  will 
find  himself  happy ;  "  he  will  sleep 
softly,  even  under  his  chains." 

VII. 

Here  the  foreign  culture  ceased.  Be- 
yond Christianity  it  could  not  graft  up- 
on this  barbarous  stock  any  fruitful  or 
living  branch.  All  the  circumstances 
which  elsewhere  mellowed  the  wild  s' p 
failed  here.  The  Saxons  found  Britain 
abandoned  by  the  Romans  •  they  had 
not  yielded,  like  their  brothers  on  the 
Continent,  to  the  ascendency  of  a 
superior  civilization ;  they  had  not  be- 
come mingled  with  the  inhabitants  of 
the  land  ;  they  had  always  treated  them 
like  enemies  or  slaves,  pursuing  like 
wolves  those  who  escaped  to  the  moun- 
tains of  the  west,  treating  like  beasts  of 
burden  those  whom  they  had  conquer- 
ed with  the  land.  While  the  Germans 
of  Gaul,  Italy,  and  Spain  became  Ro- 
mans, the  Saxons  retained  their  lan- 
guage, their  genius  and  manners,  and 
created  in  Britain  a  Germany  out- 
side of  Germany.  A  hundred  and  fifty 
years  after  the  Saxon  invasion,  the  in- 
troduction of  Christianity  and  the  dawn 
of  security  attained  by  a  society  inclin- 
ing to  peace,  gave  birth  to  a  kind  of 
literature  ;  and  we  meet  with  the  vener- 
able Bede,  and  later  on,  Alcuin,  John 
Scotus  Erigena,  and  some  others,  com- 
mentators, translators,  teachers  of  bar- 
barians, who  tried  not  to  originate  but 
to  compile,  to  pick  out  and  explain 
from  the  great  Greek  and  Latin  ency- 
clopaedia something  which  might  suit 
the  men  of  their  time.  But  the  wars 
with  the  Danes  came  and  crushed  this 
humble  plant,  which,  if  left  to  itself, 
would  have  come  to  nothing.*  When 
Alfred  t  the  Deliverer  became  king, 
"  there  were  very  few  ecclesiastics,"  he 
says,  "  on  this  side  of  the  Humber,  who 
could  understand  in  English  their  own 
Latin  prayers,  or  translate  any  Latin 
writing  into  English.  On  the  other  side 

*  They  themselves  feel  their  impotence  and 
decrepitude.  Bede,  dividing  the  history  of  the 
world  into  six  periods,  says  that  the  fifth,  which 
stretches  from  the  return  out  of  Babylon  to  the 
birth  of  Christ,  is  the  senile  period ;  the  sixth 
is  the  present,  estas  decrepita^  totius  morte 
seeculi  consummanda. 

t  Died  in  901  ;  Aclhelm  died  709,  Bede  died 
735,  Alcuin  lived  under  Charlemagne,  Erigena 
under  Charles  the  Bald  (843-877). 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


of  the  Humber  I  think  there  were 
scarce  any ;  there  were  so  few  that,  in 
truth,  I  cannot  remember  a  single  man 
south  of  the  Thames,  when  I  took  the 
kingdom,  who  was  capable  of  it."  He 
tried,  like  Charlemagne,  to  instruct  his 
people,  and  turned  into  Saxon  for  their 
use  several  works,  above  all  some 
moral  books,  as  the  de  Consolatione  of 
Boethius ;  but  this  very  translation 
bears  witness  to  the  barbarism  of  his 
audience.  He  adapts  the  text  in  order 
to  bring  it  down  to  their  intelligence  ; 
Uie  pretty  verses  of  Boethius,  some- 

"  Quondam  fun era  conjugis 
Vates  Threicius  gemens, 
Postquam  flebilibus  modis 
Silvas  currere,  mobiles, 
Amnes  stare  coegerat, 
Junxitque  intrepidum  latus 
Sasvis  cerva  leonibus, 
Nee  visum  timuit  lepus 
Jam  cantu  placidum  canem  ; 
Cum  flagrantipr  intima 
Fervor  pectoris  ureret, 
Nee  qui   cuncta  subegerant 
Muicereut  dominum  modi  J 
Immites  superos  querens, 
Infernas  adiit  domos. 
Illic  Wanda  sonantibus 
Chordis  carmina  temperans, 
Quidquid  praecipuis  Deae 
Matris  fontibus  hauserat, 
Quod  luctus  dabat  impotens, 
Quod  luctum  geminans  amor, 
Deflet  Tartara  commovens, 
Et  dulci  veniam  prece 
Umbrarum  dominos  rogat. 
Stupet  tergeminus  novo 
Captus  carmine  janitor ; 

8uae  sontes  agitant  metu 
Itrices  scelerum  Deae 
Jam  mcestae  lacrymis  madent. 
Non  Ixionium  caput 
Velox  praecipitat  rota, 
Et  longa  site  perditus 
Spernit  flumina  Tantalus. 
Vultur  dum  satur  est  modis 
Non  traxit  Tityi  jecur. 
Tandem,  vincimur,  arbiter 
Umbrarum  miserans  ait. 
Donemus  comitem  viro, 
Emptam  carmine  conjugem. 
Sed  iex  dona  coerceat, 
Nee,  dum  Tartara  liquerit, 
Fas  sit  lumina  fiectere. 
Quis  legem  det  amantibus ! 
Major  lex  fit  amor  sibi. 
Heu  !  noctis  prppe  terminos 
^rpheus  Eurydicem  suam 
Vidit,  periidit,  occidit. 
Vos  haec  tabula  respicit, 
Quicunque  in  superum  diem 
Menti'm  ducere  quaeritis. 
Nam  qui  tartareum  in  specus 
Victus  lumina  flexerit, 
Quidquid  praecipuum  trahit 
Perdit,  dum  videt  inferos." 

Book  in.  Metre  12. 


what  pretentious,  labored,  elegant, 
crowded  with  classical  allusions  of  a 
refined  and  compact  style  worthy  of 
Seneca,  become  an  artless,  long  drawn 
out  and  yet  desultory  prose,  like  a 
nurse's  fairy  tale,  explaining  every 
thing,  recommencing  and  breaking  off 
its  phrases,  making  ten  turns  about  a 
single  detail  ;  so  low  was  it  necessary 
to  stoop  to  the  level  of  this  new  intelli- 
gence, which  had  never  thought  or 
known  any  thing.  Here  follows  the 
latin  of  Boethius,  so  affected,  so  pretty, 
with  the  English  translation  affixed  : — 

"  It  happened  formerly  that  there  was  a 
harper  in  the  country  called  Thrace,  which  was 
in  Greece.  The.  harper  was  inconceivably 
good.  His  name  was  Orpheus.  He  had  a 
very  excellent  wife,  called  Eurydice.  Then 
began  men  to  say  concerning  the  harper,  that 
he  could  harp  so  that  the  wood  moved  and  the 
stones  stirred  themselves  at  the  sound,  and  wild 
beasts  would  run  thereto,  and  stand  as  if  they 
were  tame  ;  so  still,  that  though  men  or  hounds 
pursued  them,  they  shunned  them  not.  Then 
said  they,  that  the  harper's  wife  should  die, 
and  her  soul  should  be  led  to  hell.  Then 
should  the  harper  become  so  sorrowful  that  he 
could  not  remain  among  the  men,  but  fre- 
quented the  wood,  and  sat  on  the  mountains, 
both  day  and  night,  weeping  and  harping,  so 
that  the  woods  shook,  and  the  rivers  stood  still, 
and  no  hart  shunned  any  lion,  nor  hare  any 
hound  ;  nor  did  cattle  know  any  hatred,  or  any 
fear  of  others,  for  the  pleasure  of  the  sound. 
Then  it  seemed  to  the  harper  that  nothing  in 
this  world  pleased  him.  Then  thought  he  that 
he  would  seek  the  gods  of  hell,  and  endeavor 
to  allure  them  with  his  harp,  and  pray  that  they 
would  give  him  back  his  wife.  When  he 'came 
thither,  then  should  there  come  towards  him 
the  dog  of  hell,  whose  name  was  Cerberus, — 
he  should  have  three  heads, — and  began  to  wag 
his  tail,  and  play  with  him  for  his  harping. 
Then  was  there  also  a  very  horrible  gatekeeper, 
whose  name  should  be  Charon.  He  had  also 
three  heads,  and  he  was  very  old.  Then  began 
the  harper  to  beseech  him  that  he  would  pro- 
tect him  while  he  was  there,  and  bring  him 
thence  again  safe.  Then  did  he  promise  that 
to  him,  because  he  was  desirous  of  the  unac- 
customed sound.  Then  went  he  farther  until 
he  met  the  fierce  goddesses,  whom  the  common 
people  call  Parcas,  of  whom  they  say,  that  they 
know  no  respect  for  any  man,  but  punish  every 
man  according  to  his  deeds  ;  and  of  whom  they 
say,  that  they  co'.itrol  every  man's  fortune. 
Then  began  he  to  implore  their  mercy.  Then 
began  they  to  weep  with  him.  Then  went  he 
farther,  and  all  the  inhabitants  of  hell  ran  to- 
wards him,  and  led  him  to  their  king :  and  all 
began  to  speak  with  him,  and  to  pray  that  which 
he  prayed.  And  the  restless  wheel  which  Ixion, 
the  king  of  the  Lapithse,  was  bound  to  for  his 
guilt,  that  stood  still  for  his  harping.  And 
Tantalus  the  king,  w'to  in  this  world  was  in> 
moderately  greedy,  and  whom  that  same  vice 
of  greediness  followed  there,  he  became  quiet. 
And  the  vulture  should  cease,  so  that  he  tor* 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


53 


not  the  liver  of  Tityus  the  king,  which  before 
therewith  tormented  him.  And  all  the  punish- 
ments of  the  inhabitants  of  hell  were  suspended, 
whilst  he  harped  before  the  king.  When  he 
long  and  long  had  harped,  then  spoke  the  king 
of  the  inhabitants  of  hell,  and  said,  Let  us  give 
the  man  his  wife,  for  he  has  earned  her  by  his 
harping.  He  then  commanded  him  that  he 
should  well  observe  that  he  never  looked  back- 
wards after  he  departed  thence ;  and  said,  if 
he  looked  backwards,  that  he  should  lose  the 
woman.  But  men  can  with  great  difficulty,  if 
at  all,  restrain  love!  Wellaway!  What! 
Orpheus  then  led  his  wife  with  him  till  he  came 
to  the  boundary  of  light  and  darkness.  Then 
went  his  wife  after  him.  When  he  came  forth 
into  the  light,  then  looked  he  behind  his  back 
towards  the  woman.  Then  was  she  immediately 
lost  to  him.  This  fable  teaches  every  man  who 
desires  to  fly  the  darkness  of  hell,  and  to  come 
to  the  light  of  the  true  good,  that  he  look  not 
about  him  to  his  old  vices,  so  that  he  practice 
them  again  as  fully  as  he  did  before.  For 
whosoever  with  full  will  turns  his  mind  to  the 
vices  which  he  had  before  forsaken, and  practices 
them,  and  they  then  fully  please  him,  and  he 
never  thinks  of  forsaking  them  ;  then  loses  he 
all  his  former  good  unless  he  again  amend  it."  * 

A  man  speaks  thus  when  he  wishes 
to  impress  upon  the  mind  of  his  hear- 
ers an  idea  which  is  not  clear  to  them. 
Boethius  had  for  his  audience  senators, 
men  of  culture,  who  understood  as  well 
as  we  the  slightest  mythological  allu- 
sion. Alfred  is  obliged  to  take  them 
up  and  develop  them,  like  a  father  or  a 
master,  who  draws  his  little  boy  be- 
tween his  knees,  and  relates  to  him 
names,  qualities,  crimes  and  their 
punishments,  which  the  Latin  only 
hints  at.  But  the  ignorance  is  such 
that  the  teacher  himself  needs  correc- 
tion. He  takes  the  Parcae  for  the 
Erinyes,  and  gives  Charon  three  heads 
like  Cerberus.  There  is  no  adorn- 
ment in  his  version ;  no  delicacy  as  in 
the  original.  Alfred  has  hard  work  to 
niake  himself  understood.  What,  for 
instance,  becomes  of  the  noble  Platonic 
moral,  the  apt  interpretation  after  the 
style  of  lamblichus  and  Porphyry  ?  It 
is  altogether  dulled.  He  has  to  call 
every  thing  by  its  name,  and  turn  the 
eyes  of  his  people  to  tangible  and  vis- 
ible things.  It  is  a  sermon  suited  to 
his  audience  of  Thanes  ;  the  Danes 
whom  he  had  converted  by  the  sword 
needed  a  clear  moral.  If  he  had  trans- 
lated for  them  exactly  the  last  words 
of  Boethius,  they  would  have  opened 


wide  their  big  stupid  eyes  and  fallen 
asleep. 

For  the  whole  talent  of  an  unculti- 
vated mind  lies  in  the  force  and  one- 
ness of  its  sensations.  Beyond  that  it 
is  powerless.  The  art  of  thinking  and 
reasoning  lies  above  it.  These  men 
lost  all  genius  when  they  lost  theh 
fever-heat.  They  lisped  awkwardly  and 
heavily  dry  chronicles,  a  sort  of  histor- 
ical almanacs.  You  might  think  them 
peasants,  who,  returning  from  tru  i 
toil,  came  and  scribbled  with  chalk  or. 
a  smoky  table  the  date  of  a  year  oi 
scarcity,  the  price  of  corn,  the  changes 
in  the  weather,  a  death.  Even  so,  side 
by  side  with  the  meagre  Bible  chron- 
icles, which  set  down  the  successions 
of  kings,  and  of  Jewish  massacres,  are 
exhibited  the  exaltation  of  the  psalms 
and  the  transports  of  prophecy.  The 
same  lyric  poet  can  be  alternately  a 
brute  and  a  genius,  because  his  genius 
comes  and  goes  like  a  disease,  and  in- 
stead of  having  it  he  simply  is  ruled  by 
it. 

"A.  D.  6ir.  This  year  Cynegils  succeeded 
to  the  government  in  Wessex,  and  held  it  one- 
and-thirty  winters.  Cynegils  was  the  son  of 
Ceol,  Ceol  of  Cutha,  Cutha  of  Cynric. 

"614.  This  year  Cynegils  and  Cnichelm 
fought  at  Bampton,  and  slew  two  thousand  and 
forty-six  of  the  Welsh. 

"678.  This  year  appeared  the  comet-star  in 
August,  and  shone  every  morning  during  three 
months  like  a  sunbeam.  Bishop  Wilfrid  being 
driven  from  his  bishopric  by  King  Everth,  two 
bishops  were  consecrated  in  his  stead. 

"  901.  This  year  died  Alfred,  the  son  of 
Ethelwulf,  six  nights  before  the  mass  of  All 
Saints.  He  was  king  over  all  the  English  na- 
tion, except  that  part  that  was  under  the  power 
of  the  Danes.  He  held  the  government  one 
year  and  a  half  less  than  thirty  winters  ;  and 
then  Edward  his  son  took  to  the  government. 

"902.  This  year  there  was  the  great  fight 
at  the  Holme,  between  the  men  of  Kent  and 
the  Danes. 

"  1077.  This  year  were  reconciled  the  King 
of  the  Franks,  and  William,  King  of  England. 
But  it  continued  only  a  little  while.  This  y  ;ar 
was  London  burned,  one  night  before  the  As- 
sumption of  St.  Mary,  so  terribly  as  it  never 
was  before  since  it  was  built."  * 

It  is  thus  the  poor  monks  speak, 
with  monotonous  dryness,  who  after 
Alfred's  time  gather  up  and  take  note 
of  great  visible  events  ;  sparsely  scat- 
tered we  find  a  few  moral  reflections,  a 
passionate  emotion,  nothing  more.  In 


*  Fox's  Alfred"1*  Boethiust   chap.  35,  §6,        *  All  these  extracts  are  taken  from  Ingram'a 
1864.  Saxon  Chronicle^  1823. 


54 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


the  tenth  century  we  see  King  Edgar 
give  a  manor  to  a  bishop,  on  condition 
that  he  will  put  into  Saxon  the  monas- 
tic regulation  written  in  Latin  by  Saint 
Benedict.  Alfred  himself  was  almost 
the  last  man  of  culture  ;  he,  like 
Charlemagne,  became  so  only  by  dint 
of  determination  and  patience.  In  vain 
the  great  spirits  of  this  age  endeavor 
to  link  themselves  to  the  relics  of  the 
fine,  ancient  civilization,  and  to  raise 
themselves  above  the  chaotic  and  mud- 
dy ignorance  in  which  the  others 
flounder.  They  rise  almost  alone,  and 
on  their  death  the  rest  sink  again 
into  the  mire.  It  is  the  human  beast 
that  remains  master  ;  the  mind  cannot 
find  a  place  amidst  the  outbursts  and 
the  desires  of  the  flesh,  gluttony  and 
brute  force.  Even  in  the  little  circle 
where  he  moves,  his  labor  comes  to 
nought.  The  model  which  he  proposed 
to  himself  oppresses  and  enchains  him 
in  a  cramping  imitation ;  he  aspires 
but  to  be  a  good  copyist ;  he  produces 
a  gathering  of  centos  which  he  calls 
Latin  verses ;  he  applies  himself  to  the 
discovery  of  expressions,  sanctioned  by 
good  models ;  he  succeeds  only  in 
elaborating  an  emphatic,  spoiled  Latin, 
bristling  with  incongruities.  In  place 
of  ideas,  the  most  profound  amongst 
them  serve  up  the  defunct  doctrines  of 
defunct  authors.  They  compile  relig- 
ious manuals  and  philosophical  man- 
uals from  the  Fathers.  Erigena,  the 
most  learned,  goes  to  the  extent  of  re- 
producing the  old  complicated  dreams 
of  Alexandrian  metaphysics.  How  far 
these  speculations  and  reminiscences 
soar  above  the  barbarous  crowd  which 
howls  and  bustles  in  the  depths  below, 
no  words  can  express.  There  was  a 
certain  king  of  Kent  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury who  could  not  write.  Imagine 
bachelors  of  theology  discussing  before 
an  audience  of  wagoners,  not  Parisian 
wagoners,  but  such  as  survive  in 
Auvergne  or  in  the  Vosges.  Among 
,!iese  clerks,  who  think  like  studious 
scholars  in  accordance  with  their  favor- 
ite authors,  and  are  doubly  separated 
from  the  world  as  scholars  and  monks, 
Alfred  alone,  by  his  position  as  a  lay- 
man and  a  practical  man,  descends  in 
his  Saxon  translations  and  his  Saxon 
verses  to  th-5  common  level ;  and  we 
have  seen  that  his  effort,  like  that  of 


Charlemagne,  was  fruitless.  There 
was  an  impassable  wall  between  the 
old  learned  literature  and  the  present 
chaotic  barbarism.  Incapable,  yet 
compelled,  to  fit  into  the  ancient  mould, 
they  gave  it  a  twist.  Unable  to  repro- 
duce ideas,  they  reproduced  a  metre. 
They  tried  to  eclipse  their  rivals  in 
versification  by  the  refinement  of  their 
composition,  and  the  prestige  of  a  dif- 
ficulty overcome.  So,  in  our  own  col- 
leges, the  good  scholars  imitate  the 
clever  divisions  and  symmetry  cf 
Claudian  rather  than  the  ease  ani 
variety  of  Virgil.  They  put  their  feet 
in  irons,  and  showed  their  smartness  by 
running  in  shackles ;  they  weighted 
themselves  with  rules  of  modern  rhyme 
and  rules  of  ancient  metre ;  they  added 
the  necessity  of  beginning  each  verse 
with  the  same  letter  that  began  the 
last.  A  few,  like  Adhelm,  wrote  square 
acrostics,  in  which  the  first  line,  re- 
peated at  the  end,  was  found  also  to 
the  left  and  right  of  the  piece.  Thus 
made  up  of  the  first  and  last  letters  of 
each  verse,  it  forms  a  border  to  the 
whole  piece,  and  the  morsel  of  verse  is 
like  a  piece  of  tapestry.  Strange  liter- 
ary tricks,  which  changed  the  poet  into 
an  artisan.  They  bear  witness  to  the 
difficulties  which  then  impeded  culture 
and  nature,  and  spoiled  at  once  the 
Latin  form  and  the  Saxon  genius. 

Beyond  this  barrier,  which  drew  an 
impassable  line  between  civilization  and 
barbarism,  there  was  another,  no  less 
impassable,  between  the  Latin  and 
Saxon  genius.  The  strong  Geiman 
imagination,  in  which  glowing  and  ob- 
scure visions  suddenly  meet  and  abrupt- 
ly overflow,  was  in  contrast  with  the 
reasoning  spirit,  in  which  ideas  gather 
and  are  developed  only  in  a  regular 
order ;  so  that  if  the  barbarian,  in  his 
classical  attempts,  retained  any  part  of 
his  primitive  instincts,  he  succeeded 
only  in  producing  a  grotesque  and 
frightful  monster.  One  of  them,  this 
very  Adhelm,  a  relative  of  King  Ina, 
who  sang  on  the  town-bridge  profane 
and  sacred  hymns  alternately,  too  much 
imbued  with  Saxon  poesy,  simply  to 
imitate  the  antique  models,  adorned 
his  Latin  prose  and  verse  with  all  the 
"  English  magnificence."  *  You  might 
compare  him  to  a  barbarian  who  seizes 

*  William  of  Malmesbury's  expression. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  SAXONS. 


55 


a  flute  from  the  skilled  hands  of  a 
player  of  Augustus'  court,  in  order  to 
blow  on  it  with  inflated  lungs,  as  if  it 
were  the  bellowing  horn  of  an  aurochs. 
The  sober  speech  of  the  Roman  ora- 
tors and  senators  becomes  in  his  hands 
full  of  exaggerated  and  incoherent 
images ;  he  violently  connects  words, 
uniting  them  in  a  sudden  and  extrava- 
gan^  manner ;  he  heaps  up  his  colors, 
and  utters  extraordinary  and  unintelligi- 
ble nonsense,  like  that  of  the  later 
Sk  lids ;  in  short,  he  is  a  latinized 
Ska'd,  dragging  into  his  new  tongue 
the  ornaments  of  Scandinavian  poetry, 
such  as  alliteration,  by  dint  of  which  he 
congregates  in  one  of  his  epistles  fifteen 
consecutive  words,  all  beginning  with 
the  same  letter,  and  in  order  to  make 
up  his  fifteen,  he  introduces  a  barbar- 
ous Graecism  amongst  the  Latin  words.* 
Amongst  the  others,  the  writers  of 
legends,  you  will  meet  many  times  with 
deformation  of  Latin,  distorted  by  the 
outburst  of  a  too  vivid  imagination  ; 
it  breaks  out  even  in  their  scholastic 
and  scientific  writing.  Here  is  part  of 
a  dialogue  between  Alcuin  and  prince 
Pepin,  a  son  of  Charlemagne,  and  he 
uses  like  formulas  the  little  poetic  and 
bold  phrases  which  abound  in  the  na- 
tional poetry.  "  What  is  winter  ?  the 
banishment  of  summer.  What  is  spring? 
the  painter  of  the  earth.  What  is  the 
year  ?  the  world's  chariot.  What  is 
the  sun  ?  the  splendor  of  the  world, 
the  beauty  of  heaven,  the  grace  of 
nature,  the  honor  of  day,  the  distribu- 
tor of  the  hours.  What  is  the  sea  ? 
the  path  of  audacity,  the  boundary  of 
the  earth,  the  receptacle  of  the  rivers, 
the  fountain  of  showers."  More,  he 
ends  his  instructions  with  enigmas,  in 
the  spirit  of  the  Skalds,  such  as  we 
still  find  in  the  old  manuscripts  with 
the  barbarian  songs.  It  was  the  last 
feature  of  the  national  genius,  which, 
when  it  labors  to  understand  a  matter, 
neglects  dry,  clear,  consecutive  deduc- 
tion, :  employ  grotesque,  remote,  oft- 
repeated  imagery,  and  replaces  analysis 
by  intuition. 

*  Primitus  (pantorum  procerum  praetorumque 
pio  potissimumpaternoque  praesertim  privilegio) 
panegyricum  poemataque  passim  prosatori  sub 
polo  promulgates,  stridula  vocum  symphonia 
ac  melodias  cantile,  naeque  carmine  modulaturi 
hymnizemus. 


VIII. 


Such  was  this  race,  the  last  born  of 
the  sister  races,  which,  in  the  decay  of 
the  other  two,  the  Latin  and  the  Greek, 
brings  to  the  world  a  new  civilization, 
with  a  new  character  and  genius.  In 
ferior  to  these  in  many  respects,  it  sur- 
passes them  in  not  a  few.  Amidst  the 
woods  and  mire  and  snows  under  a 
sad,  inclement  sky,  gross  instincts  have 
gained  the  day  during  this  long  bar- 
barism. The  German  has  not  acquired 
gay  humor,  unreserved  facility,  the  feel- 
ing for  harmonious  beauty  ;  his  great 
phlegmatic  body  continues  savage  and 
stiff,  greedy  and  brutal ;  his  rude  and 
unpliable  mind  is  still  inclined  to  sav- 
agery, and  restive  under  culture.  Dull 
and  congealed,  his  ideas  cannot  expand 
with  facility  and  freedom,  with  a  natural 
sequence  and  an  instinctive  regularity. 
But  this  spirit,  void  of  the  sentiment 
of  the  beautiful,  is  all  the  more  apt  for 
the  sentiment  of  the  true.  The  deep 
and  incisive  impression  which  he  re- 
ceives from  contact  with  objects,  and 
which  as  yet  he  can  only  express  by  a 
cry,  will  afterwards  liberate  him  from 
the  Latin  rhetoric,  and  will  vent  itself 
on  things  rather  than  on  words.  More- 
over, under  the  constraint  of  climate 
and  solitude,  by  the  habit  of  resistance 
and  effort,  his  ideal  is  changed.  Manly 
and  moral  instincts  have  gained  the 
empire  over  him  ;  and  amongst  them 
the  need  of  independence,  the  disposi- 
tion for  serious  and  strict  manners,  the 
inclination  for  devotion  and  veneration, 
the  worship  of  heroism.  Here  are  the 
foundations  and  the  elements  of  a  civil- 
ization, slower  but  sounder,  less  care- 
ful of  what  is  agreeable  and  elegant, 
more  based  on  justice  and  truth.* 
Hitherto  at  least  the  race  is  intact 
intact  in  its  primitive  coarseness ;  the 
Roman  cultivation  could  neither  de- 
velop nor  deform  it.  If  Christianity 
took  root,  it  was  owing  to  natural 
affinities,  but  it  produced  no  change  in 
the  native  genius.  Now  approaches  a 
newr  conquest,  which  is  to  bring  this 
time  men,  as  well  as  ideas.  The  Saxons, 
meanwhile,  after  the  wont  of  German 

*  In  Iceland,  the  country  of  the  fiercest  sea- 
kings,  crimes  are  unknown  ;  prisons  have  been 
turned  to  other  uses  J  fines  are  the  only  punish- 
ment* 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


races,  vigorous  and  fertile,  have  with- 
in the  past  six  centuries  multiplied 
enormously.  They  were  now  about 
two  millions,  and  the  Norman  army 
numbered  sixty  thousand.*  In  vain 
these  Normans  become  transformed, 
gallicized  ;  by  their  origin,  and  sub- 
stantially in  themselves  they  are  still 
the  relatives  of  those  whom  they  con- 
quered. In  vain  they  imported  their 
manners  and  their  poesy,  and  intro- 
duced into  the  language  a  third  part  of 
its  words  ;  this  language  continues  al- 
together German  in  element  and  in 
substance.f  Though  the  grammar 
changed,  it  changed  integrally,  by  an 
internal  action,  in  the  same  sense  as 
its  continental  cognates.  At  the  end 
of  three  hundred  years  the  conquerors 
themselves  were  conquered  ;  their 
speech  became  English  ;  and  owing  to 
frequent  intermarriage,  the  English 
blood  ended  by  gaining  the  predomi- 
nance over  the  Norman  blood  in  their 
veins.  The  race  finally  remains  Saxon. 
If  the  old  poetic  genius  disappears  af- 
ter the  Conquest,  it  is  as  a  river  disap- 
pears, and  flows  for  a  while  under- 
ground. In  five  centuries  it  will 
emerge  once  more.J 


CHAPTER  II. 

ftjj*  IjjiQicmmw. 
I. 

A  CKNTJRY  and  a  half  had  passed  on 
the  Continent  since,  amid  the  universal 
decay  and  dissolution,  a  new  society 
Had  been  formed,  and  new  men  had 
risen  up.  Brave  men  had  at  length 
made  a  stand  against  the  Norsemen 

*  Following  Doomsday  Book,  Mr.  Turner 
reckons  at  three  hundred  thousand  the  heads 
of  families  mentioned.  If  each  family  consisted 
ot  five  persons,  that  would  make  one  million  five 
hundred  thousand  people.  He  adds  five  hun- 
dred thousand  for  the  four  northern  counties, 
for  London  and  several  large  towns,  for  the 
monks  and  provincial  clergy  not  enumerated. 
.  .  .  We  must  accept  these  figures  with  caution. 
.Still  they  agree  with  those  of  Mackintosh, 
George  Cialmers,  and  several  others.  Many 
facts  show  that  the  Saxon  population  was  very 
numerous,  and  quite  out  of  proportion  to  the 
Norman  population. 

t  Warton,  History  of  English  Poetry,  1840, 
3  vols.  preface.  \  Ibid. 


and  the  robbers.  They  had  planted 
their  feet  in  the  soil,  and  the  moving 
chaos  of  the  general  subsidence  had 
become  fixed  by  the  effort  of  their 
great  hearts  and  of  their  arms.  At 
the  mouths  of  the  rivers,  in  the  defiles 
of  the  mountains,  on  the  margin  of  the 
waste  borders,  at  all  perilous  passes, 
they  had  built  their  forts,  each  for  him- 
self, each  on  his  own  land,  each  with 
his  faithful  band ;  and  they  had  lived 
like  a  scattered  but  watchful  army,  en- 
camped and  confederate  in  their  cas- 
tles7  sword  in  hand,  in  front  of  the 
enemy.  Beneath  this  discipline  a  for- 
midable people  had  been  formed, 
fierce  hearts  in  strong  bodies,*  intoler- 
ant of  restraint,  longing  for  violent 
deeds,  born  for  constant  warfare  be- 
cause steeped  in  permanent  warfare, 
heroes  and  robbers,  who,  as  an  escape 
from  their  solitude,  plunged  into  ad- 
ventures, and  went,  that  they  might 
conquer  a  country  or  win  Paradise,  to 
Sicily,  to  Portugal,  to  Spain,  to  Livo- 
nia, to  Palestine,  to  England. 

II. 

On  the  27 th  of  September,  1066,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Somme,  there  was  a 
great  sight  to  be  seen :  four  hundred 
large  sailing  vessels,  more  than  a  thou- 
sand transports,  and  sixty  thousand 
men,  were  on  the  point  of  embarking.f 
The  sun  shone  splendidly  after  long 
rain  ;  trumpets  sounded,  the  cries  of 
this  armed  multitude  rose  to  heaven ; 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  see,  on  the 
shore,  in  the  wide-spreading  river,  on 
the  sea  which  opens  out  thence  broad 
and  shining,  masts  and  sails  extended 

*  See,  amidst  other  delineations  of  their 
manners,  the  first  accounts  of  the  first  Crusade* 
Godfrey  clove  a  Saracen  down  to  his  waist. — In 
Palestine,  a  widow  was  compelled,  up  to  the 
age  of  sixty,  to  marry  again,  because  no  fial 
could  remain  without  a  defender. — A  Spanish 
leader  said  to  his  exhausted  soldiers  after  a 
battle,  "  You  are  too  weary  and  too  much 
wounded,  but  come  and  fight  with  me  against 
this  other  band ;  the  fresh  wounds  which  we 
shall  receive  will  make  us  forget  those  which 
we  have."  At  this  time,  says  the  General 
Chronicle  of  Spain,  kings,  counts,  and  nobles, 
and  all  the  knights,  that  they  might  be  ever 
ready,  kept  their  horses  in  the  chamber  where 
they  slept  with  their  wives. 

t  For  difference  in  numbers  of  the  fleet  and 
men,  see  Freeman,  Hist,  of  the  Norm.  Conq.^ 
3  vols.  1867,  iii.  381,  387— TR. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS. 


57 


like  a  forest;  the  enormous  fleet  set 
out  wafted  by  the  south  wind.*  The 
people  which  it  carried  were  said  to 
have  come  from  Norway,  and  they 
might  have  been  taken  for  kinsmen  of 
the  Saxons,  with  whom  they  were  to 
fight ;  but  there  were  with  them  a 
multitude*  of  adventurers,  crowding 
fr  )m  all  quarters,  far  and  near,  from 
north  and  south,  from  Maine  and  An- 
!ou,  from  Poitou  and  Brittany,  from 
Ile-de-France  and  Flanders,  from 
Aquitaine  and  Burgundy ;  t  and,  in 
short,  the  expedition  itself  was  French. 
How  comes  it  that  having  kept  its 
name,  it  had  changed  its  nature  ?  and 
what  series  of  renovations  had  made  a 
Latin  out  of  a  German  people  ?  The 
reason  is  that  this  people,  when  they 
came  to  Neustria,  were  neither  a  na- 
tional body,  nor  a  pure  race.  They 
were  but  a  band ;  and  as  such,  marrying 
the  women  of  the  country,  they  intro- 
duced foreign  blood  into  their  children. 
They  were  a  Scandinavian  band,  but 
swelled  by  all  the  bold  knaves  and  all 
the  wretched  desperadoes  who  wan- 
dered about  the  conquered  country :  \ 
and  as  such  they  received  foreign  blood 
into  their  veins.  Moreover,  if  the  no- 
madic band  was  mixed,  the  settled 
band  was  much  more  so ;  and  peace 
by  its  transfusions,  like  war  by  its  re- 
cruits, had  changed  the  character  of 
the  primitive  blood.  When  Rollo, 
having  divided  the  land  amongst  his 
followers,  hung  the  thieves  and  their 
abettors,  people  from  every  country 
gathered  to  him.  Security,  good  stern 
justice,  were  so  rare,  that  they  were 
enough  to  re-people  a  land.  §  He  in- 
vited strangers,  say  the  old  writers, 
"  and  made  one  people  out  of  so  many 
folk  of  different  natures."  This  as- 

*  For  all  the  details,  see  Anglo-Norman 
Chronicles,  iii.  4,  as  quoted  by  Aug.  Thierry. 
I  have  myself  seen  the  locality  and  the  country. 

t  Of  three  columns  of  attack  at  Hastings, 
two  we,.e  composed  of  auxiliaries.  Moreover, 
the  chroniclers  are  not  at  fault  upon  this  critical 
point ;  they  agree  in  stating  that  England  was 
conquered  by  Frenchmen. 

t  It  was  a  Rouen  fisherman,  a  soldier  of 
Rollo,  who  killed  the  Duke  of  France  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Eure.  Hastings,  the  famous  sea- 
king,  was  a  laborer's  son  from  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Troyes. 

§  "  In  the  tenth  century,"  says  Stendhal,  "  a 
Bian  wished  for  two  things :  ist,  not  to  be  slain ; 
2d,  to  have  a  good  leather  coat."  See  Fonte- 
nelle's  Chronicle. 


semblage  of  barbarians,  refugees,  rob- 
bers, immigrants,  spoke  Romance  or 
French  so  quickly,  that  the  second 
Duke,  wishing  to  have  his  son  taught 
Danish,  had  to  send  him  to  Bayeux, 
where  it  was  still  spoken.  The  great 
masses  always  form  the  race  in  the 
end,  and  generally  the  genius  and  lan- 
guage. Thus  this  people,  so  trans- 
formed, quickly  became  polished  ;  the 
composite  race  showed  itself  of  a  ready 
genius,  far  more  wary  than  the  Saxons 
across  the  Channel,  closely  resembling 
their  neighbors  of  Picardy,  Champagne 
and  Ile-de-France.  "  The  Saxons,"  says 
an  old  writer,*  "  vied  with  each  other 
in  their  drinking  feats,  and  wasted 
their  income  by  day  and  night  in  feast- 
ing, whilst  they  lived  in  wretched 
hovels  ;  the  French  and  Normans,  on 
the  other  hand,  living  inexpensively  in 
their  fine  large  houses,  were  besides 
refined  in  their  food  and  studiously 
careful  in  their  dress."  The  former, 
still  weighted  by  the  German  phlegm, 
were  gluttons  and  drunkards,  now  and 
then  aroused  by  poetical  enthusiasm  ; 
the  latter,  made  sprightlier  by  their 
transplantation  and  their  alloy,  felt  the 
cravings  of  the  mind  already  making 
themselves  manifest.  "  You  might  see 
amongst  them  churches  in  every  village 
and  monasteries  in  the  cities,  towering 
on  high,  and  built  in  a  style  unknown 
before,"  first  in  Normandy,  and  later 
in  England.f  Taste  had  come  to  them 
at  once — that  is,  the  desire  to  please 
the  eye,  and  to  express  a  thought  by 
outward  representation,  which  was 
quite  a  new  idea  :  the  circular  arch  was 
raised  on  one  or  on  a  cluster  of  col- 
umns ;  elegant  mouldings  were  placed 
about  the  windows  ;  the  rose  window 
made  its  appearance,  simple  yet,  like 
the  flower  which  gives  it  its  name 
"rose  des  buissons ;"  and  the  Norman 
style  unfolded  itself,  original  yet  pro- 
portioned between  the  Gothic,  whose 
richness  it  foreshadowed,  and  the  Ro- 
mance, whose  solidity  it  recalled. 

With  taste,  just  as  natural  and  just 
as  quickly,  was  developed  the  spirit  of 
inquiry.  Nations  are  like  children; 

*  William  of  Malmesbury. 

t  Churches  in  London,  Sarum,  Norwich, 
Durham,  Chichester,  Peterborough,  Rochester, 
Hereford,  Gloucester,  Oxford,  etc. — William 
of  Malmesbury. 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I. 


with  some  the  tongue  is  readily  loos- 
ened, and  they  comprehend  at  once ; 
with  others  it  is  loosened  with  difficulty 
and  they  are  slow  of  comprehension. 
The  men  we  are  here  speaking  of  had 
educated  themselves  nimbly,  as  French- 
men do.  They  were  the  first  in  France 
who  unravelled  the  language,  regula- 
ting it  and  writing  it  so  well,  that  to 
this  day  we  understand  their  codes 
and  their  poems.  In  a  century  and  a 
half  they  were  so  far  cultivated  as  to 
find  the  Saxons  "  unlettered  and  rude."  * 
That  was  the  excuse  they  made  for 
banishing  them  from  the  abbeys  and 
all  valuable  ecclesiastical  offices.  And, 
in  fact,  this  excuse  was  rational,  for 
they  instinctively  hated  gross  stupidity. 
Between  the  Conquest  and  the  death 
of  King  John,  they  established  five 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  schools  in 
England.  Henry  Beauclerk,  son  of 
the  Conqueror,  was  trained  in  the 
sciences ;  so  were  Henry  II.  and  his 
three  sons  :  Richard,  the  eldest  of  these, 
was  a  poet.  Lanfranc,  first  Norman 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  a  subtle 
logician,  ably  argued  the  Real  Pres- 
ence ;  Anselm,  his  successor,  the  first 
thinker  of  the  age,  thought  he  had  dis- 
covered a  new  proof  of  the  existence 
of  God,  and  tried  to  make  religion 
philosophical  by  adopting  as  his  maxim, 
"Ciede  ut  mtelligas."  The  notion 
was  doubtless  grand,  especially  in  the 
eleventh  century ;  and  they  could  not 
have  gone  more  promptly  to  work.  Of 
course  the  science  I  speak  of  was  but 
scholastic,  and  these  terrible  folios  slay 
more  understandings  than  they  confirm. 
But  people  must  begin  as  they  can; 
and  syllogism,  even  in  Latin,  even  in 
theology,  is  yet  an  exercise  of  the  mind 
and  a  proof  of  the  understanding. 
Among  the  continental  priests  who 
settled  in  England,  one  established  a 
library ;  another,  founder  of  a  school, 
made  the  scholars  perform  the  play  of 
Saint  Catherine;  a  third  wrote  in  pol- 
ished Latin,  "  epigrams  as  pointed  as 
those  of  Martial."  Such  were  the  rec- 
reations of  an  intelligent  race,  eager  for 
Ideas,  of  ready  and  flexible  genius, 
wnose  clear  thought  was  not  clouded, 
like  that  of  the  Saxon  brain,  by  drunken 
hallucinations,  and  the  vapors  of  a 
greedy  and  well-filled  stomach.  They 
*  Ordericus  vita/is. 


loved  conversations,  tales  of  adventure. 
Side  by  side  with  their  Latin  chron- 
iclers, Henry  of  Huntingdon,  William 
of  Malmesbury,  thoughtful  men  already, 
who  could  not  only  relate,  but  criticize 
here  and  there,  were  rhyming  chron- 
icles in  the  vulgar  tongue,  as  those  of 
Geoffrey  Gaimar,  Benoit  de  Sainte- 
Maure,  Robert  Wace.  Do  not  im- 
agine that  their  verse-writers  were 
sterile  of  words  or  lacking  in  details. 
They  were  talkers,  tale-tellers,  speakers 
above  all,  ready  of  tongue,  and  never 
stinted  in  speech.  Not  singers  by  any 
means ;  they^  speak  —  this  is  their 
strong  point,  in  their  poems  as  in  their 
chronicles.  They  were  the  earliest 
who  wrote  the  Song  of  Roland ;  upon 
this  they  accumulated  a  multitude  of 
songs  concerning  Charlemagne  and 
his  peers,  concerning  Arthur  and 
Merlin,  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  King 
Horn,  Guy  of  Warwick,  every  prince 
and  every  people.  Their  minstrels 
(trouvtres],  like  their  knights,  draw  in 
abundance  from  Welsh,  Franks,  and 
Latins,  and  descend  upon  East  and 
West,  in  the  wide  field  of  adventure. 
They  addressed  themselves  to  a  spirit 
of  inquiry,  as  the  Saxons  to  enthusiasm, 
and  dilute  in  their  long,  clear,  and 
flowing  narratives  the  lively  colors  of 
German  and  Breton  traditions  ;  bat* 
ties,  surprises,  single  combats,  embas- 
sies, speeches,  processions,  ceremonies, 
huntings,  a  variety  of  amusing  events, 
employ  their  ready  and  wandering  im- 
aginations. At  first,  in  the  Song  of  Ro- 
land>  it  is  still  kept  in  check  ;  it  walks 
with  long  strides,  but  only  walks. 
Presently  its  wings  have  grown  ;  inci- 
dents are  multiplied;  giants  and  mon- 
sters abound,  the  natural  disappears, 
the  song  of  the  jongleur  grows  a  poem 
under  the  hands  of  the  trouvere ;  he 
would  speak,  like  Nestor  of  old,  five, 
even  six  years  running,  and  not  grow 
tired  or  stop.  Forty  thousand  verses 
are  not  too  much  to  satisfy  their  gab- 
ble ;  a  facile  mind,  copious,  inquisitive, 
descriptive,  such  is  the  genius  of  the 
race.  The  Gauls,  their  fathers,  used 
to  delay  travellers  on  the  road  to  make 
them  tell  their  stories,  and  boasted; 
like  these,  "  of  fighting  well  and  talk 
ing  with  ease." 

With  chivalric  poetry,  they  are  not 
wanting  in  chivalry ;  principally,  it  may 


CHAP.  11.J 


THE  NORMANS. 


59 


be,  because  they  are  strong,  and  a 
strong  man  loves  to  prove  his  strength 
by  knocking  down  his  neighbors ;  but 
also  from  a  desire  of  fame,  and  as  a 
point  of  honor.  By  this  one  word 
honor  the  whole  spirit  of  warfare  is 
changed.  Saxon  poets  painted  war  as 
a  murderous  fury,  as  a  blind  madness 
which  shook  flesh  and  blood,  and 
awakened  the  instincts  of  the  beast  of 
prey  ;  Norman  poets  describe  it  as  a 
tourney.  The  new  passion  which  they 
introduce  is  that  of  vanity  and  gal- 
lantry ;  Guy  of  Warwick  dismounts 
all  the  knights  in  Europe,  in  order  to 
deserve  the  hand  of  the  prude  and 
scornful  Felice.  The  tourney  itself  is 
but  a  ceremony,  somewhat  brutal,  I 
admit,  since  it  turns  upon  the  breaking 
of  arms  and  limbs,  but  yet  brilliant  and 
French.  To  show  skill  and  courage, 
display  the  magnificence  of  dress  and 
armor,  be  applauded  by  and  please  the 
ladies, — such  feelings  indicate  men  of 
greater  sociality,  more  under  the  in- 
fluence of  public  opinion,  less  the 
slaves  of  their  own  passions,  void  both 
of  lyric  inspiration  and  savage  enthu- 
siasm, gifted  by  a  different  genius, 
because  inclined  to  other  pleasures. 

Such  were  the  men  who  at  this 
moment  were  disembarking  in  Eng- 
land to  introduce  their  new  manners 
and  a  new  spirit,  French  at  bottom,  in 
mind  and  speech,  though  with  special 
and  provincial  features ;  of  all  the 
most  matter-of-fact,  with  an  eye  to  the 
main  chance,  calculating,  having  the 
nerve  and  the  dash  of  our  own  soldiers, 
but  with  the  tricks  and  precautions  of 
lawyers ;  heroic  undertakers  of  profit- 
able enterprises ;  having  gone  to 
Sicily  and  Naples,  and  ready  to  travel 
.-  Constantinople  or  Antioch,  so  it  be 
to  take  a  country  or  bring  back  money  ; 
subtle  politicians,  accustomed  in  Sicily 
to  hire  themselves  to  the  highest  bid- 
der, and  capable  of  doing  a  stroke  of 
business  in  the  heat  of  the  Crusade,  like 
Bohemond,  who,  before  Antioch,  spec- 
ulated on  the  dearth  of  his  Christian 
allies,  and  would  only  open  the  town 
to  them  under  condition  of  their  keep- 
ing it  for  himself ;  methodical  and 
persevering  conquerors,  expert  in  ad- 
ministration, and  fond  of  scribbling  on 
paper,  like  tnis  very  William,  who 
was  able  to  organize  such  an  expedi- 


tion, and  such  an  army,  and  kept  a 
written  roll  of  the  same,  and  who  pro- 
ceeded to  register  the  whole  of  Eng- 
land in  his  Domesday  Book.  Sixteen 
days  after  the  disembarkation,  the  con- 
trast between  the  two  nations  was 
manifested  at  Hastings  by  its  visible 
effects. 

The  Saxons  "  ate  and  drank  the 
whole  night.  You  might  have  seen 
them  struggling  much,  and  leaping  and 
singing,"  with  shouts  of  laughter  and 
noisy  joy.*  In  the  morning  they 
packed  behind  their  palisades  the  dense 
masses  of  their  heavy  infantry,  and 
with  battle-axe  hung  round  their  neck 
awaited  the  attack.  The  wary  Nor- 
mans weighed  the  chances  of  heaven 
and  hell,  and  tried  to  enlist  God  upon 
their  side.  Robert  Wace,  their  his- 
torian and  compatriot,  is  no  more 
troubled  by  poetical  imagination  than 
they  were  by  warlike  inspiration  ;  and 
on  the  eve  of  the  battle  his  mind  is  as 
prosaic  and  clear  as  theirs,  t  The 
same  spirit  showed  itself  in  the  battle, 
They  were  for  the  most  part  bowmen 
and  horsemen,  well-skilled,  nimble,  and 
clever.  Taillefer,  the  jongleur,  who 
asked  for  the  honor  of  striking  the  first 
blow,  went  singing,  like  a  true  French 
volunteer,  performing  tricks  all  the 
while.  \  Having  arrived  before  the 

*  Robert  Wace,  Roman  du  Rou. 
t  Ibid. 

Et  li  Normanz  et  li  Franceiz 

Tote  nuit  firent  oreisons, 

Et  furent  en  aflicions. 

De  lor  pechie's  confez  se  firent 

As  proveires  les  regehirent, 

Et  qui  n'en  out  proveires  prez, 

A  son  veizin  se  fist  confez, 

Pour  co  ke  samedi  esteit 

Ke  la  bataille  estre  debveit. 

Unt  Normanz  a  pramis  e  vo£, 

Si  com  li  cler  1'orent  loe, 

Ke  a  ce  jor  mez  s'il  veskeient, 

Char  ni  saunc  ne  mangereient 

Giffrei,  eveske  de  Constances, 

A  plusors  joint  lor  penitances. 

Cli  recut  h  confessions 

Et  dona  li  beneicons>, 
$  Robert  Wace,  Roman  du  Rou  " 

Taillefer  ki  moult  bien  cantout 

Sur  un  roussin  qui  tot  alout 

Devant  li  dus  alout  cantant 

De  Kalermaine  e  de  Roiant, 

E  d'Oliver  et  des  vassals 

Ki  moururent  a  Roncevals. 

Quant  ils  orent  chevalchie'  tant 

K'as  Engleis  vindrent  aprismant. 

"Sires!  dist  Taillefer,  mercil 

Je  vos  ai  languement  servi. 


6o 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I. 


English,  he  cast  his  lance  three  times 
in  the  air,  then  his  sword,  and  caught 
them  again  by  the  handle ;  and  Har- 
old's clumsy  foot-soldiers,  who  only 
knew  how  to  cleave  coats  of  mail  by 
blows  from  their  battle-axes,  "  were 
astonished,  saying  to  one  another  that 
it  was  magic."  As  for  William, 
amongst  a  score  of  prudent  and  cun- 
ning actions,  he  performed  two  well- 
calculated  ones,  which,  in  this  sore 
embarrassment,  brought  him  safe  out 
of  his  difficulties.  He  ordered  his 
archers  to  shoot  into  the  air  ;  the  ar- 
rows wounded  many  of  the  Saxons  in 
the  face,  and  one  of  them  pierced  Har- 
old in  the  eye.  After  this  he  simulated 
flight ;  the  Saxons,  intoxicated  with  joy 
and  wrath,  quitted  their  entrenchments, 
and  exposed  themselves  to  the  lances 
of  his  horsemen.  During  the  remain- 
der of  the  contest  they  only  make  a 
stand  by  small  companies,  fight  with 
fury,  and  end  by  being  slaughtered. 
The  strong,  mettlesome,  brutal  race 
threw  themselves  on  the  enemy  like  a 
savage  bull ;  the  dexterous  Norman 
hunters  wounded  them  adroitly,  knock- 
ed them  down,  and  placed  them  under 
the  yoke. 

III. 

What  then  is  this  French  race,  which 
by  arms  and  letters  make  such  a  splen- 
did entrance  upon  the  world,  and  is  so 
manifestly  destined  to  rule,  that  in  the 
East,  for  example,  their  name  of 
Franks  will  be  given  to  all  the  nations 
of  the  West  ?  Wherein  consists  this 
new  spirit,  this  precocious  pioneer, 
this  key  of  all  middle-age  civilization  ? 
There  is  in  every  mind  of  the  kind 
a  fundamental  activity  which,  when  in- 

Tut  mon  servise  me  debvez, 
Hui,  si  vos  plaist,  me  le  rendez 
For  tout  guerredun  vos  requier, 
Et  si  vos  vpil  forment  preier, 
Otreiez-mei,  ke  jo  n'i  faille, 
Li  primier  colp  de  la  bataille." 
Et  li  dus  re'pont  :  "  Je  1'otrei." 
Et  Taillefer  point  a  desrei  ; 
Devant  toz  li  altres  se  mist, 
Ja  Englez  feri,  si  1'ocist. 
De  sos  le  pis,  parmie  la  pance, 
Li  fist  passer  ultre  la  lance, 
A  terre  estendu  1'abati. 
Poiz  trait  I'espe'e  altre  fe*ri. 
Poiz  a  crie* :  "  Venez,  venez ! 
Ke  fetes-vos  ?  Fe*rez,  ferez !  " 
Done  1'unt  Englez  avirone*. 
Al  secund  colp  k'il  ou  done. 


cessantly  repeated,  moulds  its  plan, 
and  gives  it  its  direction  ;  in  town  or 
country,  cultivated  or  not,  in  its  infancy 
and  its  age,  it  spends  its  existence  and 
employs  its  energy  in  conceiving  an 
event  or  an  object.  This  is  its  original 
and  perpetual  process  ;  and  whether  it 
change  its  region,  return,  advance, 
prolong,  or  alter  its  course,  its  whole 
motion  is  but  a  series  of  consecutive 
steps ;  so  that  the  least  alteration  in 
the  size,  quickness,  or  precision  of  its 
primitive  stride  transforms  and  regu- 
lates the  whole  course,  as  in  a  tree  the 
structure  of  the  first  shoot  determines 
the  whole  foliage,  and  governs  the 
whole  growth.*  When  the  French- 
man conceives  an  event  or  an  object, 
he  conceives  quickly  and  distinctly  ; 
there  is  no  internal  disturbance,  no 
previous  fermentation  of  confused  and 
violent  ideas,  which,  becoming  con- 
centrated and  elaborated,  end  in  a 
noisy  outbreak.  The  movement  of  his 
intelligence  is  nimble  and  prompt  like 
that  of  his  limbs  ;  at  once  and  without 
effort  he  seizes  upon  his  idea.  But  he 
seizes  that  alone  ;  he  leaves  on  one 
side  all  the  long  entangling  offshoots 
whereby  it  is  entwined  and  twisted 
amongst  its  neighboring  ideas ;  he 
does  not  embarrass  himself  with  nor 
think  of  them ;  he  detaches,  plucks, 
touches  but  slightly,  and  that  is  all. 
He  is  deprived,  or  if  you  prefer  it,  he 
is  exempt  from  those  sudden  half-vis- 
ions which  disturb  a  man,  and  open  up 
to  him  instantaneously  vast  deeps  and 
far  perspectives.  Images  are  excited 
by  internal  commotion ;  he,  not  being 
so  moved,  imagines  not.  He  is  only 
moved  superficially;  he  is  without 
large  sympathy ;  he  does  not  perceive 
an  object  as  it  is,  complex  and  combined, 
but  in  parts,  with  a  discursive  and 
superficial  knowledge.  That  is  why 
no  race  in  Europe  is  less  poetical, 
Let  us  look  at  their  epics ;  none  are 
more  prosaic.  They  are  not  wanting 
in  number  :  The  Song  of  Roland,  Garin 
le  Loherain,  Ogier  le  Danois^i  Bertht 
anx  grands  Pieds.  There  is  a  library 
of  them.  Though  their  manners  are 
heroic  and  their  spirit  fresh,  though 


*  The  idea  of  types  is  applicable  throughout 
all  physical  and  moral  nature. 

t  Danois  is  a  contraction  of  le  d1  A  rdennois 
from  the  Ardennes. — TR. 


CHAP.  II.J 


THE  NORMANS. 


61 


they  have  originality,  and  deal  with 
grand  events,  yet,  spite  of  this,  the 
narrative  is  as  dull  as  that  of  the  bab- 
bling Norman  chroniclers.  Doubtless 
when  Homer  relates  he  is  as  clear  as 
they  are,  and  he  develops  as  they  do  : 
but  his  magnificent  titles  of  rosy-fin- 
gered Morn,  the  wide-bosomed  Air,  the 
divine  and  nourishing  Earth,  the  earth- 
shaking  Ocean,  come  in  every  instant 
and  expand  their  purple  bloom  over 
the  speeches  and  battles,  and  the  grand 
abounding  similes  which  interrupt  the 
narrative  tell  of  a  people  more  inclined 
to  enjoy  beauty  than  to  proceed 
straight  to  fact.  But  here  we  have 
facts,  always  facts,  nothing  but  facts  ; 
the  Frenchman  wants  to  know  if  the 
hero  will  kill  the  traitor,  the  lover 
wed  the  maiden ;  he  must  not  be  de- 
layed by  poetry  or  painting.  He  ad- 
vances nimbly  to  the  end  of  the  story, 
not  lingering  for  dreams  of  the  heart 
or  wealth  of  landscape.  There  is  no 
splendor,  no  color,  in  his  narrative ; 
his  style  in  quite  bare,  and  without 
figures ;  you  may  read  ten  thousand 
verses  in  these  old  poems  without 
meeting  one.  Shall  we  open  the  most 
ancient,  the  most  original,  the  most 
eloquent,  at  the  most  moving  point, 
the  Song  of  Roland,  when  Roland  is 
dying  ?  The  narrator  is  moved,  and 
yet  his  language  remains  the  same, 
smooth,  accentless,  so  penetrated  by 
the  prosaic  spirit,  and  so  void  of  the 
poetic !  He  gives  an  abstract  of  mo- 
tives, a  summary  of  events,  a  series  of 
causes  for  grief,  a  series  of  causes  for 
consolation.*  Nothing  more.  These 

*  Genin,  Chanson  de  Roland: 

Co  sent  Rollans  que  la  mort  le  trespent, 

Devers  la  teste  sur  le  quer  li  descent ; 

Desuz  un  pin  i  est  alet  curant, 

Sur  1'herbe  verte  si  est  culchet  adenz  ; 

Desuz  lui  met  I'espe'e  et  1'olifan  ; 

Turnat  sa  teste  vers  la  paiene  gent, 

Pour  go  1'at  fait  que  il  voelt  veirement 

Que  Carles  diet  e  trestute  sa  gent, 

Li  gentilz  quens,  qu'il  fut  mort  cunquerant. 

Cleimet  sa  culpe,  e  menut  e  suvent, 

Purges  peccl  ez  en  puroffrid  lo  guant. 

Li  quens  P.ollans  se  jut  desuz  un  pin, 
Envers  Espagne  en  ad  turnet  sun  vis, 
De  plusurs  choses  a  remembrer  le  prist. 
De  tantes  terres  cume  li  bers  cunquist, 
De  duke  France,  des  humes  de  sun  lign, 
De  Carlemagne  sun  seignor  ki  1'nurrit. 
Ne  poet  muer  n'en  plurt  et  ne  susprit. 
Mais  lui  meisme  ne  volt  mettre  en  ubli. 
Cleimet  sa  culpe,  si  priet  Dieu  mercit : 

"  Veire  paterne,  ki  unques  ne  mentis, 


men  regard  the  circumstance  or  the 
action  by  itself,  and  adhere  to  this 
view.  Their  idea  remains  exact,  clear, 
and  simple,  and  does  not  raise  up  a 
similar  image  to  be  confused  with  the 
first,  to  color  or  transform  itself.  It 
remains  dry ;  they  conceive  the  divis- 
ions of  the  object  one  by  one,  without 
ever  collecting  them,  as  the  Saxons 
would,  in  an  abrupt  impassioned,  glow- 
ing semi-vision.  Nothing  is  more  on- 
posed  to  their  genius  than  the  genuine 
songs  and  profound  hymns,  such  as 
the  English  monks  were  singing  be- 
neath the  low  vaults  of  their  churches. 
They  would  be  disconcerted  by  the  un- 
evenness  and  obscurity  of  such  lan- 
guage. They  are  not  capable  of  such 
an  access  of  enthusiasm  and  such  ex- 
cess of  emotion.  They  never  cry  out, 
they  speak,  or  rather  they  converse, 
and  that  at  moments  when  the  soul, 
overwhelmed  by  its  trouble  might  be 
expected  to  cease  thinking  and  feeling. 
Thus  Amis,  in  a  mystery-play,  being 
leprous,  calmly  requires  his  friend 
Amille  to  slay  his  two  sons,  in  order 
that  their  blood  may  heal  him  of  his 
leprosy ;  and  Amille  replies  still  more 
calmly,*  If  ever  they  try  to  sing,  even 
in  heaven,  "a  roundelay  high  and 
clear,"  they  will  produce  little  rhymed 
arguments,  as  dull  as  the  dullest  talk. 

Seint  Lazaron  de  mort  resurrexis, 
Et  Daniel  des  lions  guaresis, 
Guaris  de  mei  1'arome  de  tuz  perilz, 
Pur  les  pecchez  que  en  ma  vie  fis." 
Sun  destre  guant  a  Deu  en  puroffrit. 
Seint  Gabriel  de  sa  main  Pad  pris« 
Desur  sun  bras  teneit  le  chef  enclin, 
Juntes  ses  mains  est  alet  a  sa  fin. 
Deus  i  tramist  sun  angle  cherubin, 
Et  seint  Michel  qu'on  cleimet  del^  pe"ri 
Ensemble  ad  els  seint  Gabriel  i  vint. 
L-'anme  del  cunte  portent  en  pareis. 

*  Mon  tres-chier  ami  de*bonnaire, 
Vous  m'avez  une  chose  ditte 
Qtii  n'est  pas  a  faire  petite 
Mais  que  1'on  doit  moult  resongtuer 
Et  nonpourquant,  sanz  eslongnier 
Puisque  garison  autrement 
Ne  povez  avoir  vraiement, 
Pour  vostre  amour  les  occiray, 
Et  le  sang  vous  apporteray. 
Vraiz  Diex,  moult  est  excellente, 
Et  de  grant  charite*  plaine, 
Vostre  bonte"  souveraine. 
Car  vostre  grace  presente, 
A  toute  personne  humaine, 
Vraix  Diex,  moult  est  excellente, 
Puisqu'elle  a  cuer  et  entente, 
Et  que  a  ce  desir  I'amaine 
Que  de  vous  servir  se  paine. 


62 


THE  SOURCE. 


BOOK  I. 


Pursue  this  literature  to  its  conclu- 
sion ;  regard  it,  like  that  of  the  Skalds, 
at  the  time  of  its  decadence,  when  its 
vices,  being  exaggerated,  display,  like 
those  of  the  Skalds,  only  still  more 
strongly  the  kind  of  mind  which  pro- 
duced it.  The  Skalds  fall  off  into  non- 
sense ;  it  loses  itself  into  babble  and 
platitude.  The  Saxon  could  not  mas- 
ter his  craving  for  exaltation  ;  the 
Frenchman  could  not  restrain  the  volu- 
bility of  his  tongue.  He  is  too  diffuse 
and  too  clear ;  the  Saxon  is  too  obscure 
and  brief.  The  one  was  excessively 
agitated  and  carried  away ;  the  other 
explains  and  develops  without  meas- 
ure. From  the  twelfth  century  the 
Gestes  spun  out  degenerate  into  rhap- 
sodies and  psalmodies  of  thirty  or  forty 
thousand  verses.  Theology  enters  into 
them;  poetry  becomes  an  intermin- 
able, intolerable  litany,  where  the 
ideas,  expounded,  developed,  and  re- 
peated ad  infinitum,  without  one  out- 
burst of  emotion  or  one  touch  of  origin- 
ality, flow  like  a  clear  and  insipid 
stream,  and  send  off  their  reader,  by 
dint  of  their  monotonous  rhymes,  into 
a  comfortable  slumber.  What  a  de- 
plorable abundance  of  distinct  and 
facile  ideas  !  We  meet  with  it  again 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  liter- 
ary gossip  which  took  place  at  the 
feet  of  men  of  distinction ;  it  is  the 
fault  and  the  talent  of  the  race.  With 
this  involuntary  art  of  perceiving,  and 
isolating  instantaneously  and  clearly 
each  part  of  every  object,  people  can 
speak,  even  for  speaking's  sake,  and 
forever. 

Such  is  the  primitive  process ;  how 
will  it  be  continued  ?  Here  appears  a 
new  trait  in  the  French  genius,  the 
most  valuable  of  all.  It  is  necessary 
to  comprehension  that  the  second  idea 
shall  be  contiguous  to  the  first ;  other- 
wise that  genius  is  thrown  out  of  its 
course  and  arrested;  it  cannot  pro- 
teed  by  irregular  bounds  ;  it  must  walk 
step  by  step,  on  a  straight  road  ;  order 
is  innate  in  it ;  without  study,  and  in 
the  first  place,  it  disjoints  and  decom- 
poses the  object  or  event,  however 
complicated  and  entangled  it  may  be, 
and  sets  the  parts  one  by  one  in  suc- 
cession to  each  other,  according  to 
their  natural  connection.  True,  it  is 
still  in  a  state  of  barbarism  ;  yet  its 


intelligence  is  a  reasoning  faculty, 
which  spreads,  though  unwittingly. 
Nothing  is  more  clear  than  the  style  of 
the  old  PYench  narratives  and  of  the 
earliest  poems :  we  do  not  perceive 
that  we  are  following  a  narrator,  so 
easy  is  the  gait,  so  even  the  road  he 
opens  to  us,  so  smoothly  and  gradually 
every  idea  glides  into  the  next;  and 
this  is  why  he  narrates  so  well.  The 
chroniclers  Villehardouin,  Joinville, 
Froissart,  the  fathers  of  prose,  have  an 
ease  and  clearness  approached  by 
none,  and  beyond  all,  a  charm,  a  grace, 
which  they  had  not  to  go  out  of  their 
way  to  find.  Grace  is  a  national  pos- 
session in  France,  and  springs  from  the 
native  delicacy  which  has  a  horror  of 
incongruities ;  the  instinct  oi  French- 
men avoids  violent  shocks  in  works  of 
taste  as  well  as  in  works  of  argument ; 
they  desire  that  their  sentiments  and 
ideas  shall  harmonize,  and  not  clash. 
Throughout  they  have  this  measured 
spirit,  exquisitely  refined.*  They  take 
care,  on  a  sad  subject,  not  to  push 
emotion  to  its  limits  ;  they  avoid  big 
words.  Think  how  Joinville  relates  in 
six  lines  the  death  of  the  poor  sick 
priest  who  wished  to  finish  celebrating 
the  mass,  and  "  never  more  did  sing, 
and  died."  Open  a  mystery-play, 
Theophilus,  or  that  of  the  Queen  of  Hun- 
gary, for  instance  :  when  they  are  go- 
ing to  burn  her  and  her  child,  she  says 
two  short  lines  about  "  this  gentle  dew 
which  is  so  pure  an  innocent,"  nothing 
more.  Take  a  fabliau,  even  a  drama- 
tic one :  when  the  penitent  knight, 
who  has  undertaken  to  fill  a  barrel 
with  his  tears,  dies  in  the  hermit's 
company,  he  asks  from  him  only  one 
last  gift :  "  Do  but  embrace  me,  and 
then  I'll  die  in  the  arms  of  my  friend." 
Could  a  more  touching  sentiment  be 
expressed  in  more  sober  language  ? 
We  must  say  of  their  poetry  what  is 
said  of  certain  pictures  :  This  is  made 
out  of  nothing.  Is  there  in  the  world 
any  thing  more  delicately  graceful  than 
the  verses  of  Guillaume  de  Lorris  ? 
Allegory  clothes  his  ideas  so  as  to  dim 
their  too  great  brightness ;  ideal  fig- 
ures, half  transparent,  float  about  the 
lover,  luminous,  yet  in  a  cloud,  and 
lead  him  amidst  all  the  gentle  and  deli- 

*  See  H.  Taine,  La  Fontaine  and  his  Fables 
P-  i5- 


THE  NORMANS. 


cate-hued  ideas  to  the  rose,  whose 
"  sweet  odor  embalms  all  the  plain." 
This  refinement  goes  so  far,  that  in 
Thibaut  of  Champagne  and  in  Charles 
of  Orleans  it  turns  to  affectation  and 
insipidity.  In  them  all  impressions 
grow  more  slender ;  the  perfume  is  so 
weak,  that  one  often  fails  to  catch  it ; 
on  their  knees  before  their  lady  they 
whisper  their  waggeries  and  conceits  ; 
they  love  politely  and  wittily;  they 
arrange  ingeniously  in  a  bouquet  their 
"painted  words,"  all  the  flowers  of 
"  fresh  and  beautiful  language  ;  "  they 
know  how  to  mark  fleeting  ideas  in 
their  flight,  soft  melancholy,  vague 
reverie  ;  they  are  as  elegant  as  talka- 
tive, and  as  charming  as  the  most 
amiable  abbes  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. This  lightness  of  touch  is  prop- 
er to  the  race,  and  appears  as  plainly 
under  the  armor  and  amid  the  massa- 
cres of  the  middle  ages  as  amid  the 
courtesies  and  the  musk-scented,  wad- 
ded coats  of  the  last  court.  You  will 
find  it  in  their  coloring  as  in  their  sen- 
timents. They  are  not  struck  by  the 
magnificence  of  nature,  they  see  only 
her  pretty  side  ;  they  paint  the  beauty 
of  a  woman  by  a  single  feature,  which 
is  only  polite,  saying,  "  She  is  more 
gracious  than  the  rose  in  May."  They 
do  not  experience  the  terrible  emotion, 
ecstasy,  sudden  oppression  of  heart 
which  is  displayed  in  the  poetry  of 
neighboring  nations  ;  they  say  discreet- 
ly, **  She  began  to  smile,  which  vastly 
became  her."  They  add,  when  they 
are  in  a  descriptive  humor,  "  that  she 
had  a  sweet  and  perfumed  breath," 
and  a  body  "  white  as  new-fallen  snow 
on  a  branch."  They  do  not  aspire 
higher ;  beauty  pleases,  but  does  not 
transport  them. .  They  enjoy  agreeable 
emotions,  but  are  not  fitted  for  deep 
sensations.  The  full  rejuvenescence  of 
being,  the  warm  air  of  spring  which 
renews  and  penetrates  all  existence, 
suggests  but  a  pleasing  couplet ;  they 
remark  in  passing,  "  Now  is  winter 
gone,  the  hawthorn  blossoms,  the  rose 
expands,"  and  so  pass  on  about  their 
business.  It  is  a  light  gladsomeness, 
soon  gone,  like  that  which  an  April 
landscape  affords.  For  an  instant  the 
author  glances  at  the  mist  of  the 
streams  rising  about  the  willow  trees, 
the  pleasant  vapor  which  imprisons 


the  brightness  of  the  morning;  then, 
humming  a  burden  of  a  song,  he  re- 
turns to  his  narrative.  He  seeks 
amusement,  and  herein  lies  his  power. 
In  life,  as  in  literature,  it  is  pleasure 
he  aims  at,  not  sensual  pleasure  or 
emotion.  He  is  lively,  not  voluptu- 
ous ;  dainty,  not  a  glutton.  He  takes 
love  for  a  pastime,  not  for  an  intoxica- 
tion. It  is  a  pretty  fruit  which  he 
plucks,  tastes,  and  leaves.  And  we 
must  remark  yet  further,  that  the  best 
of  the  fruit  in  his  eyes  is  the  fact  of  its 
being  forbidden.  He  says  to  himself 
that  he  is  duping  a  husband,  that  "  he 
deceives  a  cruel  woman,  and  thinks 
he  ought  to  obtain  a  pope's  indulgence 
for  the  deed."*  He  wishes  to  be 
merry — it  is  the  state  he  prefers,  the 
end  and  aim  of  his  life  ;  and  especially 
to  laugh  at  other  people.  The  short 
verse  of  his  fabliaux  gambols  and  leaps 
like  a  schoolboy  released  from  school, 
over  all  things  respected  or  respecta- 
ble ;  criticizing  the  church,  women,  the 
great,  the  monks.  Scoffers,  banterers, 
our  fathers  have  abundance  both  of  ex- 
pression and  matter ;  and  the  matter 
comes  to  them  so  naturally,  that  with- 
out culture,  and  surrounded  by  coarse 
ness,  they  are  as  delicate  in  their  rail- 
lery as  the  most  refined.  They  touch 
upon  ridicule  lightly,  they  mock  with- 
out emphasis,  as  it  were  innocently; 
their  style  is  so  harmonious,  that  at 
first  sight  we  make  a  mistake,  and  do 
not  see  any  harm  in  it.  They  seem  art- 
less ;  they  look  so  very  demure  ;  only 
a  word  shows  the  imperceptible  smile : 
it  is  the  ass,  for  example,  which  they 
call  the  high  priest,  by  reason  of  his 
padded  cassock  and  his  serious  air, 
and  who  gravely  begins  "  to  play  the 
organ."  At  the  close  of  the  history, 
the  delicate  sense  of  comicality  has 
touched  you,  though  you  cannot  say 
how.  They  do  not  call  things  by  their 
names,  especially  in  love  matters ; 
they  let  you  guess  it ;  they  assume 
that  you  are  as  sharp  and  know- 
ing as  themselves. t  A  man  might 
discriminate,  embellish  at  times,  per- 
haps refine  upon  them,  but  their  first 
traits  are  incomparable.  When  the 

*  La  Fontaine,  C antes,  Richard  Mimdolo* 
t  Parler  lui  veut  d'une  besogne 

Oi  crois  que  peu  conquerr^rois 
Si  la  besogne  vous  nommois. 


64 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  L 


fox  approaches  the  raven  to  steal  the 
cheese,  he  begins  as  a  hypocrite, 
piously  and  cautiously,  and  as  one  of 
the  family.  He  calls  the  raven  his 
"  good  father  Don  Rohart,  who  sings 
so  well ; "  he  praises  his  voice,  "  so 
sweet  and  fine."  You  would  be  the 
best  singer  in  the  world  if  you  kept 
clear  of  nuts."  Reynard  is  a  rogue,  an 
artist  in  the  way  of  invention,  not  a 
mere  glutton  ;  he  loves  roguery  for  its 
own  sake  ;  he  rejoices  in  his  superior- 
ity, and  draws  out  his  mockery.  When 
Tibert,  the  cat,  by  his  counsel  hung 
himself  at  the  bell  rope,  wishing  to  ring 
it,  he  uses  irony,  enjoys  and  relishes  it, 
pretends  to  wax  impatient  with  the 
poor  fool  whom  he  has  caught,  calls 
him  proud,  complains  because  the 
other  does  not  answer,  and  because  he 
wishes  to  rise  to  the  clouds  and  visit 
the  saints.  And  from  beginning  to 
end  this  long  epic  of  Reynard  the  Fox 
is  the  same ;  the  raillery  never  ceases, 
and  never  fails  to  be  agreeable.  Rey- 
nard has  so  much  wit,  that  he  is  par- 
doned for  every  thing.  The  necessity 
for  laughter  is  national — so  indigenous 
to  the  French,  that  a  stranger  cannot 
understand,  and  is  shocked  by  it.  This 
pleasure  does  not  resemble  physical 
joy  in  any  respect,  which  is  to  be  de- 
spised for  its  grossness  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  sharpens  the  intelligence,  and 
brings  to  light  many  a  delicate  or  tick- 
lish idea.  The  fabliaux  are  full  of 
truths  about  men,  and  still  more  about 
women,  about  people  of  low  rank,  and 
still  more  about  those  of  high  rank ; 
it  is  a  method  of  philosophizing  by 
stealth  and  boldly,  in  spite  of  conven- 
tionalism, and  in  opposition  to  the 
powers  that  be.  This  taste  has  noth- 
ing in  common  either  with  open  satire, 
which  is  offensive  because  it  is  cruel ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  provokes  good  hu- 
mor. We  soon  see  that  the  jester  is 
not  ill-disposed,  that  he  does  not  wish 
to  wound ;  if  he  stings,  it  is  as  a  bee, 
without  venom  ;  an  instant  later  he  is 
not  1  hinking  of  it ;  if  need  be,  he  will 
take  himself  as  an  object  of  his  pleas- 
antry ;  all  he  wishes  is  to  keep  up  in 
himself  and  in  us  sparkling  and  pleas- 
ing ideas.  Do  we  not  see  here  in  ad- 
vance an  abstract  of  the  whole  French 
literature,  the  incapacity  for  great 
poetry,  the  sudden  and  durable  perfec- 


tion of  prose,  the  excellence  of  all  the 
moods  of  conversation  and  eloquence, 
the  reign  and  tyranny  of  taste  and 
method,  the  art  and  theory  of  develop- 
ment and  arrangement,  the  gift  of  being 
measured,  clear,  amusing,  and  piquant  r 
We  have  taught  Europe  how  ideas 
fall  into  order,  and  which  ideas  are 
agreeable  ;  and  this  is  what  our  French- 
men of  the  eleventh  century  are  about 
to  teach  their  Saxons  during  five  or  six 
centuries,  first  with  the  lance,  next 
with  the  stick,  next  with  the  birch. 

IV. 

Consider,  then,  this  Frenchman  or 
Norman,  this  man  from  Anjou  or 
Maine,  who  in  his  well-knit  coat  of 
mail,  with  sword  and  lance,  came  to 
seek  his  fortune  in  England.  He  took 
the  manor  of  some  slain  Saxon,  and 
settled  himself  in  it  with  his  soldiers 
and  comrades,  gave  them  land,  houses, 
the  right  of  levying  taxes,  on  condition 
of  their  fighting  under  him  and  for 
him,  as  men-at-arms,  marshals,  stand- 
ard-bearers ;  it  was  a  league  in  case  of 
danger.  In  fact,  they  were  in  a  hostile 
and  conquered  country,  and  they  have 
to  maintain  themselves.  Each  one 
hastened  to  build  for  himself  a  place 
of  refuge,  castle  or  fortress,*  well  for- 
tified, of  solid  stone,  with  narrow  win- 
dows, strengthened  with  battlements, 
garrisoned  by  soldiers,  pierced  with 
loopholes.  Then  these  men  went  to 
Salisbury,  to  the  number  of  sixty  thou- 
sand, all  holders  of  land,  having  at 
least  enough  to  maintain  a  man  with 
horse  or  arms.  There,  placing  their 
hands  in  William's,  they  promised  him 
fealty  and  assistance  ;  and  the  king's 
edict  declared  that  they  must  be  all 
united  and  bound  together  like  bro- 
thers in  arms,  to  defend  and  succor 
each  other.  They  are  an  armed  colony, 
stationary,  like  the  Spartans  amongst 
the  Helots  ;  and  they  make  laws  ac- 
cordingly. When  a  Frenchman  is 
found  dead  in  any  district,  the  inhabi- 
tants are  to  give  up  the  murderer,  or 
failing  to  do  so,  they  must  pay  forty- 
seven  marks  as  a  fine  ;  if  the  de'ad  man 
is  English,  it  rests  with  the  people  of 
the  place  to  prove  it  by  the  oath  of 
four  near  relatives  of  the  deceased. 

*  At  King  Stephen's  death  there  were  in« 
castles. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS. 


They  are  to  beware  of  killing  a  stag, 
boar,  or  fawn ;  for  an  offence  againsi 
the  forest-la "/s  they  wniiose  their  eyes 
They  have  nothing  of  all  their  prop 
erty  assured  to  them  except  as  alms, 
or  on  condition  of  paying  tribute,  or  by 
taking  the  oath  of  allegiance.  Here 
a  free  Saxon  proprietor  is  made  a 
body-slave  on  his  own  estate.*  Here 
a  noble  and  rich  Saxon  lady  feels  on 
her  shoulder  the  weight  of  the  hand  of 
a  Norman  valet,  who  is  become  by  force 
her  husband  or  her  lover.  There  were 
Sax  "MS  of  one  sol,  or  of  two  sols,  ac- 
corumg  to  the  sum  which  they  gained 
for  their  masters;  they  sold  them, 
hired  them,  worked  them  on  joint  ac- 
count, like  an  ox  or  an  ass.  One 
Norman  abbot  has  his  Saxon  prede- 
cessors dug  up,  and  their  bones  thrown 
without  the  gates.  Another  keeps 
men-at-arms,  who  bring  his  recalcitrant 
monks  to  reason  by  blows  of  their 
swords.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  pride 
of  these  new  lords,  conquerors,  stran- 
gers, masters,  nourished  by  habits  of 
violent  activity,  and  by  the  savagery, 
ignorance,  and  passions  of  feudal  life. 
"  They  thought  they  might  do  whatso- 
ever they  pleased,"  say  the  old  chron- 
iclers. "  They  shed  blood  indiscrimi- 
nately, snatched  the  morse]  of  bread 
from  the  mouth  of  the  wretched,  and 
seized  upon  all  the  money,  the  goods, 
the  land."f  Thus  "  all  the  folk  in  the 
low  country  were  at  great  pains  to  seem 
humble  before  Ivo  Taille-bois,  and  only 
to  address  him  with  one  knee  on  the 
ground;  but  although  they  made  a 
point  of  paying  him  every  honor,  and 
giving  him  all  and  more  than  all  which 
they  owed  him  in  the  way  of  rent  and 
service,  he  harassed,  tormented,  tor- 
tured, imprisoned  them,  set  his  dogs 
upon  their  cattle,  .  .  .  broke  the  legs 
and  backbones  of  their  beasts  of  bur- 
den, .  .  .  and  sent  men  to  attack  their 
servants  on  the  road  with  sticks  and 
swords."  \  The  Normans  would  not 
and  could  not  borrow  any  idea  or  cus- 
tom from  such  boors  ;  §  they  despised 

*  A.  Thierry,  Histoire  de  la  Conq-uZte  de 
VAnglcterre,  ii. 

t  William  of  Malmesbury.  A.  Thierry,  ii. 
*o,  122-203. 

\  A.  Thierry. 

§  "  In  the  year  652,"  says  Warton,  i.  3,  "it 
was  the  common  practice  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
to  send  their  youth  to  the  monasteries  of  France 


them  as  coarse  ar  d  stupid.  They 
stood  amongst  them,  as  the  Spaniards 
amongst  the  Americans  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  superior  in  force  and  culture, 
more  versed  in  letters,  more  expert  in 
the  arts  of  luxury.  They  preserved 
their  manners  and  their  speech.  Eng- 
land, to  all  outward  appearance — the 
court  of  the  king,  the  castles  of  the 
nobles,  the  palaces  of  Vie  bishops,  the 
houses  of  the  wealth}  —was  French; 
and  the  Scandinavian  people,  of  whom 
sixty  years  ago  the  Saxon  kings  used 
to  have  poems  sung  to  them,  though 
that  the  nation  had  forgotten  its  lan- 
guage, and  treated  it  in  their  laws  as 
though  it  were  no  longer  their  sister. 

It  was  a  French  literature,  then, 
which  was  at  this  time  domiciled  across 
the  channel,*  and  the  conquerors  tried 
to  make  it  purely  French,  purged  from 
all  Saxon  alloy.  They  made  such  a 
point  of  this,  that  the  nobles  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  II.  sent  their  sons  to 
France,  to  preserve  them  from  bar- 
barisms. *•'  For  two  hundred  years," 
says  Higden,t  "  children  in  scole, 
agenst  the  usage  and  manir  of  all  other 
nations  beeth  compelled  for  to  leve 
tiire  own  langage,  and  for  to  construe  hir 
lessons  and  hire  thynges  in  Frensche." 
The  statutes  of  the  universities  obliged 
;he  students  to  converse  either  in 
French  or  Latin.  "  Gentilmen  chil- 
dren beeth  taught  to  speke  Frensche 
"rom  the  tyme  that  they  bith  rokked  in 
lire  cradell ;  and  uplondissche  men  will 
ikne  himself  to  gentylmen,  and  fondeth 
with  greet  besynesse  for  to  speke 
Frensche."  Of  course  the  poetry  is 
French.  The  Norman  brought  his 
minstrel  with  him  ;  there  was  Taillefer, 
he  jongleur,  who  sang  the  Song  of 
Roland  at  the  battle  of  Hastings  ;  there 
was  Adeline,  ihejong/euse,  who  received 
an  estate  in  the  partition  which  fol- 
owed  the  Conquest.  The  Norman 
who  ridiculed  the  Saxon  kings,  who 
dug  up  the  Saxon  saints,  and  cast  them 
without  the  walls  of  the  church,  loved 
one  but  French  ideas  and  verses.  It 
was  into  French  verse  that  Robert 
Wace  rendered  the  legendary  history 

or  education  ;  and  not  only  the  language  but 
he  manners  of  the  French  were  esteemed  the 
iost  polite  accomplishments." 

*  Warton.  i.  5. 

t  Trevisa's  translation  of  the  Polycronycon, 


56 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


of  the  England  which  was  conquered, 
and  the  actual  history  of  the  Nor- 
mandy in  which  he  continued  to  live. 
Enter  one  of  the  abbeys  where  the 
minstrels  come  to  sing,  "where  the 
clerks  after  dinner  and  supper  read 
poems,  the  chronicles  of  kingdoms,  the 
wonders  of  the  world,"  *  you  will  only 
find  Latin  or  French  verses,  Latin 
or  French  prose.  What  becomes 
of  English?  Obscure,  despised,  we 
hear  it  no  more,  except  in  the  mouths 
of  degraded  franklins,  outlaws  of  the 
forest,  swineherds,  peasants,  the  low- 
est orders.  It  is  no  longer,  or  scarcely 
written  ;  gradually  we  find  in  the  Saxon 
chronicle  that  the  idiom  alters,  is  ex- 
tinguished ;  the  chronicle  itself  ceases 
within  a  century  after  the  Conquest.t 
The  people  who  have  leisure  or  secur- 
ity enough  to  read  or  write  are  French ; 
for  them  authors  devise  and  compose  ; 
literature  always  adapts  itself  to  the 
taste  of  those  who  can  appreciate  and 
pay  for  it.  Even  the  English \  en- 
deavor to  write  in  French  :  thus  Robert 
Grostete,  in  his  allegorical  poem  on 
Christ ;  Peter  Langtoft,  in  his  Chronicle 
of  England,  and  in  his  Life  of  Thomas 
a  Becket ;  Hugh  de  Rotheland,  in  his 
poem  of  Hippomedon  ;  John  Hoveden, 
and  many  qthers.  Several  write  the 
first  half  of  the  verse  in  English,  and 
the  second  in  French ;  a  strange  sign 
of  the  ascendency  which  is  moulding 
and  oppressing  them.  Even  in  the  fif- 
teenth century,§  many  of  these  poor 
folk  are  employed  in  this  task  ;  French 
is  the  language  of  the  court,  from  it 
arose  all  poetry  and  elegance  ;  he  is  but 
a  clodhopper  who  is  inapt  at  that  style. 
They  apply  themselves  to  it  as  our  old 
scholars  did  to  Latin  verses  ;  they  are 
gallicized  as  those  were  latinized,  by 
constraint,  with  a  sort  of  fear, knowing 
well  that  they  are  but  schoolboys  and 
provincials.  Gower,  one  of  their  best 
|  oets,  at  the  end  of  his  French  works, 

*  Statutes  of  foundation  of  New  College, 
Oxford.  In  the  abbey  of  Glastonbury,  in  1247 : 
Liber  de  excidio  Troja,  gesta  Ricardi  regis, 
gesta  Alexandri  Magni,  etc.  In  the  abbey  of 
Peterborough:  Amys  et  Antelion,  Sir  Tris- 
tam,  Giiy  de  Bourgogne,  gesta  Otuclis.  les 
proprieties  de  Merlin,  te  Charlemagne  de  Tur- 
/  >z,  la  destruction  de  Troie,  etc-  Warton, 
•widem.  t  In  1154.  ^  \  Warton,  i.  72-78. 

§  In  1400.  Warton,  ii.  248.  Gower  died  in 
1408  ;  his  French  ballads  belong  to  the  end  of 
the  fourteenth  century. 


excuses  himself  humb  y  for  not  having 
"  de  Fran9ais  la  faconde.  Pardonnez 
moi,"  he  says,  "  que  de  ce  je  forsvoie ; 
je  suis  Anglais." 

And  yet,  after  all,  neither  the  race 
nor  the  tongue  has  perished.  It  is 
necessary  that  the  Norman  should  learn 
English,  in  order  to  command  his 
tenants  ;  his  Saxon  wife  speaks  it  to 
him,  and  his  sons  receive  it  from  the 
lips  of  their  nurse  ;  the  contagion  is 
strong,  for  he  is  obliged  to  send  them 
to  France,  to  preserve  them  from  the 
jargon  which  on  his  domain  threatens 
to  overwhelm  and  spoil  them.  From 
generation  to  generation  the  contagion 
spreads ;  they  breathe  it  in  the  air, 
with  the  foresters  in  the  chase,  the 
farmers  in  the  field,  the  sailors  on  the 
ships :  for  these  coarse  people,  shut  in 
by  their  animal  existence,  are  not  the 
kind  to  learn  a  foreign  language  ;  by 
the  simple  weight  of  their  dulnessthey 
impose  their  idiom  on  their  conquerors, 
at  all  events  such  words  as  pertain  to 
living  things.  Scholarly  speech,  the 
language  of  law,  abstract  and  philo- 
sophical expressions,  —  in  short,  all 
words  depending  on  reflection  and  cul- 
ture may  be  French,  since  there  is 
nothing  to  prevent  it.  This  is  just 
what  happens ;  these  kind  of  ideas  and 
this  kind  of  speech  are  not  understood 
by  the  commonalty,  who,  not  being 
able  to  touch  them,  cannot  change 
them.  This  produces  a  French,  a 
colonial  French,  doubtless  perverted, 
pronounced  with  closed  mouth,  with  a 
contortion  of  the  organs  of  speech, 
"  after  the  school  of  Stratford-atte- 
Bow  ;  "  yet  it  is  still  French.  On  the 
other  hand,  as  regards  the  speech  em- 
ployed about  common  actions  and 
visible  objects,  it  is  the  people,  the 
Saxons,  who  fix  it  ;  these  living  words 
are  too  firmly  rooted  in  his  experience 
to  allow  of  being  parted  with,  and  thus 
the  whole  substance  of  the  language 
comes  from  him.  Here,  then,  we  have 
the  Norman  who,  slowly  and  constrain- 
edly, speaks  and  understands  English, 
a  deformed,  gallicized  English,  yet 
English,  in  sap  and  root ;  but  he  has 
taken  his  time  about  it,  for  it  has  re- 
quired two  centuries.  It  was  only 
under  Henry  III.  that  the  new  tongue 
is  complete,  with  the  new  constitution  ; 
and  that,  after  the  like  fashion,  by  al- 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS. 


liance  and  intermixture  ;  the  burgesses 
come  to  take  their  seats  in  Parliament 
with  the  nobles,  at  the  same  time  that 
Saxon  words  settle  down  in  the  lan- 
guage side  by  side  with  French  words. 

V. 

So  was  modern  English  formed,  by 
compromise,  and  the  necessity  of  being 
understood.  But  we  can  well  imagine 
that  these  nobles,  even  while  speaking 
the  rising  dialect,  have  their  hearts  full 
of  French  tastes  and  ideas  ;  France  re- 
mains the  home  of  their  mind,  and  the 
literature  which  now  begins,  is  but 
translation.  Translators,  copyists,  im- 
itators— there  is  nothing  else.  Eng- 
land is  a  distant  province,  which  is  to 
IVance  what  the  United  States  were, 
thirty  years  ago,  to  Europe  :  she  ex- 
ports her  wool,  and  imports  her  ideas. 
Open  the  Voyage  and  Travaile  of  Sir 
John  Maundeznlle,*  the  oldest  prose- 
writer,  the  Villehardouin  of  the  coun- 
try :  his  book  is  but  the  translation  of 
a  translation.!  He  writes  first  in  Latin, 
the  language  of  scholars ;  then  in 
French,  the  language  of  society  ;  finally, 
he  reflects,  and  discovers  that  the 
barons,  his  compatriots,  by  governing 
the  Saxon  churls,  have  ceased  to  speak 
their  own  Norman,  and  that  the  rest  of 
the  nation  never  knew  it ;  he  translates 
his  manuscript  into  English,  and,  in 
addition,  takes  care  to  make  it  plain, 
feeling  that  he  speaks  to  less  expanded 
understandings.  He  says  in  French  : — 
"  II  advint  une  fois  que  Mahomet  allait 
dans  une  chapelle  oil  il  y  avait  un 
saint  ermite.  II  entra  en  la  chapelle  oil 

*  He  wrote  in  1356,  and  died  in  1372. 

t  "  And  for  als  moche  as  it  is  longe  time 
passcu  mat  ther  was  no  generalle  Passage  ne 
Vyage  over  the  See,  and  many  Men  desiren  for 
to  here  speke  of  the  holy  Lond,  and  han  there- 
of gret  Solace  and  Comfort,  I,  John  Maunde- 
V)  lie,  Knyght,  alle  be  it  I  be  not  worthi,  that 
was  born  in  Englond,  in  the  town  of  Seynt-Al- 
bones,  passed  the  See  in  the  Zeer  of  our  Lord 
fesu-Crist  1322,  in  the  Day  of  Seynt  Michelle, 
and  hidreto  have  been  longe  tyme  over  the  See, 
a.  .d  have  52711  and  gon  thorghe  manye  dyverse 
londes,  and  many  Provynces,  and  Kingdomes, 
and  lies. 

"  And  zee  shulle  undirstonde  that  I  have  put 
this  Boke  out  of  Latyn  into  Frensche,  and 
translated  it  azen  out  of  Frensche,  into  Eng- 
lyssche,  that  every  Man  of  my  Nacioun  may 
undirstonde  it." — Sir  John  Maundeville1  s 
Voyage  and  J^ravaile,  ed.  Halliwell,  1866, 
prologue,  p.  4. 


il  y  avait  une  petite  huisserie  et  basse, 
et  etait  bien  petite  lu  chapelle  ;  et  alors 
devint  la  porte  si  grande  qu'il  semblait 
que  ce  fut  la  porte  d'un  palais." 

He  stops,  corrects  himself,  wishes  to 
explain  himself  better  for  his  readers 
across  the  Channel,  and  says  in  Eng- 
lish : — "  And  at  the  Desertes  of  Arabye, 
he  wente  into  a  Chapelle  where  a 
Eremyte  duelte.  And  whan  he  entred 
in  to  the  Chapelle  that  was  but  a  lytille 
and  a  low  thing,  and  had  but  a  lytill 
Dore  and  a  low,  than  the  Entree  began 
to  wexe  so  gret  and  so  large,  and  s  "> 
highe,  as  though  it  had  ben  of  a  gret 
Mynstre,  or  the  Zate  of  a  Paleys."  * 
You  perceive  that  he  amplifies,  and 
thinks  himself  bound  to  clinch  and 
drive  in  three  or  four  times  in  succes- 
sion the  same  idea,  in  order  to  get  it 
into  an  English  brain ;  his  thought  is 
drawn  out,  dulled,  spoiled  in  the  pro- 
cess. Like  every  copy,  the  new  litera- 
ture is  mediocre,  and  repeats  what  it 
imitates,  with  fewer  merits  and  greater 
faults. 

Let  us  see,  then,  what  our  Norman 
baron  gets  translated  for  him;  first, 
the  chronicles  of  Geoffrey  Gaimar  and 
Robert  Wace,  which  consist  of  the 
fabulous  history  of  England  continued 
up  to  their  day,  a  dull-rhymed  rhap- 
sody, turned  into  English  in  a  rhapsody 
no  less  dull.  The  first  Englishman 
who  attempts  it  is  Layamon,t  a  monk 
of  Ernely,  still  fettered  in  the  old  idiom, 

*  Sir  John-  Maundeville' s  Voyage  and 
Travaile,  ed.  Halliwell,  1866,  xii.  p.  139.  It 
is  confessed  that  the  original  on  which  Wace 
depended  for  his  ancient  History  of  Englana 
is  the  Latin  compilation  of  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth. 

t  Extract  from  the  account  of  the  proceed- 
ings at  Arthur's  coronation  given  by  Layamon, 
in  his  translation  of  Wace,  executed  about  n8</« 
Madden's  Layamon,  1847,  "•  P'  625,  e 
sim : 

Tha  the  king  igeten  hafde 

And  al  his  mon-weorede, 

Tha  bugen  ut  of  burhge 

Theines  swithe  balde. 

Alle  tha  kinges, 

And  heore  here-thringes. 

Alle  the  biscopes, 

And  alle  tha  claerckes, 

All  tha  eorles, 

And  alle  tha  beornes. 

Alle  the  theines, 

Alle  the  sweines, 

Feire  iscrudde, 

Helde  geond  felde. 

Summe  heo  gunnen  aeruen, 

Summe  heo  gunnen  urnen, 


68 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  L 


who  sometimes  happens  to  rhyme, 
sometimes  fails,  altogether  barbarous 
and  childish,  unable  to  develop  a  con- 
tinuous idea,  babbling  in  little  confused 
and  incomplete  phrases,  after  the  fash- 
ion of  the  ancient  Saxons  ;  after  him  a 
monk,  Robert  of  Gloucester*  and  a 
canon,  Robert  of  Brunne,  both  as  in- 
sipid and  clear  as  their  French  models, 
having  become  gallicized,  and  adopted 
the  significant  characteristic  of  the 
race,  namely,  the  faculty  and  habit  of 
easy  narration,  of  seeing  moving  spec- 
tacles without  deep  emotion,  of  writing 
prosaic  poetry,  of  discoursing  and  de- 
veloping, of  believing  that  phrases  end- 
ing in  the  same  sounds  form  real 
poetry.  Our  honest  English  versifiers, 
like  their  preceptors  in  Normandy  and 
Ile-de-France,  garnished  with  rhymes 
their  dissertations  and  histories,  and 
called  them  poems.  At  this  epoch,  in 
fact,  on  the  Continent,  the  whole  learn- 
ing of  the  schools  descends  into  the 
street;  and  Jean  de  Meung,  in  his 
poem  of  la  Rose,  is  the  most  tedious  of 
doctors.  So  in  England,  Robert  of 
Brunne  transposes  into  verse  the 
Manuel  des  Peches  of  Bishop  Grostete  ; 
Adam  Davie,t  certain  Scripture  his- 
tories ;  Hampole  \  composes  the  Pricke 

Summe  heo  gunnen  lepen, 
Summe  heo  gunnen  sceoten, 
Summe  heo  wraestleden 
And  wither-gome  makeden, 
Summe  heo  on  uelde    - 
Pleouweden  under  scelde, 
Summe  heo  driven  balles 
.   Wide  geond  tha  feldes. 
Monianes  kunnes  gomen 
Ther  heo  gunnen  driuen. 
And  wha  swa  mihte  iwinne 
Wurthscipe  of  his  gomene, 
Hine  me  ladde  mid  songe 
At  foren  than  leod  kinge  ; 
And  the  king,  for  his  gomene, 
Gaf  him  geven  gode. 
Alle  tha  quene 
The  icumen  weoren  there, 
And  alle  tha  lafdies, 
Leoneden  geond  walles, 
To  bihalden  the  dugethen, 
And  that  folc  plasie. 
This  ilaeste  threo  daeges, 
Swulc  gomes  and  swulc  plaeges, 
Tha,  at  than  veorthe  daeie 
The  king  gon  to  spekene 
And  agaef  his  goden  cnihten 
All  heore  rihten  ; 
He  gef  seolver,  he  gsef  gold, 
He  gef  hois,  he  gef  lond, 
Castles,  and  clcethes  eke  ; 
His  monnen  he  iquende. 


*  After  1297.       t  About  1312.      J  About  1349. 


of  Conscience.  The  titles  alone  make 
one  yawn :  what  of  the  text  ? 

"  Mankynde  mad  ys  to  do  Goddus  wylle, 
And  alle  Hys  byddyngus  to  fuifille  ; 
For  of  al  Hys  makyng  more  and  les 
Man  most  principal  creature  es. 
Al  that  He  made  for  man  hit  was  done, 
As  ye  schal  here  after  sone."  * 

There  is  a  poem !  You  did  not  think 
so ;  call  it  a  sermon,  if  you  will  give  it 
its  proper  name.  It  goes  on,  well  di- 
vided, well  prolonged,  flowing,  but  void 
of  meaning ;  the  literature  which  sur- 
rounds and  resembles  it  bears  witness 
of  its  origin  by  its  loquacity  and  its 
clearness. 

It  bears  witness  to  it  by  other  and 
more  agreeable  features.  Here  and 
there  we  find  divergences  more  or  less 
awkward  into  the  domain  of  genius  ; 
for  instance,  a  ballad  full  of  quips 
against  Richard,  King  of  the  Romans, 
who  was  taken  at  the  battle  of  Lewes. 
Sometimes,  charm  is  not  lacking,  nor 
sweetness  either.  No  one  has  ever 
spoken  so  bright  and  so  well  to  the 
ladies  as  the  French  of  the  Continent, 
and  they  have  not  quite  forgotten  this 
talent  while  settling  in  England.  You 
perceive  it  readily  in  the  manner  in 
which  they  celebrate  the  Virgin.  No- 
thing could  be  more  different  from  the 
Saxon  sentiment,  which  is  altogether 
biblical,  than  the  chivalric  adoration  of 
the  sovereign  Lady,  the  fascinating  Vir- 
gin and  Saint,  who  was  the  real  deity 
of  the  middle  ages.  It  breathes  in  this 
pleasing  hymn : 

"  Blessed  beo  thu,  iavedi, 
Ful  of  hovene  blisse  ; 
Swete  flur  of  parais, 
Moder  of  milternisse.  ... 
I-blessed  beo  thu,  Lavedi, 
So  fair  and  so  briht  ; 
Al  min  hope  is  uppon  the, 
Bi  day  and  bi  nicht.  .  .  . 
Bricht  and  scene  quen  of  storre. 
So  me  liht  and  lere. 
In  this  false  fikele  world, 
So  me  led  and  steore."  ^ 

There  is  but  a  short  and  easy  step  be- 
tween this  tender  worship  of  the  Virgin 
and  the  sentiments  of  the  court  of  love 
The  English  rhymesters  take  it ;  and 
when  they  wish  to  praise  their  earthly 
mistresses,  they  borrow,  here  as  else- 
where, the  ideas  and  the  very  form  oj 

*  Warton,  ii.  36. 

t  Time  of  Henry  III.,  Reliquicz  A ntiguue 
edited  by  Messrs.  Wright  and  Halliwell,  i.  102 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS. 


French  verse.  One  compares  his  lady 
*o  all  kinds  of  precious  stones  and 
flowers;  others  sing  truly  amorous 
songs,  at  times  sensual  : 

"  Bytuene  Mershe  and  Aueril, 

When  spray  biginneth  to  springe, 

The  lutel  foul  hath  hire  wyl 

On  hyre  lud  to  synge, 

Ich  libbe  in  louelonginge 

For  semlokest  of  alle  thynge, 

He  may  me  blysse  bnnge, 

Icham  in  hir?  oaundoun. 

An  hendy  lap  ichabbe  yhent, 

Ichot  from  heaene  it  is  me  sent. 

From  alle  wymmen  my  love  is  lent, 

And  lyht  on  Alisoun."  * 

A  no  her  sings  : 

"  Suete  lemmon,  y  preye  the,   of    loue  one 

speche, 
Whil  y  lyue  in  world  so  wyde  other  nulle  y 

seche. 
With  thy  loue,  my  suete  leof,  mi  bliss  thou 

mihtes  eche 
A  suete  cos    of    thy  mouth    mihte  be  my 

leche."  f 

Is  not  this  the  lively  and  warm  imagi- 
nation of  the  south?  they  speak  of 
springtime  and  of  love,  "  the  fine  and 
lovely  weather,"  like  trouveres,  even 
like  troubadours.  The  dirty,  smoke- 
grimed  cottage,  the  black  feudal  castle, 
where  all  but  the  master  lie  higgledy- 
piggledy  on  the  straw  in  the  great  stone 
hall,  the  cold  rain,  the  muddy  earth, 
make  the  return  of  the  sun  and  the 
warm  air  delicious. 

"  Sumer  is  i-cumen  in, 
Lhude  sing  cuccu  : 
Groweth  sed,  and  bloweth  med, 
And  springeth  the  wde  nu. 

Sing  cuccu,  cuccu. 
Awe  bleteth  after  lomb, 
Llouth  after  calue  cu, 
Bulluc  sterteth,  bucke  verteth: 

Murie  sing  cuccu, 

Cuccu,  cuccu. 
Wei  singes  thu  cuccu  ; 
Ne  swik  thu  nauer  nu. 

Sing,  cuccu  nu, 

Sing,  cuccu.  $ 

fftre  are  glowing  pictures,  such  as 
Guillaume  de  Lorris  was  writing,  at 
the  same  time  even  richer  and  more 
lifelike,  perhaps  because  the  poet 
found  here  for  inspiration  that  love  of 
country  life  which  in  England  is  deep 
and  national.  Others,  more  imitative, 
attempt  pleasantries  like  those  of 
Rutebeuf  and  the  fabliaux,  frank 
quips,§  and  even  satirical  loose  wag- 

*  About  1278-     Warton,  i.  28. 
1 1  hid.  i.  31.  \  Warton,  i.  30. 

§  Poem  of  the  Owl  and  Nightingale^  who 
dispute  as  to  which  has  the  finest  voice. 


69 


geries.  Their  true  aim  and  end  is  to 
hit  out  at  the  monks.  In  every  French 
country  or  country  which  imitates 
France,  the  most  manifest  use  of  con- 
vents is  to  furnish  material  for  spright- 
ly and  scandalous  stories.  One  writes, 
for  instance,  of  the  kind  of  life  the 
monks  lead  at  the  abbey  of  Cocagne : 

"  There  is  a  wel  fair  abbei, 
Of  white  monkes  and  of  grei. 
Ther  beth  bowns  and  halles  : 
Al  of  pasteiis  beth  the  wallis, 
Of  fleis,  of  fisse,  and  rich  met, 
The  likfullist  that  man  may  et. 
Fluren  cakes  beth  the  schingles  alle. 
Of  chercbe,  cloister,  boure,  and  halle. 
The  pinnes  beth  fat  podinges 
Rich  met  to  princes  and  kinges.  .  .  . 
Though  paraclis  be  miri  and  bright 
Cokaign  is  of  fairir  sight.  .  .  . 
Another  abbei  is  therbi, 
Forsoth  a  gret  fair  nunnerie-  .  •  . 
When  the  someris  dai  is  hote 
The  young  nunnes  takith  a  bpte.  .  • 
And  doth  ham  forth  in  that  river 
Both  with  ores  and  with  stere.  .  .  . 
And  euch  monk  him  takith  on, 
And  snellich  berrith  forth  har  prei 
To  the  mochil  grei  abbei, 
And  techith  the  nunnes  an  oreisun, 
With  iambleue  up  and  down." 

This  is  the  triumph  of  gluttony  and 
feeding.  Moreover  many  things 
could  be  mentioned  in  the  middle  ages, 
which  are  now  unmentionable.  But  it 
was  the  poems  of  chivalry  which  rep- 
resented to  him  the  bright  side  of  his 
own  mode  of  life,  that  the  baron  pre- 
ferred to  have  translated.  He  desired 
that  his  trouvere  should  set  before  his 
eyes  the  magnificence  which  he  dis- 
played, and  the  luxury  and  enjoyments 
which  he  has  introduced  from  France. 
Life  at  that  time,  without  and  even 
during  war,  was  a  great  pageant,  a 
brilliant  and  tumultuous  kind  of  fete. 
When  Henry  II.  travelled,  he  took 
with  him  a  great  number  of  horsemen, 
foot-soldiers,  baggage-wagons,  tents, 
pack-horses,  comedians,  courtesans, 
and  their  overseers,  cooks,  confection- 
ers, posture-makers,  dancers,  barbers, 
go  -  betweens,  hangers  -  on.*  In  the 
morning  when  they  start,  the  assem- 
blage begins  to  shout,  sing,  hustle  each 
~»ther,  make  racket  and  rout,  "  as  if 
hell  were  let  loose."  William  Long- 
champs,  even  in  time  of  peace,  would 
not  travel  .without  a  thousand  horses 
by  way  of  escort.  When  Archbishop 

*  Letter  of  Peter  of  Blois. 


7° 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


a  Becket  oame  to  France,  he  entered 
the  town  with  two  hundred  knights,  a 
number  of  barons  and  nobles,  and  an 
army  of  servants,  all  richly  armed  and 
equipped,  he  himself  being  provided 
with  four-and-twenty  suits  ;  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  children  walk  in  front, 
singing  national  songs  ;  then  dogs,  then 
carriages,  then  a  dozen  pack-horses, 
each  ridden  by  an  ape  and  a  man  ;  then 
equerries  with  shields  and  war-horses  ; 
then  more  equerries,  falconers,  a  suite 
of  domestu  s,  knights,  priests ;  lastly, 
the  archbishop  himself,  with  his  private 
friends.  Imagine  these  processions, 
and  also  these  entertainments  ;  for  the 
Normans,  after  the  Conquest,  "  bor- 
rowed from  the  Saxons  the  habit  of 
excess  in  eating  and  drinking."  *  At 
the  marriage  of  Richard  Plantagenet, 
Earl  of  Cornwall,  they  provided  thirty 
thousand  dishes.f  They  also  contin- 
ued to  be  gallant,  and  punctiliously  per- 
formed the  great  precept  of  the  love 
courts  ;  for  in  the  middle  age  the  sense 
of  love  was  no  more  idle  than  the  others. 
Moreover,  tournaments  were  plentiful ; 
a  sort  of  opera  prepared  for  their  own 
entertainment.  So  ran  their  life,  full 
of  adventure  and  adornment,  in  the 
open  air  and  in  the  sunlight,  with  show 
of  cavalcades  and  arms ;  they  act  a 
pageant,  and  act  it  with  enjoyment. 
Thus  the  King  of  Scots,  having  come 
to  London  with  a  hundred  knights,  at 
the  coronation  of  Edward  I.,  they  all 
dismounted,  and  made  over  their  horses 
and  superb  caparisons  to  the  people  ; 
as  did  also  five  English  lords,  imitating 
their  example.  In  the  midst  of  war 
they  took  their  pleasure.  Edward  III., 
in  one  of  his  expeditions  against  the 
King  of  France,  took  with  him  thirty 
falconers,  and  made  his  campaign 
alternately  hunting  and  fighting.  } 
Another  time,  says  Froissart,  the 
knights  who  joined  the  army  carried  a 
plaster  over  one  eye,  having  vowed  not 
to  remove  it  until  they  had  performed  an 

*  William  of  Malmesbury. 

t  At  the  installation-feast  of  George  Nevill, 
Archbishop  of  York,  the  brother  of  Guy  of 
Wai-wick,  there  were  consumed,  104  oxen  and  6 
wild  bulls,  1000  sheep,  304  calves,  as  many 
hogs,  2000  swi^e,  500  stags,  bucks,  and  does, 
204  kids,  22,802  wild  or  tame  fowl,  300  quarters 
of  corn,  300  tuns  of  ale,  100  of  wine,  a  pipe  of 
bypocras,  12  porpoises  and  seals. 

$  These  prodigalities  and  refinements  grew  to 
excess  under  his  grandson  Richard  II. 


exploit  worthy  of  their  mistresses.  Out 
of  the  very  exuberancy  of  spirit  they 
practised  the  art  of  poetry ;  out  of  the 
buoyancy  of  their  imagination  they 
made  a  sport  of  life.  Edward  III. 
built  at  Windsor  a  hall  and  a  round 
table  ;  and  at  one  of  his  tourneys  in 
London,  sixty  ladies,  seated  on  palfreys, 
led,  as  in  a  fairy  tale,  each  her  knight 
by  a  golden  chain.  Was  not  this  the 
triumph  of  the  gallant  and  f r  •  olous 
French  fashions  ?  Edward's  wife 
Philippa  sat  as  a  model  to  the  arth  is 
for  their  Madonnas.  She  appeared  on 
the  field  of  battle  ;  listened  to  Froissart, 
who  provided  her  with  moral-plays, 
love-stories,  and  "  things  fair  to  listen 
to."  At  once  goddess,  heroine,  and 
scholar,  and  all  this  so  agreeably,  was 
she  not  a  true  queen  of  refined  chivalry  ? 
Now,  as  also  in  France  under  Louis  of 
Orleans  and  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy, 
this  most  elegant  and  romanesque 
civilization  came  into  full  bloom,  void 
of  common  sense,  given  up  to  passion, 
bent  on  pleasure,  immoral  and  brilliant, 
but,  like  its  neighbors  of  Italy  and 
Provence,  for  lack  of  serious  intention, 
it  could  not  last. 

Of  all  these  marvels  the  narrators 
make  display  in  their  stories.  Here  is 
a  picture  of  the  vessel  which  took  the 
mother  of  King  Richard  into  Eng- 
land ; — 

"  Swlk  on  ne  seygh  they  never  non  ; 

All  it  was  whyt  of  huel-bon, 

And  every  nayl  with  gold  begrave  : 

Off  pure  gold  was  the  stave. 

Her  mast  was  of  yvory  ; 

Off  samyte  the  sayl  wytterly. 

Her  ropes  wer  off  tuely  sylk, 

Al  so  whyt  as  ony  mylk. 

That  noble  schyp  was  al  withoute, 

With  clothys  of  golde  sprede  aboute  ; 

And  her  loof  and  her  wyndas, 

Off  asure  forsothe  it  was."  * 

On  such  subjects  they  never  run  dry. 
When  the  King  of  Hungary  wishes  to 
console  his  afflicted  daughter,  he  pro- 
poses to  take  her  to  the  chase  in  the 
following  style : — 

*  To-morrow  ye  shall  in  hunting  fa  -e  : 
And  ride,  my  daughter,  in  a  chair  ; 
It  shall  be  covered  with  velvet  red, 
And  cloths  of  fine  gold  all  about  your  head, 
With  damask  white  and  azure  blue, 
Well  diapered  with  lilies  new. 
Your  pommels  shall  be  ended  with  gold, 
Your  chains  enamelled  many  a  fold, 
Your  mantle  of  rich  degree, 


'  Warton,  i.  156. 


CHAP.  II.] 

Purple  pall  and  ermine  free. 

Jennets  of  Spain  that  ben  so  light, 

Trapped  to  the  ground  with  velvet  bright. 

Ye  shall  have  harp,  sautry,  and  song, 

And  other  mirths  you  among. 

Ye  shall  have  Rumney  and  Malespine, 

Both  hippocras  and  Vernage  wine  ; 

Montrese  and  wine  of  Greek, 

Both  Algrade  and  despice  eke, 

Antioch  and  Bastarde, 

Pyment  also  and  garnarde  ; 

Wine  of  Greek  and  Muscadel, 

Doth  clare,  pyment,  and  Rochelle, 

The  reed  your  stomach  to  defy, 

And  pots  of  osey  set  you  by. 

You  shall  have  venison  ybake, 

The  best  wild  fowl  that  may  be  take  ; 

A  leish  of  harehpund  with  you  to  streek, 

And  hart,  and  hind,  and  other  like. 

Ye  shall  be  set  at  such  a  tryst, 

That  hart  and  hynd  shall  come  to  you  fist, 

Your  disease  to  drive  you  fro, 

To  hear  the  bugles  there  yblow. 

Homeward  thus  shall  ye  ride, 

On  hawking  by  the  river's  side, 

With  gosshawk  and  with  gentle  falcon, 

With  bugle-horn  and  merlion. 

When  you  come  home  your  menie  among, 

Ye  shall  have  revel,  dance,  and  song  ; 

Little  children,  great  and  small, 

Shall  sing  as  does  the  nightingale. 

Then  shall  ye  go  to  your  evensong, 

With  tenors  and  trebles  among. 

Threescore  of  copes  of  damask  bright, 

Full  of  pearls  they  shall  be  pight. 

Your  censors  shall  be  of  gold, 

Indent  with  azure  many  a  fold  ; 

Your  quire  nor  organ  song  shall  want, 

With  contre-note  and  descant. 

The  other  half  on  organs  playing, 

With  young  children  full  fain  singing. 

Then  shall  ye  go  to  your  supper, 

And  sit  in  tents  in  green  arber, 

With  cloth  of  arras  pight  to  the  ground, 

With  sapphires  set  of  diamond. 

A  hundred  knights,  truly  told, 

Shall  play  with  bowls  in  alleys  cold 

Your  disease  to  drive  away  ; 

To  see  the  fishes  in  pools  play, 

To  a  drawbridge  then  shall  ye, 

Th'  one  half  of  stone,  th'  other  of  tree  ; 

A  barge  shall  meet  you  full  right, 

With  twenty-four  oars  full  bright, 

With  trumpets  and  with  clarion, 

The  fresh  water  to  row  up  and  down.  .  . 

Forty  torches  burning  bright 

At  your  bridge  to  bring  you  light. 

Into  your  chamber  they  shall  you  bring, 

With  much  mirth  and  more  liking. 

Your  blankets  shall  be  of  fustian, 

Your  sheets  shall  be  of  cloth  of  Rennes. 

Your  head  sheet  shall  be  of  pery  pight, 

With  diamonds  set  and  rubies  bright. 

When  you  are  laid  in  bed  so  soft, 

A  cage  of  gold  thall  hang  aloft, 

With  long  pa(>cr  fair  burning, 

An  i  cloves  that  be  sweet  smelling. 

F»  'inkincense  and  olibanum, 

Tl  At  when  ye  4eep  the  taste  may  come  ; 

And  if  ve  no  rest  can  take, 

All  night  minstrels  for  you  shall  wake."  * 


THE  NORMANS. 


7l 


*  Warton,  i.  176,  spelling  modernized. 


Amid  such  fancies  and  splendors 
the  poets  delight  and  lose  themselves 
and  the  wolf,  like  the  embroideries  of 
their  canvas,  bears  the  mark  of  this 
love  of  decoration.  They  weave  it  out 
of  adventures,  of  extraordinary  and 
surprising  events.  Now  it  is  the  life 
of  King  Horn,  who,  tiirown  into  a 
boat  when  a  lad,  is  wrecked  upon  the 
coast  of  England,  and,  becoming  •* 
knight,  reconquers  the  kingdom  of  his 
father.  Now  it  is  the  history  of  Sir 
Guy,  who  rescues  enchanted  knights, 
cuts  down  the  giant  Colbrand,  chal- 
lenges and  kills  the  Sultan  in  his  tent. 
It  is  not  for  me  to  recount  these 
poems,  which  are  not  English,  but  only 
translations;  still,  here  as  in  France, 
there  are  many  of  them  ;  they  fill  the 
imagination  of  the  young  society,  and 
they  grow  in  exaggeration,  until,  fall- 
ing to  the  lowest  depth  of  insipidity 
and  improbability,  they  are  buried  for- 
ever by  Cervantes.  What  would  peo- 
ple say  of  a  society  which  had  no 
literature  but  the  opera  with  its  un- 
realities? Yet  it  was  a  literature  of 
this  kind  which  formed  the  intellectual 
food  of  the  middle  ages.  People  then 
did  not  ask  for  truth,  but  entertain- 
ment, and  that  vehement  and  hollow, 
full  of  glare  and  startling  events. 
They  asked  for  impossible  voyages, 
extravagant  challenges,  a  racket  of 
contests,  a  confusion  of  magnificence 
and  entanglement  of  chances.  For  in- 
trospective history  they  had  no  liking, 
cared  nothing  for  the  adventures  of 
the  heart,  devoted  their  attention  to 
the  outside.  They  remained  children 
to  the  last,  with  eyes  glued  to  a  series 
of  exaggerated  and  colored  images, 
and,  for  lack  of  thinking,  did  not  per- 
ceive that  they  had  learnt  nothing. 

What  was  there  beneath  this  fanci- 
ful dream?  Brutal  and  evil  human 
passions,  unchained  at  first  by  religious 
fury,  then  delivered  up  to  their  own 
devices,  and,  beneath  a  show  of  exter- 
nal courtesy,  as  vile  as  ever.  Look 
at  the  popular  king,  Richard  Coeur  de 
Lion,  and  reckon  up  his  butcheries  and 
murders  :  "  King  Richard,"  says  a 
poem,  "  is  the  best  king  ever  mentioned 
in  song."  *  I  have  no  objection  ;  buf 

*  Warton,  i.  123  : 

"  In  Fraunce  these  rhymes  were  wroht, 
Every  Eugljshe  ne  knew  it  not." 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


if  he  has  the  heart  of  a  lion,  he  has 
also  that  brute's  appetite.  One  day, 
under  the  walls  of  Acre,  being  con- 
valescent, he  had  a  great  desire  for 
some  pork.  There  was  no  pork.  They 
killed  a  young  Saracen,  fresh  and  ten- 
der, cooked  and  salted  him,  and  the 
king  ate  him  and  found  him  very  good  ; 
whereupon  he  desired  to  see  the  head 
of  the  pig.  The  cook  brought  it  in 
trembling-  The  king  falls  a  laughing, 
an  1  says  the  army  has  nothing  to  fear 
fro  ai  famine,  having  provisions  ready 
at  hand.  He  takes  the  town,  and 
presently  Saladin's  ambassadors  come 
to  sue  for  pardon  for  the  prisoners. 
Richard  has  thirty  of  the  most  noble 
beheaded,  and  bids  his  cook  boil  the 
heads,  and  serve  one  to  each  ambas- 
sador, with  a  ticket  bearing  the  name 
and  family  of  the  dead  man.  Mean- 
while, in  their  presence,  he  eats  his 
own  with  a  relish,  bids  them  tell  Sala- 
din  how  the  Christians  make  war,  and 
ask  him  if  it  is  true  that  they  fear  him. 
Then  he  orders  the  sixty  thousand 
prisoners  to  be  led  into  the  plain : 

"  They  were  led  into  the  place  full  even. 
There  they  heard  angels  of  heaven  ; 
They  said  :  "  Seigneures,  tuez,  tuez ! 
Spares  hem  nought,  and  beheadeth  these!" 
King  Richard  heard  the  angels'  voice. 
And  thanked  God  and  the  holy  cross. 

Thereupon  they  behead  them  all. 
When  he  took  a  town,  it  was  his  wont 
to  murder  every  one,  even  children 
and  women.  Such  was  the  devotion 
of  the  middle  ages,  not  only  in  roman- 
ces, as  here,  but  in  history.  At  the 
taking  of  Jerusalem  the  whole  popula- 
tion, seventy  thousand  persons,  were 
massacred. 

Thus  even  in  chivalrous  stories  the 
fierce  and  unbridled  instincts  of  the 
bloodthirsty  brute  break  out.  The 
authentic  narratives  show  it.  Henry 
It.  irritated  at  a  page,  attempted  to 
tear  out  his  eyes.*  John  Lackland  let 
twenty-three  hostages  die  in  prison  of 
hunger.  Edward  II.  caused  at  one  time 
twenty-eight  nobles  to  be  hanged  and 
disembowelled,  and  was  himself  put 
to  death  by  the  insei  tion  of  a  red-hot 
iron  into  his  bowels.  Look  in  Froissart 
for  the  debaucheries  and  murders  in 
France  as  well  as  in  England,  of  the 
Hundred  Years'  War,  and  then  for 

*  See  Lingard's  History^  u.  55,  note  4. — TR. 


the  slaughters  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses.  In  both  countries  feudal  inde- 
pendence ended  in  civil  war,  and  the 
middle  age  founders  under  its  vices. 
Chivalrous  courtesy,  which  cloaked 
the  native  ferocity,  disappears  like 
some  hangings  suddenly  consumed  by 
the  breaking  out  of  a  fire ;  at  that  time 
in  England  they  killed  nobles  in  pref 
erence,  and  prisoners  too,  even  ct  I 
dren,  with  insults,  in  cold  Lloud. 
What,  then,  did  man  learn  in  this  civil- 
ization and  by  this  literature  ?  How 
was  he  humanized  ?  What  precepts 
of  justice,  habits  of  reflection,  store  of 
true  judgments,  did  this  culture  inter- 
pose between  his  desires  and  his  ac- 
tions, in  order  to  moderate  his  passion  ? 
He  dreamed,  he  imagined  a  sort  of 
elegant  ceremonial  in  order  the  better 
to  address  lords  and  ladies  ;  he  dis- 
covered the  gallant  code  of  little  Jehan 
de  Saintre.  But  where  is  the  true 
education  ?  Wherein  has  Froissart 
profited  by  all  his  vast  experience? 
He  was  a  fine  specimen  of  a  babbling 
child ;  what  they  called  his  poesy, 
the  poesie  neuve,  is  only  a  refined  gab- 
ble, a  senile  puerility.  Some  rheto- 
ricians, like  Christine  de  Pisan,  try  to 
round  their  periods  after  an  ancient 
model  ;  but  all  their  literature  amounts 
to  nothing.  No  one  can  think.  Sir 
John  Maundeville,  who  travelled  all 
over  the  world  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  after  Villehardouin,  is  as  con- 
tracted in  his  ideas  as  Villehardouin 
himself.  Extraordinary  legends  and 
fables,  every  sort  of  credulity  and  igno- 
rance, abound  in  his  book.  When  he 
wishes  to  explain  why  Palestine  has 
passed  into  the  hands  of  various  pos- 
sessors instead  of  continuing  under  one 
government,  he  says  that  it  is  because 
God  would  not  that  it  should  continue 
longer  in  the  hands  of  traitors  and  sin- 
ners, whether  Christians  or  others.  He 
has  seen  at  Jerusalem,  on  the  steps  of 
the  temple,  the  footmarks  of  the  ass 
which  our  Lord  rode  on  Palm  Sunday. 
He  describes  the  Ethiopians  as  a  peo- 
ple who  have  only  one  foot,  but  so 
large  that  they  can  make  use  of  it  as  a 
parasol.  He  instances  one  island 
"  where  be  people  as  big  as  gyants,  of 
28  feet  long,  and  have  no  cloathing  but 
beasts'  skins;"  then  another  island, 
"  where  there  are  many  evil  and  foul 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS. 


73 


women,  but  have  precious  stones  in 
their  eyes,  and  have  such  force  that  if 
they  behold  any  man  with  wrath,  they 
slay  him  with  beholding,  as  the  basilisk 
doth."  The  good  man  relates ;  that  is 
all :  doubt  and  common  sense  scarcely 
exist  in  the  world  he  lives  in.  He  has 
neither  judgment  nor  reflection ;  he 
piles  facts  one  on  top  of  another,  with 
no  further  connection;  his  book  is 
simply  a  mirror  which  reproduces  rec- 
ollections of  his  eyes  and  ears.  "  And 
all  those  who  will  say  a  Pater  and  an 
Ave  Maria  in  my  behalf,  I  give  them 
an  interest  and  a  share  in  all  the  holy 
pilgrimages  I  ever  made  in  my  life." 
That  is  his  farewell,  and  accords  with 
all  the  rest.  Neither  public  morality 
nor  public  knowledge  has  gained  any 
thing  from  these  three  centuries  of  cul- 
ture. This  French  culture,  copied  in 
vain  throughout  Europe,  has  but  super- 
ficially adorned  mankind,  and  the  var- 
nish with  which  it  decked  them,  is 
already  tarnished  everywhere  or  scales 
off.  It  was  worse  in  England,  where 
the  thing  was  more  superficial  and  the 
application  worse  than  in  France, 
where  foreign  hands  laid  it  on,  and 
where  it  could  only  half  cover  the 
Saxon  crust,  where  that  crust  was  worn 
away  and  rough.  That  is  the  reason 
why,  during  three  centuries,  through- 
out the  whole  first  feudal  age,  the 
literature  of  the  Normans  in  England, 
made  up  of  imitations,  translations,  and 
clumsy  copies,  ends  in  nothing. 

VI. 

Meantime,  what  has  become  of  the 
conquered  people  ?  Has  the  old  stock, 
on  which  the  brilliant  continental  flow- 
ers were  grafted,  engendered  no  literary 
shoot  of  its  own  ?  Did  it  continue 
barren  during  all  this  time  under  the 
Norman  axe,  which  stripped  it  of  all 
its  buds  ?  It  grew  very  feebly,  but  it 
grew  nevertheless.  The  subjugated 
race  is  not  a  dismembered  nation,  dis- 
located, uprooted,  sluggish,  like  the 
populations  of  the  Continent,  which, 
after  the  long  Roman  oppression,  were 
given  up  to  the  unrestrained  invasion 
of  barbarians  ;  it  increased,  remained 
fixed  in  its  own  soil,  full  of  sap  :  its 
members  were  not  displaced;  it  was 
simply  lopped  in  order  to  receive  on  its 


crown  a  cluster  of  foreign  branches. 
True,  it  had  suffered,  but  at  last  the 
wound  closed,  the  saps  mingled.  Even 
the  hard,  stiff  ligatures  with  which  the 
Conqueror  bound  it,  henceforth  con- 
tributed to  its  fixity  and  vigor.  The 
land  was  mapped  out  ;  every  title  veri- 
fied, defined  in  writing;*  every  r'ght 
or  tenure  valued  ;  every  man  registered 
as  to  his  locality,  and  also  his  condi- 
tion, duties,  descent,  and  resources,  so 
that  the  whole  nation  was  enveloped 
in  a  network  of  which  not  a  mesh 
would  break.  Its  future  development 
had  to  be  within  these  limits.  Its  con- 
stitution was  settled,  and  in  this  positive 
and  stringent  enclosure  men  were  com- 
pelled to  unfold  themselves  and  to  act. 
Solidarity  and  strife ;  these  were  the 
two  effects  of  the  great  and  orderly 
establishment  which  shaped  and  held 
together,  on  one  side  the  aristocracy  of 
the  conquerors,  on  the  other  the 
conquered  people  ;  even  as  in  Rome 
the  systematic  fusing  of  conquered 
peoples  into  the  plebs,  and  the  con- 
strained organization  of  the  patricians 
in  contrast  -with  the  plebs,  enrolled 
the  private  individuals  in  two  orders, 
whose  opposition  and  union  formed  the 
state.  Thus,  here  as  in  Rome,  the 
national  character  was  moulded  and 
completed  by  the  habit  of  corporate 
action,  the  respect  for  written  law, 
political  and  practical  aptitude,  the 
development  of  combative  and  patient 
energy.  It  was  the  Domesday  Book 
which,  binding  this  young  society  in  a 
rigid  discipline,  made  of  the  Saxon  the 
Englishman  of  our  own  day. 

Gradually  and  slowly,  amidst  the 
gloomy  complainings  of  the  chroni- 
clers, we  find  the  new  man  fashioned 
by  action,  like  a  child  who  cries  be- 
cause steel  stays,  though  they  improve 
his  figure,  give  him  pain.  However 
reduced  and  downtrodden  the  Saxons 
were,  they  did  not  all  sink  inta  the 
populace.  Some,t  almost  in  every 

*  Domesday  Book.  Froude's  Hist,  of  En^' 
land,  1858,  i.  13  :  "  Through  all  these  arrange- 
ments a  single  aim  is  visible,  that  every  man  in 
England  should  have  his  definite  place  and  def- 
inite duty  assigned  to  him,  and  that  no  human 
being  should  be  at  liberty  to  lead  at  his  own 
pleasure  an  unaccountable  existence.  The  dis- 
cipline o£  an  army  was  transferred  to  the  details 
of  social  life." 

t  Domesday  Book,  "  tenants-in-chief."  % 
4 


74 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I. 


county,  remained  lords  of  their  estates, 
on  the  condition  of  doing  homage  for 
them  to  the  king.  Many  became  vas- 
sals of  Norman  barons,  and  remained 
proprietors  on  this  condition.  A 
greater  number  became  socagers,  that 
is,  free  proprietors,  burdened  with  a 
tax,  but  possessed  of  the  right  of  alien- 
ating their  property;  and  the  Saxon 
villeins  found  patrons  in  these,  as  the 
plebs  formerly  did  in  the  Italian  nobles 
who  were  transplanted  to  Rome.  The 
patronage  of  the  Saxons  who  preserved 
their  integral  position  was  effective, 
for  they  were  not  isolated  :  marriages 
from  the  first  united  the  two  races,  as 
it  had  the  patricians  and  plebeians  of 
Rome  ;  *  a  Norman  brother-in-law  to 
a  Saxon,  defended  himself  in  defend- 
ing him.  In  those  turbulent  times, 
and  in  an  armed  community,  relatives 
and  allies  were  obliged  to  stand  shoul- 
der to  shoulder  in  order  to  keep  their 
ground.  After  all,  it  was  necessary 
for  the  new-comers  to  consider  their 
subjects,  for  these  subjects  had  the 
heart  and  courage  of  men  :  the  Sax- 
ons, like  the  plebeians  at  Rome,  re- 
membered their  native  rank  and  their 
original  independence.  We  can  rec- 
ognize it  in  the  complaints  and  indig- 
nation of  the  chroniclers,  in  the  growl- 
ing and  menaces  of  popular  revolt,  in 
the  long  bitterness  with  which  they 
continually  recalled  their  ancient  liber- 
ty, in  the  favor  with  which  they  cher- 
ished the  daring  and  rebellion  of  out- 
laws. There  were  Saxon  families  at 
the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  who  had 
bound  themselves  by  a  perpetual  vow, 
to  wear  long  beards  from  father  to  son 
in  memory  of  the  national  custom  and 
of  the  old  country.  Such  men,  even 
though  fallen  to  the  condition  of  soca- 
gers, even  sunk  into  villeins,  had  a 
suffer  neck  than  the  wretched  colonists 
of  the  Continent,  trodden  down  and 

*  According  to  Ailred  (temp.  Hen.  II.),  "  a 
king,  many  bishops  and  abbots,  many  great 
carls  and  noble  knights  descended  both  from 
English  and  Norman  blood,  constituted  a  sup- 
port tc  the  one  and  an  honor  to  the  other." 
"  At  p.esent,"  says  another  author  of  the  same 
period,  "  as  the  English  and  Normans  dwell 
together,  and  have  constantly  intermarried,  the 
two  nations  are  so  completely  mingled  together, 
that  at  least  as  regards  freemen,  one  can  scarce- 
ly distinguish  who  is  Norman  and  who  English. 
.  .  .  The  villeins  attached  to  the  soil,"  he  says 
again,  "  are  alone  of  pure  Saxon  blood." 


moulded  by  four  centuries  of  Roman 
taxation.  By  their  feelings  as  well  as 
by  their  condition,  they  were  the 
broken  remains,  but  also  the  living 
elements,  of  a  free  people.  They  did 
not  suffer  the  extremities  of  oppres- 
sion. They  constituted  the  body  of 
the  nation,  the  laborious,  courageous 
body  which  supplied  its  energy.  Tb* 
great  barons  felt  that  they  must 
rely  upon  them  in  their  resistance  to 
the  king.  Very  soon,  in  stipulating 
for  themselves,  they  stipulated  for  all 
freemen,*  even  for  merchants  and  vil- 
leins. Thereafter  "  No  merchant  shall 
be  dispossessed  of  his  merchandise,  no 
villein  of  the  instruments  of  his  labor 
no  freeman,  merchant,  or  villein  shah 
be  taxed  unreasonably  for  a  small 
crime  ;  no  freeman  shall  be  arrested, 
or  imprisoned,  or  disseized  of  his  land, 
or  outlawed,  or  destroyed  in  any  man- 
ner, but  by  the  lawful  judgment  of  his 
peers,  or  by  the  law  of  the  land." 
Thus  protected  they  raise  themselves 
and  act.  In  each  county  there  was  a 
court,  where  all  freeholders,  small  or 
great,  came  to  deliberate  about  the 
municipal  affairs,  administer  justice, 
and  appoint  tax-assessors.  The  red- 
bearded  Saxon,  with  his  clear  com- 
plexion and  great  white  teeth,  came 
and  sate  by  the  Norman's  side  ;  these 
were  franklins  like  the  one  whom  Chau- 
cer describes  : 

"  A  Frankelein  was  in  this  compagnie  ; 
White  was  his  berd,  as  is  the  dayesie. 
Of  his  complexion  he  was  sangum? 
Wei  loved  he  by  the  morwe  a  sop  in  win. 
To  liven  in  delit  was  ever  his  wone, 
For  he  was  Epicures  owen  sone, 
That  held  opinion  that  plein  delit 
Was  veraily  felicite  parfite. 
An  housholder,  and  that  a  grete  was  he, 
Seint  Julian  he  was  in  his  contree. 
His  brede,  his  ale,  was  alway  after  on  ; 
A  better  envyned  man  was  no  wher  non. 
Withouten  bake  mete  never  was  his  hous* 
Of  fish  and  flesh,  and  that  so  plenteous, 
It  snewed  in  his  hous  of  mete  and  drinke^ 
Of  all  deintees  that  men  coud  of  thinke  ; 
After  the  sondry  sesons  of  the  yere, 
So  changed  he  his  mete  and  his  soupere. 
Ful  many  a  fat  partrich  had  he  in  mewe, 
And  many  a  breme,  and  many  a  luce  in  stewo* 
Wo  was  his  coke  but  if  his  sauce  were 
Poinant  and  sharpe,  and  redy  all  his  gere» 
His  table,  dormant  in  his  halle  alway 
Stode  redy  covered  alle  the  longe  day. 
At  sessions  ther  was  he  lord  and  sire. 
Ful  often  time  he  was  knight  of  the  shire. 


*  Magna  Charta,  1215. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS. 


75 


An  anelace  and  a  gipciere  all  of  silk, 
Heng  at  his  girdle,  white  as  morwe  milk. 
A  shereve  hadde  he  ben,  and  a  contour. 
Was  no  wher  swiche  a  worthy  vavasour."  * 

With  him  occasionally  in  the  as- 
sembly, oftenest  among  the  audience, 
were  the  yeomen,  farmers,  foresters, 
tradesmen,  his  fellow-countrymen,  mus- 
cular and  resolute  men,  not  slow  in 
fhe  defence  of  their  property,  and  in 
supporting  him  who  would  take  their 
cause  in  hand,  with  voice,  fist,  and 
weapons.  Is  it  likely  that  the  discon- 
tent of  such  men,  to  whom  the  follow- 
ing description  applies,  could  be  over- 
looked ? 

"  The  Miller  was  a  stout  carl  for  the  nones, 
Ful  bigge  he  was  of  braun  and  eke  of  bones  ; 
That  proved  wel,  for  over  all  ther  he  came, 
At  wrastling  he  wold  bere  away  the  ram. 
He  was  short    shuldered    brode,   a  thikke 

gnarre, 
Ther  n'as  no  dore,  that  he  n'olde  heve  of 

barre, 

Or  breke  it  at  a  renning  with  his  hede. 
His  berd  as  any  sowe  or  fox  was  rede, 
And  therto  brode,  as  though  it  were  a  spade. 
Upon  the  cop  right  of  his  nose  he  hade 
A  wert,  and  thereon  stode  a  tufte  of  heres, 
Rede  as  the  bristles  of  a  sowes  eres: 
His  nose-thiries  blacke  were  and  wide. 
A  swerd  and  bokeler  bare  he  by  his  side. 
His  mouth  as  wide  was  as  a  forneis, 
He  was  a  jangler  and  a  goliardeis, 
And  that  was  most  of  sinne,  and  harlotries. 
Wel  coude  he  stelen  corne  and  tollen  thries. 
And  yet  he  had  a  thomb  of  gold  parde. 
A  white  cote  and  a  blew  hode  wered  he. 
A  baggepipe  wel  coude  he  blowe  and  soune, 
And  therwithall  he  brought  us  out  of  toune."t 

Those  are  the  athletic  forms,  the 
square  build,  the  jolly  John  Bulls  of 
the  period,  such  as  we  yet  find  them, 
nourished  by  meat  and  porter,  sus- 
tained by  bodily  exercise  and  boxing. 
These  are  the  men  we  must  keep  be- 
fore us,  if  we  will  understand  how 
political  liberty  has  been  established 
in  this  country.  Gradually  they  find 
Ihe  simple  knights,  their  colleagues  in 
the  county  court,  too  poor  to  be  pres- 
ent with  the  great  barons  at  the  royal 
assemblies,  coalescing  with  them. 
They  become  united  by  community 
of  interests,  by  similarity  of  manners, 
by  nearness  of  condition ;  they  take 
them  for  their  representatives,  they 

*  Chaucer's  Works,  ed.  Sir  H.  Nicholas,  6 
yols.,  1845,  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales, 
ii.  p.  ii,  /•  333' 

t  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  ii.  p. 
17,  /.  547- 


elect  them  *  They  have  now  entered 
upon  public  life,  and  the  advent  of  a 
new  reinforcement  gives  them  a  per- 
petual standing  in  their  changed  posi- 
tion. The  towns  laid  waste  by  the  Con- 
quest are  gradually  repeopled.  They 
obtain  or  exact  charters  ;  the  towns- 
men buy  themselves  out  of  the  arbi- 
trary taxes  that  were  imposed  on  them  ; 
they  get  possession  of  the  land  on  which 
their  houses  are  built ;  they  unite  then* 
selves  under  mayors  and  aldermen. 
Each  town  now  within  the  meshes  of  the 
great  feudal  net,  is  a  power.  The  Earl 
of  Leicester,  rebelling  against  the  king, 
summons  two  burgesses  from  each 
town  to  Parliament,!  to  authorize  and 
support  him.  From  that  time  the 
conquered  race,  both  in  country  and 
town,  rose  to  political  life.  If  they 
were  taxed,  it  was  with  their  consent ; 
they  paid  nothing  which  they  did  not 
agree  to.  Early  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury their  united  deputies  composed 
the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  already 
at  the  close  of  the  preceding  century, 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  speak- 
ing in  the  name  of  the  king,  said  to 
the  pope,  "It  is  the  custom  of  the 
kingdom  of  England,  that  in  all  affairs 
relating  to  the  state  of  this  kingdom, 
the  advice  of  all  who  are  interested  in 
them  should  be  taken." 

VII. 

If  they  have  acquired  liberties,  it  is 
because  they  have  obtained  them  by 
force  ;  circumstances  have  assisted,  but 
character  has  done  more.  The  protec- 
tion of  the  great  barons  and  the  alliance 
of  the  plain  knights  have  strengthened 
them  ;  but  it  was  by  their  native  rough- 
ness and  energy  that  they  maintained 
their  independence.  Look  at  the  con- 
trast they  offer  at  this  moment  to  their 
neighbors.  What  occupies  the  mind  of 
the  French  people  ?  The  fabliaux,  the 
naughty  tricks  of  Reynard,  the  art  of 
deceiving  Master  Isengrin,  of  stealing 
his  wife,  of  cheating  him  out  of  his  din- 
ner, of  getting  him  beaten  by  a  third 
party  without  danger  to  one's  self  ;  in 
short,  the  triumph  of  poverty  and  clever- 
ness over  power  united  to  folly.  The 

*  From  1214,  and  also  in  1225  and  1254. 
Guizot,  Origin  of  the  Representative  System 
in  England,  pp.  297-299. 

t  In  1264. 


76  THE  SOURCE. 

popular  hero  is  already  the  artful  ple- 
beian, chaffing,  light-hearted,  who  later 
on,  will  ripen  into  Panurge  and  Figaro, 
not  apt  to  withstand  you  to  your  face, 
too  sharp  to  care  for  great  victories 
and  habits  of  strife,  inclined  by  the 
nimbleness  of  his  wit  to  dodge  round 
an  obstacle ;  if  he  but  touch  a  man 
with  the  tip  of  his  finger,  that  man 
tumbles  into  the  trap.  But  here  we 
have  other  customs  :  it  is  Robin  Hood, 
a  valiant  outlaw,  living  free  and  bold 
in  the  green  forest,  waging  frank  and 
open  war  against  sheriff  and  law.*  If 
ever  a  man  was  popular  in  his  country, 
it  was  he.  "  It  is  he,"  says  an  old  his- 
torian, "  whom  the  common  people 
love  so  dearly  to  celebrate  in  games 
and  comedies,  and  whose  history,  sung 
by  fiddlers,  interests  them  more  than 
any  other/'  In  the  sixteenth  century 
he  still  had  his  commemoration  day, 
observed  by  all  the  people  in  the  small 
towns  and  in  the  country.  Bishop 
Latimer,  making  his  pastoral  tour,"  an- 
nounced one  day  that  he  would  preach 
in  a  certain  place.  On  the  morrow, 
proceeding  to  the  church,  he  found  the 
doors  closed,  and  waited  more  than  an 
hour  before  they  brought  him  the  key. 
At  last  a  man  came  and  said  to  him, 
"  Syr,  thys  ys  a  busye  day  with  us  ;  we 
cannot  heare  you  :  it  is  Robyn  Hoodes 
Daye.  The  parishe  are  gone  abrode 
to  gather  for  Robyn  Hoode.  ...  I  was 
fayne  there  to  geve  place  to  Robyn 
Hoode."  t  The  bishop  was  obliged  to 
divest  himself  of  his  ecclesiastical  gar- 
ments and  proceed  on  his  journey, 
leaving  his  place  to  archers  dressed  in 
green,  who  played  on  a  rustic  stage  the 
parts  of  Robin  Hood,  Little  John,  and 
their  band.  In  fact,  he  was  the  nation- 
al hero.  Saxon  in  the  first  place,  and 
waging  war  against  the  men  of  law, 
against  bishops  and  archbishops,  whose 
sway  was  so  heavy ;  generous,  more- 
over, giving  to  a  poor  ruined  knight 
clothes,  horse,  and  money  to  buy  back 
tne  land  he  had  pledged  to  a  rapacious 
abbot ;  compassionate  too,  and  kind  to 
the  poor,  enjoining  his  men  not  to 
injure  yeomen  and  laborers  ;  but  above 
all  rash,  bold,  proud,  who  would  go  and 

*  Aug.  Thierry,  iv.  56.  Ritson's  Robin 
Hood%  1832. 

t  Latimer's  Sermons^  ed.  Arber,  6th  Sermon, 
1869,  p.  173. 


[BOOK   1 


draw  his  bow  before  the  sheriff's  eyes 
and  to  his  face;  ready  with  blows 
whether  to  give  or  take.  He  slew 
fourteen  out  of  fifteen  foresters  who 
came  to  arrest  him ;  he  slays  the  sher- 
iff, the  judge,  the  town  gatekeeper  ;  he 
is  ready  to  slay  as  many  more  as  like 
to  come ;  and  all  this  joyously,  jovially, 
like  an  honest  fellow  who  eats  well, 
has  a  hard  skin,  lives  in  the  open  air, 
and  revels  in  animal  life. 

'  In  somer  when  the  shawes  be  sheyne, 

And  leves  be  large  and  long, 
Hit  is  fulle  mery  in  feyre  foreste 
To  here  the  foulys  song." 

That  is  how  many  ballads  begin ;  and 
the  fine  weather,  which  makes  the  stags 
and  oxen  butt  with  their  horns,  inspires 
them  with  the  thought  of  exchanging 
blows  with  sword  or  stick.  Robin 
dreamed  that  two  yeomen  were  thrash- 
ing him,  and  he  wants  to  go  and  find 
them,  angrily  repelling  Little  John,  who 
offers  to  go  first : 

"  Ah  John,  by  me  thou  settest  noe  store, 

And  that  I  farley  finde  : 
How  offt  send  I  my  men  before, 
And  tarry  myselfe  behinde  ? 

"  It  is  no  cunnin  a  knave  to  ken, 

An  a  man  but  heare  him  speake  ; 
And  it  were  not  for  bursting  of  my  bo  we, 
John,  I  thy  head  wold  breake."  *.  .  . 

He  goes  alone,  and  meets  the  robust 
yoeman,  Guy  of  Gisborne  : 

"  He  that  had  neyther  beene  kythe  nor  kin, 

Might  have  seen  a  full  fayre  fight, 
To  see  how  together  these  yeomen  went 
With  blades  both  browne  and  bright, 

"  To    see    how  these  yeomen  together  they 

fought 

Two  howres  of  a  summer's  day  ; 
Yett  neither  Robin  Hood  nor  sir  Guy 
Them  fettled  to  flye  away."  t 

You  see  Guy  the  yeoman  is  as  brave 
as  Robin  Hood  ;  he  came  to  seek  him 
in  the  wood,  and  drew  the  bow  almost 
as  well  as  he.  This  old  popular  poetiy 
is  not  the  praise  of  a  single  bandit,  but 
of  an  entire  class,  the  yeomanry.  "  God 
haffe  mersey  on  Robin  Hodys  solle, 
and  saffe  all  god  yemanry."  That  is 
how  many  ballads  end.  The  brave 
yeoman,  inured  to  blows,  a  good  archer, 
clever  at  sword  and  stick,  is  the  favor 
ite.  There  were  also  redoubtable, 

*  Ritson,  Robin  Hood  Ballads,  i.  iv.  v.  41-48, 
t  Ibid.  v.  145-152. 


CHAP.  IL] 


THE  NORMANS. 


armed  townsfolk,  accustomed  to  make 
use  of  their  arms.  Here  they  are  at 
work : 

"  '  O  that  were  a  shame,'  said  jolly  Robin, 
'  We  being  three,  and  thou  but  one,' 
The  pinder  *  leapt  back  then  thirty  good 

foot, 
'Twas  thirty  good  foot  and  one. 

"  He  leaned  his  back  fast  unto  a  thorn, 

And  his  foot  against  a  stone, 
And  there  he  fought  a  long  summer's  day, 
A  summer's  day  so  long. 

'  Till  that  their  swords  on  their  broad  bucklers 
Were  broke  fast  into  their  hands,  "t 

Often  even  Robin  does  not  get  the  ad- 
vantage : 

**  *  I  pass  not  for  length,'  bold  Arthur  reply* d, 
'  My  staff  is  of  oke  so  free  ; 
Eight  foot  and  a  half,  it  will  knock  down  a 

calf, 
And  I  hope  it  will  knock  down  thee.' 

1  Then  Robin  could  no  longer  forbear, 

He  gave  him  such  a  knock, 
Quickly  and  soon  the  blood  came  down 
Before  it  was  ten  a  clock. 

'  Then  Arthur  he  soon  recovered  himself, 

And  gave  him  such  a  knock  on  the  crown, 
That  from  everv  side  of  bold  Robin  Hood's 

head 
The  blood  came  trickling  down. 

Then  Robin  raged  like  a  wild  boar, 
As  soon  as  he  saw  his  own  blood  : 

Then  Bland  was  in  hast,  he  laid  on  so  fast, 
As  though  he  had  been  cleaving  of  wood. 

5  And  about  and  about  and  about  they  went, 

Like  two  wild  bores  in  a  chase, 

Striving  to  aim  each  other  to  maim, 

Leg,  arm,  or  any  other  place. 

1  And  knock  for  knock  they  lustily  dealt, 
Which  held  for  two  hours  and  more, 
Till  all  the  wood  rang  at  every  bang, 
They  ply'd  their  work  so  sore. 

• '  Hold  thy  hand,  hold  thy  hand,'  said  Robin 

Hood, 

And  let  thy  quarrel  fall  ; 
For  here  we  may  thrash  our  bones  all  to 

mesh, 
And  get  no  coyn  at  all. 

*  And  in  the  forrest  of  merry  Sherwood, 
Hereafter  thou  shalt  be  free.' 

'  God  a  mercy  for  nought,  my  freedom   I 

bought, 
I  may  thank  my  staff,  and  not  thee.'  " 


*  A  pinder's  task  was  to  pin  the  sheep  in  the 
fold,  cattle  in  the  pen-fold  or  pound  (Richard- 
son).-TR. 

t  Ritson,  ii.  3,  v.  17-26. 

t  Ibid.  6,  v   58-89. 


"  Who  are  you,  then  ? "  says  Robin : 

;<  '  I  am  a  tanner,'  bold  Arthur  reply'd, 
'  In  Nottingham  long  1  have  wrought ; 
And  if  thou'lt  come  there,  I  vow  and  sweaf 
I  will  tan  thy  hide  for  nought.'  " 

God  a  mercy,  good  fellow,'  said  jolly  Robin, 
'  Since  thou  art  so  kind  and  free  ; 
And  if  thou  wilt  tan  my  hide  for  nought 
I  will  do  as  much  for  thee.'  "  * 

With  these  generous  offers,  they  em- 
brace ;  a  free  exchange  of  honest  blows 
always  prepares  the  way  for  friendship. 
It  was  so  Robin  Hood  tried  Littls 
John,  whom  he  loved  all  his  life  after 
Little  John  was  seven  feet  high,  and 
being  on  a  bridge,  would  not  give  way. 
Honest  Robin  could  not  use  his  bow 
against  him,  but  went  and  cut  a  stick 
seven  feet  long  ;  and  they  agreed  ami- 
cably to  fight  on  the  bridge  until  one 
should  fall  into  the  water.  They  fall 
to  so  merrily  that  "  their  bones  ring." 
In  the  end  Robin  falls,  and  he  feels 
only  the  more  respect  for  Little  John. 
Another  time,  having  a  sword  with  him, 
he  was  thrashed  by  a  tinker  who  had 
only  a  stick.  Full  of  admiration,  he 
ives  him  a  hundred  pounds.  Again 
ie  was  thrashed  by  a  potter,  who  re- 
fused him  toll ;  then  by  a  shepherd. 
They  fight  to  wile  away  time.  Even 
nowadays  boxers  give  each  other  a 
friendly  grip  before  setting  to  ;  they 
knock  one  another  about  in  this  country 
honorably,  without  malice,  fury,  or 
shame.  Broken  teeth,  black  eyes, 
smashed  ribs,  do  not  call  for  murderous 
vengeance :  it  would  seem  that  the 
bones  are  more  solid  and  the  nerves 
less  sensitive  in  England  than  else- 
where. Blows  once  exchanged,  they 
take  each  other  by  the  hand,  and  dance 
together  on  the  green  grass  ; 

"  Then  Robin  took  them  both  by  the  hands, 
And  danc'd  round  about  the  oke  tree. 

*  For  three  merry  men,  and  three  merry  men, 
And  three  merry  men  we  be.'  " 

Moreover,  these  people,  in  each  parish, 
practised  the  bow  every  Sunday,  and 
were  the  best  archers  in  the  world  ; 
from  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury the  general  emancipation  of  the 
villeins  multiplied  their  number  great- 
ly, and  you  can  now  understand  how, 
amidst  all  the  operations  and  changes 
of  the  great  central  powers,  the  liberty 

*  Ibid.  v.  94-101. 


78  THE  SOURCE. 

of  the  subject  survived.  After  all,  the 
only  permanent  and  unalterable  guar- 
antee, in  every  country  and  under  every 
constitution,  is  this  unspoken  declara- 
tion in  the  heart  of  the  mass  of  the 
people,  which  is  well  understood  on  all 
sides  :  "  If  any  man  touches  my  prop- 
erty, enters  my  house,  obstructs  or 
molests  me,  let  him  beware.  I  have 
patience,  but  I  have  also  strong  arms, 
good  comrades,  a  good  blade,  and,  on 
occasion,  a  firm  resolve,  happen  what 
may,  to  plunge  my  blade  up  to  its  hilt 
in  his  throat." 

VII. 

Thus  thought  Sir  John  Fortescue, 
Chancellor  of  England  under  Henry 
VI.,  exiled  in  France  during  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses,  one  of  the  oldest  prose- 
writers,  and  the  first  who  weighed  and 
explained  the  constitution  of  his 
country.*  He  says  : 

"  It  is  cowardise  and  lack  of  hartes  and 
corage  that  kepeth  the  Frenchmen  from  rys- 
yng,  and  not  povertye ;  t  which  corage  no 
Frenche  man  hath  like  to  the  English  man. 
It  hath  ben  often  seen  in  Englond  that  iij  or  iv 
.faefes,  for  povertie,  hath  sett  upon  vij  or  viij 
'.rue  men,  and  robbyd  themal.  But  it  hath  not 
ten  seen  in  Fraunce,  that  vij  or  viij  thefes  have 
ben  hardy  to  robbe  iij  or  iv  true  men.  Wherfor 
it  is  right  seld  that  Frenchmen  be  hangyd  for 
robberye,  for  that  they  have  no  hertys  to  do  so 
terryble  an  acte.  There  be  therfor  mo  men 
hangyd  in  Englond,  in  a  yere,  for  robberye  and 
manslaughter,  than  ther  be  hangid  in  Fraunce 
for  such  cause  of  crime  in  vij  yers."  % 

This  throws  a  startling  and  terrible  light 
on  the  violent  condition  of  this  armed 
community,  where  sudden  attacks  are 
an  every-day  matter,  and  every  one,  rich 
and  poor,  lives  with  his  hand  on  his 
sword.  There  were  great  bands  of  male- 
factors under  Edward  I.,  who  infested 

*  Th »  Difference  between  an  Absolute  and 
Limited  Monarchy — A  learned  Commenda- 
tion of  the  Politic  Laws  of  England  (Latin). 
I  frequently  quote  from  the  second  work,  which 
is  more  full  and  complete. 

t  The  courage  which  finds  utterance  here  is 
coarse ;  the  English  instincts  ar^e  combative 
»"d  independen :.  The  French  race,  and  the 
tjrauls  generally  are  perhaps  the  most  reckless 
of  life  of  any. 

%  The  Diffet  >nce,  etc.,  sd  ed.  1724,  ch.  xiii. 
p.  98.  There  are  nowadays  in  France  42 
highway  robberies  as  against  738  in  England. 
In  1843,  there  were  in  England  four  times  as 
many  accusations  of  crimes  and  offences  as  in 
France,  having  regard  to  the  number  of  inhabi- 
tants (Moreau  de  Jonncs). 


[BOOK  I 


the  country,  and  fot  ght  with  these  who 
came  to  seize  their.  The  inhabitants 
of  the  towns  were  obliged  to  gather 
together  with  those  of  the  neighboring 
towns,  with  hue  and  cry,  to  pursue  and 
capture  them.  Under  Edward  III. 
there  were  barons  who  rode  about 
with  armed  escorts  and  archers,  seiz- 
ing the  manors,  carrying  off  ladies 
and  girls  of  high  degree,  mutilatm", 
killing,  extorting  ransoms  from  people 
in  their  own  houses,  as  if  they  were  ii. 
an  enemy's  land,  and  sometimes  com- 
ing before  the  judges  at  the  sessions 
in  such  guise  and  in  so  great  force 
that  the  judges  were  afraid  and  dared 
not  administer  justice.*  Read  the 
letters  of  the  Paston  family,  under 
Henry  VI.  and  Edward  IV.,  and  you 
will  see  how  private  war  was  at  every 
door,  how  it  was  necessary  for  a  man 
to  provide  himself  with  men  and  arms, 
to  be  on  the  alert  for  defence  of  his 
property,  to  be  self-reliant,  to  depend 
on  his  own  strength  and  courage.  It 
is  this  excess  of  vigor  and  readiness  to 
fight  which,  after  their  victories  in 
France,  set  them  against  one  another 
in  England,  in  the  butcheries  of  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses.  The  strangers 
who  saw  them  were  astonished  at  their 
bodily  strength  and  courage,  at  the 
great  pieces  of  beef  "  which  fed  their 
muscles,  at  their  military  habits,  their 
fierce  obstinacy,  as  of  savage  beasts."  t 
They  are  like  their  bulldogs,  an  un- 
tamable race,  who  in  their  mad  cour- 
age "  cast  themselves  with  shut  eyes 
into  the  den  of  a  Russian  bear,  and 
get  their  head  broken  like  a  rotten 
apple."  This  strange  condition  of  a 
militant  community,  so  full  of  danger, 
and  requiring  so  much  effort,  does  n  t 
make  them  afraid.  King  Edward 
having  given  orders  to  send  disturbers 
of  the  peace  to  prison  without  lega1 
proceedings,  and  not  to  liberate  them 
on  bail  or  otherwise,  the  Commons 
declared  the  order  "horribly  vex- 
atious ;  "  resist  it,  refuse  to  be  too  rnuch 
protected.  Less  peace,  but  more  inde- 
pendence. They  maintain  the  guar- 
antees of  the  subject  at  the  expense  of 

*  Statute  of  Winchester,  1285  ;  Ordinance  of 
1378. 

t  Benvenuto  Cellini,  quoted  by  Froude,  i.  20, 
Hist,  of  England.  Shakspeare.  Henry  V. : 
conversation  of  French  lords  before  the  battle 
of  Agincourt. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS, 


79 


public  security,  and  prefer  turbulent 
liberty  to  arbitrary  order.  Better 
suffer  marauders  whom  they  could 
fight,  than  magistrates  under  whom 
they  would  have  to  bend. 

This  proud  and  persistent  notion 
gives  rise  to,  and  fashions  Fortescue's 
whole  work : 

"  Ther  be  two  kynds  of  kyngdomys,  of  the 
which  that  one  ys  a  lordship  callid  in  Latyne 
D  jniinium  regale,  and  that  other  is  callid  Do- 
mlnium  politicum  e  regale." 

The  first  is  established  in  France,  and 
the  sec  jnd  in  England. 

**  And  they  dyversen  in  that  the  first  may 
rule  his  people  by  such  lawys  as  he  makyth 
hymself,  and  therefor,  he  may  set  upon  them 
talys,  ard  other  impositions,  such  as  he  wyl 
hymstji,  witnout  their  assent.  The  secund 
may  not  rule  hys  people  by  other  laws  than 
such  as  they  assenten  unto  ;  and  therfor  he 
may  set  upon  them  non  impositions  without 
their  own  assent."  * 

In  a  state  like  this,  the  will  of  the 
people  is  the  prime  element  of  life. 
Sir  John  Fortescue  says  further : 

"A  king  of  England  cannot  at  his  pleasure 
make  any  alterations  in  the  laws  of  the  land, 
for  the  nature  of  his  government  is  not  only 
regal,  but  political." 

"  In  the  body  politic,  the  first  thing  which 
lives  and  moves  is  the  intention  of  the  people, 
having  in  it  the  blood,  that  is,  the  prudential 
care  and  provision  for  the  public  good,  which 
it  transmits  and  communicates  to  the  head,  as 
to  the  principal  part,  and  to  all  the  rest  of  the 
members  of  the  said  body  politic,  whereby  it 
subsists  and  is  invigorated.  The  law  under 
which  the  people  is  incorporated  may  be  com- 
pared to  the  nerves  or  sinews  of  the  body  nat- 
ural. .  .  .  And  as  the  bones  and  all  the  other 
members  of  the  body  preserve  their  functions 
and  discharge  their  several  offices  by  the  nerves, 
so  do  the  members  of  the  community  by  the 
law.  And  as  the  head  of  the  body  natural  can- 
not change  its  nerves  or  sinews,  cannot  deny  to 
the  several  parts  their  proper  energy,  their  due 
proportion  and  aliment  of  blood,  neither  can  a 
king  who  is  the  head  of  the  body  politic  change 
the  laws  thereof,  nor  take  from  the  people  what 
is  theirs  by  right,  against  their  consents.  .  .  . 
For  ae  is  appointed  to  protect  his  subjects  in 
thei"  lives,  properties,  and  laws,  for  this  very 
end  and  purpose  he  has  the  delegation  of  power 
from  the  people." 

Here  we  have  all  the  ideas  of  Locke 
in  the  fifteenth  century;  so  powerful 
is  practice  to  suggest  theory !  so  quickly 
does  man  discover,  in  the  enjoyment  of 
liberty,  the  nature  of  liberty !  Fortescue 
goes  fur  .her;  he  contrasts,  step  by 
gtep,  the  Roman  law,  that  inheritance 

*  The  Difference,  etc.,  p.  i. 


of  all  Latin  peoples,  with  the  English 
law,  that  heritage  of  all  Teutonic 
peoples :  one  the  work  of  absolute 
princes,  and  tending  altogether  to  the 
sacrifice  of  the  individual ;  the  other 
the  work  of  the  common  will,  tending 
altogether  to  protect  the  person.  He 
contrasts  the  maxims  of  the  imperial 
jurisconsuls,  who  accord  "  force  of  lavF 
to  all  which  is  determined  by  the 
prince,"  with  the  statutes  of  England, 
which  "  are  not  enacted  by  the  sole 
will  of  the  prince,  .  .  .  but  with  the 
concurrent  consent  of  the  whole  king- 
dom, by  their  representatives  in  Par- 
liament, .  .  .  more  than  three  hundred 
select  persons."  He  contrasts  the 
arbitrary  nomination  of  imperial  offices 
with  the  election  of  the  sheriff,  and 
says  : 

"There  is  in  every  county  a  certain  officer, 
called  the  king's  sheriff,  who,  amongst  othei 
duties  of  his  office,  executes  within  his  county 
all  mandates  and  judgments  of  the  king's  courts 
of  justice :  he  is  an  annual  officer  ;  and  it  is  not 
lawful  for  him,  after  the  expiration  of  his  year, 
to  continue  to  act  in  his  said  office,  neither 
shall  he  be  taken  in  again  to  execute  the  said 
office  within  two  years  thence  next  ensuing. 
The  manner  of  his  election  is  thus:  Every 
year,  on  the  morrow  of  All-Souls,  there  meet 
in  the  King's  Court  of  Exchequer  all  the  king's 
counsellors,  as  well  lords  spiritual  and  temporal, 
as  all  other  the  king's  justices,  all  the  barons  01 
the  Exchequer,  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  and 
certain  other  officers,  when  all  of  them,  by 
common  consent,  nominate  three  of  every  coun- 
ty knights  or  esquires,  persons  of  distinction, 
and  such  as  they  esteem  fittest  qualified  to  bear 
the  office  of  sheriff  of  that  county  for  the  year 
ensuing.  The  king  only  makes  choice  of  one 
out  of  the  three  so  nominated  and  returned, 
who,  in  virtue  of  the  king's  letters  patent,  is 
constituted  High  Sheriff  of  that  county." 

He  contrasts  the  Roman  procedure, 
which  is  satisfied  with  two  witnesses  to 
condemn  a  man,  with  the  jury,  the 
three  permitted  challenges,  the  admi- 
rable guarantees  of  justice  with  which 
the  uprightness,  number,  repute,  and 
condition  of  the  juries  surround  the 
sentence.  About  the  juries  he  says  : 

"  Twelve  good  and  true  men  being  sworn,  as 
in  the  manner  above  related,  legally  qualified, 
that  is,  having,  over  and  besides  their  move- 
ables,  possessions  in  land  sufficient,  as  was 
said,  wherewith  to  maintain  their  rank  and 
station  ;  neither  inspected  by,  nor  at  variance 
with  either  of  the  parties  ;  all  of  the  neighbor- 
hood ;  there  shall  be  read  to  them,  in  English, 
by  the  Court,  the  record  and  nature  of  the 
plea."  * 

*  The  original  of  this  very  famous  treatise, 
de  Laudibus  Legum  Angliee^  was  written  in 


8o 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  L 


Thus  prDtected,  the  English  commons 
cannoJ  be  other  than  flourishing.  Con- 
sider, on  the  other  hand,  he  says  to  the 
young  prince  whom  he  is  instructing, 
the  condition  of  the  commons  in 
France.  By  their  taxes,  tax  on  salt, 
on  wine,  billeting  of  soldiers,  they  are 
reduced  to  great  misery.  You  have 
seen  them  on  your  travels.  .  .  . 

"  The  same  Commons  be  so  impoverishid 
and  distroyyd,  that  they  may  unneth  lyve. 
Th;iy  drink  water,  thay  eate  apples,  with  bred 
right  brown  made  of  rye.  They  eate  no  fleshe, 
but  if  it  be  selden,  a  litill  larde,  or  of  the  en- 
trails or  heds  of  bests  sclayne  for  the  nobles 
and  merchants  of  the  land.  They  weryn  no 
wollyn,  but  if  it  be  a  pore  cote  under  their 
uttermost  garment,  made  of  grete  canvass, 
and  cal  it  a  frok.  Their  hosyn  be  of  like 
canvas,  and  passen  not  their  knee,  wherfor 
they  be  gartrid  and  their  thyghs  bare.  Their 
Vvifs  and  children  gone  bare  fote.  .  .  . 
For  sum  of  them,  that  was  wonte  to  pay  to 
his  lord  for  his  tenement  which  he  hyrith  by 
the  year  a  scute  payth  now  to  the  kyng,  over 
that  scute,  fyve  skuts.  Wher  thrugh  they  be 
artyd  by  necessite  so  to  watch,  labour  and  grub 
in  the  ground  for  their  sustenance,  that  their 
nature  is  much  wasted,  and  the  kynd  of  them 
brought  to  nowght.  Thay  gone  crokyd  and  ar 
feeble,  not  able  to  fight  nor  to  defend  the  realm; 
nor  they  have  wepon.  nor  monye  to  buy  them 
wepon  withal.  .  .  .  This  is  the  frute  first  of  hyre 
Jus  regale.  .  .  .  But  blessed  be  God,  this  land 
ys  rulid  under  a  better  lawe,  and  therfor  the 
people  therof  be  not  in  such  penurye,  nor  ther- 
by  hurt  in  their  persons,  but  they  be  wealthie 
and  have  all  things  necessarie  to  the  sustenance 
of  nature.  Wherefore  they  be  myghty  and  able 
to  resyste  the  adversaries  of  the  realms  that  do 
or  will  do  them  wrong.  Loo,  this  is  the  frut  of 
Jus  politicum  et  regale,  under  which  we  lyve.'1* 
"  Everye  inhabiter  of  the  realme  of  England 
useth  and  enjoyeth  at  his  pleasure  all  the  f ruites 
that  his  land  or  cattel  beareth,  with  al  the 
profits  and  commodities  which  by  his  owne  tra- 
vayle,  or  by  the  labour  of  others,  hae  gaineth  ; 
not  hindered  by  the  iniurie  or  wrong1  deteine- 
ment  of  anye  man,  but  that  hee  shall  bee  al- 
lowed a  reasonable  recompence.f  •  •  •  Hereby 
it  commeth  to  passe  that  the  men  of  that  lande 
are  riche,  havyng  aboundaunce  of  golde  and  sil- 
ver, and  other  thinges  necessaire  for  the  main- 
ienaunce  of  man's  life.  They  drinke  no  water, 
unless  it  be  so,  that  some  for  devotion,  and  up- 
pon  a.  I.CO.IG  of  penaunce,  doe  abstaine  from 


Latin  between  1464  and  1470,  first  published  in 
1537,  and  translated  into  English  in  1775  by 
Francis  Gregor.  I  have  taken  these  extracts 
from  the  magnificent  edition  of  Sir  John  For- 
tesque's  works  published  in  1869  for  private 
distribution,  and  edited  by  Thomas  Fortescue, 
Lprd  Clermont.  Some  of  the  pieces  quoted, 
left  in  the  old  spelling,  are  taken  from  an  older 
edition,  translated  by  P  obert  Mulcaster  in 
I56/.— TR. 

*  Of  an  AbsoMg  and  Limited  Monarchy, 
3d  ed.,  1724,  ch.  iii.  p.  15. 

t  Commines  bears  the  same  testimony. 


other  drinks.  They  eate  plen  ifully  of  all  kindes 
of  fleshe  and  fishe.  They  v/eare  fine  woollen 
cloth  in  all  their  apparel  ;  they  have  also 
aboundaunce  of  b:d-coveringes  in  their  houses, 
and  of  all  other  woollen  stuffe.  They  have 
greate  store  of  all  hustlementes  and  imple- 
mentes  of  householde,  they  are  plentifully  fur- 
nished with  al  instruments  of  husbandry,  a1"* 
all  other  things  that  are  requisite  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  a  quiet  and  wealthy  lyfe,  according 
to  their  estates  and  degrees.  Neither  are  they 
sued  in  the  lawe,  but  onely  before  ordinary 
judges,  where  by  the  lawes  of  the  lande  are 
justly  intreated.  Neither  are  they  arrested  or 
impleaded  for  their  moveables  or  possessions, 
or  arraigned  of  any  offence,  bee  it  never  so 
great  and  outragious,  but  after  the  lawes  of  the 
land,  and  before  the  iudges  aforesaid."  * 

All  this  arises  from  the  constitution 
of  the  country  and  the  distribution  of 
the  land.  Whilst  in  other  countries 
we  find  only  a  population  of  paupers, 
with  here  and  there  a  few  lords,  Eng- 
land is  covered  and  filled  with  owners 
of  lands  and  fields ;  so  that  "  therein 
so  small  a  thorpe  cannot  bee  founde, 
wherein  dwelleth  not  a  knight,  an 
esquire,  or  suche  a  housholder  as  is 
there  commonly  called  a  franklayne,  en- 
ryched  with  greate  possessions.  And 
also  other  freeholders,  and  many  yeo- 
men able  for  their  livelodes  to  make  a 
jurye  in  fourme  afore-mentioned.  For 
there  bee  in  that  lande  divers  yeomen, 
which  are  able  to  dispend  by  the  yeare 
above  a  hundred  poundes."  t  Harri- 
son says :  \ 

"  This  sort  of  people,  have  more  estimation 
than  labourers  and  the  common  sort  of  artificers, 
and  these  commonhe  live  wealthilie,  keepe 
good  houses,  and  travell  to  get  riches.  They 


*  De  Laudibus,  etc.,  ch.  xxxvi. 

t  "  The  might  of  the  realme  most  stondyth 
upon  archers  which  be  not  rich  men."  Com- 
pare Hallam,  ii.  482.  All  this  takes  us  back  as 
far  as  the  Conquest,  and  farther.  "  It  is  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  the  greater  part  of  those 
who  appear  to  have  possessed  small  freeholds 
or  parcels  of  manors  were  no  other  thtm  the 
original  nation.  ...  A  respectable  class  of  free 
socagers,  having  in  general  full  right  of  a"?en« 
ating  their  lands,  and  holding  them  probab.y  at 
a  small  certain  rent  fron.  the  lord  of  the  manor 
frequently  occurs  in  the  Domesday  Book."  At 
all  events,  there  were  in  Domesday  Book  Sax- 
ons "perfectly  exempt  from  villenage."  This 
class  is  mentioned  with  respect  in  the  treatises 
of  Glanvil  and  Bracton.  As  for  the  villeins, 
they  were  quickly  liberated  in  the  thirteenth  or 
fourteenth  century,  either  by  their  own  energies 
or  by  becoming  copyholders.  The  Wars  of  the 
Roses  still  further  raised  the  commons  ;  orders 
were  frequently  issued,  previous  to  a  battle,  to 
slay  the  nobles  and  spare  the  commoners. 

t  Description  of  England,  275. 


CHAP.  II.l 


THE  NORMANS. 


8l 


are  for  the  most  part  farmers  to  gentlemen," 
and  keep  servants  of  their  own.  "  These  were 
they  that  in  times  past  made  all  France  afraid. 
And  albeit  they  be  not  called  master,  as  gentle- 
men are,  or  sir,  as  to  knights  apperteineth,  but 
onelie  John  and  Thcmas,  etc.,  yet  have  they 
beene  found  to  have  done  verie  good  service  ; 
and  the  kings  of  England,  in  foughten  battels, 
were  wont  to  remaine  among  them  (who  were 
their  footmen)  as  the  French  kings  did  among 
their  horssemen :  the  prince  thereby  showing 
where  his  chiefe  strength  did  consist. 

Such  men,  says  Fortescue,  might  form 
a  legal  jury,  and  vote,  resist,  be  asso- 
ciated, do  every  thing  wherein  a  free 
government  consists :  for  they  were 
numerous  in  every  district ;  they  were 
not  down-trodden  like  the  timid  peas- 
ants of  France  ;  they  had  their  honor 
and  that  of  their  family  to  maintain  ; 
"they  be  well  provided  with  arms; 
they  remember  that  they  have  won  bat- 
tles in  France."  *  Such  is  the  class, 
still  obscure,  but  more  rich  and  power- 
ful every  century,  which,  founded  by 
the  down-trodden  Saxon  aristocracy, 
and  sustained  by  the  surviving  Saxon 
character,  ended,  under  the  lead  of  the 

*  The  following  is  a  portrait  of  a  yeoman,  by 
Latimer,  in  the  first  sermon  preached  before 
Edward  VI.,  8th  March  1549  :  "  My  father  was 
a  yeoman,  and  had  no  lands  of  his  own  ;  only 
he  had  a  farm  of  £$  or  .£4  by  year  at  the  utter- 
most, and  hereupon  he  tilled  so  much  as  kept 
half-a-dozen  men.  He  had  walk  for  a  hundred 
sheep,  and  my  mother  milked  thirty  kine.  He 
was  able,  and  did  find  the  king  a  harness,  with 
himself  and  his  horse  ;  while  he  came  to  the 

Jlace  that  he  should  receive  the  king's  wages. 
can  remember  that  I  buckled  his  harness  when 
he  went  unto  Blackheath  field.  He  kept  me  to 
school,  or  else  I  had  not  been  able  to  have 
preached  before  the  King's  Majesty  now.  He 
married  my  sisters  with  ^5  or  20  nobles  a-piece, 
so  that  he  brought  them  up  in  godliness  and 
fear  of  God ;  he  kept  hospitality  for  his  poor 
neighbors,  and  some  alms  he  gave  to  the  poor ; 
and  all  this  did  he  of  the  said  farm.  Where  he 
that  now  hath  it  payeth  £16  by  the  year,  or 
more,  and  is  not  able  to  do  any  thing  for  his 
prince,  for  himself,  nor  for  his  children,  or  give 
a  cup  of  drink  to  the  poor." 

This  is  from  the  sixth  sermon,  preached  be- 
fore the  young  king,  i2th  April  1549  :  "In  my 
time  my  poor  father  was  as  diligent  to  teach  me 
to  shoot  as  to  learn  (me)  any  other  thing  ;  and 
so,  I  think,  other  men  did  their  children.  He 
taught  me  how  to  draw,  how  to  lay  my  body  in 
my  bow,  and  not  to  draw  with  strength  of  arms, 
as  other  nations  do,  but  with  strength  of  the 
body.  I  had  my  bows  bought  me  according  to 
my  age  and  strength  ;  as  I  increased  in  them, 
so  my  bows  were  made  bigger  and  bigger  ;  for 
men  shall  never  shoot  well  except  they  be 
brought  up  in  it.  It  is  a  goodly  art,  a  whole- 
some kind  of  exercise,  and  much  commended  in 
physic." 


inferior  Norman  nobility,  and  under 
the  patronage  of  the  superior  Norman 
nobility,  in  establishing  and  settling  a 
free  constitution,  and  a  nation  worthy 
of  liberty. 

IX. 

When,  as  here,  men  are  endowed 
with  a  serious  character,  have  a  reso- 
lute spirit,  and  possess  independent 
habits,  they  deal  with  their  conscience 
as  with  their  daily  business,  and  end 
by  laying  hands  on  church  as  well  as 
state.  Already  for  a  long  time  the  ex- 
actions of  the  Roman  See  had  pro- 
voked the  resistance  of  the  people,* 
and  the  higher  clergy  became  unpopu- 
lar. Men  complained  that  the  best 
livings  were  given  by  the  Pope  to  non- 
resident strangers  ;  that  some  Italian, 
unknown  in  England,  possessed  fifty 
or  sixty  benefices  in  England ;  that 
English  money  poured  into  Rome; 
and  that  the  clergy,  being  judged  only 
by  clergy,  gave  themselves  up  to  their 
vices,  and  abused  their  state  of  immu- 
nity. In  the  first  years  of  Henry  III.'s 
reign  there  were  nearly  a  hundred 
murders  committed  by  priests  then 
alive.  At  the  beginning  of  the  four- 
teenth century  the  ecclesiastical  rev- 
enue was  twelve  times  greater  than  the 
civil;  about  half  the  soil  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  clergy.  At  the  end  of  the 
century  the  commons  declared  that  the 
taxes  paid  to  the  church  were  five 
times  greater  than  the  taxes  paid  to  the 
crown  ;  and  some  years  afterwards,! 
considering  that  the  wealth  of  the 
clergy  only  served  to  keep  them  in 
idleness  and  luxury,  they  proposed  to 
confiscate  it  for  the  public  benefit. 
Already  the  idea  of  the  Reformation 
had  forced  itself  upon  them.  They 
remembered  how  in  the  ballads  Robin 
Hood  ordered  his  folk  to  spare  the 
yeomen,  laborers,  even  knights,  if  they 
are  good  fellows,  but  never  to  let 
abbots  or  bishops  escape.  The  pre- 
lates were  grievously  oppressing  the 
people  by  means  of  their  privileges, 

*  In  1246,  1376.     Thierry,  iii.  79. 

t  1404-1409.  The  commons  declared  that 
with  these  revenues  the  king  would  be  able  to 
maintain  15  earls,  1500  knights,  6200  squires, 
and  100  hospitals:  each  earl  receiving  annually 
300  marks ;  each  knight  100  marks,  and  the 
produce  of  four  ploughed  lands  ;  each  squire  40 
marks,  and  the  produce  of  two  ploughed  lands, 
4* 


82 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


ecclesiastical  courts,  and  tithes ;  when 
suddenly,  amid  the  pleasant  banter  or 
the  monotonous  babble  of  the  Norman 
versifiers,  we  hear  the  indignant  voice 
of  a  Saxon,  a  man  of  the  people  and  a 
victim  of  oppression,  thundering  against 
them. 

It  is  the  vision  of  Piers  Ploughman, 
written,  it  is  supposed,  by  a  secular 
priest  of  Oxford.*  Doubtless  the 
traces  of  French  taste  are  perceptible. 
It  could  not  be  otherwise  :  the  people 
from  below  can  never  quite  prevent 
themselves  from  imitating  the  people 
above  ;  and  the  most  unshackled  pop- 
ular poets,  Burns  and  Beranger,  too 
often  preserve  an  academic  style.  So 
here  a  fashionable  machinery,  the  alle- 
gory of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose,  is 
pressed  into  service.  We  have  Do- 
well,  Covetousness,  Avarice,  Simona, 
Conscience,  and  a  whole  world  of  talk- 
ing abstractions.  But,  in  spite  of  these 
vain  foreign  phantoms,  the  body  of  the 
poem  is  national,  and  true  to  life.  The 
old  language  reappears  in  part ;  the 
old  metre  altogether,  no  more  rhymes, 
but  barbarous  alliterations ;  no  more 
jesting,  but  a  harsh  gravity,  a  sustained 
invective,  a  grand  and  sombre  imagi- 
nation, heavy  Latin  texts,  hammered 
down  as  by  a  Protestant  hand.  Piers 
Ploughman  went  to  sleep  on  the  Mal- 
vern  hills,  and  there  had  a  wonderful 
dream : 
*  Thanne  gan  I  meten — a  marveillous  swevene, 

That  I  was  in  a  wildcrnesse — wiste  I  nevere 
where  ; 

And  as  I  biheeld  into  the  eest,— an  heigh  to 
the  sonne, 

I  seigh  a  tour  on  a  toft, — trieliche  y-maked, 

A  deep  dale  bynethe — a  dongeon  thereinne 

With  depe  diches  and  derke — and  dredf ulle  of 
sighte. 

A  fair  feeld  ful  of  folk— fond  I  ther  bitwene, 

Of  alle  manere  of  men, — the  meene  and  the 
riche, 

Werchynge  and  wandrynge — as    the  world 
asketh. 

Some  putten  hem  to  the  plough, — pleiden  ful 
.clde, 

In    settyr^e    and    sowynge  —  swonken    ful 
harde, 

And  wonnen  that  wastours — with  glotonye 
dystruyeth."  t 

A  gloomy  picture  of  the  world,  like  the 
frightful  dreams  which  occur  so  often 
in  Albert  Durer  and  Luther.  The 
first  reformers  were  persuaded  that  the 

*  About  1362. 

t  Piers  Ploughr-ian's  Vision  and  Creed,  ed. 
T.  Wright,  1856,  i,  p.  2,  /.  21-44. 


earth  was  given  over  to  evil ;  that  the 
devil  had  on  i  his  empire  and  his 
officers  ;  that  Antichrist,  seated  on  the 
throne  of  Rome,  displayed  ecclesias* 
tical  pomps  to  seduce  souls  and  cast 
them  into  the  fire  of  hell.  So  here 
Antichrist,  with  raised  banner,  enters 
a  convent  ;  bells  are  rung ;  monks  in 
solemn  procession  go  to  meet  him, 
and  receive  with  congratulations  their 
lord  and  father.*  With  seven  great 
giants,  the  seven  deadly  sins,  he  be- 
sieges Conscience ;  and  the  assault  is 
led  by  Idleness,  who  brings  with  her 
an  army  of  more  than  a  thousand 
prelates :  for  vices  reign,  more  hateful 
from  being  in  holy  places,  and  em- 
ployed in  the  church  of  God  in  the 
devil's  service : 

"  Ac  now  is  Religion  a  rydere  —  a  romere 
aboute, 

A  ledere  of  love-dayes — and  a  lond-buggere, 

A  prikere  on  a  palfrey — fro  manere  to  ma- 
nere. .  .  . 

And  but  if  his  knave  knele — that  shal  his 
coppe  brynge, 

He  loureth  on  hym,  and  asketh  hym — who 
taughte  hym  curteisie."  t 

But  this  sacrilegious  show  has  its  day, 
and  God  puts  His  hand  on  men  in 
order  to  warn  them.  By  order  of 
Conscience,  Nature  sends  forth  a  host 
of  plagues  and  diseases  from  the 
planets : 

"  Kynde  Conscience  tho  herde, — and  cam  out 

of  the  planetes, 
And  sente  forth  his  forreyours — feveres  and 

fluxes, 

Coughes  and  cardiacles, — crampes  and  tooth- 
aches, 
Reumes     and    radegundes,  —  and    roynous 

scabbes, 

Biles  and  bocches, — and  brennynge  agues, 
Frenesies    and    foule    yveles, — forageres  of 

kynde.  .  .  . 
There   was    'Harrow!    and    Help! — Here 

cometh  Kynde ! 

With  Deeth  that  is  dredful — to  undo  us  alle  !* 
The   lord  that  lyved  after  lust — tho  aloud 

cryde.  .  .  . 
Deeth  cam  dryvynge  after, — and  al  ko  dusta 

passhcJ 

Kynges  and  knyghtes, — kaysers  anc  pcpes, 
Manye    a    lovely    lady  —  and    lemmans    o 

knyghtes, 
Swowned    and    swelted    for  sorwe   of    his« 

dyntes."$ 


*  The  Archdeacon  of  Richmond,  on  his  tour 
in  12 16,  came  to  the  priory  of  Bridlington  with 
ninety-seven  horses,  twenty  one  dogs,  andthrea 
falcons. 

t  Piers  Ploughman's  Vision,  i.  p.  191,  /. 
217-6228. 

$  Ibid.,  ii.  Last  book,  p.  4301  /.  14,084-14,135* 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NORMANS. 


Here  is  a  crowd  of  miseries,  like 
those  which  Milton  has  described  in 
his  vision  of  human  life  ;  tragic  pictures 
and  emotions,  such  as  the  reformers 
delight  to  dwell  upon.  There  is  a  like 
speech  delivered  by  John  Knox,  before 
;he  fair  ladies  of  Mary  Stuart,  which 
tears  the  veil  from  the  human  corpse 
just  as  coarsely,  in  order  to  exhibit  its 
shame.  The  conception  of  the  world, 
proper  to  the  people  of  the  north,  all 
sad  and  moral,  shows  itself  already. 
They  are  never  comfortable  in  their 
country  ;  they  have  to  strive  continual- 
ly against  cold  or  rain.  They  cannot 
live  there  carelessly,  lying  under  a 
lovely  sky,  in  a  sultry  and  clear  atmos- 
phere, their  eyes  filled  with  the  noble 
beauty  and  happy  serenity  of  the  land. 
They  must  work  to  live  ;  be  attentive, 
exact,  keep  their  houses  wind  and 
water  tight,  trudge  doggedly  through 
the  mud  behind  their  plough,  light 
their  lamps  in  their  shops  during  the 
day.  Their  climate  imposes  endless 
inconvenience,  and  exacts  endless  en- 
durance. Hense  arise  melancholy  and 
the  idea  of  duty.  Man  naturally  thinks 
of  life  as  of  a  battle,  oftener  of  black 
death  which  closes  this  deadly  show, 
and  leads  so  many  plumed  and  disor- 
derly processions  to  the  silence  and  the 
eternity  of  the  grave.  All  this  visible 
world  is  vain  ;  there  is  nothing  true 
but  human  virtue,  —  the  courageous 
energy  with  which  man  attains  to  self- 
command,  the  generous  energy  with 
which  he  employs  himself  in  the  ser- 
vice of  others.  On  this  view,  then,  his 
eyes  are  fixed  ;  they  pierce  through 
worldly  gauds,  neglect  sensual  joys,  to 
attain  this.  By  such  inner  thoughts 
and  feelings  the  ideal  model  is  dis- 
placed ;  a  new  source  of  action  springs 
Up — the  idea  of  righteousness.  What 
sets  them  against  ecclesiastical  pomp 
and  insolence,  is  neither  the  envy  of 
the  poor  and  low,  nor  the  anger  of  the 
oppressed,  nor  a  revolutionary  desire 
to  experimentalize  abstract  truth,  but 
conscience.  They  tremble  lest  they 
should  not  work  out  their  salvation  if 
they  continue  in  a  corrupt  church  ;  they 
fear  the  menaces  of  God,  and  dare  not 
embark  on  the  great  journey  with 
unsafe  guides.  "  What  is  righteous- 
ness ?  "  asked  Luther  anxiously,  "  and 
how  shall  I  obtain  it?"  With 


like  anxiety  Piers  Ploughman  goes  to 
seek  Do-well,  and  asks  each  one  to 
show  him  where  he  shall  find  him, 
**  With  us,"  say  the  friars.  "  Contra 
quath  ich,  Septies  in  die  cadit  jtistus, 
and  ho  so  syngeth  certys  doth  nat 
wel ;  "  so  he  betakes  himself  to  "  study 
and  writing,"  like  Luther  ;  the  clerks 
at  table  speak  much  of  God  and  of 
the  Trinity,  "  and  taken  Bernarde  to 
witnesse,  and  putteth  forth  presomp- 
cions  i  .  .  ac  the  earful  mai  crie  and 
quaken  atte  gate,  bothe  a  fyngred  and 
a  furst,  and  for  defaute  spille  ys  non 
so  hende  to  have  hym  yn.  Clerkus 
and  knyghtes  carpen  of  God  ofte,  and 
haveth  hym  muche  in  hure  mouthe,  ac 
mene  men  in  herte  ; '"'  and  heart,  inner 
faith,  living  virtue,  are  what  constitute 
true  religion.  This  is  what  these  dull 
Saxons  had  begun  to  discover.  The 
Teutonic  conscience,  and  English  good 
sense  too,  had  been  aroused,  as  well 
as  individual  energy,  the  resolution  to 
judge  and  to  decide  alone,  by  and  for 
one's  self.  "Christ  is  our  hede  that 
sitteth  on  hie,  Heddis  ne  ought  we 
have  no  mo,"  says  a  poem,  attributed 
to  Chaucer,  ancl  which,  with  others, 
claims  independence  for  Christian 
consciences.* 

"  We  ben  his  membres  bothe  also, 
Father  he  taught  us  call  him  all, 
Maisters  to  call  forbad  he  tho  ; 
Al  maisters  ben  wickid  and  fals." 

No  other  mediator  between  man  and 
God.  In  vain  the  doctors  state  that 
they  have  authority  for  their  words  ; 
there  is  a  word  of  greater  authority,  to 
wit,  God's.  We  hear  it  in  the  four- 
teenth century,  this  grand  "  word  of 
God."  It  quitted  the  learned  schools, 
the  dead  languages,  the  dusty  shelves 
on  which  the  clergy  suffered  it  to  sleep, 
covered  with  a  confusion  of  commenta- 
tors and  Fathers.!  Wiclif  appeared 

*  Piers  Plow  man's  Crede  ;  the  Plowman' 's 
Tale,  first  printed  in  1550.  There  were  three 
editions  in  one  year,  it  was  so  manifestly  Pro- 
testant. 

t  Knighton,  about  1400,  wrote  thus  of  Wiclif : 
"  Transtuiit  de  Latino  in  anglicam  linguam, 
non  angelicam.  Unde  per  ipsum  fit  vulgare,  et 
magis  apertum  laicis  et  mulieribus  legere 
scientibus  quam  solet  esse  clericis  admodum 
litteratis,  et  bene  inteiligentibus.  _  Et  sic  evan- 
gel tea  margerita  spargitur  et  a  porcis  conculcatur 
.  .  .  (ita)ut  laicis  commune  aeternum  quod  ante 
fuerat  clericis  et  ecclesiae  doctoribus  talenturt 
supernum." 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I. 


and  translated  it  like  Luther,  and  in  a 
spirit  similar  to  Luther's.  "  Cristen 
men  and  wymmen,  olde  and  yonge, 
shulden  studie  fast  in  the  Newe  Testa- 
ment, for  it  is  of  ful  autorite,  and  opyn 
to  undirstonding  of  simple  men,  as  to 
the  poyntis  that  be  moost  nedeful  to 
salvacioun."  *  Religion  must  be  secu- 
lar, in  order  to  escape  firom  the  hands 
<•£  the  clergy,  who  monopolize  it;  each 
must  hear  a  id  read  for  himself  the 
word  of  God:  he  will  then  be  sure 
that  it  has  not  been  corrupted  ;  he  will 
feel  it  better,  and  more,  he  will  under- 
stand it  better  ;  for 

"  ech  place  of  holy  writ,  both  opyn  and  derk, 
techith  mekenes  and  charite ;  and  therfore  he 
that  kepith  mekenes  and  charite  hath  the  trewe 
undirstondyng  and  perfectioun  of  al  holi  writ. 
.  .  .  Therfore  no  simple  man  of  wit  be  aferd 
unmesurabli  to  studie  in  the  text  of  holy  writ 
.  .  .  and  no  clerk  be  provide  of  the  yerrey  un- 
dirstondying  of  holy  writ,  forwhi  undirstonding 
of  hooly  writ  with  outen  charite  that  kepith 
Goddis  heestis,  makith  a  man  depper  dampned 
.  .  .  and  pride  and  covetise  of  clerkis  is  cause 
of  her  blindees  and  eresie,  and  priveth  them  fro 
verrey  undirstondyng  of  holy  writ."  f 

These  are  the  memorable  words 
that  began  to  circulate  in  the  markets 
and  in  the  schools.  They  read  the 
translated  Bible,  and  commented  on 
it;  they  judged  the  existing  Church 
after  it.  What  judgments  these  seri- 
ous and  untainted  minds  passed  upon 
it,  with  what  readiness  they  pushed  on 
to  the  true  religion  of  their  race,  we 
may  see  from  their  petition  to  Parlia- 
ment.J  One  hundred  and  thirty  years 
before  Luther,  they  said  that  the  pope 
was  not  established  by  Christ,  that 
pilgrimages  and  image-worship  were 
akin  to  idolatry,  that  external  rites  are 
of  no  importance,  that  priests  ought 
not  to  possess  temporal  wealth,  that 
the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  made 
«.  ^cople  idolatrous,  that  priests  have 
not  the  power  of  absolving  from  sin. 
In  proof  of  all  this  they  brought  for- 
ward texts  of  Scripture.  Fancy  these 
brave  spirits,  simple  and  strong  souls, 
who  began  to  read  at  night  in  their 
shops,  by  candle-light;  for  they  were 
shopkeepers  —  tailors,  skinners,  and 
bakers — who,  with  some  men  of  letters, 
began  to  read,  and  the  n  to  believe,  and 

*  Wiclif's  Bible,  ed.  Forshall  and  Madden, 
1850,  pi  eface  to  Oxford  edition,  p.  2. 

*  Ibid.  \  In  1395. 


finally  got  themselves  burned.*  What 
a  sight  for  the  fifteenth  century,  anJl 
what  a  promise !  It  seems  as  though, 
with  liberty  of  action,  liberty  of  mind 
begins  to  appear ;  that  these  common 
folk  will  think  and  speak  ;  that  under 
the  conventional  literature,  imitated 
from  France,  a  new  literature  is  dawn- 
ing ;  and  that  England,  genuine  Eng- 
land, half-mute  since  the  Conquest, 
will  at  last  find  a  voice. 

She  had  not  yet  found  it.  King  and 
peers  ally  themselves  to  the  Church, 
pass  terrible  statutes,  destroy  books, 
burn  heretics  alive,  often  with  refine- 
ment of  torture, — one  in  a  barrel,  an- 
other hung  by  an  iron  chain  round  his 
waist.  The  temporal  wealth  of  the 
clergy  had  been  attacked,  and  there- 
with the  whole  English  constitution  ; 
and  the  great  establishment  above 
crushed  out  with  its  whole  weight  the 
revolutionists  from  below.  Darkly,  in 
silence,  while  the  nobles  were  destroy- 
ing each  other  in  the  War  of  the  Roses, 
the  commons  went  on  working  and 
living,  separating  themselves  from  the 
established  Church,  maintaining  their 
liberties,  amassing  wealth,  but  not  go- 
ing further,  t  Like  a  vast  rock  which 
underlies  the  soil,  yet  crops  up  here 
and  there  at  distant  intervals,  they 
barely  show  themselves.  No  great 
poetical  or  religious  work  displays 
them  to  the  light.  They  sang;  but 
their  ballads,  first  ignored,  then  trans- 
formed, reach  us  only  in  a  late  edition. 
They  prayed  ;  but  beyond  one  or  two 
indifferent  poems,  their  incomplete  and 
repressed  doctrine  bore  no  fruit.  We 
may  well  see  from  the  verse,  tone, 
and  drift  of  their  ballads,  that  they  are 
capable  of  the  finest  poetic  originality, \ 

*  1401,  William  Sawtre,  the  first  Lollard 
burned  alive. 

t  Commines,  v.  ch.  19  and  20 :  "  In  my  opin- 
ion, of  all  kingdoms  of  the  world  of  which  I 
have  any  knowledge,  where  the  public  weal  is 
bast  observed,  and  least  violence  is  exercised 
on  the  people,  and  where  no  buildings  are  over 
thrown  or  demolished  in  war,  England  is  the 
best ;  and  the  ruin  and  misfortune  falls  on 
them  who  wage  the  war.  .  .  .  The  kingdom 
of  England  has  this  advantage  beyond  other 
nations,  that  the  people  and  the  country  are 
not  destroyed  or  burnt,  nor  the  buildings  de- 
molished ;  and  ill-fortune  falls  on  men  of  war, 
and  especially  on  the  nobles." 

t  See  the  ballads  of  Chevy  Chase,  The  Nut- 
Brown  Maid,  etc.  Many  of  them  are  admi- 
rable little  dramas. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


but  their  poetry  is  in  the  hands  of 
yeomen  and  harpers.  We  perceive, 
by  the  precocity  and  energy  of  their  re- 
ligious protests,  that  they  are  capable 
of  the  most  severe  and  impassioned 
creeds  ;  but  their  faith  remains  hidden 
in  the  shop-parlors  of  a  few  obscure 
sectaries.  Neither  their  faith  nor  their 
poetry  has  been  able  to  attain  its  end 
or  issue.  The  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation,  those  two  national  out- 
breaks, are  still  far  off ;  and  the  litera- 
ture of  the  period  retains  to  the  end, 
like  the  highest  ranks  of  English  so- 
ciety, almost  the  perfect  stamp  of  its 
French  origin  and  its  foreign  models. 


CHAPTER  III. 


I. 

AMID  so  many  barren  endeavors, 
throughout  the  long  impotence  of  Nor- 
man literature,  which  was  content  to 
copy,  and  of  Saxon  literature,  which 
bore  no  fruit,  a  definite  language  was 
nevertheless  formed,  and  there  was 
room  for  a  great  writer.  Geoffrey  Chau- 
cer appeared,  a  man  of  mark,  inventive 
though  a  disciple,  original  though  a 
translator,  who  by  his  genius,  education, 
and  life,  was  enabled  to  know  and  to 
depict  a  whole  world,  but  above  all  to 
satisfy  the  chivalric  world  and  the 
splendid  courts  which  shone  upon  the 
heights.*  He  belonged  to  it,  though 
learned  and  versed  in  all  branches  of 
scholastic  knowledge  ;  and  he  took 
such  a  share  in  it,  that  his  life  from  be- 
ginning to  end  was  that  of  a  man  of  the 
world,  and  a  man  of  action.  We  find  him 
by  turns  in  King  Edward's  army,  in  the 
kng's  train,  husband  of  a  maid  of 
honor  to  the  queen,  a  pensioner,  a 
placeholder,  a  member  of  Parliament, 
a  knight,  founder  of  a  family  which 
ivas  hereafter  to  become  allied  to 
royalty.  Moreover,  he  was  in  the 
king's  council  brother-in-law  of  John 
of  Gaunt,  employed  mo~e  than  once 
in  open  embassies  or  secret  missions  at 
Florence,  Genoa,  Milan,  Flanders,  com- 

*  Born  between  1328  and  1345,  died  in  1400. 


missioner  in  France  for  the  marriage 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  high  up  and 
low  down  on  the  political  ladder,  dis- 
graced, restored  to  place.  This  ex- 
perience of  business,  travel,  war,  and 
the  court,  was  not  like  a  book-educa- 
tion. He  was  at  the  court  of  Edward 
III.,  the  most  splendid  in  Europe, 
amidst  tourneys,  grand  receptions,  mag- 
nificent displays ;  he  took  part  in  the 
pomps  of  France  and  Milan  ;  conversed 
with  Petrarch,  perhaps  with  Boccaccio 
and  Froissart ;  was  actor  in,  and  spec- 
tator of,  the  finest  and  most  tragical  of 
dramas.  In  these  few  words,  what 
ceremonies  and  cavalcades  are  implied  I 
what  processions  in  armor,  what 
caparisoned  horses,  bedizened  ladies  1 
what  display  of  gallant  and  lordly 
manners !  what  a  varied  and  brilliant 
world,  well  suited  to  occupy  the  mind 
and  eyes  of  a  poet  I  Like  Froissart, 
and  better  than  he,  Chaucer  could 
depict  the  castles  of  the  nobles,  their 
conversations,  their  talk  of  love,  and 
any  thing  else  that  concerned  them, 
and  please  them  by  his  portraiture. 

II. 

Two  notions  raised  the  middle  age 
above  the  chaos  of  barbarism  :  one 
religious,  which  had  fashioned  the 
gigantic  cathedrals,  and  swept  the 
masses  from  their  native  soil  to  hurl 
them  upon  the  Holy  Land ;  the  other 
secular,  which  had  built  feudal  fort- 
resses, and  set  the  man  of  courage 
erect  and  armed,  within  his  own 
domain :  the  one  had  produced  the 
adventurous  hero,  the  other  the  mys- 
tical monk ;  the  one,  to  wit,  the  belief 
in  God,  the  other  the  belief  in  self. 
Both,  running  to  excess,  had  degener- 
ated by  the  violence  of  their  own 
strength:  the  cne  had  exalted  inde- 
pendence into  rebellion,  the  other  had 
turned  piety  into  enthusiasm :  the  first 
made  man  unfit  for  civil  life,  the  second 
drew  him  back  from  natural  life :  the 
one,  sanctioning  disorder,  dissolved 
society ;  the  other,  enthroning  infatua- 
tion, perverted  intelligence.  Chivalry 
had  need  to  be  repressed  because  it 
issued  in  brigandage ;  devotion  re- 
strained because  it  induced  slavery. 
Turbulent  feudalism  grew  feeble,  like 
oppressive  theocracy;  and  the  two 


86 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


great  master  passions,  deprived  of  their 
sap  and  lopped  of  their  stem,  gave 
place  by  their  weakness  to  the  monot- 
ony of  habit  and  the  taste  for  world- 
liness,  which  shot  forth  in  their  stead 
and  flourished  under  their  name. 

Gradually,  the  serious  element  de- 
clined, in  books  as  in  manners,  in  works 
of  art  as  in  books.  Architecture,  instead 
of  being  the  handmaid  of  faith,  became 
the  slave  of  phantasy.  It  was  exag- 
gerated, became  too  ornamental,  sac- 
rificing general  effect  to  detail,  shot  up 
its  steeples  to  unreasonable  heights, 
decorated  its  churches  with  canopies, 
pinnacles,  trefoiled  gables,  open-work 
galleries.  "  Its  whole  aim  was  con- 
tinually to  climb  higher,  to  clothe  the 
sacred  edifice  with  a  gaudy  bedizen- 
ment,  as  if  it  were  a  bride  on  her  wed- 
ing  morning."  *  Before  this  marvel- 
lous lacework,  what  emotion  could  one 
feel  but  a  pleased  astonishment  ? 
What  becomes  of  Christian  sentiment 
before  such  scenic  ornamentations  ?  In 
like  manner  literature  sets  itself  to 
play.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
second  age  of  absolute  monarchy,  we 
saw  on  one  side  finials  and  floriated 
cupolas,  on  the  other  pretty  vers  de 
society  courtly  and  sprightly  tales, 
taking  the  place  of  severe'beauty-lines 
and  noble  writings.  Even  so  in  the  four- 
teenth century,  the  second  age  of  feudal- 
ism, they  had  on  one  side  the  stone  fret- 
work and  slender  efflorescence  of  aerial 
forms,  and  on  the  other  finical  verses 
and  diverting  stories,  taking  the  place  of 
the  old  grand  architecture  and  the  old 
simple  literature.  It  is  no  longer  the 
overflowing  of  a  true  sentiment  which 
produces  them,  but  the  craving  for  excite- 
ment. Consider  Chaucer,  his  subjects, 
and  how  he  selects  them.  He  goes 
tat  and  wide  to  discover  them,  to  Italy, 
France,  to  the  popular  legends,  the 
ancient  classics.  His  readers  need 
diversity,  and  his  business  is  to 
"  provide  fine  tales  :  "  it  was  in  those 
days  the  poet's  business.!  The  lords 
at  tajle  have  finished  dinner,  the  min- 
strels come  and  sing,  the  brightness  of 
the  torches  falls  on  the  velvet  and 
ermine,  on  the  fantastic  figures,  the 
motley,  the  elaborate  embroidery  of 

*  Renan,  De  ?Art  au  Moyen  Age. 
t  See  Frpissart,  his  life  with  the  Count  of 
Foix  and  with  King  Richard  II. 


their  long  garments  ;  then  the  poet 
arrives,  presents  his  manuscript, 
"richly  illuminated,  bound  in  crimson 
violet,  embellished  with  silver  clasps 
and  bosses,  roses  of  gold  : "  they  ajk 
him  what  his  subject  is,  and  he  an- 
swers "  Love." 

III. 

In  fact,  it  is  the  most  agreeable  sub- 
ject, fittest  to  make  the  evening  hours 
pass  sweetly,  amid  the  goblets  filled 
with  spiced  wine  and  the  burnirg  per- 
fumes. Chaucer  translated  firs:  that 
great  storehouse  of  gallantry,  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose.  There  is  no  pleas- 
anter  entertainment.  It  is  about  a 
rose  which  the  lover  wished  to  pluck : 
the  pictures  of  the  May  months,  the 
groves,  the  flowery  earth,  the  green 
hedgerows,  abound  and  display  their 
bloom.  Then  come  portraits  of  the 
smiling  ladies,  Richesse,  Fraunchise, 
Gaiety,  and  by  way  of  contrast,  the  sad 
characters,  Daunger  and  Travail,  all 
fully  and  minutely  described,  with  de- 
tail of  features,  clothing,  attitude ;  they 
walk  about,  as  on  a  piece  of  tapestry, 
amid  landscapes,  dances,  castles,  among 
allegorical  groups,  in  lively  sparkling 
colors,  displayed,  contrasted,  ever  re- 
newed and  varied  so  as  to  entertain  the 
sight.  For  an  evil  has  arisen,  unknown 
to  serious  ages — ennui:  novelty  and 
brilliancy  followed  by  novelty  and  bril- 
liancy are  necessary  to  withstand  it ; 
and  Chaucer,  like  Boccaccio  and 
Froissart,  enters  into  the  struggle  with 
all  his  heart.  He  borrows  from  Boc- 
caccio his  history  of  Palamon  and 
Arcite,  from  Lollius  his  history  of 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  rearranges 
them.  How  the  two  young  Theban 
knights,  Arcite  and  Palamon,  both  fall 
in  love  with  the  beautiful  Emily,  and 
how  Arcite,  victorious  in  tourney,  falls 
and  dies,  bequeathing  Emily  to  his 
rival ;  how  the  fine  Trojan  knight 
Troilus  wins  the  favor  of  Cressida,  and 
how  Cressida  abandons  him  for 
Diomedes — these  are  still  tales  in  verse, 
tales  of  love.  A  little  tedious  they 
may  be ;  all  the  writings  of  this  age, 
French  or  imitated  from  French,  are 
born  of  too  prodigal  minds  ;  but  how 
they  glide  along  1  A  winding  stream, 
which  flows  smoothly  on  level  sand, 
and  sparkles  now  and  again  in  the 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


sun,  is  the  only  image  we  can  com- 
pare it  to.  The  characters  speak 
too  .nuch,  but  then  they  speak  so 
well  1  Even  when  they  dispute,  we 
like  to  listen,  their  anger  and  offences 
are  so  wholly  based  on  a  happy  over- 
flow of  unbroken  converse.  Remember 
Froissart,  how  slaughters,  assassina- 
tions, plagues,  the  butcheries  of  the 
Jacquerie,  the  whole  chaos  of  human 
misery;  disappears  in  his  fine  ceaseless 
humor,  so  that  the  furious  and  grin- 
ning figures  seem  but  ornaments  and 
choice  embroideries  to  relieve  the 
skein  of  shaded  and  colored  silk  which 
forms  the  groundwork  of  his  narra- 
tive !  but  in  particular,  a  multitude  of 
descriptions  spread  their  gilding  over 
all.  Chaucer  leads  you  among  arms, 
palaces,  temples,  and  halts  before  each 
beautiful  thing.  Here : 

*'  The  statue  of  Venus  glorious  for  to  see 
Was  naked  fleting  in  the  large  see, 
And  fro  the  navel  doun  all  covered  was 
With  wawe.s  grene,  and  bright  as  any  glas. 
A  citole  in  hire  right  hand  hadde  she, 
And  on  hire  hed,  ful  semely  for  to  see, 
A  rose  gerlond  fressh,  and  wel  smelling, 
Above  hire  hed  hire  doves  fleckering."  * 

Further  on,  the  temple  of  Mars : 

'*  First  on  the  wall  was  peinted  a  forest, 

In  which  ther  wonneth  neyther  man  ne  best, 
With  knotty  knarry  barrein  trees  old 
Of  stubbes  sharpe  and  hidous  to  behold  ; 
In  which  ther  ran  a  romble  and  a  swough, 
As   though   a   storme    shuld  bresten    every 

bough : 

And  dounward  from  an  hill  under  a  bent, 
Ther  stood  the  temple  of  Mars  armipotent, 
Wrought  all  of  burned  stele,  of  which  th' 

entree 

Was  longe  and  streite,  and  gastly  for  to  see. 
And  therout  came  a  rage  and  swiche  a  vise, 
That  it 'made  all  the  gates  for  to  rise. 
The  northern  light  in  at  the  dore  shone, 
For  window  on  the  wall  ne  was  ther  none, 
Thurgh  which   men   mighten   any  light  dis- 

cerne. 

The  dore  was  all  of  athamant  eterne, 
Yclenched  overthwart  and  endelong 
With  yren  tough,  and  for  to  make  it  strong, 
Every  piler  the  temple  to  sustene 
Was  tonne-gret,  of  yren  bright  and  shene."  f 

Everywhere  on  the  wall  were  represen- 
tations oi  slaughter ;  and  in  the  sanctu- 
ary 

"  The  statue  of  Mars  upon  a  carte  stood 
Armed,  and  loked  grim  as  Y  2  were  wood,  .  .  . 
A  wolf  ther  stood  beforne  him  at  h:s  fete 
With  eyen  red,  and  of  a  man  he  e<e."  t 


*  Knighfs  Tale,  ii.  p.  59,  /.  1957-1964. 

t  Ibid.  I.  1977-1996. 

t  Ibid,  p.  61,  /.  2043-2050. 


Are  not  these  contrasts  well  design- 
ed  to  rouse  the  imagination  ?  You  will 
meet  in  Chaucer  a  succession  of  simi- 
lar pictures.  Observe  the  train  of 
combatants  who  came  to  joust  in  the 
tilting  field  for  Arcite  and  Palamon: 

"  With  him  ther  wen  ten  knightes  many  on. 
Som  wol  ben  armed  in  an  habergeon 
And  in  a  brestplate,  and  in  a  gipon  ; 
And  som  wol  have  a  pair  of  plates  large  ; 
And  som  wol  have  a  Pruce  sheid,  or  a  targ« 
Som  wol  ben  armed  on  his  legges  wele, 
And  have  an  axe,  and  som  a  mace  of  stele.  •  • 
Ther  maist  thou  se  coming  with  Palamon 
Licurge  himself,  the  grete  king  of  Trace  : 
Blake  was  his  berd,  and  manly  was  his  face. 
The  cercles  of  his  eyen  in  his  hed 
They  gloweden  betwixen  yelwe  and  red, 
And  like  a  griffon  loked  he  about, 
With  kemped  heres  on  his  browes  stout ; 
His    limmes    gret,    his    braunes    hard    and 

stronge, 
His  shouldres  brode,  his  armes  round  and 

longe. 

And  as  the  guise  was  in  his  contree, 
Ful  highe  upon  a  char  of  gold  stood  he, 
With  foure  white  bolles  in  the  trais. 
Instede  of  cote-armure  on  his  harnais, 
With  nayles  yelwe,  and  bright  as  any  gold, 
He  hadde  a  beres  skin,  cole-blake  for  old. 
His  longe  here  was  kempt  behind  his  bak, 
As  any  ravenes  fether  it  shone  for  blake. 
A  wreth  of  gold  arm-gret,  of  huge  weight, 
Upon  his  hed  sate  ful  of  stones  bright, 
Of  fine  rubins  and  of  diamants. 
About  his  char  ther  wenten  white  alauns, 
Twenty  and  mo,  as  gret  as  any  stere, 
To  hunten  at  the  Icon  or  the  dere, 
And  folwed  him,  with  mosel  fast  ybound, 
Colered  with  gold,  and  torettes  filed  round. 
An  hundred  lordes  had  he  in  his  route, 
Armed  ful  wel,  withhertes  sterne  and  stoute. 
With  Arcita,  in  stories  as  men  find, 
The  gret  Emetrius  the  king  of  Inde, 
Upon  a  stede  bay,  trapped  in  stele, 
Covered'with  cloth  of  gold  diapred  wele, 
Came  riding  like  the  god  of  armes  Mars. 
His  cote-armure  was  of  a  cloth  of  Tars, 
Couched  with  perles,  white,  and  round  and 

grete. 

His  sadel  was  of  brent  gold  new  ybete  ; 
A  mantelet  upon  his  shouldres  hanging 
Bretrful  of  rubies  red,  as  fire  sparkling. 
His  crispe  here  like  ringes  was  yronne, 
And  that  was  yelwe,  and  glitered  as  the  sonne 
His  nose  was  high,  his  eyen  bright  citrin 
His  lippes  round,  his  colour  was  sanguin 
And  as  a  leon  he  his  loking  caste. 
Of  five  and  twenty  yere  his  age  I  caste. 
His  berd  was  well  begonnen  for  to  spring 
His  vois  was  as  as  a  trompe  thondering. 
Upon  his  hed  he  wered  of  laurer  grene 
A  gerlond  fresshe  and  lusty  for  to  sene. 
Upon  his  hond  he  bare  for  his  deduit 
An  egle  tame,  as  any  lily  whit. 
An  hundred  lordes  had  he  with  him  there, 
All  armed  save  hir  hedes  in  all  hir  gere, 
Ful  richely  in  alle  manere  thinges  .  .  . 
About  this  king  ther  ran  on  every  part 
Ful  many  a  tame  leon  and  leopart."* 

*  Ibid,  p.  63,  /.  2i2o-?i88. 


88 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


A  herald  would  not  describe  them 
better  nor  more  fully.  The  lords  and 
ladies  of  the  time  would  recognize 
here  their  tourneys  and  masquerades. 

There  is  something  more  pleasant 
than  a  fine  narrative,  and  that  is  a 
collection  of  fine  narratives,  especially 
when  the  narratives  are  all  of  different 
colorings.  Froissart  gives  us  such 
under  the  name  of  Chronicles ;  Boc- 
caccio still  better ;  after  him  the  lords 
of  the  Cent  Nouvelles  Nouvclles  ;  and, 
later  still,  Marguerite  of  Navarre. 
What  more  natural  among  people  who 
meet,  talk  and  wish  to  amuse  them- 
selves. The  manners  of  the  time  sug- 
gest them ;  for  the  habits  and  tastes  of 
society  had  begun,  and  fiction  thus  con- 
ceived only  brings  into  books  the  con- 
versations which  are  heard  in  the  hall 
and  by  the  wayside.  Chaucer  describes 
a  troop  of  pilgrims,  people  of  every 
rank,  who  are  going  to  Canterbury; 
a  knight,  a  sergeant  of  law,  an  Oxford 
clerk,  a  doctor,  a  miller,  a  prioress, 
a  monk,  who  agree  to  tell  a  story  all 
round : 

"  For  trewely  comfort  ne  mirthe  is  non, 
To  riden  by  the  way  domb  as  the  ston." 

They  tell  their  stories  accordingly  ; 
and  on  this  slender  and  flexible  thread 
all  the  jewels  of  feudal  imagination, 
real  or  false,  contribute  one  after 
another  their  motley  shapes  to  form  a 
necklace ;  side  by  side  with  noble  and 
chivalrous  stories  :  we  have  the  mira- 
cle of  an  infant  whose  throat  was  cut 
by  Jews,  the  trials  of  patient  Grisel- 
da,  Canace  and  marvellous  fictions  of 
Oriental  fancy,  obscene  stories  of 
marriage  and  monks,  allegorical  or 
moral  tales,  the  fable  of  the  cock  and 
hen,  a  list  of  great  unfortunate  persons  : 
Lucifer,  Adam,  Samson,  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, Zenobia,  Croesus,  Ugolino, 
Peter  of  Spain.  I  leave  out  some  for 
I  must  be  brief.  Chaucer  is  like  a 
j.'.-weller  with  his  hands  full  :  pearls 
and  glass  beads,  sparkling  diamonds 
and  common  agates,  black  jet  and  ruby 
roses,  all  that  history  and  imagination 
had  been  able  to  gather  and  fashion 
during  three  centuries  in  the  East,  in 
France,  in  Wales,  in  Provence,  in  Italy, 
all  that  had  rolled  his  way,  clashed  to- 
gether, broken  or  polished  by  the  stream 
of  centuries,  and  by  the  great  jumble 


of  human  memory,  he  holds  in  his  hand, 
arranges  it,  composes  therefrom  a 
long  sparkling  ornament,  with  twenty 
pendants,  a  thousand  facets,  which  by 
its  splendor,  variety,  contrasts,  may 
attract  and  satisfy  the  eyes  of  those 
most  greedy  for  amusement  and  nov- 
elty. 

He  does  more.  The  universal  out- 
burst  of  unchecked  curiosity  demands 
a  more  refined  enjoyment :  reverie  and 
fantasy  alone  can  satisfy  it ;  not  jro- 
found  and  thoughtful  fantasy  as  we  find 
it  in  Shakspere,  nor  impassioned  and 
meditative  reverie  as  we  find  it  in  Dante, 
but  the  reverie  and  fantasy  of  the  eyes, 
ears,  external  senses,  which  in  poetry 
as  in  architecture  call  for  singularity, 
wonders,  accepted  challenges,  victories 
gained  over  the  rational  and  probable, 
and  which  are  satisfied  only  by  what  is 
crowded  and  dazzling.  When  we  look 
at  a  cathedral  of  that  time,  we  feel  a 
sort  of  fear.  Substance  is  wanting; 
the  walls  are  hollowed  out  to  make 
room  for  windows,  the  elaborate  work 
of  the  porches,  the  wonderful  growth 
of  the  slender  columns,  the  thin  curva- 
ture of  arches — every  thing  seems  to 
menace  us ;  support  has  been  with- 
drawn to  give  way  to  ornament.  With- 
out external  prop  or  buttress,  and 
artificial  aid  of  iron  clamp-work,  the 
building  would  have  crumbled  to  pieces 
on  the  first  day ;  as  it  is,  it  undoes 
itself ;  we  have  to  maintain  on  the 
spot  a  colony  of  masons  continually  to 
ward  off  the  continual  decay.  But  our 
sight  grows  dim  in  following  the  waiv- 
ings  and  twistings  of  the  endless  fret- 
work ;  the  dazzling  rose-window  of  the 
portal  and  the  painted  glass  throw  a 
chequered  light  on  the  carved  stalls  of 
the  choir,  the  gold-work  of  the  altar, 
the  long  array  of  damascened  and 
glittering  copes,  the  crowd  of  statues 
tier  above  tier ;  and  amid  this  violet 
light,  this  quivering  purple,  amid  these 
arrows  of  gold  which  pierce  the  gloom, 
the  entire  building  is  like  the  tail  of  a 
mystical  peacock.  So  most  of  the 
poems  of  the  time  are  barren  of  foun- 
dation ;  at  most  a  trite  morality  serves 
them  for  mainstay :  in  short,  the  poet 
thought  of  nothing  else  than  displaying 
before  us  a  glow  of  colors  and  a  jumble 
of  forms.  They  are  dreams  or  visions 
there  are  five  or  six  in  Chaucer,  and 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE 


you  will  meet  more  on  your  advance 
to  the  Renaissance.  But  the  show  is 
splendid.  Chaucer  is  transported  in 
a  dream  to  a  temple  of  glass,*  on  the 
walls  of  which  are  figured  in  gold  all 
the  legions  of  Ovid  and  Virgil,  an  infi- 
nite train  of  characters  and  dresses,  like, 
that  which,  on  the  painted  glass  in  the 
churches,  occupied  then  the  gaze  of  the 
faithful.  Suddenly  a  golden  eagle  which 
soars  near  the  sun,  and  glitters  like  a 
carbuncle,  descends  with  the  swiftness 
of  lightning,  and  carries  him  off  in  his 
talons  above  the  stars,  dropping  him 
at  last  before  the  House  of  Fame, 
splendidly  built  of  beryl,  with  shining 
windows  and  lofty  turrets,  and  situated 
on  a  high  rock  of  almost  inaccessible 
ice.  All  the  southern  side  was  graven 
with  the  names  of  famous  men,  but  the 
sun  was  continuously  melting  them. 
On  the  northern  side,  the  names,  better 
protected  still  remained.  On  the  tur- 
rets appeared  the  minstrels  and  "  ges- 
tiours,"  with  Orpheus,  Arion,  and  the 
great  harpers,  and  behind  them  myr- 
iads of  musicians,  with  horns,  flutes, 
bag-pipes,  and  reeds,  on  which  they 
played,  and  which  filled  the  air ;  then 
all  the  charmers,  magicians,  and  pro- 
phets. He  enters,  and  in  a  high  hall, 
plated  with  gold,  embossed  with  pearls, 
on  a  throne  of  carbuncle,  he  sees  a 
woman  seated,  a  "  noble  quene," 
amidst  an  infinite  number  of  heralds, 
whose  embroidered  cloaks  bore  the 
arms  of  the  most  famous  knights  in 
the  world,  and  heard  the  sounds  of 
instruments,  and  the  celestial  melody 
of  Calliope  and  her  sisters.  From  her 
throne  to  the  gate  was  a  row  of  pillars, 
on  which  stood  the  great  historians  and 
poets ;  Josephus  on  a  pillar  of  lead 
and  iron;  Statius  on  a  pillar  of  iron 
stained  with  tiger's  blood ;  Ovid, 
"  Venus'  clerk,"  on  a  pillar  of  copper; 
then,  on  one  higher  than  the  rest,  Ho- 
mer and  Livy,  Dares  the  Phrygian, 
Guido  Colonna,  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth,  and  the  other  historians  of  the 
war  of  Troy.  Must  I  go  on  copying 
this  phantasmagoria,  in  which  confused 
erudition  mars  picturesque  invention, 
and  frequent  banter  shows  sign  that 
the  vision  is  only  a  planned  amuse- 
ment ?  The  poet  and  his  reader  have 
imagined  £)r  half-an-hour  decorated 
*  The  House  of  Fame. 


halls  and  bastling  crowds  ;  a  slende* 
thread  of  common  sense  has  ingeniously 
crept  along  the  transparent  golden 
mist  which  they  amuse  themselves  with 
following.  That  suffices  ;  they  are 
pleased  with  their  fleeting  fancies,  and 
ask  no  more. 

Amid  this  exuberancy  of  mind,  amid 
these  refined  cravings,  and  this  insati- 
ate exaltation  of  imagination  and  the 
senses,  there  was  one  passion,  that  of 
love,  which,  combining  all,  was  devel- 
oped in  excess,  and  displayed  in  min- 
iature the  sickly  charm,  the  fundamen- 
tal and  fatal  exaggeration,  which  are  the 
characteristics  of  the  age,  and  which, 
later,  the  Spanish  civilization  exhibits 
both  in  its  flower  and  its  decay.  Long 
ago,  the  courts  of  love  in  Provence  had 
established  the  theory.  "  Each  one 
who  loves,"  they  said,  "grows  pale  at 
the  sight  of  her  whom  he  loves ;  each 
action  of  the  lover  ends  in  the  thought 
of  her  whom  he  loves.  Love  can 
refuse  nothing  to  love."*  This  search 
after  excessive  sensation  had  ended  in 
the  ecstasies  and  transports  of  Guido 
Cavalcanti,  and  of  Dante ;  and  in  Lan- 
guedoc  a  company  of  enthusiasts  had 
established  themselves,  love-penitents, 
who,  in  order  to  prove  the  violence  of 
their  passion,  dressed  in  summer  in 
furs  and  heavy  garments,  and  in  winter 
in  light  gauze,  and  walked  thus  about 
the  country,  so  that  several  of  them 
fell  ill  and  died.  Chaucer,  in  their 
wake,  explained  in  his  verses  the  craft 
of  love,t  the  ten  commandments,  the 
twenty  statutes  of  love  ;  and  praised  his 
lady,  his  "  daieseye,"  his  "  Margarite," 
his  "  vermeil  rose  ;"  depicted  love  in 
ballads,  visions,  allegories,  didactic 
poems,  in  a  hundred  guises.  This  is 
chivalrous,  lofty  love,  as  it  was  con- 
ceived in  the  middle  age ;  above  all,  ten- 
der love.  Troilus  loves  Cressida  like 
a  troubadour ;  without  Pandarus,  her 
uncle,  he  would  have  languished,  and 
ended  by  dying  in  silence.  He  will 
not  reveal  the  name  of  her  he  loves. 
Pandarus  has  to  tear  it  from  him,  per- 
form all  the  bold  actions  himself,  plan 
every  kind  of  stratagem.  Troilus,  how- 
ever brave  and  strong  in  battle,  can 

*  Andr£  le  Chapelain,  1170. 

t  Also  the  Cottrt  of  Love,  and  perhaps  The 
A  ssemble  of  Ladies  and  La  Belle  Dame  satu 
Merci. 


9o 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I. 


but  weep  before  Cressida,  ask  her 
pardon,  and  faint.  Cressida,  on  her 
side,  has  every  delicate  feeling.  When 
Pandarus  brings  her  Troilus'  first  letter, 
she  begins  by  refusing  it,  and  is  ashamed 
to  open  it :  she  opens  it  only  because 
she  is  told  the  poor  knight  is  about 
to  die.  At  the  first  words  "  all  rosy 
hewed  tho  woxe  she ;"  and  though  the 
letter  is  respectful,  she  will  not  an- 
swer it.  She  yields  at  last  to  the  im- 
portunities of  her  uncle,  and  answers 
Troilus  that  she  will  feel  for  him  the 
affection  of  a  sister.  As  to  Troilus, 
he  trembles  all  over,  grows  pale  when 
he  sees  the  messenger  return,  doubts 
his  happiness,  and  will  not  believe  the 
assurance  which  is  given  him : 

"  But  right  so  as  these  holtes  and  these  hayis 
That  han  in  winter  dead  ben  and  dry, 
Revesten  hem  in  grene,  whan  that  May  is.  .  . 
Right  in  that  selfe  wise,  sooth  for  to  sey, 
Woxe  suddainly  his  herte  full  of  joy."  * 

Slowly,  after  many  troubles,  and  thanks 
to  the  efforts  of  Pandarus,  he  obtains 
her  confession  ;  and  in  this  confession 
what  a  delightful  charm  ! 

"  And  as  the  newe  abashed  nightingale, 

That  stinteth  first,  whan  she  beginneth  sing, 
Whan  that  she  heareth  any  heerdes  tale, 
Or  in  the  hedges  any  wight  stealing, 
And  after  siker  doeth  her  voice  outring : 
Right  so  Creseide,  whan  that  her  drede  stent, 
Opened  her  herte  and  told  him  her  entent."  f 

He,  as  soon  as  he  perceived  a  hope 
from  afar, 

*'  In  chaunged  voice,  right  for  his  very  drede, 
Which  voice    eke    quoke,   and  thereto    his 

manere, 

Goodly  abasht,  and  now  his  hewes  rede, 
Now  pale,  unto  Cresseide  his  ladie  dere, 
With  looke  doun  cast,  and  humble  iyolden 

chere, 

Lo,  the  alderfirst  word  that  him  asta-rt 
Was  twice :    '  Mercy,   mercy,   O  my  sweet 

herte ! "  t 

This  aident  love  breaks  out  in  impas- 
sioned accents,  in  bursts  of  happiness. 
Far  from  being  regarded  as  a  fault,  it 
is  the  source  of  all  virtue.  Troilus 
becomes  braver,  more  generous,  more 
upright,  through  it;  his  speech  runs 
now  on  love  and  virtue  ;  he  scorns  all 
villany ;  he  honors  those  who  possess 
merit,  succors  those  who  are  in  dis- 
tress ;  and  Cressida,  delighted,  repeats 

*  Ti-oilu.^  and  Cressida,  vol.  v.  bk.  3,  p.  12. 
t  Ibid.  p.  40.  J  Ibid.  p.  4. 


all  day,  with  exceeding  liveliness,  this 
song,  which  is  like  the  warbling  of  a 
nightingale  : 

"  Whom  should  I  thanken  but  you,  god  of  love. 
Of  all  this  blisse,  in  which  to  bathe  I  ginr>«  f 
And  thanked  be  ye,  lorde  for  that  I  love 
This  is  the  right  life  that  I  am  inne, 
To  flemen  all  maner  vice  and  sinne  : 
This  doeth  me  so  to  vertue  for  to  entende 
That  daie  by  daie  I  in  my  will  amende. 
And  who  that  saieth  that  for  to  lovs  is  vice,  •  • 
He  either  is  envious,  or  right  nice, 
Or  is  unmightie  for  his  shreudnesse 
To  loven.  .   .  . 

But  I  with  all  mine  herte  and  all  my  might, 
As  I  have  saied,  woll  love  unto  my  last, 
My  owne  dere  herte,and  all  mine  owne  knight, 
In  whiche  mine  herte  growen  is  so  fast, 
And  his  in  me,  that  it  shall  ev*r  l»«t."  * 

But  misfortune  comes.  Her  father 
Calchas  demands  her  back,  and  the 
Trojans  decide  that  they  will  give  her 
up  in  exchange  for  prisoners.  At  this 
news  she  swoons,  and  Troilus  is  about 
to  slay  himself.  Their  love  at  this 
time  seems  imperishable  ;  it  sports  with 
death,  because  it  constitutes  the  whole 
of  life.  Beyond  that  better  and  deli- 
cious life  which  it  created,  it  seems 
there  can  be  no  other  : 

"  But  as  God  would,  of  swough  she  abraide, 
And  gan  to  sighe,  and  Troilus  she  cride, 
And  he  answerde  :  '  Lady  mine,  Creseide, 
Live  ye  yet  ? '  and  let  his  swerde  doun  glide 
'  Ye  herte  mine,  that  thanked  be  Cupide,' 
(Quod  she),  and  therewithal  she  sore  sight, 
And  he  began  to  glade  her  as  he  might. 

Took  her  in  armes  two  and  kist  her  oft, 
And  her  to  glad,  he  did  al  his  entent, 
For  which  her  gost,  that  flikered  aie  a  loft, 
Into  her  wofull  herte  ayen  it  went : 
But  at  the  last,  as  that  her  eye  glent 
Aside,  anon  she  gan  his  sworde  aspie, 
As  it  lay  bare,  and  gan  for  feare  crie. 

And  asked  him  why  had  he  it  out  draw, 

And  Troilus  anon  the  cause  her  told, 

And    how  himself  therwith    he   wold   have 

slain. 

For  which  Creseide  upon  him  gan  behold, 
And  gan  him  in  her  armes  faste  fold, 
And  said :  '  O  mercy  God,  lo  which  a  deds  1 
Alas,  how  nigh  we  weren  bothe  dede!  "  t 

At  last  they  are  separated,  with  what 
vows  and  what  tears !  and  Troilus, 
alone  in  his  chamber,  murmurs  : 

"  '  Where  is  mine  owne  lady  lefe  and  dere  ? 
Where  is  her  white  brest,  where  is  it,  where 
Where  been  her  armes,  and  her  eyen  clere 
That  yesterday  this  time  with  me  were  ?  f  .  . 
Nor  there  nas  houre  in  al  the  day  or  night, 
Whan  he  was  ther  as  no  man  might  him  here. 


*  Ibid.  vol.  iv.  bk.  2,  p.  292. 
t  Ibid,  vol .  v.  bk.  4,  p.  97. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


That  he  ne  sayd  :  '  O  lovesome  lady  bright, 
How  have  ye  "faren  sins  that  ye  were  there  ? 
Welcome  y wis  mine  owne  lady  dere !  '  .  .  . 
Fro  thence-forth  he  rideth  up  and  doune, 
And  every  thing  came  him  to  remembraunce, 
As  he  rode  forth  by  the  places  of  the  toune, 
In  which  he  whilom  had  all  his  pleasaunce: 
Lo,  yonder  saw  I  mine  owne  lady  datmce, 
And  in  that  temple  with  her  eien  clere, 
Me  caught  first  my  right  lady  dere. 
And  yonder  have  I  herde  full  lustely 
My  dere  herte  laugh,  and  yonder  play 
Saw  her  ones  eke  ful  blisfully, 
And  yonder  ones  to  me  gan  she  say, 
'  Now,  good  sweete,  love  well  I  pray. 
And  yonde  so  goodly  gan  she  me  behold, 
That  to  the  death  mine  herte  is  to  her  hold. 
And  at  the  corner  in  the  yonder  house 
Herde  I  mine  alderlevest  lady  dere, 
So  womanly,  with  voice  melodiouse, 
Singen  so  wel,  so  goodly,  and  so  clere, 
That  in  my  soule  yet  me  thinketh  I  here 
The  blissful  sowne,  and  in  that  yonder  place, 
My  lady  first  me  toke  unto  her  grace.'  "  * 

None  has  since  found  more  true  and 
tender  words.  These  are  the  charm- 
ing "  poetic  branches  "  which  flourish- 
ed amid  gross  ignorance  and  pompous 
parades.  Human  intelligence  in  the 
middle  age  had  blossomed  on  that  side 
where  it  perceived  the  light. 

But  mere  narrative  does  not  suffice 
to  express  his  felicity  and  fancy ;  the 
poet  must  go  where  "  shoures  sweet  of 
rain  descended  soft." 

"  And  every  plaine  was  clothed  faire 
With  new  greene,  and  maketh  small  floures 
To  springen  here  and  there  in  field  and  in 

mede, 

So  very  good  and  wholsome  be  the  shoures, 
That  it  renueth  that  was  old  and  dede, 
In  winter  time  ;  and  out  of  every  sede 
Springeth  the  hearbe,  so  that  every  wight 
Of  this  season  wexeth  glad  and  light.  .  .  . 
In  which  (grove)  were  okes  great,  streight  as 

a  line, 

Under  the  which  the  grasse  so  fresh  of  hew 
Was  newly  sprong,  and  an  eight  foot  or  nine 
Every  tree  well  fro  his  fellow  grew." 

He  must  forget  himself  in  the  vague 
'elicity  of  the  country,  and,  like  Dante, 
>  lose  himself  in  ideal  light  and  allegory. 
^  The  dreams  of  love,  to   continue  true, 
•'    <toucfr  not  take  too  visible   a  form,  nor 
enter  into  a  too   consecutive  history  ; 
they  must  float  in  a  misty  distance  ;  the 
soul  :n  wmch  they  hover  can  no  longer 
think  of  the  laws  of  existence  ;  it  in- 
habits another  world  ;  it  forgets  itself  in 
the  ravishing  emotion  which  troubles 
it,  and  sees  its  well-loved  visions  rise, 
mingle,  come  and  go,  as  in  summer  we 

*  Troilus  and  Cressidat  vol.  v.  bk.  5,  p.  119 
€t  passim. 


see  the  bees  on  a  h  Jl-slope  flut;er  in  a 
haze  of  light,  and  circle  round  and 
round  the  flowers. 

One  morning,*  a  lady  sings,  at  the 
dawn  of  day,  I  entered  an  oak-grove 

"  With  branches  brode,  laden  with  leves  newf 
That  sprongen  out  ayen  the  sunne-shene, 
Some    very    red,    and    some    a    glad    Ugh* 
grene.  .  .  .f 

And  I,  that  all  this  pleasaunt  ?ight  sie, 
Thought  sodainly  I  felt  so  sweet  an  aire 
Of  the  eglentere,  that  certainely 
There  is  no  hert,  T  deme,  in  such  dispaire, 
Ne  with  thoughts  froward  and  contraire, 
So  overlaid,  but  it  should  soone  have  bote, 
If  it  had  ones  felt  this  savour  sote. 

And  as  I  stood,  and  cast  aside  mine  eie, 

I  was  ware  of  the  fairest  medler  tree 

That  ever  yet  in  all  my  life  I  sie, 

As  full  of  blossomes  as  it  might  be  ; 

Therein  a  goldfinch  leaping  pretile 

Fro  bough  to  bough  ;  and  as  him  list,  he  eet 

Here  and  there  of  buds  and  floures  sweet.  .  • 

And  as  I  sat,  the  birds  hardening  thus, 
Methought  that  I  heard  voices  sodainly, 
The  most  sweetest  and  most  delicious 
That  ever  any  wight.  I  trow  truly, 
Heard  in  their  life,  for  the  armony 
And  sweet  accord  was  in  so  good  musike, 
That  the  voice  to  angels  most  was  like."  \ 

Then  she  sees  arrive  "a  world  of 
ladies  ...  in  surcotes  white  of  velvet 
...  set  with  emerauds  ...  as  of  great 
pearles  round  and  orient,  and  diamonds 
fine  and  rubies  red."  And  all  had  on 
their  head  "  a  rich  fret  of  gold  .  .  .  full 
of  stately  riche  stones  set,"  with  "  a 
chapelet  of  branches  fresn  and  grene 
.  .  .  some  of  laurer,  some  of  woodbind, 
some  of  agnus  castus  ;  "  and  at  the  same 
time  came  a  train  of  valiant  knights  in 
splendid  array,  with  "  harneis  "  of  red 
gold,  shining  in  the  sun,  and  noble 
steeds,  with  trappings  "of  cloth  of 
gold,  and  furred  with  ermine."  These 
knights  and  ladies  were  the  servants 
of  the  Leaf,  and  they  sate  under  a 
great  oak,  at  the  feet  of  their  queen. 

From  the  other  side  came  a  bevy  of 
ladies  as  resplendent  as  the  first,  but 
crowned  with  fresh  flowers.  These 
were  the  servants  of  the  Flower.  They 
alighted,  and  began  to  dance  in  the 
meadow.  But  heavy  clouds  appeared 
in  the  sky,  and  a  storm  broke  out. 
They  wished  to  shelter  themselves  un- 
der the  oak,  but  there  was  no  more 

*  The  Flower  and  the  Leaf,  vi.  p.  244,  lt 
6-32- 

t  Ibid.  p.  245,  /.  33. 

%.  Ibid.  vi.  p.  246,  /.  78-1  33. 


92 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  Z 


room;  they  ensconced  themselves  as 
they  could  in  the  hedges  and  among 
the  brushwood;  the  rain  came  down 
and  spoiled  their  garlands,  stained 
their  robes,  and  washed  away  their 
ornaments ;  when  the  sun  returned, 
they  went  to  ask  succor  from  the  queen 
of  the  Leaf;  she,  being  merciful,  con- 
soled them,  repaired  the  injury  of  the 
rain,  and  restored  their  original  beauty. 
Then  all  disappears  as  in  a  dream. 

The  lady  was  astonished,  when  sud- 
denly a  fair  dame  appeared  and  in- 
structed her.  She  learned  that  the  ser- 
vants of  the  Leaf  had  lived  like  brave 
knights,  and  those  of  the  Flower  had 
loved  idleness  and  pleasure.  She 
promises  to  serve  the  Leaf,  and  came 
away. 

Is  this  an  allegory  ?  There  is  at 
least  a  lack  of  wit.  There  is  no  in- 
genious enigma ;  it  is  dominated  by 
fancy,  and  the  poet  thinks  only  of  dis- 
playing in  quiet  verse  the  fleeting  and 
brilliant  train  which  had  amused  his 
mind,  and  charmed  his  eyes. 

Chaucer  himself,  on  the  first  of  May, 
rises  and  goes  out  into  the  meadows. 
Love  enters  his  heart  with  the  balmy 
air ;  the  landscape  is  transfigured,  and 
the  birds  begin  to  speak  : 

"  There  sate  I  downe  among  the  faire  flours, 
And  saw  the  birds  trip  out  of  hir  hours, 
There  as  they  rested  hem  all  the  night, 
They  were  so  joyfull  of  the  dayes  light, 
They  began  of  May  for  to  done  honours. 

They  coud  that  service  all  by  rote, 
There  was  many  a  lovely  note, 
Some  song  loud  as  they  had  plained, 
And  some  in  other  manner  voice  yfained 
And  some  all  out  with  the  ful  throte. 

The  proyned  hem  and  made  hem  right  gay, 
And  daunceden,  and  lepten  on  the  spray, 
And  evermore  two  and  two  in  fere, 
Right  so  as  they  had  chosen  hem  to  yere, 
Feverere  upon  saint  Valentines  day. 

And  the  river  that  I  sate  upon, 
It  made  such  a  noise  as  it  ron, 
Accordaunt  with  the  birdes  armonjfc 
Methought  it  was  the  best  melody 
That  might  ben  yheard  of  any  mon."  * 

This  confused  harmony  of  vague  noises 
troubles  the  sense ;  a  secret  languor 
enters  the  soul.  The  cuckoo  throws 
his  monotonous  voice  like  a  mournful 
and  tender  sigh  between  the  white  ash- 
tree  boles;  t).e  nightingale  make  his 

*  The  Cuckow  and  Nightingale^  vi.  p.  121, 
67  -85- 


triumphant  notes  roll  and  ring  above 
the  leafy  canopy  ;  fancy  breaks  in  un- 
sought, and  Chaucer  hears  them  dis- 
pute of  Love.  They  sing  alternately 
an  antistrophic  song,  and  the  nightin- 
gale weeps  for  vexation  to  hear  the 
cuckoo  speak  in  depreciation  of  Love. 
He  is  consoled,  however,  by  the  poet's 
voice,  seeing  that  he  also  suffers  with 
him  : 

"  f  For  love  and  it  hath  doe  m  *  much  wo.* 
1  Ye  use '  (quod  she)  '  this  medicine 
Every  day  this  May  or  thou  d'jie 
Go^looke  upon  the  fresh  daisie, 
And  though  thou  be  for  wo  in  point  to  die 
That  shall  full  greatly  lessen  thee  of  thy 
pine. 

'  And  looke  alway  that  thou  be   good  and 

trew, 

And  I  wol  sing  one  of  the  songes  new, 
For  love  of  thee,  as  loud  as  I  may  crie  : ' 
And  than  she  began  this  song  full  hie, 

*  I   shrewe   all  hem   that  teen  of  love  un- 

true.'" * 

To  such  exquisite  delicacies  love,  as 
with  Petrarch,  had  carried  poetry  ;  by 
refinement  even,  as  with  Petrarch,  it  is 
lost  now  and  then  in  its  wit,  conceits, 
clinches.  But  a  marked  characteristic 
at  once  separates  it  from  Petrarch.  If 
over-excited,  it  is  also  graceful,  polish- 
ed, full  of  archness,  banter,  fine  sen- 
sual gayety,  somewhat  gossipy,  as  the 
French  always  paint  love.  Chaucer 
follows  his  true  masters,  and  is  himself 
an  elegant  speaker,  facile,  ever  ready 
to  smile,  loving  choice  pleasures,  a  dis- 
ciple of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose,  and 
much  less  Italian  than  French.!  The 
bent  of  French  character  makes  of  love 
not  a  passion,  but  a  gay  banquet,  taste- 
fully arranged,  in  which  the  service  is 
elegant,  the  food  exquisite,  the  silver 
brilliant,  the  two  guests  in  full  dress, 
in  good  humor,  quick  to  anticipate  and 
please  each  other,  knowing  how  to 
keep  up  the  gayety,  anc  when  to  part, 
In  Chaucer,  without  doubt,  this  cthe/ 
altogether  worldly  vein  runs  side  Dy 
side  with  the  sentimental  dement.  If 
Troilus  is  a  weeping  lover,  Pandarus 
is  a  lively  rascal,  who  volunteers  for  a 
singular  service  with  amusing  urgency, 
frank  immorality,  and  carries  it  out 
carefully,  gratuitously,  thoroughly.  In 

*  Ibid.  p.  126,  /.  230-241. 

t  Stendhal,  On  Love  :  the  difference  of  Lov»- 
taste  and  Love-passion. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


these  pretty  attempts  Chaucer  accom- 
panies him  as  far  as  possible,  and  is 
not  shocked.  On  the  contrary,  he 
makes  fun  out  of  it.  At  the  critical 
moment,  with  transparent  hypocrisy, 
he  shelters  himself  behind  his  "  au- 
th  .>r."  If  you  find  the  particulars  free, 
he  says,  it  is  not  my  fault ;  "  so  writen 
clerks  in  hir  bokes  old,"  and  "  I  mote, 
aftir  min  auctour,  telle  ..."  Not 
only  is  he  gay,  but  he  jests  throughout 
the  whole  tale.  He  sees  clearly  through 
the  tricks  of  feminine  modesty ;  he 
la:ighs  at  it  archly,  knowing  full  well 
what  is  behind ;  he  seems  to  be  saying, 
finger  on  lip  :  "  Hush  !  let  the  grand 
words  roll  on,  you  will  be  edified  pres- 
ently." We  are,  in  fact,  edified ;  so  is 
he,  and  in  the  nick  of  time  he  goes 
away,  carrying  the  light :  "  For  ought 
I  can  aspies,  this  light  nor  I  ne  serven 
here  of  nought."  "  Troilus,"  says  un- 
cle Pandarus,  "if  ye  be  wise,  sweven- 
eth  not  now,  lest  more  folke  arise." 
Troilus  takes  care  not  to  swoon  ;  and 
Cressida  at  last,  being  alone  with  him, 
speaks  wittily  and  with  prudent  deli- 
cacy; there  is  here  an  exceeding 
charm,  no  coarseness.  Their  happi- 
ness covers  all,  even  voluptuousness, 
with  a  profusion  and  perfume  of  its 
heavenly  roses.  At  most  a  slight  spice 
of  archness  flavors  it :  "  and  gode 
thrift  he  had  full  oft."  Troilus  holds 
his  mistress  in  his  arms  :  "  with  worse 
hap  God  let  us  never  mete."  The  poet 
is  almost  as  well  pleased  as  they  :  for 
him,  as  for  the  men  of  his  time,  the 
sovereign  good  is  love,  not  damped, 
but  satisfied ;  they  ended  even  by 
thinking  such  love  a  merit.  The  ladies 
declared  in  their  judgments,  that  when 
people  love,  they  can  refuse  nothing  to 
the  beloved.  Love  has  become  law  ; 
it  is  inscribed  in  a  code  ;  they  combine 
it  \vfth  religion  ;  and  there  is  a  sacra- 
ment of  love,  in  which  the  birds  in 
their  anthems  sing  matins.*  Chaucer 
curses  with  all  his  heart  the  covetous 
wretches,  the  business  men,  who  treat 
it  as  a  madness  : 

**  As  wou  d  God,  tho  wretches  that  despise 
Service  of  love  had  eares  al  so  long 
As  had  Mida,  ful  of  covetise,   .  .  . 
To  teachen  hem,  that  thf-y  been  in  the  vice 


*  The  Court  of  Love*  about  1353,  et  seq.  See 
also  the  Testament  of  Love. 


And   lovers  not,  although   they  hold  hern 

nice, 

.  .  .  God  yeve  hem  mkchauice, 
And  every  lover  in  his  trouth  avaunce."  * 

He  clearly  lacks  severity,  so  rare  in 
southern  literature.  The  Italians  in 
the  middle  age  made  a  virtue  of  joy ; 
and  you  perceive  that  the  world  of 
chivalry,  as  conceived  by  the  French, 
expanded  morality  so  as  to  confound  it 
with  pleasure. 

IV. 

There  are  other  characteristics  still 
more  gay.  The  true  Gallic  literature 
crops  up  ;  obscene  tales,  practical  jokes 
on  one's  neighbor,  not  shrouded  in  the 
Ciceronian  style  of  Boccaccio,  but  re- 
lated lightly  by  a  man  in  good  humor ;  t 
above  all,  active  roguery,  the  trick  of 
laughing  at  your  neighbor's  expense. 
Chaucer  displays  it  better  than  Rute- 
beuf,  and  sometimes  better  than  La 
Fontaine.  He  does  not  knock  his 
men  down  ;  he  pricks  them  as  he  pass- 
es, not  from  deep  hatred  or  indigna- 
tion, but  through  sheer  nimbleness  of 
disposition,  and  quick  sense  of  the  ridic- 
ulous ;  he  throws  his  gibes  at  them  by 
handfuls.  His  man  of  law  is  more  a 
man  of  business  than  of  the  world  : 

"  No  wher  so  besy  a  man  as  he  ther  n'as, 
And  yet  he  semed  besier  than  he  was."  $ 

His  three  burgesses : 

"  Everich,  for  the  wisdom  that  he  can 
Was  shapelich  for  to  ben  an  alderman. 
For  catel  hadden  they  ynpugh  and  rent, 
And  eke  hir  wives  wolde  it  wel  assent."  § 

Of  the  mendicant  Friar  he  says  : 

"  His  wallet  lay  beforne  him  in  his  lappe, 
Bret-ful    of    pardon    come    from    Rome  al 
hote."  || 

The  mockery  here  comes  from  the 
heart,  in  the  French  manner,  without 
effort,  calculation,  or  vehemence.  It 
is  so  pleasant  and  so  natural  to  banter 
one's  neighbor !  Sometimes  the  lively 
vein  becomes  so  copious,  that  it  fur- 
nishes an  entire  comedy,  indelicate  cer- 
tainly, but  so  free  and  life-like.  Here 
is  the  portrait  of  the  wife  of  Bath,  who 
has  buried  five  husbands  ; 

*  Troilus  and  Cressida,  vol.  v.  iii.  pp.  44,  45. 

t  The  story  of  the  pear-tree  (Merchant  a 
Tale),  and  of  the  cradle  (Reeve's  Tale),  for  in- 
stance, in  the  Canterbury  Tales. 

J  Canterbury  Tales,  prologue^  p.  10,  /•  323. 

§  Ibid.  p.  12,  /.  373.          ||  Ibid,  p.  a  i,  /.  688. 


94 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


"  Bold  was  hire  face,  and  fayre  and  rede  of 

hew, 

She  was  a  worthy  woman  all  hire  live  ; 
Housbondes  at  the  chirche  dore  had  she  had 

five, 

Withouten  other  compagnie  in  youthe.   .  .  . 
In  all  the  parish  wif  ne  was  ther  non, 
That  to  the  off  ring  before  hire  shulde  gon, 
And  if  ther  did,  certain  so  wroth  was  she, 
That  she  was  out  of  alle  charitee."  * 

What  a  tongue  she  has  !  Impertinent, 
full  of  vanity,  bold,  chattering,  un- 
bridled, she  silences  everybody,  and 
he  Ids  forth  for  an  hour  before  coming 
to  her  tale.  We  hear  her  grating, 
high-pitched,  loud,  clear  voice,  where- 
with she  deafened  her  husbands.  She 
continually  harps  upon  the  same  ideas, 
repeats  her  reasons,  piles  them  up  and 
confounds  them,  like  a  stubborn  mule 
who  runs  along  shaking  and  ringing 
his  bells,  so  that  the  stunned  listeners 
remain  open-mouthed,  wondering  that 
a  single  tongue  can  spin  out  so  many 
words.  The  subject  was  worth  the 
trouble.  She  proves  that  she  did  well 
to  marry  five  husbands,  and  she  proves 
it  clearly,  like  a  woman  who  knew  it, 
because  she  had  tried  it : 

"  God  bad  us  for  to  wex  and  multiplie  ; 
That  gentil  text  can  I  wel  understand  ; 
Eke  wel  I  wot,  he  sayd,  that  min  husbond 
Shuld  leve  fader  and  moder,  and  take  to  me  ; 
But  of  no  noumbre  mention  made  he, 
Of  bigamie  or  of  octogamie  ; 
Why  shuld  men  than  speke  of  it  viianie  ? 
LO  here  the  wise  king  dan  Solomon, 
I  trow  he  hadde  wives  mo  than  on, 
(As  wolde  God  it  leful  were  to  me 
To  be  refreshed  half  so  oft  as  he,) 
Which  a  gift   of  God  had  he  for  alle  his 

wives?  .  .  . 

Blessed  be  God  that  I  have  wedded  five. 
Welcome    the    sixthe    whan    that    ever  he 

shall.  .  .  . 
He  (Christ)  spake  to  hem  that  wold  live  par- 

fitly, 

And  lordings  (by  your  leve),  that  am  nat  I J 
I  wol  bestow  the  flour  of  all  myn  age 
In  th'  actes  and  the  fruit  of  mariage.  .  •  • 
An  husbond  wol  I  have,  I  wol  not  lette, 
Which   shal   be   both   my   dettour    and  my 

thrall,   m 

And  have  his  tribulation  withall 
Upon  his  flesh,  while  that  I  am  his  wif."  t 

Here  Chaucer  has  the  freedom  of 
Moliere,  and  we  possess  it  no  longer. 
His  good  wife  justifies  marriage  in 
terms  just  as  technical  as  Sganarelle. 
It  behoves  us  to  turn  the  pages  quickly, 
and  follow  in  the  lump  only  this  Odys- 

*  Canterbury  Tales,  ii.  prologue,  p.  14,  /.  460- 
t  Ibid.  ii.  Wife  of  Bath's  Prologue,  p.  168, 
,.  5610-5739. 


sey  of  marriages.  The  experienced 
wife,  who  has  journeyed  through  life 
with  five  husbands,  knows  the  art  of 
taming  them,  and  related  how  she  per- 
secuted them  with  jealousy,  suspicion,, 
grumbling,  quarrels,  blows  given  and 
received ;  how  the  husband,  check- 
mated by  the  continuity  of  the  tempest, 
stooped  at  last,  accepted  the  halter, 
and  turned  the  domestic  mill  like  a 
conjugal  and  resigned  ass  : 

"  For  as  an  hors,  I  coude  bite  and  whine  ; 
I  coude  plain,  and  I  was  in  the  gilt.  .  .  . 
I  plained  first,  so  was  our  werre  ystint. 
They  were  ful  glad  to  excusen  hem  ful  blrve 
Of   thing,    the  which  they  never    agilt    hir 

live.  .  .  . 

I  swore  that  all  my  walking  out  by  night 
Was  for  to  espien  wenches  that  he  dight.  .  . 
For  though  the  pope  had  sitten  hem  beside, 
I  wold  not  spare  hem  at  hir  owen  bord.  .  . 
But  certainly  I  made  folk  swiche  chere, 
That  in  his  owen  grese  I  made  him  frie 
For  anger,  and  for  veray  jalousie. 
By  God,  in  erth  I  was  his  purgatorie, 
For  which  I  hope  his  soule  be  in  glorie."  * 

She  saw  the  fifth  first  at  the  burial  of 
the  fourth  : 

"  And  Jankin  oure  clerk  was  on  of  tho: 
As  helpe  me  God,  whan  that  I  saw  him  go 
Aftir  the  here,  me  thought  he  had  a  paire 
Of  legges  and  of  feet,  so  clene  and  faire. 
That  all  my  herte  I  yave  unto  his  hold. 
He  was,  I  trow,  a  twenty  winter  old, 
And  I  was  fourty,  if  I  shal  say  soth.  .  .  . 
As  helpe  me  God,  I  was  a  lusty  on, 
And  faire,  and  riche,  andyonge,  and  wellbe- 
gon."  t 

"  Yonge,"  what  a  word  !  Was  human 
delusion  ever  more  happily  painted  ? 
How  life-like  is  all,  and  how  easy  the 
tone.  It  is  the  satire  of  marriage. 
You  will  find  it  twenty  times  in  Chau- 
cer. Nothing  more  is  wanted  to  ex- 
haust the  two  subjects  of  French 
mockery,  than  to  unite  with  the  satire 
of  marriage  the  satire  of  religion. 

We  find  it  here ;  and  Rabelais  is 
not  more  bitter.  The  monk  \v  ^om 
Chaucer  paints  is  a  hypocrite,  a  oily 
fellow,  who  knows  good  inns  and 
jovial  hosts  better  than  the  poor  and 
the  hospitals : 

"  A  Frere  there  was,  a  wanton  and  a  mery  •.    • 
Ful  wel  beloved,  and  familier  was  he 
With  frankeleins  over  all  in  his  contree, 
And  eke  with  worthy  wimmen  of  the  toun.  • 
Full  swetely  herde  he  confession, 
And  pleasant  was  his  absolution. 

*  Ibid.  ii.  p.  179,  /.  5968-6072. 
t  Ibid.  Wife  of  Bath's  Prologue,  p.  185,  £ 
6177-6188. 


CHAP.  Ill] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


95 


He  was  an  esy  man  to  give  penance, 
Ther  as  he  wiste  to  han  a  good  pitance  : 
For  unto  a  poure  ordre  for  to  give 
Is  signe  that  a  man  is  wel  yshrive.  .  .  . 
And  knew  wel  the  tavernes  in  every  toui, 
And  every  hosteler  and  gay  tapstere, 
Better  than  a  lazar  and  a  beggere.  .  . 
It  is  not  honest,  it  may  not  avance, 
As  for  to  delen  with  no  swich  pouraille, 
But  all  with  riche  and  sellers  of  vitaille.  .  .  . 
For  many  a  man  so  hard  is  of  his  herte, 
He  may  notwepe,  although  him  sore  smerte. 
Therfore  in  stede  of  weping  and  praieres, 
Men  mote  give  silver  to  the  poure  freres."  * 

This  lively  irony  had  an  exponent  be- 
fore in  Jean  de  Meung.  But  Chaucer 
pushes  it  further,  and  gives  it  life  and 
motion.  His  monk  begs  from  house 
to  house,  holding  out  his  wallet : 

"  In  every  hous  he  gan  to  pore  and  prie, 

And  begged  mele  and  chese,  or  elles  corn.  .  . 

'  Yeve  us  a  bushel  whete,  or  malt,  or  reye, 
A  Goddes  kichel,  or  a  trippe  of  chese, 
Or  elles  what  vou  list,  we  may  not  chese  J 
A  Goddes  halfpeny,  or  a  masse  peny  ; 
Or  yeve  us  of  your  braun,  if  ye  have  any, 
A  dagon  of  your  blanket,  leve  dame. 
Our    suster    dere    (lo    here    I    write    your 

name).'   .   .  . 

And  whan  that  he  was  out  at  dore,  anon, 
He  planed  away  the  names  everich  on."  t 

He  has  kept  for  the  end  of  his  circuit, 
Thomas,  one  of  his  most  liberal 
clients.  He  finds  him  in  bed,  and  ill  ; 
here  is  excellent  fruit  to  suck  and 
squeeze : 

"  '  God  wot,   quod  he,  '  laboured  have  I  ful 

sore, 

And  specially  for  thy  salvation, 
Have  I  sayd  many  a  precious  orison.  .  .  . 
I  have  this  day  ben  at    your  chirche   at 

messe  .  .  . 
And  ther  I  saw  our  dame,  a,  wher  is  she  ?'  "J 

The  dame  enters : 

"  This  frere  ariseth  up  ful  curtisly, 
And  hire  embraceth  in  his  armes  narwe, 
And  kisseth  hire   swete  and  chirketh  as  a 
sparwe."  §  ... 

Then,  in  his  sweetest  and  most  caress- 
ing voice,  he  compliments  her,  and 
says: 

*  «  Thanked  be  God  that  you  yaf  soule  and  lif, 
Yet  saw  I  not  this  day  so  f aire  a  wif 
In  all  the  chirche,  God  so  save  me.'  "  || 

Have  we  not  here  already  Tartuffe 
and  Elmire  ?  But  the  monk  is  with  a 

*  Canterbury  Tales,  prologue,  ii.  p.  7,  /.  208, 
tt  Passim, 

*  Ibid.    The  Sompnoures  Tale,  ii.  p.  220,  /• 
7319-7340.  t  Ibid*   p.  221,  /.  73%. 

§  Ibid.  p.  22  r,  /.  7384. 

II  Ibid.  ii.  The  Sompnoures  Tale,  p.  222,  /. 
7389. 


farmer,  and  can  go  to  work  more  quick 
ly.and  directly.  When  the  compli- 
ments ended,  he  thinks  of  the  sub- 
stance, and  asks  the  lady  to  let  him 
talk  alone  with  Thomas.  He  must 
inquire  after  the  state  of  his  soul  : 

'  *  I  wol  with  Thomas  speke  a  litel  throw  : 
Thise  curates  ben  so  negligent  and  slow 
To  gropen  tendrely  a  conscience.  .    .  . 
Now,  dame,'  quod  he,   '  jeo  vous  die  san9 

doute, 

Have  I  nat  of  a  capon  but  the  liver, 
And  of  your  white  bred  nat  but  a  shiver, 
And  after  that  a  rested  pigges  hed 
(But  I  ne  wolde  for  me  fcf  beest  were  ded\ 
Than  had  I  with  you  homlj  suffisance. 
I  am  a  man  of  litel  sustenance, 
My  spirit  hath  his  fostring  in  the  Bible. 
My  body  is  ay  so  redy  and  penible 
To  waken,  that  my  stomak  is  destroied.'  "  * 

Poor  man,  he  raises  his  hands  to  heav- 
en, and  ends  with  a  sigh. 

The  wife  tells  him  her  child  died  a 
fortnight  before.  Straightway  he  man- 
ufactures a  miracle  ;  could  he  earn  his 
money  in  any  better  way  ?  He  had 
a  revelation  of  this  death  in  the  "  dor- 
tour "  of  the  convent ;  he  saw  the  child 
carried  to  paradise ;  he  rose  with  his 
brothers,  "  with  many  a  tere  trilling  on 
our  cheke,"  and  they  sang  a  Te  Deum  : 

"  '  For,  sire  and  dame,  trusteth  me  right  wel, 
Our  orisons  ben  more  effectuel, 
And  more  we  seen  of  Cristes  secree  thinges 
Than    borel    folk,    although  that  they  be 

kinges. 

We  live  in  poverte,  and  in  abstinence, 
And  borel  folk  in  richesse  and  dispence*  .  * 
Lazer  and  Dives  liveden  diversely, 
And    divers    guerdon    hadden    they  thei» 

by.'  "  t 

Presently  he  spurts  out  a  whole  ser- 
mon, in  a  loathsome  style,  and  with  an 
interest  which  is  plain  enough.  The 
sick  man  wearied,replies  that  he  has  al- 
ready given  half  his  fortune  to  all  kinds 
of  monks,  and  yet  he  continually  suf- 
fers. Listen  to  the  grieved  exclama- 
tion, the  true  indignation  of  the  mendi- 
cant monk,  who  sees  himself  threaten- 
ed by  the  competition  of  a  brother  of 
the  cloth  to  share  his  client,  his  reve- 
nue, his  booty,  his  food-supplies  : 

"  The  frere  answered :  '  O  Thomas,  dost  *hou 

so? 

What  nedeth  you  diverse  freres  to  seche  ? 
What  nedeth  him  that  hath  a  parfit  leche, 
To  sechen  other  leches  in  the  toun  ? 


*  Ibid.  p.  222,  /.  7397-7429- 
t  Ibid.  ii.  The  Sompnoures  Tale,  p.  223,  £ 
7450-7460. 


96  THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


Your  inconstance  is  your  confusion. 
Hold  ye  than  me,  or  elles  our  covent, 
To  pray  for  you  ben  insufficient  ?  . 
Thomas,  that  jape  n'  is  not  worth  a  mite, 
Your  maladie  is  for  we  han  to  lite.'  "  * 

Recognize  the  great  orator;  he  em- 
ploys even  the  grand  style  to  keep  the 
supplies  from  being  cut  off : 

"  *  A,  yeve  that  covent  half  a  quarter  otes  ; 
And    yeve   that    covent  four    and    twenty 

grotes  ; 

And  yeve  that  frere  a  peny,  and  let  him  go : 
Nay,  nay,  Thomas,  it  may  no  thing  be  so. 
What  is  a  ferthing  worth  parted  on  twelve 
Lo,  eche  thing  that  is  oned  in  himself 
Is  more  strong,  than  whan  it  is  yscatered  .  . 
Thou    woldest     han     our     labour     al    for 

nought.'  "  t 

Then  he  begins  again  his  sermon  in  a 
louder  tone,  shouting  at  each  word, 
quoting  examples  from  Seneca  and  the 
classics,  a  terrible  fluency,  a  trick  of 
his  trade,  which,  diligently  applied, 
must  draw  money  from  the  patient. 
He  asks  for  gold,  "  to  make  our  clois- 
tre," 

"  .  .  .  '  And  yet,  God  wot,  uneth  the  funda- 
ment 

Parf  ourmed  is,  ne  of  our  pavement 

N'  is  not  a  tile  yet  within  our  wones  ; 

By  God,  we  owen  fourty  pound  for  stones. 

Now  help  Thomas,  for  him  that  harwed 
helle, 

For  elles  mote  we  oure  bokes  selle, 

And  if  ye  lacke  oure  predication, 

Than  goth  this  world  all  to  destruction. 

For  who  so  fro  this  world  wold  us  bereve. 

So  God  me  save,  Thomas,  by  your  leve, 

He  wold  bereve  out  of  this  world  the 
sonne.'  "  t 

In  the  end,  Thomas  in  a  rage  promises 
him  a  gift,  tells  him  to  put  his  hand  in 
the  bed  and  take  it,  and  sends  him 
away  duped,  mocked,  and  covered  with 
filth. 

We  have  descended  now  to  popular 
farce :  when  amusement  must  be  had 
at  any  price,  it  is  sought,  as  here,  in 
broad  jokes,  even  in  filthiness.  We 
can  see  how  these  two  coarse  and  vig- 
orous plants  have  blossomed  in  the 
dung  of  the  middle  age.  Planted  by 
the  sly  fellows  of  Champagne  and  Ile- 
de-France,  watered  by  the  trouveres, 
they  were  destined  fully  to  expand, 
speckled  and  ruddy,  in  the  large  hands 
of  Rabelais.  Meanwhile  Chaucer 
plucks  his  nosegay  from  it.  Deceived 

*  Canterbury    Tales,   ii.    The    SompnoTires 
Tale,  p.  226,  /.  7536-7544. 
t  Ibid.  p.  226,  /.  7545-7553- 
t  Ibid.  p.  230,  /.  7685-7695. 


husbands,  mishaps  in  inns,  accidents  in 
bed,  cuffs,  kicks,  and  robberies,  these 
suffice  to  raise  a  loud  laugh.  Side  by 
side  with  noble  pictures  of  chivalry,  he 
gives  us  a  train  of  Flemish  grotesque 
figures,  carpenters,  joiners,  triars,  sum- 
moners  ;  blows  abound,  fists  descend 
on  fleshy  backs  :  many  nudities  are 
shown  ;  they  swindle  one  another  out 
of  their  corn,  their  wives ;  they  pitch 
one  another  out  of  a  window  ;  they 
brawl  and  quarrel.  A  bruise,  a  piece  of 
open  filthiness,  passes  in  such  society 
for  a  sign  of  wit.  The  summoner, 
being  rallied  by  the  friar,  gives  him 
tit  for  tat : 

"  '  This  Frere  bosteth  that  he  knoweth  helle, 
And,  God  it  wot,  that  is  but  lite!  wonder, 
Freres  and  fendes  ben  but  litel  asonder, 
For  parde,  ye  han  often  time  herd  telle 
How  that  a  Frere  ravished  was  to  helle 
In  spirit  ones  by  a  visioun, 
And  as  an  angel  lad  him  up  and  doun, 
To  shewen  him  the  peines  that  ther  were,  .  • 
And  unto  Sathanas  he  lad  him  doun. 
(And  now  hath  Sathanas,'  saith  he,  '  a  tayl 
Broder  than  of  a  Carrike  is  the  sayl.) 
Hold  up  thy  tayl,  thou  Sathanas,  quod  he, 
.......  and  let  the  Frere  see 

Wher  is  the  nest  of  Freres  in  this  place. 
And  er  than  half  a  furlong  way  of  space, 
Right  so  as  bees  out  swarmen  of  an  hive, 
Out  of  the  devils  .  .  .  ther  gonnen  to  drive. 
A  twenty  thousand  Freres  on  a  route, 
And  thurgbout  hell  they  swarmed  al  aboute. 
And  com  agen,  as  fast  as  they  may  gon.' "  * 

Such  were  the  coarse  buffooneries  of 
the  popular  imagination. 

V. 

It  is  high  time  to  return  to  Chaucer 
himself.  Beyond  the  two  notable 
characteristics  which  settle  his  place  in 
his  age  and  school  of  poetry,  there  are 
others  which  take  him  out  of  his 
age  and  school.  If  he  was  romantic 
and  gay  like  the  rest,  it  was  after  a 
fashion  of  his  own.  He  observes 
characters,  notes  their  differences, 
studies  the  coherence  of  their  parts, 
endeavors  to  describe  living  individ- 
ualities,— a  thing  unheard  of  in  his 
time,  but  which  the  renovators  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  first  among  them 
Shakspeare,  will  do  afterwards.  Is 
it  already  the  English  positive  common 
sense  and  aptitude  for  seeing  the  in- 
side of  things  which  begin  to  appear  ? 
A  new  spirit,  almost  manly,  pierces 
through,  in  literature  as  in  painting, 

*  Ibid.  Prologue,  p.  217,  /.  7254-7279. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE, 


97 


with  Chaucer  as  with  Van  Eyck,  with 
both  at  the  same  time ;  no  longer  the 
childish  imitation  of  chivalrous  life  * 
or  monastic  devotion,  but  the  grave 
spirit  of  inquiry  and  craving  for  deep 
truths,  whereby  art  becomes  complete. 
For  the  first  time,  in  Chaucer  as  in 
Van  Eyck,  the  character  described 
stands  out  in  relief  ;  its  parts  are 
connected ;  it  is  no  longer  an  unsub- 
stantial phantom.  You  may  guess  its 
past  and  foretell  its  future  action.  Its 
externals  manifest  the  personal  and 
incommunicable  details  of  its  inner 
nature,  and  the  infinite  complexity  of 
its  economy  and  motion.  To  this  day, 
after  four  centuries,  that  character  is 
individualized,  and  typical :  it  remains 
distinct  in  our  memory,  like  the  crea- 
tions of  Shakspeare  and  Rubens.  We 
observe  this  growth  in  the  very  act. 
Not  only  does  Chaucer,  like  Boccaccio, 
bind  his  tales  into  a  single  history  ; 
but  in  addition — and  this  is  wanting  in 
Boccaccio — he  begins  with  the  portrait 
of  all  his  narrators,  knight,  summoner, 
man  of  law,  monk,  bailiff  or  reeve, 
host,  about  thirty  distinct  figures,  of 
every  sex,  condition,  age,  each  painted 
with  his  disposition,  face,  costume, 
turns  of  speech,  little  significant  ac- 
tions, habits,  antecedents,  each  main- 
tained in  his  character  by  his  talk  and 
subsequent  actions,  so  that  we  can  dis- 
cern here,  sooner  than  in  any  other  na- 
tion, the  germ  of  the  domestic  novel  as 
we  write  it  to-day.  Think  of  the  portraits 
of  the  franklin,  the  miller,  the  mendi- 
cant friar,  and  wife  of  Bath.  There  are 
pler.ty  of  others  which  show  the  broad 
brutalities,  the  coarse  tricks,  and  the 
pleasantries  of  vulgar  life,  as  well  as 
the  gross  and  plentiful  feastings  of  sen- 
sual life.  Here  and  there  honest  old 
swashbucklers,  who  double  their  fists 
and  tuck  up  their  sleeves  ;  or  contented 
beadles,  who,  when  they  have  drunk, 
tfil1  speak  nothing  but  Latin.  But  by 
the  side  of  these  there  are  some  choice 
characters  ;  the  knight,  who  went  on  a 
crusade  to  Granada  and  Prussia,  brave 
and  courteous  : 

"  And  though  that  he  was  worthy  he  was  wise, 
And  of  his  port  as  meke  as  is  a  mayde. 


*  See  in  The  Canterbury  Tales  the  Rhyme 
of  Sir  Topas,  a  parody  on  the  chivalric  his- 
tories. "Each  character  there  seems  a  precur- 
sor of  Cervantes. 


He  never  yet  no  vilanie  ne  sayde 
In  alle  his  lif,  unto  no  manere  \yight, 
He  was  a  veray  parfit  gentil  knight."  * 

"  With  him,  ther  was  his  sone,  a  yonge  Squier. 
A  lover,  and  a  lusty  bacheler, 
With  lockes  crull  as  they  were  laide  in  presse 
Of  twenty  yere  of  age  he  was  I  gesse. 
Of  his  stature  he  was  of  even  lengthe> 
And  wonderly  deliver,  and  grete  of  strei.gthe. 
And  he  hadde  be  somtime  in  chevachie, 
In  Flaundres,  in  Artois,  and  in  Picardie, 
And  borne  him  wel,  as  of  so  litel  space, 
In  hope  to  stonden  in  his  ladies  grace. 

Embrouded  was  he,  as  it  were  a  mede 
Alle  ful  of  fresshe  floures,  white  and  rede. 
Singing  he  was,  or  floyting  alle  the  day, 
He  was  as  fresshe,  as  is  the  moneth  of  May. 
Short  was  his  goune,   with  sieves  long  and 

wide. 

Wel  coude  he  sitte  on  hors,  and  fayre  ride. 
He  coude  songes  make,  and  wel  endite, 
Juste  and  eke  dance,  and  wel  pourtraie  and 

write. 

So  hote  he  loved,  that  by  nightertale 
He  slep  no  more  than  doth  the  nightingale. 
Curteis  he  was,  lowly  and  servisable, 
And  carf  befor  his  fader  at  the  table."  t 

There  is  also  a  poor  and  learned  clerk 
of  Oxford ;  and  finer  still,  and  more 
worthy  of  a  modern  hand,  the  Prioress, 
"  Madame  Eglantine,"  who  as  a  nun, 
a  maiden,  a  great  lady,  is  ceremonious, 
and  shows  signs  of  exquisite  taste. 
Would  a  better  be  found  nowadays 
in  a  German  chapter,  amid  the  most 
modest  and  lively  bevy  of  sentimental 
and  literary  canonesses  ? 

"  Ther  was  also  a  Nonne,  a  Prioresse, 
That  of  hire  smiling  was  ful  simple  and  coy 
Hire  gretest  othe  n'as  but  by  Seint  Eloy  ; 
And  she  was  cleped  Madame  Eglantine. 
Ful  wel  she  sange  the  service  devine, 
Entuned  in  hire  nose  ful  swetely  ; 
And  Frenche  she  spake  ful  fayre  and  fetisly 
After  the  scole  of  Stratford-atte-bowe, 
For  Frenche  of  Paris,  was  to  hire  unknewe. 
At  mete  was  she  wel  ytaughte  withalle  ; 
She  lette  no  morsel  from  hire  lippes  falle, 
Ne  wette  hire  fingres  in  hire  sauce  depe. 
Wel  coude  she  carie  a  morsel,  and  wel  kcpe, 
Thatte  no  drope  ne  fell  upon  hire  brest. 
In  curtesie  Was  sette  ful  moche  hire  lest. 
Hire  over  lippe  wiped  she  so  clene, 
That  in  hire  cuppe  was  no  ferthing  sene 
Of    grese,    whan    she   dronken   hadde    hire 

draught, 

Ful  semely  after  hire  mete  she  raught. 
And  sikerly  she  was  of  grete  disport 
And  ful  plesant,  and  amiable  of  port, 
And  peined  hire  to  contrefeten  chere 
Of  court,  and  ben  estatelich  of  manere, 
And  to  ben  holden  digne  of  reverence."  t 


*  Prologue  to  Canterbury  Tales,  ii.  p.  3,  /. 


68-72. 

f  Ibid.  79-100. 


$  Ibid>  p.  4,  /.  118-141 

5 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  L 


Are  you  offended  by  these  provincial 
affectations  ?  Not  at  all ;  it  is  delight- 
ful to  behold  these  nice  and  pretty 
wavs,  these  little  affectations,  the  wag- 
gery and  prudery,  the  half-worldly  half- 
monastic  smile.  We  inhale  a  delicate 
feminine  perfume,  preserved  and  grown 
old  under  the  stomacher : 

"  But  for  to  speken  of  hire  conscience, 
She  was  so  charitable  and  so  pitous, 
She  wolde  wepe  if  that  she  saw  a  mous 
Caughte  in  a  trappe,  if  it  were  ded  or  bledde. 
Of  smale  houndes  hadde  she,  that  she  fedde 
With    rosted   flesh,   and    milk,    and  wastel 

brede. 

But  sore  wept  she  if  on  of  hem  were  dede, 
Or  if  men  smote  it  with  a  yerde  smert : 
Ai;d  all  was  conscience  and  tendre  herte."  * 

Many  elderly  ladies  throw  themselves 
into  such  affections  as  these,  for  lack 
of  others.  Elderly  !  what  an  objection- 
able word  have  I  employed !  She  was 
not  elderly : 

**  Ful  semely  hire  wimple  ypinched  was, 
Hire  nose  tretis  ;  hire  even  grey  as  glas  ; 
Hire  mouth  ful  smale,  and  thereto  soft  and 

red; 

But  sikerly  she  hadde  a  fayre  forehed. 
It  was  almost  a  spanne  brode  I  trowe  ; 
For  hardily  she  was  not  undergrowe. 

Ful  fetise  was  hire  cloke,  as  I  was  ware. 
Of  small  corall  aboute  hire  arm  she  bare 
A  pair  of  bedes,  gauded  al  with  grene  ; 
And  thereon  heng  a  broche  of  gold  ful  shene, 
On  whiche  was  first  ywritten  a  crouned  A, 
And  after,  Amor  vincit  omnia"  t 

A  pretty  ambiguous  device,  suitable 
either  for  gallantry  or  devotion ;  the 
lady  was  both  of  the  world  and  the 
cloister  :  of  the  world,  you  may  see  it 
in  her  dress ;  of  the  cloister,  you 
gather  it  from  "  another  Nonne  also 
with  hire  hadde  she,  that  was  hire 
chapelleine,  and  Preestes  thre  ; "  from 
the  Ave  Maria  which  she  sings,  the  long 
edifying  stories  which  she  relates.  She 
is  like  a  fresh,  sweet,  and  ruddy  cherry, 
made  to  ripen  in  the  sun,  but  which, 
preserved  in  an  ecclesiastical  jar,  has 
become  candied  and  insipid  in  the 
syrup. 

Such  is  the  power  of  reflection  which 
begins  to  dawn,  such  the  high  art. 
Chaucer  studies  here  rather  than  aims 
at  amusement ;  he  ceases  to  gossip, 
and  thinks ;  instead  of  surrendering 
himself  to  the  facility  of  flowing  im- 
provisation, he  plans.  Each  tale  is 

*  Prologue  to  Canterbury  Talesy  ii.  p.  5,  /. 
142-? so. 
t  Ibid.  /.  151-162 


suited  to  the  teller :  the  young  squire 
relates  a  fantastic  and  Oriental  history ; 
the  tipsy  miller  a  loose  and  comical 
story ;  the  honest  clerk  the  touching 
legend  of  Griselda.  All  these  tales 
are  bound  together,  and  that  much 
better  than  by  Boccaccia,  by  little 
veritable  incidents,  which  spring  from 
the  characters  of  the  personages,  and 
such  as  we  light  upon  in  our  travels. 
The  horsemen  ride  on  in  good  humor 
in  the  sunshine,  in  the  open  country ; 
they  converse.  The  miller  has  drunk 
too  much  ale,  and  will  speak,  "  and  for 
no  man  forbere."  The  cook  goes  to 
sleep  on  his  beast,  and  they  play  prac- 
tical jokes  on  him.  The  monk  and 
the  summoner  get  up  a  dispute  about 
their  respective  lines  of  business.  The 
host  restores  peace,  makes  them  speak 
or  be  silent,  like  a  man  who  has  long 
presided  in  the  inn  parlor,  and  who 
has  often  had  to  check  brawlers.  They 
pass  judgment  on  the  stories  they  lis- 
ten to :  declaring  that  there  are  ftw 
Griseldas  in  the  world ;  laughing  at 
the  misadventures  of  the  tricked  car- 
penter ;  drawing  a  lesson  from  the 
moral  tale.  The  poem  is  no  longer,  as 
in  the  contemporary  literature,  a  mere 
procession,  but  a  painting  in  which  the 
contrasts  are  arranged,  the  attitudes 
chosen,  the  general  effect  calculated, 
so  that  it  becomes  life  and  motion  ;  we 
forget  ourselves  at  the  sight,  as  in  the 
case  of  every  life-like  work ;  and  we 
long  to  get  on  horseback  on  a  fine 
sunny  morning,  and  canter  along 
green  meadows  with  the  pilgrims  to 
the  shrine  of  the  good  saint  of  Canter- 
bury. 

Weigh  the  value  of  the  words 
"general  effect."  According  as  we 
plan  it  or  not,  we  enter  on  our  matu- 
rity or  infancy?  The  whole  future  lies 
in  these  two  words.  Savages  or  half 
savages,  warriors  of  the  Heptarchy  or 
knights  of  the  middle  age  ;  up  to  this 
period,  no  one  had  reached  to  this 
point.  They  had  strong  emotions, 
tender  at  times,  and  each  expressed 
them  according  to  the  original  gift  of 
his  race,  some  by  short  cries,  others  by 
continuous  babble.  But  they  did  not 
command  or  guide  their  impressions  ; 
they  sang  or  conversed  by  impulse,  at 
random,  according  to  the  bent  of  their 
disposition,  leaving  their  ideas  to  pre- 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


99 


sent  themselves  as  they  might,  and 
when  they  hit  upon  order,  it  was  igno- 
rantly  and  involuntarily.  Here  for 
the  first  time  appears  a  superiority 
of  intellect,  which  at  the  instant  of 
conception  suddenly  halts,  rises  above 
itself,  passes  judgment,  and  says  to 
itself,  "This  phrase  tells  the  same 
thing  as  the  last  —  remove  it;  these 
two  ideas  are  disjointed  —  connect 
them ;  this  description  is  feeble — re- 
consider it."  When  a  man  can  speak 
thus  he  has  an  idea,  not  learned  in  the 
schools,  but  personal  and  practical,  of 
the  human  mind,  its  process  and  needs, 
and  of  things  also,  their  composition 
and  combinations  ;  he  has  a  style,  that 
is,  he  is  capable  of  making  every  thing 
understood  and  seen  by  the  human 
mind.  He  can  extract  from  every 
object,  landscape,  situation,  character, 
the  special  and  significant  marks,  so 
as  to  group  and  arrange  them,  in  order 
to  compose  an  artificial  work  which 
surpasses  the  natural  work  in  its  purity 
and  completeness.  He  is  capable,  as 
Chaucer  was,  of  seeking  out  in  the  old 
common  forest  of  the  middle  ages, 
stories  and  legends,  to  replant  them  in 
his  own  soil,  and  make  them  send  out 
new  shoots.  He  has  the  right  and  the 
power,  as  Chaucer  had,  of  copying  and 
translating,  because  by  dint  of  retouch- 
ing he  impresses  on  his  translations 
and  copies  his  original  mark  ;  he  re- 
creates what  he  imitates;  because 
through  or  by  the  side  of  worn-out 
fancies  and  monotonous  stories,  he  can 
display,  as  Chaucer  did,  the  charming 
ideas  of  an  amiable  and  elastic  mind, 
the  thirty  master-forms  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  the  splendid  freshness 
of  the  verdurous  landscape  and  spring- 
time of  England.  He  is  not  far  from 
conceiving  an  idea  of  truth  and  life. 
He  is  on  the  brink  of  independent 
thought  and  fertile  discovery.  This 
was  Chaucer's  position.  At  the  dis- 
tance of  a  century  and  a  half,  he  has 
affinity  with  the  poets  of  Elizabeth  * 
by  his  gallery  of  pictures,  and  with  the 

^  *  Tennyson,  in  his  Dream  of  Fair  Women, 
sings : 

"  Dan  Chaucer,  the  first  warbler,  whose  sweet 

breath 

Preluded  those  melodious  bursts,  that  fill 
The  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth 
With  sounds  that  echo  still."-— TR. 


reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century  by 
his  portrait  of  the  good  parson. 

Affinity  merely.  He  advanced  a 
few  steps  beyond  the  threshold  of  his 
art,  but  he  paused  at  the  end  of  the 
vestibule.  He  half  opens  the  great 
door  of  the  temple,  but  does  not  take 
his  seat  there  ;  at  most,  he  sat  down 
in  it  only  at  intervals.  In  Arctic  and 
Palamon,  in  Troihis  and  Cressicta,  *:-e 
sketches  sentiments,  but  does  not  create 
characters ;  he  easily  and  naturally 
traces  the  winding  course  of  events 
and  conversations,  but  does  not  mark 
the  precise  outline  of  a  striking  figure. 
If  occasionally,  as  in  the  description  01 
the  temple  cf  Mars,  after  the  Thf.ka.id 
of  Statins,  feeling  at  his  back  the  glow- 
ing breeze  of  poetry,  he  draws*  out  his 
feet,  clogged  with  the  mud  of  the  mid- 
dle age,  and  at  a  .bound  stands  upon 
the  poetic  plain  on  which  Statius 
imitated  Virgil  and  equalled  Lucan,  he, 
at  other  times,  again  falls  back  into  the 
childish  gossip  of  the  trouveres,  or  the 
dull  gabble  of  learned  clerks — to  "  Dan 
Phebus  or  Apollo-Delphicus."  Else« 
where,  a  commonplace  remark  on  art 
intrudes  in  the  midst  of  an  impassioned 
description.  He  uses  three  thousand 
verses  to  conduct  Troilus  to  his  first 
interview.  He  is  like  a  precocious  and 
poetical  child,  who  mingles  in  his  love- 
dreams  quotations  from  his  grammar 
and  recollections  of  his  alphabet.* 
Even  in  the  Canterbury  Tales  he  repeats 
himself,  unfolds  artless  developments, 
forgets  to  concentrate  his  passion  or 
his  idea.  He  begins  a  jest,  and  scarcely 
ends  it.  He  dilutes  a  bright  coloring 
in  a  monotonous  stanza.  His  voice  is 
like  that  of  a  boy  breaking  into  man- 
hood. At  first  a  manly  and  firm  accent 
is  maintained,  then  a  shrill  sweet  sound 
shows  that  his  growth  is  not  finished, 
and  that  his  strength  is  subject  to 
weakness.  Chaucer  sets  out  as  if  to 
quit  the  middle  age ;  but  in  the  end  he 
is  there  still.  To-day  he  composes  the 
Canterbury  Tales ;  yesterday  he  was 
translating  the  Roman  de la  Rose.  To-day 

*  Speaking  of  Cressida,  iv.,  book  i.  p.  236, 
he  says  : 

"  Right  as  our  first  letter  is  now  an  a, 
In  beautie  first  so  stood  she  makeles, 
Her  goodly  looking  gladed  all  the  prees, 
Nas  never  scene  thing  to  be  praised  so  derre. 
Nor  under  cloude  blacke  so  bright  a  sterre. 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


he  is  studying  the  complicated  machin- 
ery of  the  heart,  discovering  the  issues  of 
primitive  education  or  of  the  ruling- 
disposition,  and  creating  the  comedy 
of  manners ;  to-morrow,  he  will  have 
no  pleasure  but  in  curious  events, 
smooth  allegories,  amorous  discussions, 
imitated  from  the  French,  or  learned 
moralities  from  the  ancients.  Alter- 
nately he  is  an  observer  and  a  trouvere  ; 
instead  of  the  step  he  ought  to  have 
advanced,  he  has  but  made  a  half- 
step.  Who  has  prevented  him,  and  the 
others  who  surround  him  ?  We  meet 
with  the  obstacle  in  the  tales  he  has 
translated  of  Melibeus,  of  the  Parson, 
in  his  Testament  of  Love  ;  in  short,  so 
long  as  he  writes  verse,  he  is  at  his 
ease ;  as  soon  as  he  takes  to  prose,  a 
sort  of  chain  winds  around  his  feet 
and  stops  him.  His  imagination  is 
free,  and  his  reasoning  a  slave.  The 
rigid  scholastic  divisions,  the  mechnni- 
cal  manner  of  arguing  and  replying, 
the  ergo,  the  Latin  quotations,  the 
authority  of  Aristotle  and  the  Fathers, 
come  and  weigh  down  his  budding 
thought.  His  native  invention  disap- 
pears under  the  discipline  imposed. 
The  servitude  is  so  heavy,  that  even  in 
the  work  of  one  cf  his  contemporaries, 
f"he  Testament  of  Love,  which,  for  a 
long  time,  was  believed  to  be  written 
by  Chaucer,  amid  the  most  touching 
plaints  and  the  most  smarting  pains, 
the  beautiful  ideal  lady,  the  heavenly 
mediator  who  appears  in  a  vision, 
Love,  sets  her  theses,  establishes  that 
the  cause  of  a  cause  is  the  cause  of  the 
thing  caused,  and  reasons  as  pedanti- 
cally as  they  would  at  Oxford.  In 
what  can  talent,  even  feeling,  end, 
when  it  is  kept  down  by  such  shack- 
les ?  What  succession  of  original 
truths  and  new  doctrines  could  be 
found  and  proved,  when  in  a  moral 
tale,  like  that  of  Melibeus  anJ  his  wife 
Prudence,  it  was  thought  necessary  to 
establish  a  formal  controversy,  to  quote 
Seneca  and  Job,  to  forbid  tears,  to  bring 
forward  the  weeping  Christ  to  authorize 
tears,  to  enumerate  every  proof,  to  call 
in  Solomon,  Cassiodorus,  and  Cato ; 
in  short,  to  write  a  book  for  schools? 
The  public  cares  only  for  pleasant  and 
lively  thoughts  ;  not  serious  and  gene- 
ral ideas  ;  these  latter  are  for  a  special 
class  only.  As  soon  as  Chaucer  gets 


into  a  reflective  mood,  straightway 
Saint  Thomas,  Peter  Lombard,  the 
manual  of  sins,  the  treatise  on  defini- 
tion and  syllogism,  the  army  of  the 
ancients  and  of  the  Fathers,  descend 
from  their  glory,  enter  his  brain,  speak 
in  his  stead  ;  and  the  trouvere's  pleas- 
ant voice  becomes  the  dogmatic  and 
sleep-inspiring  voice  of  a  doctor.  In 
love  and  satire  he  has  experience,  and 
he  invents ;  in  what  regards  morality 
and  philosophy  he  has  learning,  and 
copies.  For  an  instant,  by  a  solitary 
leap,  he  entered  upon  the  close  obser- 
vation and  the  genuine  study  of  man  ; 
he  could  not  keep  his  ground,  he  did 
not  take  his  seat,  he  took  a  poetic  ex- 
cursion ;  and  no  one  followed  him. 
The  level  of  the  century  is  lower  ;  he 
is  on  it  himself  for  the  most  part.  He 
is  in  the  company  of  narrators  like 
Froissart,  of  elegant  speakers  like 
Charles  of  Orleans,  of  gossipy  and  bar- 
ren verse-writers  like  Gower,  Lydgate, 
and  Occleve.  There  is  no  fruit,  but 
frail  and  fleeting  blossom,  many  useless 
branches,  still  more  dying  or  dead 
branches  ;  such  is  this  literature.  And 
why  ?  Because  it  had  no  longer  a  root  ? 
after  three  centuries  of  effort,  a  heavy 
instrument  cut  it  underground.  This 
instrument  was  the  Scholastic  Philos- 
ophy. 

VI. 

Beneath  every  literature  there  is  a 
philosophy.  Beneath  every  work  of 
art  is  an  idea  of  nature  and  of  life  ;  this 
idea  leads  the  poet.  Whether  the  au- 
thor knows  it  or  not,  he  writes  in  order 
to  exhibit  it;  and  the  characters  which 
he  fashions,  like  the  events  which  he 
arranges,  only  serve  to  bring  to  light 
the  dim  creative  conception  which 
raises  and  combines  them.  Under- 
lying Homer  appears  the  noble  life  of 
heroic  paganism  and  of  happy  Greece'. 
Underlying  Dante,  the  sad  and  violent 
life  of  fanatical  Catholicism  and  of  the 
much-hating  Italians.  From  either  we 
might  draw  a  theory  of  man  and  of  the  . 
beautiful.  It  is  so  with  others  ;  and 
this  is  how,  according  to  the  variations, 
the  birth,  blossom,  decline,  or  slug- 
gishness of  the  master-idea,  literature 
varies,  is  born,  flourishes,  degenerates, 
comes  to  an  end.  Whoever  plants  the 
one,  plants  the  other :  whoever  under 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


mines  the  one,  undermines  the  other. 
Place  in  all  the  minds  of  any  age  a 
new  grand  idea  of  nature  and  life,  so 
that  they  feel  and  produce  it  with  their 
whole  heart  and  strength,  and  you  will 
see  them,  seized  with  the  craving  to 
express  it,  invent  forms  of  art  and 
groups  of  figures.  Take  away  from 
these  minds  every  grand  new  idea  of 
nature  and  life,  and  you  will  see  them, 
deprived  of  the  craving  to  express  all- 
important  thoughts,  copy,  sink  into 
silence,  or  rave. 

What  has  become  of  these  all-impor- 
tant thoughts.  What  labor  worked 
them  out  ?  What  studies  nourished 
them  ?  The  laborers  did  not  lack 
zeal.  In  the  twelfth  century  the  ener- 
gy of  their  minds  was  admirable.  At 
Oxford  there  were  thirty  thousand 
scholars.  No  building  in  Paris  could 
contain  the  crowd  of  Abelard's  disci- 
ples ;  when  he  retired  to  solitude,  they 
accompanied  him  in  such  a  multitude, 
that  the  desert  became  a  town.  No 
difficulty  repulsed  them.  There  is  a 
story  of  a  young  boy,  who,  though 
beaten  by  his  master,  was  wholly  bent 
on  remaining  with  him,  that  he  might 
still  learn.  When  the  terrible  ency- 
clopedia of  Aristotle  was  introduced, 
though  disfigured  and  unintelligible,  it 
was  devoured.  The  only  question  pre- 
sented to  them,  that  of  universals,  so 
abstract  and  dry,  so  embarrassed  by 
Arabic  obscurities  and  Greek  subtilties, 
during  centuries,  was  seized  upon 
eagerly.  Heavy  and  awkward  as  was 
the  instrument  supplied  to  them,  I 
mean  syllogism,  they  made  themselves 
masters  of  it,  rendered  it  still  more 
heavy,  plunged  in  into  every  object 
and  in  every  direction.  They  con- 
structed monstrous  books,  in  great 
numbers,  cathedrals  of  syllogism,  of 
unheard  of  architecture,  of  prodigious 
finish,  heightened  in  effect  by  intensity 
of  intellectual  power,  which  the  whole 
sum  of  human  labor  has  only  twice 
been  able  to  match.*  These  young 

*  Under  Proclus  and  under  Hegel.  Duns 
Scotus,  at  the  age  of  thirty-one,  died,  leaving 
beside  his  sermons  and  commentaries,  twelve 
'olio  volumes,  in  a  small  close  handwriting,  in 
A  style  like  Hegel's,  on  the  same  subject  as 
Proclus  treats  of.  Similarly  with  Saint  Thomas 
and  the  whole  train  of  schoolmen.  No  idea 
can  be  formed  of  such  a  labor  before  handling 
;he  books  themselves. 


and  "valiant  minds  thought  they  had 
found  the  temple  of  truth  ;  they  rushed 
at  it  headlong,  in  legions,  breaking  in 
the  doors,  chambering  over  the  walls, 
leaping  into  the  interior,  and  so  found 
themselves  at  the  bottom  of  a  moat. 
Three  centuries  of  labor  at  the  bottom 
of  this  black  moat  added  not  one  idea 
to  the  human  mind. 

For  consider  the  questions  which 
they  treat  of.  They  seem  to  be  march- 
ing, but  are  merely  markinr;  ime. 
People  would  say,  to  see  them  moil 
and  toil,  that  they  will  educe  from 
heart  and  brain  some  great  original 
creed,  and  yet  all  belief  was  imposed 
upon  them  from  the  outset.  The  sys- 
tem was  made  ;  they  could  only  ar- 
range and  comment  upon  it.  The  con- 
ception comes  not  from  them,  but 
from  Constantinople.  Infinitely  com- 
plicated and  subtle  as  it  is,  the  supreme 
work  of  Oriental  mysticism  ;,id  Greek 
metaphysics,  so  disproportioned  to 
their  young  understanding,  they  exhaust 
themselves  to  reproduce  it,  and  more- 
over burden  their  unpractised  hands 
with  the  weight  of  a  logical  instrument 
which  Aristotle  created  for  theory  and 
not  for  practice,  and  which  ought  to 
have  remained  in  a  cabinet  of  philoso- 
phical curiosities, without  being  ever  car- 
ried into  the  field  of  action.  "  Whether 
the  divine  essence  engendered  the  Son, 
or  was  engendered  by  the  Father  ;  why 
the  three  persons  together  are  not 
greater  than  one  alone  ;  attributes  de- 
termine persons,  not  substance,  that  is, 
nature ;  how  properties  can  exist  in  the 
nature  of  God,  and  not  determine  it ; 
if  created  spirits  are  local  and  can  be 
circumscribed  ;  if  God  can  know  more 
things  than  Pie  is  aware  of;  "  * — these 
are  the  ideas  which  they  moot :  what 
truth  could  issue  thence  ?  From  hand 
to  hand  the  chimera  grows,  and  spreads 
wider  its  gloomy  wings.  "  Can  God 
cause  that,  the  place  and  body  being 
retained,  the  body  shall  have  no  posi- 
tion, that  is,  existence  in  place? — 
Whether  the  impossiblity  of  being  en- 
gendered is  a  constituent  property  of 
the  First  Person  of  the  Trinity — 
Whether  identity,  similitude,  and  equal- 
ity are  real  relations  in  God."  t  Duns 

*  Peter  Lombard;  Book  of  Sentences.  It  wa« 
the  classic  of  the  middle  age. 
t  Duns  Scotus,  ed.  1639. 


102 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  I 


Scotus  distinguishes  three  kinds  of 
matter :  matter  which  is  firstly  first, 
secondly  first,  thirdly  first.  According 
to  him,  we  must  clear  this  triple  hedge 
of  thorny  abstractions  in  order  to  un- 
derstand the  production  of  a  sphere 
of  brass.  Under  such  a  regimen, 
imbecility  soon  makes  its  appear- 
ance. Saint  Thomas  himself  considers, 
"  whether  the  body  of  Christ  arose 
with  its  wounds, — whether  this  body 
moves  with  the  motion  of  the  host 
and  the  chalice  in  consecration, — 
whether  at  the  first  instant  of  concep- 
tion Christ  had  the  use  of  free  judg- 
ment,— whether  Christ  was  slain  by 
Himself  or  by  another  ?  "  Do  you 
think  you  are  at  the  limits  of  human 
folly  ?  Listen.  He  considers  "  whether 
the  dove  in  which  the  Holy  Spirit  ap- 
peared was  a  real  animal, — whether  a 
glorified  body  can  occupy  one  and  the 
same  place  at  the  same  time  as  another 
glorified  body, — whether  in  the  state 
of  innocence  all  children  were  mascu- 
line ? "  I  pass  over  others  as  to  the 
digestion  of  Christ,  and  some  still 
more  untranslatable.*  This  is  the  point 
reached  by  the  most  esteemed  doctor, 
the  most  judicious  mind,  the  Bossuet 
of  the  middle  age.  Even  in  this  ring 
of  inanities  the  answers  are  laid  down. 
Roscellinus  and  Abelard  were  excom- 
municated, exiled,  imprisoned,  because 
they  swerved  from  it.  There  is  a  com- 
plete minute  dogma  which  closes  all 
issues ;  there  is  no  means  of  escaping ; 
after  a  hundred  wriggles  and  a  hundred 
efforts,  you  must  come  and  tumble 
into  a  formula.  If  by  mysticism  you 
try  to  fly  over  their  heads,  if  by  experi- 
ence you  endeavor  to  creep  beneath, 
powerful  talons  await  you  at  your  exit. 
The  wise  man  passes  for  a  magician, 
the  enlightened  man  for  a  heretic. 
The  Waldenses,  the  Catharists,  the  dis- 
ciples of  John  of  Parma,  were  burned  ; 
Roger  Bacon  died  only  just  in  time, 
otherwise  he  might  have  been  burned. 

*  Utrum  angelus  diligat  se  ipsum  dilectione 
naturali  vel  electiya  ?  Utrum  in  statu  innocen- 
tise  fuerit  generatio  per  coituin  ?  Utrum  omnes 
fuissent  nati  in  sexu  masculine?  Utrum  cog- 
nitio  angeli  posset  dici  matutina  et  vespertina  ? 
Utrum  martyribus  aureoia  debeatur  ?  Utrum 
virgo  Maria  fuerit  virgo  in  concipiendo?  Utrum 
remanserit  virgo  post  partum?  The  reader 
may  look  out  in  the  text  the  reply  to  these  last 
two  questions.  (S.  Thomas,  Sumina  Theolo- 
gica%  ed.  1677.) 


Under  this  constraint  men  ceased  to 
think ;  for  he  who  speaks  of  thought, 
speaks  of  an  effort  at  invention,  an  in- 
dividual creation,  an  energetic  action. 
They  recite  a  lesson,  or  sing  a  cate- 
chism ;  even  in  paradise,even  in  ecstasy 
and  the  divinest  raptures  of  love.  Dante 
thinks  himself  bound  to  show  an  exact 
memory  and  a  scholastic  orthodoxy. 
How  then  with  the  rest  ?  Some,  like 
Raymond  Lully,  set  about  inventing  an 
instrument  of  reasoning  to  serve  in 
place  of  the  understanding.  About  i.he 
fourteenth  century,  under  the  blows  of 
Occam,  this  verbal  science  began  to 
totter ;  they  saw  that  its  entities  were 
only  words ;  it  was  discredited.  In 
1367,  at  Oxford,  of  thirty  thousand 
students,  there  remained  six  thou- 
sand ;  *  they  still  set  their  "  Barbara 
and  Felapton,"  but-  only  in  the  way  of 
routine.  Each  one  in  turn  mechani- 
cally traversed  the  petty  region  of 
threadbare  cavils,  scratched  himself  in 
the  briars  of  quibbles,  and  burdened 
himself  with  his  bundle  of  texts  ;  noth- 
ing more.  The  vast  body  of  science 
which  was  to  have  formed  and  vivified 
the  whole  thought  of  man,  was  reduced 
to  a  text-book. 

So,  little  by  little,  the  conception 
which  fertilized  and  ruled  all  others, 
dried  up ;  the  deep  spring,  whence 
flowed  all  poetic  streams,  was  found 
empty ;  science  furnished  nothing 
more  to  the  world.  What  further 
works  could  the  world  produce  ?  As 
Spain,  later  on,  renewing  the  middle- 
age,  after  having  shone  splendidly  and 
foolishly  by  her  chivalry  and  devotion, 
by  Lope  de  Vega  and  Calderon,  Loyola 
and  St.  Theresa,  became  enervated 
through  the  Inquisition  and  through 
casuistry,  and  ended  by  sinking  into  a 
brutish  silence  ;  so  the  middle  age, 
outstripping  Spain,  after  displaying  the 
senseless  heroism  of  the  crusades,  ar,  J 
the  poetical  ecstasy  of  the  cloister,  aL« 
ter  producing  chivalry  and  saintship, 
Francis  of  Assisi,  St.  Louis,  and  Dante, 
languished  under  the  Inquisition  and 
the  scholastic  learning,  and  became 
extinguished  in  idle  raving  and  inanity. 

*  The  Rev.  Henry  Anstey,  in  his  Introduc- 
tion to  Munimenta  Academica,  Lond.,  1868, 
says  that  "  the  statement  of  Richard  of  Armagh 
that  there  were  in  the  thirteenth  century  30,000 
scholars  at  Oxford  is  almost  incredible."  P. 
xlviii. — TR. 


CHAP.  Ill] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


Must  we  quote  all  these  good  peo- 
ple who  speak  without  having  any 
thing  to  say  ?  You  may  find  them  in 
Warton;*  dozens  of  translators,  im- 
porting the  poverties  of  French  litera- 
ture, and  imitating  imitations ;  rhym- 
ing chroniclers,  most  commonplace  of 
mei  t,  whom  we  only  read  because  we 
must  accept  history  from  every  quar- 
ter, even  from  imbeciles  ;  spinners  and 
spinsters  of  didactic  poems,  who  pile 
up  verses  on  the  training  of  falcons, 
on  heraldry,  on  chemistry;  editors  of 
moralities,  who  invent  the  same  dream 
over  again  for  the  hundredth  time, 
and  get  themselves  taught  universal 
history  by  the  goddess  Sapience.  Like 
the  writers  of  the  Latin  decadence, 
these  folk  only  think  of  copying,  com- 
piling, abridging,  constructing  m  text- 
books, in  rhymed  memoranda,  the  en- 
cyclopedia of  their  times. 

Listen  to  the  most  illustrious,  the 
grave  Gower — "morall  Gower,"  as  he 
was  called  !  t  Doubtless  here  and  there 
he  contains  a  remnant  of  brilliancy  and 
grace.  He  is  like  an  old  secretary  of 
a  Court  of  Love,  Andre  le  Chapelain 
or  any  other,  who  would  pass  the  day 
in  solemnly  registering  the  sentences 
of  ladies,  and  in  the  evening,  partly 
asleep  on  his  desk,  would  see  in  a  half- 
dream  their  sweet  smile  and  their 
beautiful  eyes.}  The  ingenious  but 
exhausted  vein  of  Charles  of  Orleans 
still  flows  in  his  French  ballads.  He 
has  the  same  fondling  delicacy,  almost 
a  little  affected.  The  poor  little  poetic 
spring  flows  yet  in  thin  transparent 
streamlets  over  the  smooth  pebbles, 
and  murmurs  with  a  babble,  pretty, 
but  so  low  that  at  times  you  cannot 
bear  it.  But  dull  is  the  rest!  His 
great  poem,  Confessio  Amantis,  is  a 
dialogue  between  a  lover  and  his  con- 
fessor, imitated  chiefly  from  Jean  de 
Meung,  having  for  object,  like  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose,  to  explain  and 
classify  the  impediments  of  love. 
The  superannuated  theme  is  always 
reappearing,  covered  by  a  crude  erudi- 
tion. You  will  find  here  an  exposition 
of  hermetic  science,  lectures  on  the 
philosophy  of  Aristotle,  a  treatise  on 

*  History  of  English  Poetry,  vol.  H. 
t  Contemporary  with  Chaucer.     The   Con- 
fessio Amantis  dates  from  1393. 
t  History  ofRosiphele.    Ballads. 


politics,  a  litany  of  ancient  and  modern 
legends  gleaned  from  the  compilers, 
marred  in  the  passage  by  the  pedantry 
of  the  schools  and  the  ignorance  of  the 
age.  It  is  a  cart-load  of  scholastic 
rubbish  ;  the  sewer  tumbles  upon  this 
feeble  spirit,  which  of  itself  was  flowing 
clearly,  but  now,  obstructed  by  tiles, 
bricks,  plaster,  ruins  from  all  quarters 
of  the  globe,  drags  on  darkened  and 
sluggish.  Gower,  one  of  the  most 
learned  of  his  time,*  supposed  that 
Latin  was  invented  by  the  old  prophet- 
ess Carmentis  ;  that  the  grammarians, 
Aristarchus,  Donatus,  and  Didymus, 
regulated  its  syntax,  pronunciation,  and 
prosody ;  that  it  was  adorned  by  Cicero 
with  the  flowers  of  eloquence  and 
rhetoric;  then  enriched  by  translations 
from  the  Arabic,  Chaldaean,  and  Greek ; 
and  that  at  last,  after  much  labor  of 
celebrated  writers,  it  attained  its  final 
perfection  in  Ovid,  the  poet  of  love. 
Elsewhere  he  discovers  that  Ulysses 
learned  rhetoric  from  Cicero,  magic 
from  Zoroaster,  astronomy  from  Ptol- 
emy, and  philosophy  from  Plato.  And 
what  a  style!  so  long,  so  dull,t  so 
drawn  out  by  repetitions,  the  most 
minute  details,  garnished  with  refer- 
ences to  his  text,  like  a  man  who,  with 
his  eyes  glued  to  his  Aristotle  and  his 
Ovid,  a  slave  of  his  musty  parchments, 
can  do  nothing  but  copy  and  string  his 
rhymes  together.  Schoolboys  even  in 
old  age,  they  seem  to  believe  that  every 
truth,  all  wit,  is  in  their  great  wood- 
bound  books  ;  that  they  have  no  need 
to  find  out  and  invent  for  themselves ; 
that  their  whole  business  is  to  repeat; 
that  this  is,  in  fact,  man's  business. 
The  scholastic  system  had  enthroned 
the  dead  letter,  and  peopled  the  wcrld 
with  dead  understandings. 

After  Gower  come  Occleve  and 
Lydgate.f  "  My  father  Chaucer  would 
willingly  have  taught  me,"  says  Oc- 
cleve, "but  I  was  dull,  and  learned 
little  or  nothing."  He  paraphrased  in 
verse  a  treatise  of  Egidius,  on  govern- 
ment ;  these  are  moralities.  There  are 
others,  on  compassion,  after  Augus- 
tine, and  on  the  art  of  dying ;  then 
love  tales  ;  a  letter  from  Cupid,  dated 

*  Warton,  ii.  240. 

t  See,  for  instance,  his  description  of  the 
sun's  crown,  the  most  poetical  passage  in  book 
vii.  t  1420,  f43o 


104 


THE  SOURCE. 


[BOOK  1 


from  his  court  in  the  month  of  May. 
Love  and  moralities,*  that  is,  abstrac- 
tions and  affectation,  were  the  taste  of 
the  time ;  and  so,  in  the  time  of  Le- 
brun,  of  Esmenard,  at  the  close  of 
contemporaneous  French  literature,! 
they  produced  collections  of  didactic 
poems,  and  odes  to  Chloris.  As  for 
the  monk  Lydgate,  he  had  some  talent, 
some  imagination,  especially  in  high- 
toned  descriptions :  it  was  the  last 
flicker  of  a  dying  literature  ;  gold  re- 
ceived a  golden  coating,  precious  stones 
were  placed  upon  diamonds,  ornaments 
multiplied  and  made  fantastic;  as  in 
their  dress  and  buildings,  so  in  their 
style.  \  Look  at  the  costumes  of 
Henry  IV.  and  Henry  V.,  monstrous 
heart-shaped  or  horn-shaped  head- 
dresses, long  sleeves  covered  with  ridic- 
ulous designs,  the  phimes,  and  again  the 
oratories,  armorial  tombs,  little  gaudy 
chapels,  like  conspicuous  flowers  under 
the  naves  of  the  Gothic  perpendicular. 
When  we  can  no  more  speak  to  the  soul, 
we  try  to  speak  to  the  eyes.  This  is  what 
Lydgate  does,  nothing  more.  Pageants 
or  shows  are  required  of  him,  "  dis- 
guisings "  for  the  Company  of  gold- 
smiths ;  a  mask  before  the  king,  a 
May-entertainment  for  the  sheriffs  of 
London,  a  drama  of  the  creation  for 
the  festival  of  Corpus  Christi,  a  mas- 
querade, a  Christmas  show;  he  gives 
the  plan  and  furnishes  the  verses.  In 
this  matter  he  never  runs  dry;  two 
hundred  and  fifty-one  poems  are  attri- 
buted to  him.  Poetry  thus  conceived 
becomes  a  manufacture  ;  it  is  composed 
by  the  yard.  Such  was  the  judgment 
of  the  Abbot  of  St.  Albans,  who,  having 
got  him  to  translate  a  legend  in  verse, 
pays  a  hundred  shillings  for  the  whole, 
verse,  writing,  and  illuminations,  plac- 
ing the  three  works  on  a  level.  In 
fact,  no  more  thought  was  required  for 
the  one  than  for  the  others.  His  three 
g /eat  works,  The  Fall  of  Princes,  The 
D,  tfruction  of  Troy,  and  The  Siege  of 
Thebes,  are  only  translations  or  para- 
phrases, verbose,  erudite,  descriptive, 
a  kind  of  chivalrous  processions,  color- 
ed for  the  twentieth  time,  in  the  same 

*  This  is  the  title  Froissart  (1397)  gave  to 
his  collection  when  presenting  it  to  Richard  II. 

t  Lebrun,  1729-1807;  Esmenard,  1770-1812. 

%  Lydgate,  The  Destruction  of  Troy — de- 
scription of  Hector's  chapel.  Especially  read 
the  Pageants  or  Solemn  Entries, 


manner,  on  the  same  vellum.  The 
only  point  which  rises  above  the 
average,  at  least  in  the  first  poem,  is 
the  idea  of  Fortune,*  and  the  violent 
vicissitudes  of  human  life.  If  there 
was  a  philosophy  at  this  time,  this  was 
it.  They  willingly  narrated  horrible 
and  tragic  histories ;  gather  them 
from  antiquity  down  to  their  own  day  ; 
they  were  far  from  the  trusting  an  1 
passionate  piety  which  felt  the  hand 
of  God  in  the  government  of  the  world  ; 
they  saw  that  the  world  went  blunder- 
ing here  and  there  like  a  drunken  man. 
A  sad  and  gloomy  world,  amused  by 
eternal  pleasures,  oppressed  with  a 
dull  misery,  which  suffered  and  feared 
without  consolation  or  hope,  isolated 
between  the  ancient  spirit  in  which  it 
had  no  living  hope,  and  the  modern 
spirit  whose  active  science  it  ignored. 
Fortune,  like  a  black  smoke,  hovers 
over  all,  and  shuts  out  the  sight  of 
heaven.  They  picture  it  as  follows  :— 

"  Her  face  semyng  cruel  and  terrible 
And  by  disdayne  menacing  of  loke,  .  .  . 
An  hundred  handes  she  had,  of  eche  part  .  . 
Some  of  her  handes  lyft  up  men  alofte, 
To  hye  estate  of  worldlye  dignite  ; 
Another  hande  griped  ful  unsofte, 
Which  cast  another  in  grete  adversite."  f 

They  look  upon  the  great  unhappy 
ones,  a  captive  king,  a  dethroned 
queen,  assassinated  princes,  noble  cit- 
ies destroyed,}  lamentable  spectacles 
as  exhibited  in  Germany  and  France, 
and  of  which  there  will  be  plenty  in 
England;  and  they  can  only  regard 
them  with  a  harsh  resignation.  Lyd- 
gate ends  by  reciting  a  commonplace 
of  mechanical  piety,  by  way  of  conso- 
lation. The  reader  makes  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  yawns,  and  goes  away.  In 
fact,  poetry  and  religion  are  no  longer 
capable  of  suggesting  a  genuine  senti- 
ment. Authors  copy,  and  copy  again, 
Hawes  §  copies  the  House  of '  Fame  of 
Chaucer,  and  a  sort  of  allegorical  amor- 
ous poem,  after  the  Roman  de  la  Rose. 
Barclay  ||  translates  the  Mirror  -f  Good 

*  See  the  Vision  of  Fortune,  a  gigantic  fig- 
ure. In  this  painting  he  shows  both  feeling  and 
talent. 

t  Lydeate,  Fall  of  Princes.  Warton,  ii.  280. 

t  The^War  of  the  Hussites,  The  Hundred 
Years'  War,  and  The  War  of  the  Roses. 

§  About  1506.  The  Temple  of  Glass.  Passe* 
tyrne  of  Pleasure. 

||  About  1500. 


•CHAP.   III.] 


THE  NEW  TONGUE. 


Manners  and  the  Ship  of  Fools.  Contin- 
ually we  meet  with  dull  abstractions, 
used  up  and  barren  ;  it  is  the  scholastic 
phase  of  poetry.  If  anywhere  there  is 
an  accent  of  greater  originality,  it  is 
in  this  Ship  of  Fools^  and  in  Lydgate's 
Dance  of  Death,  bitter  buffooneries, 
sad  gayeties,  which,  in  the  hands  of 
artists  and  poets,  were  having  their  run 
throughout  Europe.  They  mock  at 
each  other,  grotesquely  and  gloomily  ; 
poor,  dull,  and  vulgar  figures,  shut  up 
in  a  ship,  or  made  to  dance  on  their 
tomb  to  the  sound  of  a  fiddle,  played 
by  a  grinning  skeleton.  At  the  end 
of  all  this  mouldy  talk,  and  amid  the 
disgust  which  they  have  conceived  for 
each  other,  a  clown,  a  tavern  Tribou- 
let,*  composer  of  little  jeering  and  mac- 
aronic verses,  Skelton,t  makes  his 
appearance,  a  virulent  pamphleteer, 
who,  jumbling  together  French,  Eng- 

*  The  court  fool  in  Victor  Hugo's  drama  of 
Le  Rot  s*  amuse. — TR. 

t  Died  1529;  Poet-Laureate  1489.  His 
Bouge  of  Court,  his  Crown  of  Laurel,  his 
Elegy  on  the  Death  of  the  Earl  of  Northitm- 
berland,  are  well  written,  and  belong  to  offi- 
cial poetry. 


lish,  Latin  phrases,  with  slang,  and 
fashionable  words,  invented  words,  in- 
termingled with  short  rhymes,  fabri* 
cates  a  sort  of  literary  mud,  with  which 
he  bespatters  Wolsey  and  the  bishops. 
Style,  metre,  rhyme,  language,  art  of 
every  kind,  is  at  an  end ;  beneath  the 
vain  parade  of  official  style  there  is 
only  a  heap  of  rubbish.  Yet,  as  he 
says, 

"  Though  my  rhyme  be  ragged, 
Tattered  and  gagged, 
Rudely  rain-beaten, 
Rusty,  moth-eaten, 
Yf  ye  take  welle  therewithe, 
It  hath  in  it  some  pithe." 

It  is  full  of  political  animus,  sensual 
liveliness,  English  and  popular  in- 
stincts ;  it  lives.  It  is  a  coarse  life, 
still  elementary,  swarming  with  igno- 
ble vermin,  like  that  which  appears  in 
a  great  decomposing  body.  It  is  life, 
nevertheless,  with  its  two  great  features 
which  it  is  destined  to  display  :  the 
hatred  of  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy, 
which  is  the  Reformation  ;  the  return 
to  the  senses  and  to  natural  life,  which 
is  the  Renaissance. 


HISTORY   OF    ENGLISH    LITERATURE, 


BOOK  II. 
THE    RENAISSANCE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


§  i.  MANNERS  OF  THE  TIME. 
I. 

FOR  seventeen  centuries  a  deep  and 
sad  thought  had  weighed  upon  the 
spirit  of  man,  first  to  overwhelm  it, 
then  to  exalt  and  to  weaken  it,  never 
loosing  its  hold  throughout  this  long 
space  of  time.  It  was  the  idea  of  the 
weakness  and  decay  of  the  human  race. 
Greek  corruption,  Roman  oppression, 
and  the  dissolution  of  the  ancient 
world,  had  given  rise  to  it  ;  it,  in  its 
turn,  had  produced  a  stoical  resigna- 
tion, an  epicurean  indifference,  Alexan- 
drian mysticism,  and  the  Christian  hope 
in  the  kingdom  of  God.  "  The  world 
is  evil  and  lost,  let  us  escape  by  insen- 
sibility, amazement,  ecstasy."  Thus 
spoke  the  philosophers  ;  and  religion, 
comii  >g  after,  announced,  that  the  end 
was  near  :  "  Prepare,  for  the  kingdom 
ot  God  is  at  hand."  For  a  thousand 
years  universal  ruin  incessantly  drove 
still  deeper  into  their  hearts  this 
gloomy  thought  ;  and  when  man  in  the 
feudal  state  raised  himself,  by  sheer 
force  oi  courage  and  muscles,  from  the 
depths  of  final  imbecility  and  general 


misery,  he  discovered  his  thought  and 
his  work  fettered  by  the  crushing  idea, 
which,  forbidding  a  life  of  nature  and 
worldly  hopes,  erected  into  ideals  the 
obedience  of  the  monk  and  the  dreams 
of  fanatics. 

It  grew  ever  worse  and  worse.  For 
the  natural  result  of  such  a  conception, 
as  of  the  miseries  which  engender  it, 
and  the  discouragement  which  it  gives 
rise  to,  is  to  do  away  with  personal 
action,  and  to  replace  originality  by 
submission.  From  the  fourth  century, 
gradually  the  dead  letter  was  substitu- 
ted for  the  living  faith.  Christians 
resigned  themselves  into  the  hands  of 
the  clergy,  they  into  the  hands  of  the 
Pope.  Christian  opinions  were  subor- 
dinated to  theologians,  and  theologians 
to  the  Fathers.  Christian  faith  was 
reduced  to  the  accomplishment  of 
works,  and  works  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  ceremonies.  Religion,  fluid 
during  the  first  centuries,  was  now 
congealed  into  a  hard  crystal,  and  the 
coarse  contact  of  the  barbarians  had 
deposited  upon  its  surface  a  layer  of 
idolatry :  theocracy  and  the  Inquisi- 
tion, the  monopoly  of  the  clergy  and 
the  prohibition  of  the  Scriptures,  the 
worship  of  relics  and  the  sale  of  in- 
dulgences began  to  appear.  In  place 
of  Christianity,  the  church;  in  place 
of  a  free  creed,  enforced  orthodoxy  ;  in 
(107) 


roS 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


place  of  moral  fervor,  fixed  religious 
practices  ;  in  place  of  the  heart  and  stir- 
ring thought,  outward  and  mechanical 
discipline  :  such  are  the  characteristics 
of  the  middle  ages.  Under  this  constraint 
thinking  society  had  ceased  to  think ; 
philosophy  was  turned  into  a  text-book, 
and  poetry  into  dotage  ;  and  mankind, 
slothful  and  crouching,  delivering  up 
their  conscience  and  their  conduct  into 
the  hands  of  their  priests,  seemed  but 
as  puppets,  fit  only  for  reciting  a  cat- 
echism and  mumbling  over  beads.* 

At  last  invention  makes  another 
start ;  and  it  makes  it  by  the  efforts  of 
the  lay  society,  which  rejected  theoc- 
racy, kept  the  State  free,  and  which 
presently  discovered,  or  re-discovered, 
one  after  another,  the  industries,  sci- 
ences, and  arts.  All  was  renewed ; 
America  and  the  Indies  were  added  to 
the  map  of  the  world  ;  the  shape  of 
the  earth  was  ascertained,  the  system 
of  the  universe  propounded,  modern 
philology  was  inaugurated,  the  experi- 
mental sciences  set  on  foot,  art  and 
literature  shot  forth  like  a  harvest, 
religion  was  transformed :  there  was 
no  province  of  human  intelligence  and 
action  which  was  not  refreshed  and 
fertilized  by  this  universal  effort.  It 
was  so  great,  that  it  passed  from  the 
innovators  to  the  laggards,  and  re- 
formed Catholicism  in  the  face  of 
Protestantism  which  it  formed.  It 
seems  as  though  men  had  suddenly 
opened  their  eyes  and  seen.  In  fact, 
they  attain  a  new  and  superior  kind 
of  intelligence.  It  is  the  proper  fea- 
ture of  this  age,  that  men  no  longer 
make  themselves  masters  of  objects  by 
lits,  or  isolated,  or  through  scholastic 
or  mechanical  classifications,  but  as  a 
whole,  in  general  and  complete  views, 
with  the  eager  grasp  of  a  sympathetic 
spirit,  which  being  placed  before  a 
vast  object,  penetrate?  it  in  all  its  parts, 
tries  it  in  all  its  relations,  appropriates 
and  assimilates  it,  impresses  upon  itself 
its  living  and  potent  image,  so  life-like 
and  so  powerful,  that  it  is  fain  to  trans- 
late it  into  externals  through  a  work  of 
art  or  an  action.  An  extraordinary 

*  See,  at  Bruges,  the  pictures  of  Hemling 
'fifteenth  century).  No  paintings  enable  us  to 
understand  so  well  the  ecclesiastical  piety  of  the 
middle  age,  which  was  altogether  like  that  of 
the  Buddhists. 


warmth  of  soul,  a  superabundant  and 
splendid  imagination,  reveries,  visions, 
artists,  believers,  founders,  creators, 
— that  is  what  such  a  form  of  intellect 
produces  ;  for  to  create  we  must  have, 
as  had  Luther  and  Loyola,  Miche* 
Angelo  and  Shakspeare,  an  idea,  not 
abstract,  partial,  and  dry,  but  well  de- 
fined, finished,  sensible, — a  true  creation 
which  acts  inwardly,  and  struggles  to 
appear  to  the  light.  This  was  Europe's 
grand  age,  and  the  most  notable  epoch 
of  human  growth.  To  this  day  we  live 
from  its  sap,  we  only  carry  on  its  pres- 
sure and  efforts. 

II. 

When  human  power  is  manifested 
so  clearly  and  in  such  great  works, 
it  is  no  wonder  if  the  ideal  changes, 
and  the  old  pagan  idea  reappears. 
It  recurs,  bringing  with  it  the  worship 
of  beauty  and  vigor,  first  in  Italy  ;  for 
this  of  all  other  countries  in  Europe, 
is  the  most  pagan,  and  the  nearest 
to  the  ancient  civilization;  thence  in 
France  and  Spain,  and  Flanders,*  and 
even  in  Germany;  and  finally  in  Eng- 
land. How  is  it  propagated  ?  What 
revolution  of  manners  reunited  man- 
kind at  this  time,  everywhere  under 
a  sentiment  which  they  had  forgotten 
for  fifteen  hundred  years  ?  Merely 
that  their  condition  had  improved,  and 
they  felt  it.  The  idea  ever  expresses 
the  actual  situation,  and  the  creatures 
of  the  imagination,  like  the  concep- 
tions of  the  mind,  only  manifest  the 
the  state  of  society  and  the  degree  of 
its  welfare  ;  there  is  a  fixed  connection 
between  what  man  admires  and  what 
he  is.  While  misery  overwhelms  him, 
while  the  decadence  is  visible,  and 
hope  shut  out,  he  is  inclined  to  curse 
his  life  on  earth,  and  seek  consolation 
in  another  sphere.  As  soon  as  his 
sufferings  are  alleviated,  his Dov/er  made 
manifest,  his  prospects  brightened,  he 
begins  once  more  to  love  the  present 
life,  to  be  self-confident,"  to  love  and 
praise  energy,  genius,  all  the  effective 
faculties  which  labor  to  procure  him 
happiness.  About  the  twentieth  year 
of  Elizabeth's  reign,  the  nobles  gave 
up  shield  and  two-handed  sword  for 

*  Van  Orley,  Michel  Ccxcie,  Franz  Floris. 
the  de  Vos',  the  Sadelers,  Crispin  de  Pass,  and 
the  artists  of  Nuremberg. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSAA7CE. 


109 


the  rapier  ;  *  a  little,  almost  impercep- 
tible fact,  yet  vast,  for  it  is  like  the 
change  which,  sixty  years  ago,  made 
us  give  up  the  sword  at  court,  to  leave 
us  with  our  arms  swinging  about  in 
our  black  coats.  In  fact  it  was  the  close 
of  feudal  life,  and  the  beginning  of 
court-life,  just  as  to-day  court-life  is  at 
an  end,  and  the  democratic  reign  has 
begun.  With  the  two-handed  swords, 
heavy  coats  of  mail,  feudal  keeps, 
private  warfare,  permanent  disorder, 
all  the  scourges  of  the  middle  age 
retired,  and  faded  into  the  past.  The 
English  had  done  with  the  Wars  of 
the  Roses.  They  no  longer  ran  the 
risk  of  being  pillaged  to-morrow  for 
being  rich,  and  hung  the  next  day  for 
being  traitors  ;  they  have  no  further 
need  to  furbish  up  their  armor,  make 
alliances  with  powerful  nations,  lay 
in  stores  for  the  winter,  gather  to- 
gether men-at-arms,  scour  the  country 
to  plunder  r>nd  hang  others. t  The 
monarchy,  in  England  as  throughout 
Europe,  establishes  peace  in  the  com- 
munity,:}: and  with  peace  appear  the 
useful  arts.  Domestic  comfort  follows 
civil  security  ;  and  man,  better  fur- 
nished in  his  home,  better  protected  in 
his  hamlet,  takes  pleasure  in  his  life 
on  earth,  which  he  has  changed,  and 
means  to  change. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century  §  the  impetus  was  given  ;  com- 
merce and  the  woollen  trade  made  a 
sudden  advance,  and  such  an  enor- 
mous one,  that  cornfields  were  changed 
into  pasture-lands,  "  whereby  the  in- 
habitants of  the  said  town  (Manchester) 
have  gotten  and  turned  into  riches 
and  wealthy  livings,"  ||  so  that  in  1553, 
40,000  pieces  of  cloth  were  exported 
in  English  ships.  It  was  already 
the  England  which  we  see  to-day,  a 
•land  of  green  meadows,  intersected  by 

*  The  first  carriage  was  in  1564.  It  caused 
much  astonishment.  Some  said  that  it  was  "  a 
tji^at  sea-shell  brought  from  China  ;  "  others, 
l%  that  it  was  a  temple  in  which  cannibals  wor- 
shipped the  devil." 

t  For  a  picture  of  this  state  of  things,  see 
Fenn's  Paston  Letters, 

\  Louis  XI.  in  France,  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella in  Stain,  Henry  VII.  in  Eng'and.  In 
Italy  the  feudal  regime  ended  earlier,  by  the 
establishment  of  republics  and  principalities. 

§  1488,  Act  of  Parliament  on  Enclosures. 

|j  A  Compendious  Examination,  1581,  by 
William  Strafford.  Act  of  Parliament,  1541. 


hedgerows,  crowdc.  d  with  cattle,  and 
abounding  in  ships — a  manufacturing 
opulent  land,  with  a  people  of  beef- 
eating  toilers,  who  enrich  it  while  they 
enrich  themselves.  They  improved 
agriculture  to  such  an  extent,  that  in 
half  a  century  the  produce  of  an  acre 
was  doubled.*  They  grew  so  rich, 
that  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  I.  the  Commons  represented 
three  times  the  wealth  of  the  Upper 
House.  The  ruin  of  Antwerp  by  the 
Duke  of  Parma  t  sent  to  England 
"the  third  part  of  the  merchants  and 
manufacturers,  who  made  silk,  damask, 
stockings,  taffetas,  and  serges."  The 
defeat  of  the  Armada  and  the  decadence 
of  Spain  opened  the  seas  to  English 
merchants.J  The  toiling  hive,  who 
would  dare,  attempt,  explore,  act  in 
unison,  and  always  with  profit,  was 
about  to  reap  its  advantages  and  set 
out  on  its  voyages,  buzzing  over  the 
universe. 

At  the  base  and  on  the  summit  of 
society,  in  all  ranks  of  life,  in  all  grades 
of  human  condition,  this  new  welfare 
became  visible.  In  1534,  considering 
that  the  streets  of  London  were  "  very 
noyous  and  foul,  and  in  many  places 
thereof  very  jeopardous  to  all  people 
passing  and  repassing,  as  well  on 
horseback  as  on  foot,"  Henry  VIII. 
began  the  paving  of  the  city.  New 
streets  covered  the  open  spaces  where 
the  young  men  used  to  run  races  and 
to  wrestle.  Every  year  the  number  of 
taverns,  theatres,  gambling  rooms,  bear- 
gardens, increased.  Before  the  time  of 
Elizabeth  the  country-houses  of  gen- 
tlemen were  little  more  than  straw- 
thatched  cottages,  plastered  with  the 
coarsest  clay,  lighted  only  by  trellises. 
"  Howbeit,"  says  Harrison  (1580), 
"  such  as  be  latelie  builded  are  com- 
monlie  either  of  bricke  or  hard  stone, 
or  both  ;  their  roomes  large  and  come- 
lie,  and  houses  of  office  further  distant 
from  their  lodgings."  The  old  wooden 

*  Between  1377  and  1588  the  increase  was 
from  two  and  a  half  to  five  millions. 

t  In  1585  ;   Ludovic  Guicciardini. 

$  Henry  VIII.  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign 
had  but  one  f  hip  of  war.  Elizabeth  sent  out 
one  hundred  and  fifty  against  the  Armada.  In 
1553  was  founded  a  company  to  trade  with 
Russia.  In  1578  Drake  circumnavigated  the 
globe.  In  1600  the  East  India  Company  was 
founded. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


houses  were  covered  with  plaster, 
"which,  beside  the  delectable  white- 
nesse  of  the  stuffe  itselfe,  is  laied  on  so 
even  and  smoothlie,  as  nothing  in  my 
judgment  can  be  done  with  more  ex- 
actnesse."  *  This  open  admiration 
shows  from  what  hovels  they  had  es- 
caped. Glass  was  at  last  employed  for 
windows,  and  the  bare  walls  were  cov- 
ered with  hangings,  on  which  visitors 
might  see,  with  delight  and  astonish- 
ment, plants,  animals,  figures.  They 
began  to  use  stoves,  and  experienced 
the  unwonted  pleasure  of  being  warm. 
Harrison  notes  three  important  changes 
which  had  taken  place  in  the  farm- 
houses of  his  time  : 

"  One  is,  the  multitude  of  chimnies  lately 
erected,  whereas  in  their  yoong  daies  there  were 
not  above  two  or  three,  if  so  manie,  in  most  up- 
landishe  townes  of  the  realme.  .  .  .  The  second 
is  the  great  (although  not  generall),  amendment 
of  lodging,  for  our  fathers  (yea  and  we  ourselves 
also)  have  lien  full  oft  upon  straw  pallets,  on 
rough  mats  covered  onelie  with  a  sheet,  under 
coverlets  made  of  dagswain,  or  hop-harlots,  and 
a  good  round  log  under  their  heads,  insteed  of 
a  bolster  or  pillow.  If  it  were  so  that  the  good 
man  of  the  house,  had  within  seven  yeares  after 
his  marriage  purchased  a  matteres  or  flockebed, 
and  thereto  a  sacke  of  chaffe  to  rest  his  head 
upon,  he  thought  himself e  to  be  as  well  lodged 
as  the  lord  of  the  towne.  .  .  .  Pillowes  (said 
they)  were  thought  meet  onelie  for  women  in 
childbed.  .  .  .  The  third  thing  is  the  exchange 
of  vessel!,  as  of  treene  platters  into  pewter,  and 
-  wodden  spoones  into  silver  or  tin  ;  for  so  com- 
mon was  all  sorts  of  treene  stuff  in  old  time, 
that  a  man  should  hardlie  find  four  peeces  of 
pewter  (of  which  one  was  peradventure  a  salt) 
in  a  good  farmers  house."  t 

It  is  not  possession,  but  acquisition, 
which  gives  men  pleasure  and  sense  of 
power;  they  observe  sooner  a  small 
happiness,  new  to  them,  than  a  great 
nappiness  which  is  old.  It  is  not  when 
all  is  good,  but  when  all  is  better,  that 
they  see  the  bright  side  of  life,  and  are 
tempted  to  make  a  holiday  of  it.  This 
is  why  at  this  period  they  did  make  a 
holiday  of  it,  a  splendid  show,  so  like 
a  picture  that  it  fostered  painting  in 
Italy,  so  like  a  piece  of  acting,  that  it 
produced  the  drama  in  England.  Now 
that  the  axe  and  sword  of  the  civil  wars 
bad  beaten  down  the  independent  no- 
Dility,  and  the  abolition  of  the  law  of 
maintenance  had  destroyed  the  petty 

*  Nathan  Drake,  Shakspeareandhis  Times, 
1817,  i.  v.  72  et  passim. 
t  Ibid.  i.  v.  102. 


royalty  of  each  great  feudal  baron,  th« 
lords  quieted  their  sombre  castles,  bat 
tlemented  fortresses,  surrounded  by 
stagnant  water,  pierced  with  narrow 
windows,  a  sort  of  stone  breastplates 
of  no  use  but  to  preserve  the  life  of 
their  master.  They  flock  into  new 
palaces,  with  vaulted  roofs  and  turrets, 
covered  with  fantastic  and  manifold 
ornaments,  adorned  with  terraces  and 
vast  staircases,  with  gardens,  fountains, 
statues,  such  as  were  the  palaces  of 
Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth,  half  Gothic 
and  half  Italian,*  whose  convenience, 
splendor,  and  symmetry  announced  al- 
ready habits  of  society  and  the  taste  for 
pleasure.  They  came  to  court  and 
abandoned  their  old  manners ;  the 
four  meals  which  scarcely  sufficed  their 
former  voracity  were  reduced  to  two ; 
gentlemen  soon  became  refined,  plac- 
ing their  glory  in  the  elegance  and  sin- 
gularity of  their  amusements,  and  their 
clothes.  They  dressed  magnificently 
in  splendid  materials,  with  the  luxury 
of  men  who  rustle  silk  and  make  gold 
sparkle  for  the  first  time  :  doublets  of 
scarlet  satin ;  cloaks  of  sable,  costing 
a  thousand  ducats ;  velvet  shoes,  em- 
broidered with  gold  and  silver,  covered 
with  rosettes  and  ribbons  ;  boots  with 
falling  tops,  from  whence  hung  a  cloud 
of  lace,  embroidered  with  figures  of 
birds,  animals,  constellations,  flowers 
in  silver,  gold,  or  precious  stones ;  orna- 
mented shirts  costing  ten  pounds  a 
piece.  "  It  is  a  common  thing  to  put  a 
thousand  goats  and  a  hundred  oxen  on 
a  coat,  and  to  carry  a  whole  manor  on 
one's  back."  t  The  costumes  of  the 
time  were  like  shrines.  When  Eliza- 
beth died,  they  found  three  thousand 
dresses  in  her  wardrobe.  Need  we 
speak  of  the  monstrous  ruffs  of  the 
ladies,  their  puffed  out  dresses,  their 
stomachers  stiff  with  diamonds  ?  As  a 
singular  sign  of  the  times,  the  men  were 
more  changeable  and  more  bedecked 
than  they.  Harrison  says  : 

"  Such  is  our  mutabilitie,  that  to  daie  there 
is  none  to  the  Spanish  guise,  to  morrow  th«» 
French  toies  are  most  fine  and  delectable  yer 

*  This  was  called  the  Tudor  style.  Under 
James  I.,  in  the  hands  of  Inigo  Jones,  it  be* 
came  entirely  Italian,  approaching  the  antique. 

t  Burton,  'Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  i2th  ed. 
1821.  Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  ed.  Turn* 
bull,  1836. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


IH 


long  no  such  appr.rell  as  that  which  is  after  the 
high  Alman  fashion,  by  and  by  the  Turkish 
maner  is  generallie  best  liked  of,  otherwise  the 
Morisco  gowns,  the  Barbarian  sleeves  .  .  . 
and  the  short  French  breeches.  .  .  .  And  as 
these  fashions  are  diverse,  so  likewise  it  is  a 
world  to  see  the  costlinesse  and  the  curiositie  ; 
the  excesse  and  the  vanitie  ;  the  pompe  and  the 
braverie  ;  the  change  and  the  varietie  ;  and 
finallie,  the  ficklenesse  and  the  follie  that  is  in 
all  degrees."  * 

Folly,  it  may  have  been,  but  poetry 
likewise.  There  was  something  more 
than  puppyism  in  this  masquerade  of 
splendid  costu.ne.  The  overflow  of 
inner  sentiment  found  this  issue,  as 
also  in  drama  and  poetry.  It  was  an 
artistic  spirit  which  induced  it.  There 
was  an  incredible  outgrowth  of  living 
forms  from  their  brains.  They  acted 
like  their  engravers,  who  give  us  in 
their  frontispieces  a  prodigality  of  fruits, 
flowers,  active  figures,  animals,  gods, 
and  pour  out  and  confuse  the  whole 
treasure  of  nature  in  every  corner  of 
their  paper.  They  must  enjoy  the 
beautiful ;  they  would  be  happy  through 
their  eyes  ;  they  perceive  in  conse- 
quence naturally  the  relief  and  energy 
of  forms.  From  the  accession  of  Henry 
VIII.  to  the  death  of  James  I.  we  find 
nothing  but  tournaments,  processions, 
public  entries,  masquerades.  First 
come  the  royal  banquets,  coronation 
displays,  large  and  noisy  pleasures  of 
Henry  VIII.  Wolsey  entertains  him 

"  In  so  gorgeous  a  sort  and  costlie  maner, 
that  it  was  an  heaven  to  behold.  There  wanted 
no  dames  or  damosels  meet  or  apt  to  danse  with 
the  maskers,  or  to  garnish  the  place  for  the 
time :  then  was  there  all  kind  of  musike  and 
harmonie,  with  fine  voices  both  of  men  and 
children.  On  a  time  the  king  came  suddenlie 
thither  in  a  maske  with  a  dozen  maskers  all  in 
garments  like  sheepheards,  made  of  fine  cloth 
of  gold,  and  crimosin  sattin  paned,  .  .  .  having 
sixteene  torch-bearers.  ...  In  came  a  new 
banket  before  the  king  wherein  were  served  two 
hundred  diverse  dishes,  of  costlie  devises  and 
subtilities.  Thus  passed  they  foorth  the  night 
with  banketting,  dansing,  and  other  triumphs, 
to  the  great  comfort  of  the  king,  and  pleasant 
regard  of  the  nobilitie  there  assembled."  f 

Count,  if  you   can,   the   mythological 
entertainments,   the   theatrical   recep- 
"tions,  the  open-air  operas  played  be- 
fore Elizabeth,  James,  and  their  great 


*  Nathan  Drake,  Shakspeare  and  his  Times, 
!shed  (1586),  1808,  6  vols.  iii.  763  et 


H.  6,  87. 
t  Holin: 


frissim. 


lords.  *  At  Kenilworth,  the  pageants 
lasted  ten  days.  There  was  every 
thing  ;  learned  recreations,  novelties, 
popular  plays,  sanguinary  spectacles; 
coarse  farces,  juggling  and  feats  of 
skill,  allegories,  mythologies,  chivalric 
exhibitions,  rustic  and  national  com- 
memorations. At  the  same  time,  in 
this  universal  outburst  and  sudden  ex- 
panse, men  become  interested  in  them- 
selves, find  their  life  desirable,  worthy 
of  being  represented  and  put  on  the 
stage  complete  ;  they  play  with  it,  de- 
light in  looking  upon  it,  love  its  ups 
and  downs,  and  make  of  it  a  work  of 
art.  The  queen  is  received  by  a  sibyl, 
then  by  giants  of  the  time  of  Arthur, 
then  by  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  Syl- 
vanus,  Pomona,  Ceres,  and  Bacchus, 
every  divinity  in  turn  presents  her  with 
the  first  fruits  of  his  empire.  Next 
day,  a  savage,  dressed  in  moss  and 
ivy,  discourses  before  her  with  Echo  in 
her  praise.  Thirteen  bears  are  set 
fighting  against  dogs.  An  Italian 
acrobat  performs  wonderful  feats  be- 
fore the  whole  assembly.  A  rustic 
marriage  takes  place  before  the  queen, 
then  a  sort  of  comic  fight  amongst 
the  peasants  of  Coventry,  who  repre- 
sent the  defeat  of  the  Danes.  As  she 
is  returning  from  the  chase,  Triton, 
rising  from  the  lake,  prays  her,  in  the 
name  of  Neptune,  to  deliver  the  en- 
chanted lady,  pursued  by  a  cruel 
knight,  Syr  Bruse  satms  Pitee.  Pres- 
ently the  'lady  appears,  surrounded  by 
nymphs,  followed  close  by  Proteus, 
who  is  borne  by  an  enormous  dolphin. 
Concealed  in  the  dolphin,  a  band  of 
musicians  with  a  chorus  of  ocean-dei- 
ties, sing  the  praise  of  the  powerful, 
beautiful,  chaste  queen  of  England,  t 
You  perceive  that  comedy  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  theatre  ;  the  great  of  the 
realm  and  the  queen  herself  become 
actors.  The  cravings  of  the  imagination 
are  so  keen,  that  the  court  becomes 
a  stage.  Under  James  I.,  every  year, 
on  Twelfth-day,  the  queen,  the  chief 
ladies  and  nobles,  played  a  piece  called 
a  Masque,  a  sort  of  allegory  combined 
with  dances,  heightened  in  effect  by 
decorations  and  costumes  of  great 

*  Holinshed,    iii.,    Reign  of  Henry    VIII. 

lizabeth  and  James  Progresses,  by  Nichols. 


by  Ni 
illing 


Eliz  , 

t  Laneham's  Entertainment  at  Killingworth 

Castle,    1575.  Nichol's    Progresses^   vol.  i. 
London  1788. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BooK  II 


splendor,  of  which  the  mythological 
paintings  of  Rubens  can  alone  give  an 
idea : — 

"  The  attire  of  the  lords  was  from  the  an- 
tique Greek  statues.  On  their  heads  they  wore 
Persic  crowns,  that  were  with  scrolls  of  gold 
plate  turned  outward,  and  wreathed  about  with 
a  carnation  and  silver  net-lawn.  Their  bodies 
were  of  carnation  cloth  of  silver  ;  to  express 
the  naked,  in  manner  of  the  Greek  thorax,  girt 
under  the  breasts  with  a  broad  belt  of  cloth  of 
gold,  fastened  with  jewels  ;  the  mantles  were 
of  coloured  silke  ;  the  first,  sky-colour ;  the 
second,  pearl-colour  ;  the  third,  flame  colour  ; 
the  fourth,  tawny.  The  ladies  attire  was  of 
white  cloth  of  silver,  wrought  with  Juno's  birds 
and  fruits ;  a  loose  under  garment,  full  gath- 
ered, of  carnation,  striped  with  silver,  and 
parted  with  a  golden  zone  ;  beneath  that,  an- 
other flowing  garment,  of  watchet  cloth  of 
silver,  laced  with  gold ;  their  hair  carelessly 
bound  under  the  circle  of  a  rare  and  rich  coro- 
net, adorned  with  all  variety,  and  choice  of 
jewels ;  from  the  top  of  which  flowed  a  trans- 
parent veil,  down  to  the  ground.  Their  shoes 
were  azure  and  gold,  set  with  rubies  and  dia- 
monds." * 

I  abridge  the  description,  which  is  like 
a  fairy  tale.  Fancy  that  all  these  cos- 
tumes, this  glitter  of  materials,  this 
sparkling  of  diamonds,  this  splendor 
of  nudities,  was  displayed  daily  at  the 
marriage  of  the  great,  to  the  bold 
sounds  of  a  pagan  epithalamium. 
Think  of  the  feasts  which  the  Earl  of 
Carlisle  introduced,  where  was  served 
rirst  of  all  a  table  loaded  with  sumptu- 
ous viands,  as  high  as  a  man  could 
reach,  in  order  to  remove  it  presently, 
and  replace  it  by  another  similar  table. 
This  prodigality  of  magnificence,  these 
costly  follies,  this  unbridling  of  the 
imagination,  this  intoxication  of  eye 
and  ear,  this  comedy  played  by  the 
lords  of  the  realm,  showed,  like  the 
pictures  of  Rubens,  Jordaens,  and 
th^.ir  Flemish  contemporaries,  so  open 
an  appeal  to  the  senses,  so  complete  a 
return  to  nature,  that  our  chilled  and 
g' oomy  age  is  scarcely  able  to  imagine 
it  t 

III. 

To  vent  the  feelings,  to  satisfy  the 
heart  and  eyes,  to  set  free  boldly  on 
all  the  roads  of  existence  the  pack  of 
appetites  and  instincts,  this  was  the 

*  Ben  Jonson's  works,  ed.  Gifford,  1816,  9 
vols.  Masque  of  Hymen,  vol.  vii.  76. 

t  Certain  private  letters  also  describe  the 
court  of  Elizabeth  as  a  place  where  there  was 
little  piety  or  practice  of  relig'.on,  and  where  all 
enormities  reigned  in  the  higl  est  degree. 


craving  which  the  manners  of  the  time 
betrayed.  It  was  "merry  England," 
as  they  called  it  then.  It  was  not  yet 
stern  and  constrained.  It  expanded 
widely,  freely,  and  rejoiced  to  find  it- 
self so  expanded.  No  longer  at  court 
only  was  the  drama  found,  but  in  the 
village.  Strolling  companies  betook 
themselves  thither,  and  the  country 
folk  supplied  any  deficit  nci?sf  when 
necessary.  Shakspeare  saw,  before 
he  depicted  them,  stupid  fellows,  car- 
penters, joiners,  bellows-menders,  play 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  -represent  the 
lion  roaring  as  gently  as  any  sucking 
dove,  and  the  wall,  by  stretching  out 
their  hands.  Every  holiday  was  a 
pageant,  in  which  townspeople,  work- 
men, and  children  bore  their  parts. 
They  were  actors  by  nature.  When 
the  soul  is  full  and  fresh,  it  does  not 
express  its  ideas  by  reasonings ;  it 
plays  and  figures  them  ;  it  mimics 
them ;  that  is  the  true  and  original  lan- 
guage, the  children's  tongue,  the  spee,:h 
of  artists,  of  invention,  and  of  joy.  It 
is  in  this  manner  they  please  them- 
selves with  songs  and  feasting,  on  all 
the  symbolic  holidays  with  whioh  tra- 
dition has  filled  the  year.*  On  the 
Sunday  after  Twelfth-night  the  labor- 
ers parade  the  streets,  with  their 
shirts  over  their  coats,  decked  with 
ribbons,  dragging  a  plough  to  the 
sound  of  music,  and  dancing  a  sword- 
dance  ;  on  another  day  they  draw  in  a 
cart  a  figure  made  of  ears  of  corn,  with 
songs,  flutes,  and  drums  ;  on  another, 
Father  Christmas  and  his  company  ; 
or  else  they  enact  the  history  of  Robin 
Hood,  the  bold  archer,  around  the 
May-pole,  or  the  legend  of  Saint 
George  and  the  Dragon.  We  might 
occupy  half  a  volume  in  describing  all 
these  holidays,  such  as  Harvest  Home, 
All  Saints,  Martinmas,  Sheepshearing, 
above  all  Christmas,  which  lasted 
twelve  days,  and  sometimes  six  weeks. 
They  eat  and  drink,  junket,  tumble 
about,  kiss  the  girls,  ring  the  bells, 
satiate  themselves  with  noise  :  coarse 
drunken  revels,  in  which  man  is  an  un- 
bridled animal,  and  which  are  the 
incarnation  of  natural  life.  The  Puri« 
tans  made  no  mistake  about  that, 
Stubbes  says  : 

*  Nathan  Drake,  Shakspeare  and  his  Times\ 
chap.  v.  and  vi. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


"  First,  all  the  wilde  heades  of  the  parishe 
converitying  together,  chuse  them  a  groum 
capitaine  of  mischeef,  whan  they  innoble  wit! 


the  title  of  my  Lorde  of  Misserule,  and  hy 


iue    line    ui   my  juuiuc   ui    ivjubberuu:,  ciuu    nyi 

they  crown  with  great  solemnitie,  and  adopt  Id 


jurueiy  uiaiesuc.  ...  j.iieii  nave  iney  uieir 
hobbie  horses,  dragons,  and  other  antiques,  to- 
gether with  their  baudie  pipers  and  thunderyng 
drommers,  to  strike  up  the  devilles  daunce 
withall :  then  marche  these  heathen  companie 
towardes  the  churche  and  churche-yarde,  thei~ 
pipers  pipyng,  their  drommers  thonderyng 
their  stumppes  dauncyng,  their  belles  rynglyng 
their  handkerchefes  swyngyng  about  thei 
heades  like  madmen,  their  hobbie  horses  and 
othe-;  ironsters  skirmishyng  amongest  the 
throng;  «tnd  in  this  sorte  they  goe  to  the  churche 
(though  the  minister  bee  at  praier  or  preachyng), 
dauncyng,  and  swingyng  their  handkercheefes 
over  their  heades,  in  the  churche,  like  devilles 
incarnate,  with  such  a  confused  noise,  that  no 
man  can  heare  his  owne  voice.  Then  the  fool- 
ishc  people  they  looke,  they  stare,  they  laugh, 
they  fleere,  and  mount  upon  formes  and  pewes, 
to  see  these  goodly  pageauntes,  solemnized  in 
this  sort.  Then  after  this,  aboute  the  churche 
they  goe  againe  and  againe,  and  so  forthe  into 
the  churche-yarde,  where  they  have  commonly 
their  sommer  haules,  their  bowers,  arbours, 
and  banquettyng  houses  set  up,  wherein  they 
feaste,  banquet,  and  daunce  all  that  daie,  and 
peradventure  all  that  night  too.  And  thus 
these  terrestriall  furies  spend  the  Sabbaoth 
daie  !  ...  An  other  sorte  of  fantastical!  fooles 
bringe  to  these  helhoundes  (the  Lorde  of  Mis- 
rule and  his  complices)  some  bread,  some  good 
ale,  some  newe  cheese,  some  olde  cheese,  some 
custardes,  some  cakes,  some  flaunes,  some 
tartes,  some  creame,  some  meate,  some  one 
thing,  some  an  other." 

He  continues  thus  : 

_ "  Against  Maie,  every  parishe,  towne  and 
village  assemble  themselves  together,  bothe 
men,  women,  and  children,  olde  and  yong,  even 
all  indifferently  ;  they  goe  to  the  woodes  where 
they  spende  all  the  night  in  pleasant  pastymes, 
and  in  the  momyng  they  returne,  bringing  with 
them  birch,  bowes,  and  branches  of  trees,  to 
deck  their  assemblies  withall.  But  their  cheef- 
est  iewell  they  bringe  from  thence  is  their  Maie 
poole,  whiche  they  bring  home  with  great  ven- 
eration, as  thus :  They  have  twenty  or  fourtie 
yoke  of  oxen,  every  ox  havyng  a  sweete  nose- 
gaie  of  flowers  tyed  on  the  tippe  of  his  homes, 
and  these  oxen,  drawe  home  this  Maie  poole 
(this  stinckyng  idoll  rather)  .  .  .  and  thus  be- 
yng  i  ^ared  up,  they  strawe  the  grounde  aboute, 
oinde  greene  boughes  about  it,  sett  up  sommer 
haules,  bowers,  and  arbours  hard  by  it ;  and 
then  fall  they  to  banquet  and  feast,  to  leape 
and  daunce  aboute  it,  as  the  heathen  people  did 
at  the  dedication  of  their  idolles.  ...  Of  a 
hundred  maides  goyng  to  the  woode  over  night, 
there  have  scarcely  the  third  parte  returned 
nome  againe  undefiled."  * 


*  Stubbes    Anatomic  of  Abuses,  p.  168  et 
passim . 


"  On  Shrove  Tuesday,"  says  another,* 
"  at  the  sound  of  a  bell,  the  folk  be- 
come insane,  thousands  at  a  time,  and 
forget  all  decency  and  common  sense. 
...  It  is  to  Satan  and  the  devil  that 
they  pay  homage  and  do  sacrifice  to  in 
these  abominable  pleasures."  It  is  in 
fact  to  nature,  to  the  ancient  Pan,  to 
Freya,  to  Hertha,  her  sisters,  to  the 
old  Teutonic  deities  who  survived  the 
middle  age.  At  this  period,  in  the 
temporary  decay  of  Christianity,  and 
the  sudden  advance  of  corporal  well- 
being,  man  adored  himself,  and  there 
endured  no  life  within  him  but  that  of 
paganism. 

IV. 

To  sum  up,  observe  the  process  of 
ideas  at  this  time.  A  few  sectarians, 
chiefly  in  the  towns  and  of  the  people, 
clung  gloomily  to  the  Bible.  But  the 
court  and  the  men  of  the  world  sought 
their  teachers  and  their  heroes  from 
pagan  Greece  and  Rome.  About 
1490  t  they  began  to  read  the  classics  ; 
one  after  the  other  they  translated 
them  ;  it  was  soon  the  fashion  to  read 
them  in  the  original.  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, Jane  Grey,  the  Duchess  of  Nor- 
folk, the  Countess  of  Arundel,  and 
many  other  ladies,  were  conversant 
with  Plato,  Xenophon,  and  Cicero  in 
the  original,  and  appreciated  them. 
Gradually,  by  an  insensible  change, 
men  were  raised  to  the  level  of  the 
;reat  and  healthy  minds  who  had  free- 
ly handled  ideas  of  all  kinds  fifteen 
centuries  before.  They  comprehend- 
ed not  only  their  language,  but  their 
thought ;  they  did  not  repeat  lessons 
from,  but  held  conversations  with  them ; 
they  were  their  equals,  and  found  in 
them  intellects  as  manly  as  their  own. 
For  they  were  not  scholastic  cavillers, 
miserable  compilers,  repulsive  pedants, 
"ike  the  professors  of  jargon  whom  the 
middle  age  had  set  over  them,  like 
;loomy  Duns  Scotus,  whose  leaves 
Henry  VIII.s'  Visitors  scattered  to 
the  winds.  They  were  gentlemen, 

*  Hentzner's  Travels  in  /i«£v«z«</(Bentley's 
:rans!ation).  He  thought  that  the  figure  car- 
ried about  in  the  Harvest  Home  represented 
^eres. 

t  Warton,  vol.  ii.  sect.  35.  Before  1600  a*.l 
lie  great  poets  were  translated  into  English, 
and  between  1550  and  1616  all  the  great  histo- 
rians of  Greece  and  Rome.  Lyly  in  1500  first 
taught  Greek  in  public. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


statesmen,  the  most  polished  and  best 
educated  men  in  the  world,  who  knew 
how  to  speak,  and  drew  their  ideas  not 
from  books,  but  from  things,  living 
ideas,  and  which  entered  of  themselves 
into  living  souls.  Across  the  train  of 
hooded  school  men  and  sordid  cavil- 
lers the  two  adult  and  thinking  ages 
were  united,  and  the  moderns,  silencing 
the  infantine  or  snuffling  voices  of  the 
middle  age,  condescended  only  to  con- 
verse with  the  noble  ancients.  They 
accepted  their  gods,  at  least  they  un- 
derstand them,  and  keep  them  by  their 
side.  In  poems,  festivals,  on  hangings, 
almost  in  all  ceremonies,  they  appear, 
not  restored  by  pedantry  me'rely,  but 
kept  alive  by  sympathy,  and  endowed 
by  the  arts  with  a  life  as  flourishing 
and  almost  as  profound  as  that  of  their 
earliest  birth.  After  the  terrible  night 
of  the  middle  age,  and  the  dolorous 
legends  of  spirits  and  the  damned,  it 
was  a  delight  to  see  again  Olympus 
shining  upon  us  from  Greece  ;  its  heroic 
and  beautiful  deities  once  more  ravish- 
ing the  heart  of  men  ;  they  raised  and 
instructed  this  young  world  by  speak- 
ing to  it  the  language  of  passion  and 
genius ;  and  this  age  of  strong  deeds, 
free  sensuality,  bold  invention,  had 
only  to  follow  its  own  bent,  in  order  to 
discover  in  them  its  masters  and  the 
eternal  promoters  of  liberty  and  beauty. 
Nearer  still  was  another  paganism, 
that  of  Italy ;  the  more  seductive  be- 
cause more  modern,  and  because  it 
circulates  fresh  sap  in  an  ancient 
stock  ;  the  more  attractive,  because 
more  sensuous  and  present,  with  its 
worship  of  force  and  genius,  of  pleas- 
ure and  voluptuousness.  The  rigorists 
knew  this  well,  and  were  shocked  at  it. 
Ascnam  writes : 

"  These  bee  the  inchantementes  of  Circes, 
brought  out  of  Italic  to  marre  mens  maners  in 
England  ;  much,  by  example  of  ill  life,  but 
Hore  by  preceptes  of  fonde  bookes,  of  late 
frans'.ated  out  of  Italian  into  English,  sold  in 
every  shop  in  London-  .  .  .  There  bee  moe  of 
these  ungratious  bookes  set  out  in  Printe 
wythin  these  fewe  monethes,  than  have  bene 
sene  in  England  many  score  yeares  before.  .  .  . 
Than  they  have  in  more  revererce  the  triuinphes 
of  Petrarche :  than  the  Genesis  of  Moses : 
They  make  more  account  of  TulHes  offices, 
than  S.  Paules  epistles:  of  a  tale  in  Bocace 
than  a  storie  of  the  Bible."  * 

*  Ascham,  The  Scholemaster  (1570),  ed.  Ar- 
ber,  1870,  first  book,  78  et  passim. 


In  fact,  at  that  time  Italy  clearly  led  in 
every  thing,  and  civilization  was  to  be 
drawn  thence,  as  from  its  spring. 
What  is  this  civilization  which  is  thus 
imposed  on  the  whole  of  Europe, 
whence  every  science  and  every  ele- 
gance comes,  whose  laws  are  obeyed 
in  every  court,  in  which  Surrey,  Sid- 
ney, Spenser,  Shakspeare  sought 
their  models  and  materials  ?  It  was 
pagan  in  its  elements  and  its  birth  ;  in 
its  language,  which  is  but  Latin,  hardly 
changed  ;  in  its  Latin  traditions  and 
recollections,  which  no  gap  has  inter- 
rupted ;  in  its  constitution,  whose  old 
municipal  life  first  led  and  absorbed 
the  feudal  life ;  in  the  genius  of  its 
race,  in  which  energy  and  joy  always 
abounded.  More  than  a  century  be- 
fore other  nations, — from  the  time  of 
Petrarch,  Rienzi,  Boccaccio, — the  Ital- 
ians began  to  recover  the  lost  antiquity, 
to  set  free  the  manuscripts  buried  in 
the  dungeons  of  France  and  Germany, 
to  restore,  interpret,  comment  upon, 
study  the  ancients,  to  make  themselves 
Latin  in  heart  and  mind,  to  compose 
in  prose  and  verse  with  the  polish  of 
Cicero  and  Virgil,  to  hold  sprightly 
converse  and  intellectual  pleasures  as 
the  ornament  and  the  fairest  flower  of 
life.*  They  adopt  not  merely  the  ex- 
ternals of  the  life  of  the  ancients,  but 
its  very  essence,  that  is,  preoccupation 
with  the  present  life,  forgetfulness  of 
the  future,  the  appeal  to  the  senses, 
the  renunciation  of  Christianity.  "We 
must  enjoy,"  sang  their  first  poet,  Lo- 
renzo de  Medici,  in  his  pastorals  and 
triumphal  songs ;  "  there  is  no  certain- 
ty of  to-morrow."  In  Pulci  the  mock- 
ing incredulity  breaks  out,  the  bold  and 
sensual  gayety,  all  the  audacity  of  the 
free-thinkers,  who  kicked  aside  in  dis- 
gust the  worn-out  monkish  frock  of  the 
middle  age.  It  was  he  who,  in  a  jest- 
ing poem,  puts  at  the  beginning  of  each 
canto  a  Hosanna,  an  In  principio,  or  a 
sacred  text  from  the  mass-book,  t 

*  Ma  il  vero  e  principal  ornemento  dell' 
aninio  in  ciascuro  penso  io  che  siano  le  leltere, 
bei.che  i  Franchesi  solamerite  conoscano  la 
nobiiita  dell'arme  .  .  .  et  tutti  i  litterati  tengon 
per  vilissimi  huomini.  Castiglione,  il  Corte- 
giano,  ed.  1585,  p.  112. 

t  See  Bufchard  (the  Pope's  Steward),  ac- 
count of  the  festival  at  which  Lucretia  Borgia 
was  present.  Letters  of  Aretinus,  Life  of  Cel* 
lini,  etc. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


When  he  had  been  inquiring  what  the 
soul  was,  and  how  it  entered  the  body, 
he  compared  it  to  jam  covered  up  in 
white  bread  quite  hot.  What  would 
become  of  it  in  the  other  world  ? 
"  Some  people  think  they  will  there 
discover  becafico's,  plucked  ortolans, 
excellent  wine,  good  beds,  and  there- 
fore they  follow  the  monks,  walking 
behind  them.  As  for  us,  dear  friend, 
we  shall  go  into  the  black  valley, 
where  we  shall  hear  no  more  Alle- 
luias." If  you  wish  for  a  more  serious 
thinker,  listen  to  the  great  patriot,  the 
Thucydides  of  the  age,  Machiavelli, 
who.  contras  ing  Christianity  and  pa- 
ganism, says  that  the  first  places  "  su- 
preme happiness  in  humility,  abjection, 
contempt  for  human  things,  while  the 
other  makes  the  sovereign  good  con- 
sist in  greatness  of  soul,  force  of  body, 
and  all  the  qualities  which  make  men 
to  be  feared."  ^Vhereon  he  boldly 
concludes  that  Christianity  teaches 
man  "  to  support  evils,  and  not  to  do 
great  deeds ; "  he  discovers  in  that 
inner  weakness  the  cause  of  all  oppres- 
sions ;  declares  that  "  the  wicked  saw 
that  they  could  tyrannize  without  fear 
over  men,  who,  in  order  to  get  to  para- 
dise, were  more  disposed  to  suffer  than 
to  avenge  injuries."  Through  such 
sayings,  in  spite  of  his  constrained 
genuflexions,  we  can  see  which  reli- 
gion he  prefers.  The  ideal  to  which  all 
efforts  were  turning,  on  which  all 
thoughts  depended,  and  which  com- 
pletely raised  this  civilization,  was  the 
strong  and  happy  man,  possessing  all 
the  powers  to  accomplish  his  wishes, 
and  disposed  to  use  them  in  pursuit  of 
his  happiness. 

If  you  would  see  this  idea  in  its 
grandest  operation,  you  must  seek  it 
in  the  arts,  such  as  Italy  made  them 
and  carried  throughout  Europe,  raising 
or  transforming  the  national  schools 
with  such  originality  and  vigor,  that 
all  art  likely  to  survive  is  derived  from 
hence,  and  the  population  of  living  fig- 
ures with  which  they  have  covered  our 
walls,  denotes,  like  Gothic  architecture 
or  French  tragedy,a  unique  epoch  of  hu- 
man intelligence.  The  attenuated  me- 
diaeval Christ — a  miserable,  distorted, 
and  bleeding  earth-worm ;  the  pale  and 
ugly  Virgin — a  poor  old  peasant  wo- 
man, fainting  beside  the  cross  of  her 


Son ;  ghastly  martyr i,  dried  up  with 
fasts,  with  entranced  eyes  ;  knotty-fin- 
gered saints  with  sunken  chests, — all 
the  touching  or  lamentable  visions  of 
the  middle  age  have  vanished :  the 
train  of  godheads  which  are  now  devel- 
oped show  nothing  but  flourishing 
frames,  noble,  regular  features,  and 
fine  easy  gestures ;  the  names,  the 
names  only,  are  Christian.  The  new 
Jesus  is  a  "crucified  Jupiter,"  as  Pulci 
called  him  ;  the  Virgins  which  Raphael 
sketched  naked,  before  covering  them 
with  garments,*  are  beautiful  girls, 
quite  earthly,  related  to  the  Fornarina. 
The  saints  which  Michel  Angelo  ar- 
ranges and  contorts  in  heaven  in  hi» 
picture  of  the  Last  Judgment  are  an 
assembly  of  athletes,  capable  of  fight- 
ing well  and  daring  much.  A  martyr- 
dom, like  that  of  Saint  Laurence,  is  a 
fine  ceremony  in  which  a  beautiful 
young  man,  without  clothing,  lies 
amidst  fifty  men  dressed  and  grouped 
as  in  an  ancient  gymnasium.  Is  thera 
one  of  them  who  had  macerated  him- 
self ?  Is  there  one  who  had  thought 
with  anguish  and  tears  of  the  judgment 
of  God,  who  had  worn  down  and  sub- 
dued his  flesh,  who  had  filled  his  heart 
with  the  sadness  and  sweetness  of  the 
gospel  ?  They  are  too  vigorous  for  that, 
they  are  in  too  robust  health;  their 
clothes  fit  them  too  well ;  they  are  too 
ready  for  prompt  and  energetic  action. 
We  might  make  of  them  strong  sol- 
diers or  superb  courtesans,  admirable 
in  a  pageant  or  at  a  ball.  So,  all  that 
the  spectator  accords  to  their  halo  of 
glory,  is  a  bow  or  a  sign  of  the  cross  ; 
after  which  his  eyes  find  pleasure  in 
them  ;  they  are  there  simply  for  the 
enjoyment  of  the  eyes.  What  the 
spectator  feels  at  the  sight  of  a  Flor- 
entine Madonna,  is  the  splendid  crea- 
ture>  whose  powerful  body  and  fine 
growth  bespeak  her  race  and  her 
vigor ;  the  artist  did  not  paint  moral 
expression  as  nowadays,  the  depth  of 
a  soul  tortured  and  refined  by  three 
centuries  of  culture.  They  confine 
themselves  to  the  body,  to  the  extent 
even  of  speaking  enthusiastically  of 
the  spinal  column  itself,  "which  is 

*  See  his  sketches  at  Oxford,  and  those  ol 
Fra  Bartolomeo  at  Florence.  See  also  the 
Martyrdom  of  St.  Laurence,  by  Baccio  Bandi- 
nelli. 


n6 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK   II 


us,  with  the  body's  life  ;  the  one  is  not 
so  lowered  and  degraded,  that  we  dare 


magnificent  of  the  shoulder-blades, 
which  in  the  movements  of  the  arm 
•"  produce  an  admirable  effect."  "  You 
will  next  draw  the  bone  which  is  situ- 
ated between  the  hips.  It  is  very  fine, 
and  is  called  the  sacrum."  *  The  im- 
portant point  with  them  is  to  represent 
the  nude  well.  Beauty  with  them  is 
that  of  the  complete  skeleton,  sinews 
which  are  linked  together  and  tight- 
ened, the  thighs  which  support  the 
trunk,  the  strong  chest  breathing  freely, 
the  pliant  neck.  What  a  pleasure  to 
be  naked  !  How  good  it  is  in  the  full 
light  to  rejoice  in  a  strong  body,  well- 
formed  muscles,  a  spirited  and  bold 
soul  1  The  splendid  goddesses  reap- 
pear in  their  primitive  nudity,  not 
dreaming  that  they  are  nude  ;  you  see 
from  the  tranquillity  of  their  look,  the 
simplicity  of  their  expression,  that  they 
have  always  been  thus,  and  that  shame 
has  not  yet  reached  them.  The  soul's 
life  is  not  here  contrasted,  as  amongst 

body's  l 
and  degr 

not  show  its  actions  and  functions; 
they  do  not  hide  them  ;  man  does  not 
dream  of  being  all  spirit.  They  rise, 
as  of  old,  from  the  luminous  sea,  with 
their  rearing  steeds  tossing  up  their 
manes,  champing  the  bit,  inhaling  the 
briny  savor,  whilst  their  companions 
wind  the  sounding-shell  ;  and  the  spec- 
tators,! accustomed  to  handle  the 
sword,  to  combat  naked  with  the  dag- 
ger or  double-handled  blade,  to  ride 
on  perilous  roads,  sympathize  with  the 
proud  shape  of  the  bended  back,  the 
effort  of  the  arm  about  to  strike,  the 
long  quiver  of  the  muscles,  which,  from 
neck  to  heel,  swell  out,  to  brace  a 
man,  or  to  throw  him. 

*  Benvenuto  Cellini,  Principles  of  the  A  rt 
of  Design. 

t  Life  of  Cellini.  Compare  also  these  exer- 
cises which  Castiglione  prescribes  for  a  well- 
educated  man,  in  his  Cortegiano,  ed.  1585,  p. 
55  :  —  "  Pero  yoglio  che  il  nostro  cortegiano  sia 
.perfetto  cavaliere  cl'ogni  sella.  .  .  .  Et  perche 
degii  Italian!  e  peculiar  laude  il  cavalcare  bene 
alia  brida,  il  maneggiar  con  raggione  massima- 
mente  cavalli  aspri,  il  corre  lance,  il  giostare, 
sia  in  questo  de  maglior  Italiani.  .  .  .  Nel  tor- 
neare.  tener  un  passo,  combattere  una  sbarra, 
sia  buono  tra  il  migiiur  francesi.  .  .  •  Nel  gio- 
2are  a  carme,  correr  torri,  lanciar  haste  e  dardi, 
sia  tra  Sf  agnuoli  eccellente.  .  .  .  Conveniente 
k  ancor  sapere  saltare,  e  cprrere  ;  .  .  .  .  ancor 
nobile  exercitio  il  gioco  di  palla.  .  .  .  Non  di 
minor  laude  estimo  il  voltegiar  a  cavallo.' 


§  2.  POETRY. 

I. 

Transplanted  into  different  races 
and  climates,  this  paganism  receives 
from  each,  distinct  features  and  a  dis- 
tinct character.  In  England  it  be- 
comes English  ;  the  English  Renais- 
sance is  the  Renaissance  of  the  Saxon 
genius.  Invention  recommences  ;  and 
to  invent  is  to  express  one's  genius. 
A  Latin  race  can  only  invent  by  ex- 
pressing Latin  ideas  ;  a  Saxon  lace  by 
expressing  Saxon  ideas  ;  and  we  shall 
find  in  the  new  civilization  and  poetry, 
descendants  of  Caedmon  and  Adhelm, 
of  Piers  Plowman,  and  Robin  Hood. 

II. 
Old  Puttenham  says : 

"  In  the  latter  end  of  the  same  king  CHenry 
the  eighth)  reigne.  sprong  up  a  new  company  of 
court' y  makers,  or  whom  Sir  Thomas  Wyat  th* 
elder  and  Henry  Earle  of  Surrey  were  the  two 
chieftaines,  who  having  travailed  into  Italic, 
and  there  tasted  the  sweete  and  stately  measures 
and  stile  of  the  Italian  Poesie,  as  novices  newly 
crept  out  of  the  schooles  of  Dante,  Arioste,  and 
Petrarch,  they  greatly  pollished  our  rude  and 
homely  maner  of  vulgar  Poesie,  from  that  it 
had  bene  before,  and  for  that  cause  may  justly 
be  sayd  the  first  reformers  of  our  English 
meetre  and  stile."  * 

Not  that  their  style  was  very  original, 
or  openly  exhibits  the  new  spirit :  the 
middle  age  is  nearly  ended,  but  not 
quite.  By  their  side  Andrew  Borde, 
John  Bale,  John  Heywood,  Skelton 
himself,  repeat  the  platitudes  of  the 
old  poetry  and  the  coarseness  of  the 
old  style.  Their  manners,  hardly  re- 
fined, were  still  half  feudal ;  on  the 
field,  before  Landrecies,  the  English 
commander  wrote  a  friendly  letter  to 
the  French  governor  of  Terouanne,  to 
ask  him  "  if  he  had  not  some  gentlemen 
disposed  to  break  a  lance  in  honor  of 
the  ladies,"  and  promised  to  send  six 
champions  to  meet  them.  Parades, 
combats,  wounds,  challenges,  love, 
appeals  to  the  judgment  of  God,  pen- 
ances,— all  these  are  found  in  the  life 
of  Surrey  as  in  a  chivalric  romance. 
A  great  lord,  an  earl,  a  relative  of  Jie 
king,  who  had  figured  in  processions 
and  ceremonies,  had  made  war,  com- 
manded fortresses,  ravaged  countries, 

*  Puttenham,  The  Arte  of  English  Poesie 
ed.  Arber,  1869,  book  i.  ch.  3 1,  p.  74. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


117 


mounted  to  the  assault,  fallen  in  tl 
breach,  had  been  saved  by  his  servant 
magnificent,  sumptuous,  irritable,  am 
bitious,  four  times  imprisoned,  finall^ 
beheaded.  At  the  coronation  of  Anne 
ISoleyn  he  wore  the  fourth  sword ;  a 
the  marriage  of  Anne  of  Cleves  he  wai 
one  of  the  challengers  at  the  jousts 
Denounced  and  placed  in  durance,  he 
offered  to  fight  in  his  shirt  against  an 
armed  adversary.  Another  time  he  was 
put  in  prison  for  having  eaten  flesh  in 
'Lent.  No  wonder  if  this  prolongation 
of  chivalric  manners  brought  with  it  a 
prolongation  of  chivalric  poetry  ;  if  in 
an  age  which  had  known  Petrarch, 
poets  displayed  the  sentiments  ot 
Petrarch.  Lord  Berners,  Sackville, 
Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  and  Surrey,  in  the 
first  rank,  were  like  Petrarch  plaintive 
and  platonic  lovers.  It  was  pure  love 
to  which  Surrey  gave  expression  ;  for 
his  lady,  the  beautiful  Geraldine,  like 
Beatrice  and  Laura,  was  an  ideal  per- 
sonage, and  a  child  of  thirteen  years. 

And  yet,  amid  this  languor  of  mys- 
tical tradition,  a  personal  feeling  had 
sway.  In  this  spirit  which  imitated, 
and  that  badly  at  times,  which  still 
groped  for  an  outlet,  and  now  and  then 
admitted  into  its  polished  stanzas  the 
old,  simple  expressions  and  stale  meta- 
phors of  heralds  of  arms  and  trouveres, 
there  was  already  visible  the  Northern 
melancholy,  the  inner  and  gloomy  emo- 
tion. This  feature,  which  presently, 
at  the  finest  moment  of  its  richest 
blossom,  in  the  splendid  expansiveness 
of  natural  life,  spreads  a  sombre  tint 
over  the  poetry  of  Sidney,  Spenser, 
Shakspeare,  already  in  the  first  poet 
separates  this  pagan  yet  Teutonic  world 
from  the  other,  wholly  voluptuous, 
which  in  Italy,  with  lively  and  refined 
irony,  had  no  taste,  except  for  art  and 
pleasure.  Surrey  translated  the  Eccle- 
siastes  into  verse.  Is  it  not  singular, 
at  this  early  hour,  in  this  rising  dawn, 
to  f  nd  such  a  book  in  his  hand  ?  A 
disenchantment,  a  sad  or  bitter  dreami- 
ness, an  innate  consciousness  of  the 
vanity  of  human  things,  are  never 
lacking  in  this  country  and  in  this  race  ; 
the  inhabitants  support  life  with  diffi- 
culty, and  know  how  to  speak  of  death. 
Surrey's  finest  verses  bear  witness 
thus  soon  to  his  serious  bent,  this  in- 
stinctive and  grave  philosophy.  He  , 


records  his  griefs,  regretting  his  beloved 
Wyatt,  his  friend  Clere,  his  companion, 
the  young  Duke  of  Richmond,  all  dead 
in  their  prime.  Alone,  a  prisoner  at 
Windsor,  he  recalls  the  happy  days 
they  have  passed  together  : 

"  So  cruel  prison  how  could  betide,  alas, 

As  proud  Windsor,  where  I  in  lust  and  joy, 
With  a  Kinges  son,  my  childish  years  did 

pass, 
In  greater  feast  than  Priam's  son  of  Troy. 

Where  each  sweet  place  returns  a  taste  full 

sour, 
The    large  green  courts,   wh-re  we  were 

wont  to  hove, 

With  eyes  cast  up  into  the  Maiden's  tower, 
And  easy  sighs,  such  as  folk  draw  in  love. 

The  stately  seats,  the  ladies  bright  of  hue, 
The  dances  short,  long  tales  of  great  de- 

light, 
With  words  and  looks,  that  tigers  could  but 

rue  ; 
Where  each  of  us  did  plead  the  other's  right. 

The  palme-play,  where,  despoiled  for  the 

game, 

With  dazed  eyes  oft  we  by  gleams  of  love 
Have  miss'd  the  ball,  and    got  sight  of  our 

dame, 

To   bait  her  eyes,  which  kept  the  leads 
above.  .  .  . 

The   secret    thoughts,   imparted  with    such 

trust  ; 
The  wanton  talk,   the    divers    change  of 

play  ; 
The  friendship  sworn,  each  promise  kept  so 

just, 
Wherewith  we  past  the  winter  night  away. 

And  with  his  thought  the  blood  forsakes  the 

face  | 
The   tears  berain   my  cheeks    of    deadly 

hue  : 

The  which,  as  soon  as  sobbing  sighs,  alas ! 
Up-supped  have,  thus  I  my  plaint  renew  : 

O  place  of  bliss !  renewer  of  my  woes ! 

Give  me  account,  where  is  my  noble  fere  ? 
Whom  in  thy  walls  thou  dost  each  night  en- 
close ; 

To  other  lief  ;  but  unto  me  most  dear. 

Echo,  alas  !  that  doth  my  sorrow  rue, 
Returns  thereto  a  hollow  sound  of  plaint."* 

So  in  love,  it  is  the  sinking  of  a  weary 
ioul,  to  which  he  gives  vent : 

'  For  all  things    having   life,  sometime  hath 

quiet  rest ; 
The  bearing  ass,  the  drawing  ox,  and  every 

other  beast ; 
The  peasant,  and  the  post,  that  serves  at  all 

assays  ; 
The  ship-boy,  and  the  galley-slave,  have  time 

to  take  their  ease  ; 
Save  I,  alas !  whom  care   of  force  doth  so 

constrain, 


*  Surrey's  Poems,  Pickering,  1831,  p.  17. 


n8 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


To  wail  the  day,  and  wake  the  night,  continu- 
ally in  pain, 

From  pensiveness  to  plaint,  from  plaint  to 
bitter  tears, 

From  tears  to  painful  plaint  again  }  and  thus 
my  life  it  wears."  * 

That  which  brings  joy  to  others  brings 
him  grief : 

"  The  soote  season,  that  bud  and  bloom  forth 

brings, 
With  green  hath  clad  the  hill,  and  eke  the 

vale. 

The  nightingale  with  feathers  new  she  sings  ; 
The  turtle  to  her  mate  hath  told  her  tale. 
Summer    is    come,   for    every    spray   now 

springs  ; 

The  hart  has  hung  his  old  head  on  the  pale  ; 
The  buck  in  brake  his  winter  coat  he  flings  ; 
The  fishes  flete  with  new  repaired  scale  ; 
The  adder  all  her  slough  away  she  slings  ; 
The  swift  swallow  pursueth  the  flies  smale  ; 
The  busy  bee  her  honey  now  she  mings  ; 
Winter  is  worn  that  was  the  flowers'  bale. 
And  thus  I  see  among  these  pleasant  things 
Each     care     decays,    and    yet    my    sorrow 

springs  !  "  t 

For  all  that,  he  will  love  on  to  his  last 
sigh. 

**  Yea,  rather  die  a  thousand  times,  than  once 

to  false  my  faith  ; 
And  if  my  feeble  corpse,  through  weight  of 

wpful  smart 
Do  fail,  or  faint,  my  will  it  is  that  still  she 

keep  my  heart. 
And  when  tiiis  carcass  here  to  earth  shall  be 

refar'd, 
I  do  bequeath  my  wearied  ghost  to  serve  her 

afterward."  % 

An  infinite  love,  and  pure  as  Pe- 
trarch's ;  and  she  is  worthy  of  it.  In 
the  midst  of  all  these  studied  or  imi- 
tated verses,  an  admirable  portrait 
stands  out,  the  simplest  and  truest  we 
can  imagine,  a  work  of  the  heart  now, 
and  not  of  the  memory,  which  behind 
the  Madonna  of  chivalry  shows  the 
English  wife,  and  beyond  feudal  gal- 
lantry domestic  bliss.  Surrey  alone, 
restless,  hears  within  him  the  firm 
tones  of  a  good  friend,  a  sincere  coun- 
sellor, Hope,  who  speaks  to  him  thus  : 

**  For  I  assure  thee,  even  by  oath, 
And  thereon  take  my  hand  and  troth, 
That  she  is  one  the  worthiest, 
The  truest,  and  the  faithfullest ; 
The  gentlest  and  the  meekest  of  mind 
That  here  on  earth  a  man  may  find : 


*  Surrey's  Poems.  "  The  faithful  lover  de- 
clare th  his  pains  and  his  uncertain  joys,  and  with 
Dnly  hope  recomforteth  his  woful  heart,"  p.  53. 

t  Ibid.  tl  Descr  pticgi  of  Spring,  wherein 
every  thing  renews1  sav*  only  the  lover,"  p.  3. 

t  Ibid.  p.  56. 


And  if  that  love  and  truth  were  gone, 
In  her  it  might  be  found  alone. 
For  in  her  mind  no  thought  there  is, 
But  how  she  may  be  true,  I  wis  ; 
And  tenders  thee  and  all  thy  heale, 
And  wishes  both  thy  health  and  weal ; 
And  loves  thee  even  as  far  forth  than 
As  any  woman  may  a  man  ; 
And  is  thine  own,  and  so  she  says  ; 
And  cares  for  thee  ten  thousand  ways. 
Of  thee  she  speaks,  on  thee  she  thinks  ; 
With  thee  she  eats,  with  thee  she  drinks ; 
With  thee  she  talks,  with  thee  she  moans  ; 
With  thee  she  sighs,  with  thee  she  groans ; 
With  thee  she  says  '  Farewell  mine  own  1  * 
When  thou,  God  knows,  full  far  art  gone. 
And  even,  to  tell  thee  all  aright, 
To  thee  she  says  full  oft  '  Good  night !  ' 
And  names  thee  oft  her  own  most  dear, 
Her  comfort,  weal,  and  all  her  cheer ; 
And  tells  her  pillow  all  the  tale 
How  thou  hast  done  her  woe  and  bale  ; 
And  how  she  longs,  and  plains  for  thee, 
And  says,  '  Why  art  thou  so  from  me  ?' 
Am  I  not  she  that  loves  thee  best ! 
Do  I  not  wish  thine  ease  and  rest  ? 
Seek  I  not  how  I  may  thee  please  ? 
Why  art  thou  then  so  from  thine  ease? 
If  I  be  she  for  whom  thou  carest, 
For  whom  in  torments  so  thou  farest, 
Alas  !  thou  knowest  to  find  me  here, 
Where  I  remain  thine  own  most  dear. 
Thine  own  most  true,  thine  own  most  just, 
Thine  own  that  loves  thee  still,  and  must ; 
Thine  own  that  cares  aione  for  thee, 
As  thou,  I  think,  dost  care  for  me  ; 
And  even  the  woman,  she  alone, 
That  is  full  bent  to  be  thine  own."  * 

Certainly  it  is  of  his  wife  t  that  he  is 
thinking  here,  not  of  an  imaginary 
Laura.  The  poetic  dream  of  Petrarch 
has  become  the  exact  picture  of  deep 
and  perfect  conjugal  affection,  such  as 
yet  survives  in  England  ;  such  as  all 
the  poets,  from  the  authoress  of  the 
Nut-brown  Maid  to  Dickens,  \  have 
never  failed  to  represent. 

III. 

An  English  Petrarch  :  no  juster  title 
could  be  given  to  Surrey,  for  it  express- 
es his  talent  as  well  as  his  dispositi  3n. 
In  fact,  like  Petrarch,  the  oldest  of  the 
humanists,  and  the  earliest  exact  wnter 
of  the  modern  tongue,  Surrey  intro- 
duces a  new  style,  the  manly  style, 
which  marks  a  great  change  of  the 

*  Ibid.  "  A  description  of  the  restless  state 
of  the  lover  when  absent  from  the  mistress  of 
his  heart,"  p.  78. 

t  In  another  piece,  ComplaintontheAbsen.ee 
of  her  Lover  being  upon  the  Sea,  he  speaks  in 
direct  terms  of  his  wife,  almost  as  affection* 
ately. 

$  Greene,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Webster, 
Shakspeare,  Ford,  Otway,  Richardson,  .De  Foe, 
Fielding,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  etc. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


mind  ;  for  this  new  form  of  writing  is 
the  result  of  superior  reflection,  which, 
governing  the  primitive  impulse,  calcu- 
lates and  selects  with  an  end  in  view. 
At  last  the  intellect  has  grown  capable 
of  self-criticism,  and  actually  criticises 
itself.  It  corrects  its  unconsidered 
works,  infantine  and  incoherent,  at 
once  incomplete  and  superabundant ;  it 
strengthens  and  binds  them  together  ; 
it  prunes  and  perfects  them  ;  it  takes 
from  them  the  master  idea,  to  set  it 
cree  and  to  show  it  clearly.  This  is 
what  Surrey  does,  and  his  education 
had  prepared  him  for  it  ;  for  he  had 
studied  Virgil  as  well  as  Petrarch,  and 
translated  two  books  of  the  sEneid, 
almost  verse  for  verse.  In  such  com- 
pany a  man  cannot  but  select  his  ideas 
and  connect  his  phrases.  After  their 
example,  Surrey  gauges  the  means  of 
striking  the  attention,  assisting  the 
intelligence,  avoiding  fatigue  and  weari- 
ness. He  looks  forward  to  the  last 
line  whilst  writing  the  first.  He  keeps 
the  strongest  word  for  the  last,  and 
shows  the  symmetry  of  ideas  by  the  sym- 
metry of  phrases.  Sometimes  he  guides 
the  intelligence  by  a  continuous  series  of 
contrasts  to  the  final  image  ;  a  kind  of 
sparkling  casket,  in  which  he  means  to 
deposit  the  idea  which  he  carries,  and 
to  which  he  directs  our  attention  from 
the  first.*  Sometimes  he  leads  his 
reader  to  the  close  of  a  long  flowery 
description,  and  then  suddenly  checks 
him  with  a  sorrowful  phrase. f  He 
arranges  his  process,  and  knows  how 
to  produce  effects ;  he  uses  even  clas- 
sical expressions,  in  which  two  subtan- 
tives,  each  supported  by  its  adjective, 
are  balanced  on  either  side  of  the  verb.  J 
He  collects  his  phrases  in  harmonious 
periods,  and  does  not  neglect  the 
delight  of  the  ears  any  more  than  of 
the  mind.  By  his  inversions  he  adds 
force  to  his  ideas,  and  weight  to  his 
argument.  He  selects  elegant  or  noble 
terms,  rejects  idle  words  and  redun- 
dant phrases.  Every  epithet  contains 
an  idea,  every  metaphor  a  sentiment. 
There  is  eloquence  in  the  regular 
development  of  his  thought ;  music  in 
the  sustained  accent  of  his  verse. 

*  The  Frailty  and  Hurtfulncss  of  Beauty. 
t  Description  of  Spring.     A   Vow  to   love 
faithfully. 
\  Complaint  of  tJie  Lover  dU  iained. 


Such  is  the  new-born  art.  Those 
who  have  ideas,  now  possess  an  instru- 
ment capable  of  expressing  them.  Like 
the  Italian  painters,  who  in  fifty  years 
had  introduced  or  discovered  all  the 
technical  tricks  of  the  brush,  English 
writers,  in  half  a  century,  introduce  or 
discover  all  the  artifices  of  language, 
period,  elevated  style,  heroic  verse, 
soon  the  grand  stanza,  so  effectually, 
that  a  little  later  the  most  perfect  versi- 
fiers, Dryden,  and  Pope  himself,  says 
Dr.  Nott,  will  add  scarce  any  thing  to 
the  rules,  invented  or  applied,  which 
were  employed  in  the  earliest  efforts.* 
Even  Surrey  is  too  near  to  these 
authors,  too  constained  in  his  models, 
not  sufficiently  free  ;  he  has  not  yet  felt 
the  fiery  blast  of  the  age ;  we  do  not 
find  in  him  a  bold  genius,  an  impas- 
sioned writer  capable  of  wide  expan- 
sion, but  a  courtier,  a  lover  of  elegance, 
who,  penetrated  by  the  beauties  of  two 
finished  literatures,  imitates  Horace 
and  the  chosen  masters  of  Italy,  cor- 
rects and  polishes  little  morsels,  aims 
at  speaking  perfectly  fine  language. 
Amongst  semi-barbarians  he  wears  a 
full  dress  becomingly.  Yet  he  does 
not  wear  it  completely  at  his  ease  :  he 
keeps  his  eyes  too  exclusively  on  his 
models,  and  does  not  venture  on  frank 
and  free  gestures.  He  is  sometimes 
as  a  school-boy,  makes  too  great  use  of 
*  hot '  and  '  cold,'  wounds  and  martyr- 
dom. Although  a  lover,  and  a  genuine 
one,  he  thinks  too  much  that  he  must 
be  so  in  Petrarch's  manner,  that  his 
phrase  must  be  balanced  and  his  image 
kept  up.  I  had  almost  said  that,  in 
his  sonnets  of  disappointed  love,  he 
thinks  less  often  of  the  strength  of 
love  than  of  the  beauty  of  his  writing. 
He  has  conceits,  ill-chosen  words  ;  he 
uses  trite  expressions ;  he  relates  how 
Nature,  having  formed  his  lady,  broke 
the  mould;  he  assigns  parts  to  Cupid 
and  Venus  ;  he  employs  the  old  ma- 
chinery of  the  troubadours  and  the  an- 
cients, like  a  clever  man  who  wishes  to 
pass  for  a  gallant,  At  first  scarce  any 
mind  dares  be  quite  itself;  when  a  new 
art  arises,  the  first  artist  listens  not  to 
his  heart,  but  to  his  masters,  and  asks 
himself  at  every  step  whether  he  be 
setting  foot  on  solid  ground,  or  wke« 
ther  he  is  not  stumbling. 

*  Surrey,  ed.  Nolt. 


120 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BooK  II 


IV. 

Insensibly  the  growth  became  com- 
plete, and  at  the  end  of  the  century 
all  was  changed.  A  new,  strange, 
overloaded  style  had  been  formed, 
destined  to  remain  in  force  until  the 
Restoration,  not  only  in  poetry,  but 
a?so  in  prose,  even  in  ceremonial  speech 
and  theological  discourse,*  so  suitable 
to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  that  we  meet 
with  it  at  the  same  time  throughout 
the  whole  of  Europe,  in  Ronsard  and 
d'Aubigne,  in  Calderon,  Gongora,  and 
Marini.  In  1580  appeared  Euphues, 
the  Anatomy  of  Wit,  by  Lyly,  which 
was  its  text-book,  its  masterpiece,  its 
caricature,  and  was  received  with 
universal  admiration. t  "  Our  nation," 
says  Edward  Blount,  "  are  in  his  debt 
for  a  new  English  which  hee  taught 
them.  All  our  ladies  were  then  his 
scollers;  and  thatbeautie  in  court  who 
could  not  parley  Euphuesme  was  as 
little  regarded  as  shee  which  now  there 
speakes  not  French."  The  ladies  knew 
the  phrases  of  Euphues  by  heart  : 
strange,  studied,  and  refined  phrases, 
enigmatical;  whose  author  seems  of 
set  purpose  to  seek  the  least  natural 
expressions  and  the  most  far-fetched, 
full  of  exaggeration  and  antithesis,  in 
which  mythological  allusions,  reminis- 
cences from  alchemy,  botanical  and 
astronomical  metaphors,  all  the  rubbish 
and  medley  of  learning,  travels,  man- 
nerism, roll  in  a  flood  of  conceits  and 
comparisons.  Do  not  judge  it  by  the 
grotesque  picture  that  Walter  Scott 
drew  of  it.  Sir  Piercie  Shafton  is  but 
a  pedant,  a  cold  and  dull  copyist; 
it  is  its  warmth  and  originality  which 
give  this  style  a  true  force  and  an  ac- 
cent of  its  own.  You  must  conceive 
it,  not  as  dead  and  inert,  such  as  we 
have  it  to-day  in  old  books,  but  spring- 
ing from  the  lips  of  ladies  and  young 
lords  in  pearl-bedecked  doublet,  quick- 
ened by  their  vibrating  voices,  their 
laughter,  the  flash  of  their  eyes,  the 
motion  of  their  hands  as  they  played 

*  The  Speaker's  address  to  Charles  II.  on 
his  restoration.  Compare  it  with  the  speech  of 
M.  de  Fontanes  under  the  Empire.  In  each 
case  it  was  the  close  of  a  literary  epoch.  Read 
for  illustration  the  speech  before  the  University 
of  Oxford,  Athena  Oxonienses,  i.  193. 

t  His  second  work,  Euphues  and  his  Eng- 
land, appeared  in  1581. 


with  the  hilt  ^f  their  swords  or  with 
their  satin  cloaks.  They  were  full  of 
life,  theii  heads  filled  to  overflowing ; 
and  they  amused  themselves,  as  our 
sensitive  and  eager  artists  do,  at  their 
ease  in  the  studio.  They  did  not 
speak  to  convince  or  be  understood, 
but  to  satisfy  their  excited  imagination, 
to  expend  their  overflowing  wit.* 
They  played  with  words,  twisted,  put 
them  out  of  shape,  enjoyed  sudden 
Views,  strong  contrasts,  which  they 
produced  one  after  another,  ever  and 
anon,  and  in  great  quantities.  They 
cast  flower  on  flower,  tinsel  on  tinsel : 
every  thing  sparkling  delighted  them  ; 
they  gilded  and  embroidered  and 
plumed  their  language  like  their  gar- 
ments. They  cared  nothing  for  clear- 
ness, order,  common  sense;  it  was  a 
festival  and  a  madness ;  absurdity 
pleased  them.  They  knew  nothing 
more  tempting  than  a  carnival  of 
splendors  and  oddities  ;  all  was  hud- 
dled together :  a  coarse  gayety,  a  ten- 
der and  sad  word,  a  pastoral,  a  sound- 
ing flourish  of  unmeasured  boasting,  a 
gambol  of  a  Jack -pudding.  Eyes,  ears, 
all  the  senses,  eager  and  excited,  are 
satisfied  by  this  jingle  of  syllables,  the 
display  of  fine  high-colored  words, 
the  unexpected  clash  of  droll  or  famil- 
iar images,  the  majestic  roll  of  well- 
poised  periods.  Every  one  had  his 
own  oaths,  his  elegances,  his  style. 
"  One  would  say/'  remarks  Heylyn, 
"  that  they  are  ashamed  of  their  mother- 
tongue,  and  do  not  find  it  sufficiently 
varied  to  express  the  whims  of  their 
mind."  We  no  longer  imagine  this 
inventiveness,  this  boldness  of  fancy, 
this  ceaseless  fertility  of  nervous  sen- 
sibility :  there  was  no  genuine  prose  at 
that  time ;  the  poetic  flood  swallowed 
it  up.  A  word  was  not  an  exact  sym- 
bol, as  with  us ;  a  document  which 
from  cabinet  to  cabinet  carried  a  pre- 
cise thought.  It  was  part  of  a  com- 
plete action,  a  little  drama ;  when  they 
read  it,  they  did  not  take  it  by  itself, 
but  imagined  it  with  the  intonation  of  a 
hissing  and  shrill  voice,  with  the  puck- 
ering of  the  lips,  the  knitting  of  the 
brows,  and  the  succession  of  pictures 
which  crowd  behind  it,  and  which  it 
calls  forth  in  a  flash  of  lightning. 

*  See   Shakspeare's  young    men,   Mercutio 
especially. 


CHAP.  L] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


121 


Each  one  mimics  and  pronounces  it  in 
his  own  style,  and  impresses  his  own 
soul  upon  it.  It  was  a  song,  which 
like  the  poet's  verse,  contains  a  thou- 
sand things  besides  the  literal  sense, 
and  manifests  the  depth,  warmth,  and 
sparkling  of  the  source  whence  it 
flowed.  For  in  that  time,  even  when 
the  man  was  feeble,  his  work  lived; 
there  is  some  pulse  in  the  least  pro- 
ductions of  this  age  ;  force  and  creative 
fire  signalize  it ;  they  penetrate  through 
bon  bast  and  affectation.  Lyly  himself, 
so  fantastic  that  he  seems  to  write  pur- 
posely in  defiance  of  common  sense, 
is  at  times  a  genuine  poet ;  a  singer,  a 
man  capable  of  rapture,  akin  to  Spenser 
and  Shakspeare ;  one  of  those  intro- 
spective dreamers,  who  see  dancing 
fc-iries,  the  purpled  cheeks  of  goddesses, 
drunken,  amorous  woods,  as  he  says  : 

"  Adorned  with  the  presence  of  my  love, 
The  woods  I  fear  such  secret  power  shall 

prove, 

As  they'll  shut  up  each  path,  hide  every  wny, 
Because  they  still  would  have  her  go  astray.''* 

The  reader  must  assist  me,  and  assist 
himself.  I  cannot  otherwise  give  him 
to  understand  what  the  men  of  this 
age  had  the  felicity  to  experience. 

Luxuriance  and  irregularity  were  the 
two  features  of  this  spirit  and  this 
literature, — features  common  to  all  the 
literatures  of  the  Renaissance,  but 
more  marked  here  than  elsewhere, 
because  the  German  race  is  not  con- 
fined, like  the  Latin,  by  the  taste  for 
harmonious  forms,  and  prefers  strong 
impression  to  fine  expression.  We 
must  select  amidst  this  crowd  of  poets  ; 
and  here  is  one  amongst  the  first,  who 
exhibits,  by  his  writings  as  well  as  by 
his  life,  the  greatness  and  the  folly  of 
the  prevailing  manners  and  the  public 
taste :  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  nephew  of 
t'ie  Earl  of  Leicester,  a  great  lord  and 
a  man  of  action,  accomplished  in  every 
•dnd  of  culture ;  who  after  a  good 
.raiivng  in  classical  literature,  trav- 
elled in  France,  Germany,  and  Italy ; 
read  Plato  and  Aristotle,  studied  as- 
tronomy and  geometry  at  Venice  ; 
pondered  over  the  Greek  tragedies,  the 
Italian  sonnets,  the  pastorals  of  Mon- 
temayor,  the  poems  of  Ronsard  ;  dis- 
playing an  interest  in  science,  keeping 

*  The  Maid  her  Metamorphosis. 


up  an  exchange  of  letters  with  the 
learned  Hubert  Languet ;  and  withal  a 
man  of  the  world,  a  favorite  of  Eliza- 
beth, having  had  enacted  in  her  honor  a 
flattering  and  comic  pastoral  ;  a  gen- 
uine "jewel  of  the  court  ;"  a  judge, 
like  d'Urfe,  of  lofty  gallantry  and  fir  e 
language ;  above  all,  chivalrous  in 
heart  and  deed,  who  wished  to  follow 
maritime  adventure  with  Drake,  and, 
to  crown  all,  fated  to  die  an  early  and 
heroic  death.  He  was  a  cavalry  offi- 
cer, and  had  saved  the  English  army 
at  Gravelines.  Shortly  after,  mortally 
wounded,  and  dying  of  thirst,  as  some 
water  was  brought  to  him,  he  saw  by 
his  side  a  soldier  still  more  desperate- 
ly hurt,  who  was  looking  at  the  water 
with  anguish  in  his  face  :  "  Give  it  to 
this  man,"  said  he  ;  "  his  necessity  is 
still  greater  than  mine."  Do  not  forget 
the  vehemence  and  impetuosity  of  the 
middle  age; — one  hand  ready  for  action 
and  kept  incessantly  on  the  hilt  of  the 
sword  or  poniard.  "  Mr.  Molineux," 
wrote  he  to  his  father's  secretary,  "  if 
ever  I  know  you  to  do  so  much  as  read 
any  letter  I  write  to  my  father,  without 
his  commandment  or  my  consent,  I  will 
thrust  my  dagger  into  you.  And  trust 
to  it,  for  I  speak  it  in  earnest/'  It  was 
the  same  man  who  said  to  his  uncle's 
adversaries  that  they  "  lied  in  their 
throat ; "  and  to  support  his  words, 
promised  them  a  meeting  in  thn  e 
months  in  any  place  in  Europe.  The 
savage  energy  of  the  preceding  age 
remains  intact,  and  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  poetry  took  so  firm  a  hold  on  these 
virgin  souls.  The  human  harvest  is 
never  so  fine  as  when  cultivation  opens 
up  a  new  soil.  Impassioned,  moreover, 
melancholy  and  solitary,  he  naturally 
turned  to  noble  and  ardent  fantasy; 
and  he  was  so  much  the  poet,  that  he 
had  no  need  of  verse. 

Shall  I  describe  his  pastoral  epic, 
the  Arcadia  ?  It  is  but  a  recreation,  a 
sort  of  poetical  romance,  written  in  the 
country  for  the  amusement  of  his  sis- 
ter ;  a  work  of  fashion,  which,  like 
Cyrus  and  Clelie^  is  not  a  monument, 
but  a  document.  This  kind  of  books 
shows  only  the  externals,  the  current 
elegance  and  politeness,  the  jargon  of 

*  Two  French  novels  of  the  age  of  Louis 
XIV.,  each  in  ten  volumes,  and  written  by 
Mademoiselle  de  Scudery. — TR. 

6 


122 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


the  fashionable  world, — in  short,  that 
which  should  be  spoken  before  ladies  ; 
and  yet  we  perceive  from  it  the  bent  of 
the  public  opinion.  In  Clelie,  oratori- 
cal development,  delicate  and  collected 
analysis,  the  flowing  converse  of  men 
seated  quietly  in  elegan*  arm-chairs  ; 
in  the  Arcadia,  fantastic  imagination, 
excessive  sentiment,  a  medley  of  events 
which  suited  men  scarcely  recovered 
rrom  barbarism.  Indeed,  in  London 
they  still  used  to  fire  pistols  at  each 
)ther  in  the  streets  ;  and  under  Henry 
VI II.  and  his  children,  Queens,  a  Pro- 
rector,  the  highest  nobles,  knelt  under 
the  axe  of  the  executioner.  Armed 
and  perilous  existence  long  resisted  in 
Europe  the  establishment  of  peaceful 
and  quiet  life.  It  was  necessary  to 
change  society  and  the  soil,  in  order  to 
transform  men  of  the  sword  into  citi- 
zens. The  high  roads  of  Louis  XIV. 
and  his  regular  administration,  and 
more  recently  the  railroads  and  the 
Szrgents  de  ville,  freed  the  French  from 
habits  of  violence  and  a  taste  for  dan- 
gerous adventure.  Remember  that  at 
this  period  men's  heads  were  full  of 
tragical  images.  Sidney's  Arcadia 
contains  enough  of  them  to  supply 
half-a-dozen  epics.  "It  is  a  trifle," 
says  the  author ;  "  my  young  head 
must  be  delivered."  In  the  first 
twenty-five  pages  you  meet  with  a  ship- 
wreck, an  account  of  pirates,  a  half- 
drowned  prince  rescued  by  shepherds, 
a  journey  in  Arcadia,  various  disguises, 
the  retreat  of  a  king  withdrawn  into 
solitude  with  his  wife  and  children,  the 
deliverance  of  a  young  imprisoned 
lord,  a  war  against  the  Helots,  the 
conclusion  of  peace,  and  many  other 
things.  Read  on,  and  you  will  find 
princesses  shut  up  by  a  wicked  fairy, 
who  beats  them,  and  threatens  them 
with  death  if  they  refuse  to  marry  her 
son  ,  a  beautiful  queen  condemned  to 
perish  by  fire  if  certain  knights  do  not 
come  to  her  succor  ;  a  treacherous 
pi  i  nee  tortured  for  his  wicked  deeds, 
then  cast  from  the  top  of  a  pyramid  ; 
fights,  surprises,  abductions,  travels : 
in  short,  the  whole  programme  of  the 
most  romantic  tales.  That  is  the  seri- 
ous element :  the  agreeable  is  of  a  like 
nature ;  the  fantastic  predominates. 
Improbable  pastoral  serves,  as  in 
Shakspeare  or  Lope  de  Vega,  for  an 


intermezzo  to  improbable  tragedy 
You  are  always  coming  upon  dancing 
shepherds.  They  are  very  courteous, 
good  poets,  and  subtle  metaphysicians. 
Several  of  them  are  disguised  princes 
who  pay  their  court  to  the  princesses. 
They  sing  continually,  and  get  up  alle- 
gorical dances;  two  bands  approach, 
servants  of  Reason  and  Passion ;  their 
hats,  ribbons,  and  dress  are  described 
in  full.  They  quarrel  in  verse,  and 
their  retorts,  which  follow  close  on  one 
another,  over-refined,  keep  up  a  tour- 
nament of  wit.  Who  cared  for  wnat 
was  natural  or  possible  in  this  age  ? 
There  were  such  festivals  at  Elizabeth's 
*  progresses  ; '  and  you  have  only  to 
look  at  the  engravings  of  Sadeler, 
Martin  de  Vos,  and  Goltzius,  to  find 
this  mixture  of  sensitive  beauties  and 
philosophical  enigmas.  The  Countess 
of  Pembroke  and  her  ladies  were  de- 
lighted to  picture  this  profusion  of  cos- 
tumes and  verses,  this  play  beneath 
the  trees.  They  had  eyes  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  senses  which  sought 
satisfaction  in  poetry — the  same  satis- 
faction as  in  masquerading  and  paint- 
ing. Man  was  not  yet  a  pure  reasoner  ; 
abstract  truth  was  not  enough  for  him. 
Rich  stuffs,  twisted  about  and  folded  ; 
the  sun  to  shine  upon  them,  a  large 
meadow  studded  with  white  daisies  ; 
ladies  in  brocaded  dresses,  with  bare 
arms,  crowns  on  their  heads,  instru- 
ments of  music  behind  the  trees, — this 
is  what  the  reader  expects  ;  he  cares 
nothing  for  contrasts ;  he  will  readily 
accept  a  drawing-room  in  the  midst  of 
the  fields. 

What  are  they  going  to  say  there  ? 
Here  comes  out  that  nervous  exalta- 
tion, in  all  its  folly,  which  is  character- 
istic of  the  spirit  of  the  age ;  love  rises 
to  the  thirty-sixth  heaven.  Musidorus 
is  the  brother  of  Celadon  ;  Pamela  is 
closely  related  to  the  severe  heroines 
of  Astree  /*  all  the  Spanish  exaggera- 
tions abound  and  all  the  Spanish  false- 
hoods. For  in  these  works  of  fashion 
or  of  the  Court,  primitive  sentiment 
never  retains  its  sincerity :  wit,  the 
necessity  to  please,  the  desire  for  ef- 
fect, of  speaking  better  than  others, 
alter  it,  influence  it,  heap  up  embellish- 

*  Celadon,  a  rustic  lover  in  Astrte,  a  French 
novel  in  five  volumes,  named  after  the  heroine, 
and  written  by  d'Urfe"  (d.  1625).— TR. 


CHAP    I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


123 


menib  ana  refinements,  so  that  nothing 
is  left  but  twaddle.  Musidorus  wished 
to  give  Pamela  a  kiss.  She  repels  him. 
He  would  have  died  on  the  spot ;  but 
luckily  remembers  that  his  mistress 
commanded  him  to  leave  her,  and  finds 
himself  still  able  to  obey  her  command. 
He  complains  to  the  trees,  weeps  in 
verse :  there  are  dialogues  where 
Echo,  repeating  the  last  word,  replies  ; 
duets  in  rhyme,  balanced  stanzas,  in 
wh.'ch  the  theory  of  love  is  minutely 
detailed;  in  short,  all  the  grand  airs  of 
ornamental  poetry.  If  they  send  a 
letter  to  their  mistress,  they  speak  to 
it,  tell  the  ink :  "  Therefore  mourne 
boldly,  my  inke ;  for  while  shee  lookes 
upon  you,  your  blacknesse  will  shine  : 
cry  out  boldly  my  lamentation ;  for 
while  shee  reades  you,  your  cries  will 
be  musicke."  * 

Again,  two  young  princesses  are  go- 
ing to  bed  :  "  They  impoverished  their 
clothes  to  enrich  their  bed,  which  for 
that  night  might  well  scorne  the  shrine 
of  Venus ;  and  there  cherishing  one 
another  with  deare,  though  chaste 
embracements  ;  with  sweete,  though 
cold  kisses  ;  it  might  seeme  that  love 
was  come  to  play  him  there  without 
dart,  or  that  wearie  of  his  owne  fires, 
he  was  there  to  refresh  himselfe  be- 
tween their  sweete  breathing  lippes."  t 

In  excuse  of  these  follies,  remem- 
ber that  they  have  their  parallels  in 
Shakspeare.  Try  rather  to  compre- 
hend them,  to  imagine  them  in  their 
place,  with  their  surroundings,  such 
as  they  are  ;  that  is,  as  the  excess  of 
singularity  and  inventive  fire.  Even 
though  they  mar  now  and  then  the 
finest  ideas,  yet  a  natural  freshness 
pierces  through  the  disguise.  Take 
another  example :  "  In  the  time  that 
the  morning  did  strew  roses  and  violets 
in  the  heavenly  floore  against  the  com- 
ing of  the  sun,  the  nightingales  (striv- 
ing >ne  with  the  other  which  could  in 
most  dainty  varietie  recount  their 
wronge-caused  sorrow)  made  them  put 
off  their  sleep." 

In  Sidney's  second  work,  The  De- 
fence of  Poesie,  we  meet  with  genuine 
imagination,  a  sincere  and  serious 
tone,  a  grand,  commanding  style,  all 
the  passion  and  elevation  which  he 

*  Atcadia,  ed.  fol.  1629,  p.  117. 
t  Ibid,  book  ii.  p.  114. 


carries  in  his  heart  and  puts  into  his 
verse  He  is  a  muser,  a  Platonist, 
who  is  penetrated  by  the  doctrines  of 
the  ancients,  who  takes  things  from  a 
lofty  point  of  view,  who  places  the  ex- 
cellence of  poetry  not  in  pleasing  ef- 
fect, imitation,  or  rhyme,  but  in  that 
creative  and  superior  conception  by 
which  the  artist  creates  anew  and  em- 
bellishes nature.  At  the  san  e  time, 
he  is  an  ardent  man,  trusting  in  the 
nobleness  of  his  aspirations  and  in  the 
width  of  his  ideas,  who  puts  down  the 
brawling  of  the  shoppy,  narrow,  vulgar 
Puritanism,  and  glows  with  the  lofty 
irony,  the  proud  freedom,  of  a  poet 
and  a  lord. 

In  his  eyes,  if  there  is  any  art  or 
science  capable  of  augmenting  and  cul- 
tivating our  generosity,  it  is  poetry. 
He  draws  comparison  after  comparison 
between  it  and  philosophy  or  history, 
whose  pretensions  he  laughs  at  and 
dismisses.*  He  fights  for  poetry  as  a 
knight  for  his  lady,  and  in  what  heroic 
and  splendid  style  !  He  says  :  "  I 
never  heard  the  old  Song  of  Percie 
and  Douglas,  that  I  found  not  my 
heart  moved  more  than  with  a  trum- 
pet :  and  yet  it  is  sung  by  some  blinde 
Crowder,  with  no  rougher  voyce,  than 
rude  stile  ;  which  beeing  so  evill  ap- 
parelled in  the  dust  and  Cobweb  of 
that  uncivill  age,  what  would  it  work, 
trimmed  in  the  gorgeous  eloquence  tf 
Pindare  ?  "  t 

The  philosopher  repels,  the  poet 
attracts  :  "  Nay  hee  doth  as  if  your 
journey  should  lye  through  a  faire 
vineyard,  at  the  very  first,  give  you  a 
cluster  of  grapes,  that  full  of  that 
taste,  you  may  long  to  passe  fur- 
ther." f 

What  description  of  poetry  can  dis- 
please you  ?  Not  pastoral  so  easy 
and  genial  ?  "  Is  it  the  bitter  but 
wholesome  lambicke,  who  rubbes  the 
galled  minde,  making  shame  the  Trum- 
pet of  villanie,  with  bold  and  openciy- 
ing  out  against  naughtinesse  ?  "  § 

*  The  Defence  of  Poesie,  ed.  fol.  1620,  p. 
558  :  "  I  dare  undertake,  that  Orlando  Furioso, 
or  honest  Kin?;  Arthur,  will  never  displease  a 
soldier:  but  the  quidditie  of  Ens  and  prima 
mater  ia,  will  hardly  agree  with  a  Corselet." 
See  also,  in  the  same  book,  the  very  lively  and 
spirited  personification  of  History  and  Philo* 
ophy,  full  of  genuine  talent. 

t  Ibid.  p.  553.  J  Ibid.  p.  550. 

§  Ibid.  p.  552- 


124 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  It 


At  the  close  he  reviews  his  argu- 
ments, and  the  vibrating  martial  accent 
of  his  poetical  period  is  like  a  trump 
of  victory :  "  So  that  since  the  excel- 
lencies of  it  (poetry)  may  bee  so  easily 
and  so  justly  confirmed,  and  the  low- 
creeping  objections  so  soone  trodden 
downe,  it  not  being  an  Art  of  lyes,  but 
of  true  doctrine ;  not  of  effeminate- 
ne^se,  but  of  notable  stirring  of  cour- 
age ;  not  of  abusing  man's  wit,  but  of 
strengthning  man's  wit ;  not  banished, 
but  hon  ired  by  Plato ;  let  us  rather 
plant  mDre  Laurels  for  to  ingarland 
the  Poets  heads  than  suffer  the  ill- 
savored  breath  of  such  wrong  speakers, 
once  to  blow  upon  the  cleare  springs 
of  Poesie."  * 

From  such  vehemence  and  gravity 
you  may  anticipate  what  his  verses 
will  be. 

Often,  after  reading  the  poets  of 
this  age,  I  have  looked  for  some  time 
at  the  contemporary  prints,  telling  my- 
self that  man,  in  mind  and  body,  was 
not  then  such  as  we  see  him  to-day. 
We  also  have  our  passions,  but  we 
are  no  longer  strong  enough  to  bear 
them.  They  unsettle  us  ;  we  are  no 
longer  poets  without  suffering  for  it. 
Alfred  cle  Musset,  Heine,  Edgar  Poe, 
Burns,  Byron,  Shelley,  Cowper,  how 
many  shall  I  instance  ?  Disgust,  men- 
tal and  bodily  degradation,  disease, 
impotence,  madness,  suicide,  at  best  a 
permanent  hallucination  or  feverish 
raving, — these  are  nowadays  the  ordi- 
nary issues  of  the  poetic  temperament. 
The  passion  of  the  brain  gnaws  our 
vitals,  dries  up  the  blood,  eats  into  the 
marrow,  shakes  us  like  a  tempest,  and 
the  human  frame,  such  as  civilization 
has  made  us,  is  not  substantial  enough 
long  to  resist  it.  They,  who  have 
been  more  roughly  trained,  who  are 
more  inured  to  the  inclemencies  of 
climate,  more  hardened  by  bodily  ex- 
e-cise,  more  fi-m  against  danger,  en- 
d-ire  and  live.  Is  there  a  man  living 
who  could  witl  jtand  the  storm  of  pas- 
saons  and  visions  which  swept  over 
oiiakspeare,  and  end,  like  him,  as  a 

*  The  Defence  of  Poesie,  p.  560.     Here  and 
there  we  find  also  verse  as  spirited  as  this  : 
**  Or   Pindar's   Apes,    flaunt  they  in   phrases 

fine, 

Enam'ling  with  pied  flowers  their  thoughts 
of  gold."— P.  568. 


sensible  citizen  and  landed  proprietor 
in  his  small  county  ?  The  muscles 
were  firmer,  despair  less  prompt.  Tha 
rage  of  concentrated  attention,  the 
half  hallucinations,  the  anguish  and 
heaving  of  the  breast, -the  quivering  of 
the  limbs  bracing  themselves  involun- 
tarily and  blindly  for  action,  all  the 
painful  yearnings  which  accompany 
grand  desires,  exhausted  them  less ; 
this  is  why  they  desired  longer,  and 
dared  more.  D'Aubigne,  wounded 
with  many  sword-thrusts,  conceiving 
death  at  hand,  had  himself  bound  on 
his  horse  that  he  might  see  his  mis- 
tress once  more,  and  rode  thus  sev- 
eral leagues,  losing  blood  all  the  way, 
and  arriving  in  a  swoon.  Such  feel- 
ings we  glean  still  from  their  portraits, 
in  the  straight  looks  which  pierce 
like  a  sword  ;  in  that  strength  of  back, 
bent  or  twisted  ;  in  the  sensuality,  en- 
ergy, enthusiasm,  which  breathe  from 
their  attitude  or  look.  Such  feelings 
we  still  discover  in  their  poetry,  in 
in  Greene,  Lodge,  Jonson,  Spenser, 
Shakspeare,  in  Sidney,  as  in  all  the 
rest.  We  quickly  forget  the  faults  of 
taste  which  accompany  them,  the  af- 
fectation, the  uncouth  jargon.  Is  it 
really  so  uncouth?  Imagine  a  man 
who  with  closed  eyes  distinctly  sees 
the  adored  countenance  of  his  mis- 
tress, who  keeps  it  before  him  all  the 
day;  who  is  troubled  and  shaken  as 
he"  imagines  ever  and  anon  her  brow, 
her  lips,  her  eyes ;  who  cannot  and 
will  not  be  separated  from  his  vision ; 
who  sinks  daily  deeper  in  this  passion- 
ate contemplation ;  who  is  every  in- 
stant crushed  by  mortal  anxieties,  or 
transported  by  the  raptures  of  bliss : 
he  will  lose  the  exact  conception  of 
objects.  A  fixed  idea  becomes  a  false 
idea.  By  dint  of  regarding  an  object 
under  all  its  forms,  turning  it  over, 
piercing  through  it,  we  at  last  deform 
it.  When  we  cannot  think  of  a  thing 
without  being  dazed  and  without  tears, 
we  magnify  it,  and  give  it  a  character 
which  it  has  not.  Hence  strange  com- 
parisons, over-refined  ideas,  excessive 
images,  become  natural.  However  tar 
Sidney  goes,  whatever  object  he 
touches,  he  sees  throughout  the  uni- 
verse only  the  name  and  features  of 
Stella.  All  ideas  bring  him  back  to 
her.  He  is  drawn  ever  and  invincibly 


CHAP.  L] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


by  the  same  thought :  and  comparisons 
which  seem  far-fetched,  only  express 
the  unfailing  presence  and  sovereign 
power  of  the  besetting  image.  Stella 
is  i]l ;  it  seems  to  Sidney  that  "Joy, 
which  is  inseparate  from  those  eyes, 
Stella,  now  learnes  (strange  case)  to 
weepe  in  thee."  *  To  us,  the  expres- 
sion is  absurd.  It  is  so  for  Sidney, 
who  for  hours  together  had  dwelt  on 
the  expression  of  those  eyes,  seeing  in 
them  at  last  all  the  beauties  of  heaven 
and  earth,  who,  compared  to  them, 
finds  all  light  dull  and  all  happiness 
stale  ?  Consider  that  in  every  extreme 
passion  ordinary  laws  are  reversed, 
that  our  logic  cannot  pass  judgment 
on  it,  that  we  find  in  it  affectation, 
childishness,  witticisms,  crudity,  folly, 
and  that  to  us  violent  conditions  of  the 
nervous  machine  are  like  an  unknown 
and  marvellous  land,  where  common 
sense  and  good  language  cannot  pene- 
trate. On  the  return  of  spring,  when 
May  spreads  over  the  fields  her  dap- 
pled dress  of  new  flowers,  Astrophel 
and  Stella  sit  in  the  shade  of  a  retired 
grove,  in  the  warm  air,  full  of  birds' 
voices  and  pleasant  exhalations.  Hea- 
ven smiles,  the  wind  kisses  the  trem- 
bling leaves,  the  inclining  trees  inter- 
lace their  sappy  branches,  amorous 
earth  swallows  greedily  the  rippling 
water : 

"  In  a  grove  most  rich  of  shade, 
Where  birds  wanton  musicke  made, 
May,  then  yong,  his  py'd  weeds  showing, 
New  perf um'd  with  flowers  fresh  growing, 

'  Astrophel  with  Stella  sweet. 
Did  for  mutuall  comfort  meet, 
Both  within  themselves  oppressed, 
But  each  in  the  other  blessed.  .  .  . 

*  Their  eares  hungry  of  each  word, 
Which  the  deere  tongue  would  afford. 
But  their  tongues  restrain'd  from  walking, 
Till  their  hearts  had  ended  talking. 

1   But  when  their  tongues  could  not  speake, 
Love  it  selfe  did  silence  breake  ; 
Love  did  set  his  lips  asunder, 
Thus  to  speake  in  love  and  wonder.  .  .  . 

**  This  small  winde  which  so  sweet  is, 
See  how  it  the  leaves  doth  kisse, 
Each  tree  in  his  best  attyring, 
Sense  of  love  to  love  inspiring."  t 

On  his  knees,  with  beating  heart,  op- 

*  Astrophel  and  Stella,  ed.  fol.  1629,  loist 
sonnet,  p.  613. 

*  Ibid.  (1629),  8th  song,  p.  603. 


pressed,  it  seems  to  him  that  his  mis- 
tress becomes  transformed; 

"  Stella,  soveraigne  of  my  joy,  «  •  • 
Stella,  starre  of  heavenly  fire, 
Stella,  load-starre  of  desire, 
Stella,  in  whose  shining  eyes 
Are  the  lights  of  Cupid's  skies.  .  .  , 
Stella,  whose  voice  when  it  speakes 
Senses  all  asunder  breakes ; 
Stella,  whose  voice  when  it  singeth. 
Angels  to  acquaintance  bringeth."  * 

These  cries  of  adoration  are  like  a 
hymn.  Every  day  he  writes  thoughts 
of  love  which  agitate  him,  and  in 
this  long  journal  of  a  hundred  pages 
we  feel  the  heated  breath  swell  each 
moment.  A  smile  from  his  mis.ress, 
a  curl  lifted  by  the  wind,  a  gesture, — 
all  are  events.  He  paints  her  in  every 
attitude ;  he  cannot  see  her  too  con- 
stantly. He  talks  to  the  birds,  plants, 
winds,  all  nature.  He  brings  the 
whole  world  to  Stella's  feet.  At  the 
notion  of  a  kiss  he  swoons : 

"  Thinke  of  that  most  gratefull  time 
When  thy  leaping  heart  will  climbe, 
In  my  lips  to  have  his  biding. 
There  those  roses  for  to  kisse, 
Which  doe  breath  a  sugred  blisse, 
Opening  rubies,  pearles  dividing."  f 

"  O  joy,  too  high  for  my  low  stile  to  show : 
O  blisse,  fit  for  a  nobler  state  then  me  : 
Envie,  put  out  thine  eyes,  lest  thou  do  see 
What  Oceans  of  delight  in  me  do  flow. 
My  friend,  that  oft  saw  through  all  maskes 

my  wo, 
Come,  come,  and  let  me  powre  my  selfe 

on  thee  ; 

Gone  is  the  winter  of  my  miserie, 
My  spring  appeares,  O  see  what  here  doth 

grow, 
For  Stella  hath  with  words  where  faith  doth 

shine, 

Of  her  high  heart  giv'n  me  the  monarchic : 
I,  I,  O  I  may  say  that  she  is  mine."  i 

There  are  Oriental  splendors  in  the 
dazzling  sonnet  in  which  he  asks  why 
Stella's  cheeks  have  grown  pale  : 

"  Where  be  those  Roses  gone,  which  sweetned 

so  our  eyes  ? 
Where  those  red  cheekes,  which  oft  with 

faire  encrease  doth  frame 
The  height  of  honour  in  the  kindly  badge  of 

shame  ? 
Who  hath  the  crimson  weeds  ttolne  from 

my  morning  skies  ?  § 

As  he  says,  his  "  life  melts  with  toe 
much  thinking."  Exhausted  by  ecstasy 

*  Ibid.  p.  604.   t  Ibid,  loth  song,  p.  610. 
\  Ibid,  sonnet  69,  p.  555. 
§  Ibid.  102,  p.  614. 


126 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


he  pauses ;  then  he  flies  from  thought 
to  thought,  seeking  relief  for  his  wound, 
like  the  Satyre  whom  he  describes  : 

"  Prometheus,  when  first  from  heaven  hie 
He  brought  downe  fire,  ere  then  on  earth 

not  scene, 

Fond  of  delight,  a  Satyr  standing  by 
Gave  it  a  kisse,  as  it  like  sweet  had  beene. 

"  Feeling  forthwith  the  other  burning  power, 
Wood  with  the  smart  with  showts  and  shryk- 

ing  shrill, 

He  sought  his  ease  in  river,  field,  and  bower, 
But  for  the  time  his  griefe  went  with  him 

still."  * 

At  last  calm  returned  ;  and  whilst  this 
calm  lasts,  the  lively,  glowing  spirit 
plays  like  a  nickering  flame  on  the 
surface  of  the  deep  brooding  fire.  His 
love-songs  and  word-portraits,  delight- 
ful pagan  and  chivalric  fancies,  seem 
to  be  inspired  by  Petrarch  or  Plato. 
We  feel  the  charm  and  sportiveness 
under  the  seeming  affectation  : 

"  Faire  eyes,  sweete  lips,  deare  heart,   that 

foolish  I 

Could  hope  by  Cupids  helpe  on  you  to  pray  ; 
Since  to  himselfe  he  doth  your  gifts  apply, 
As  his  maine  force,  choise  sport,  and  ease- 
full  stray. 

"  For  when  he  will  see  who  dare  him  gainsay, 
Then  with  those  eyes  he  lookes,  lo  by  and  by 
Each  soule  doth  at  Loves  feet  his  weapons 

lay, 
Glad  if  for  her  he  give  them  leave  to  die. 

"  When  he  will  play,  then  in  her  lips  he  is, 
Where  blushing  red,  that  Loves  selfe  them 

doth  love, 

With  either  lip  he  doth  the  other  kisse  : 
But  when  he  will  for  quiets  sake  remove 
From  all  the  world,  her  heart  is  then  his 

rome, 
Where  well  he  knowes,  no  man  to  him  can 

come."  t 

Both  heart  and  sense  are  captive  here. 
If  he  finds  the  eyes  of  Stella  more 
beautiful  than  any  thing  in  the  world, 
he  finds  her  soul  more  lovely  than  her 
body.  He  is  a  Platonist  when  he  re- 
counts how  Virtue,  wishing  to  be  loved 
of  men,  took  Stella's  form  to  enchant 
their  eyes,  and  make  them  see  the 
neaven  which  the  inner  sense  reveals 
to  heroic  souls.  We  recognize  in  him 
that  entire  submission  of  heart,  love 
turned  into  a  religion,  perfect  passion 
which  asks  only  to  grow,  and  which, 

*  Astrophel  and  Stella,  p.  525:  this  sonnet 
is  headed  E.  D.  Wood,  in  his  Athen.  Oxon.  i., 
says  it  was  written  by  Sir  Edward  Dyer, 
Chancellor  of  the  Most  noble  Order  of  the 
Garter.— TR.  t  Ibid,  sonnet  43,  p.  545- 


like  the  piety  of  the  mystics,  finds 
itself  always  too  insignificant  when  it 
compares  itself  with  the  c  oject  loved : 

"  My  youth  doth  waste,  my  knowledge  brings 

forth  toyes, 

My  wit  doth  strive  those  passions  to  defend, 
Which  for  reward  spoyle  it  with  vaine  an- 
noy es, 

I  see  my  course  to  lose  my  selfe  doth  bend . 
I  see  and  yet  no  greater  sorrow  take, 
Thau  that  I  lose  no  more  for  Stella's  sake."  * 

At  last,  like  Socrates  in  the  banquet,  he 
turns  his  eyes  to  deathless  beauty 
heavenly  brightness  : 

"  Leave  me,  O  Love,  which  reachest  but  to 

dust, 

And  thou  my  minde  aspire  to  higher  things : 
Grow  rich  in  that  which  never  taketh  rust: 
Whatever  fades,  but  fading  pleasure  brings.  . . 
O  take  fast  hold,  let  that  light  be  thy  guide, 
In  this  small  course  which  birth  drawes  out  to 

death."  t 

Divine  love  continues  the  earthly 
love ;  he  was  imprisoned  in  this,  and 
frees  himself.  By  this  nobility,  these 
lofty  aspirations,  recognize  one  of  those 
serious  souls  of  which  there  are  so 
many  in  the  same  climate  and  race. 
Spiritual  instincts  pierce  through  the 
dominant  paganism,  and  ere  they  make 
Christians,  make  Platonists. 

V. 

Sidney  was  only  a  soldier  in  an  army , 
there  is  a  multitude  about  him,  a  mul- 
titude of  poets.  In  fifty-t*vo  years, 
without  counting  the  drama,  two  hun 
dred  and  thirty-three  are  enumer- 
ated,! of  whom  forty  have  genius  or 
talent :  Breton,  Donne,  Dray  ton,  Lodge, 
Greene,  the  two  Fletchers,  Beaumont, 
Spenser,  Shakspeare,  Ben  Jonson,  Mar- 
lowe, Wither,  Warner,  Davison,  Carew, 
Suckling,  Herrick; — we  should  grow 
tired  in  counting  them.  There  i*  a 
crop  oi  tnem,  ana  so  there  is  at  the 
same  time  in  Catholic  and  heroic 
Spain  ;  and  as  in  Spain  it  was  a  sign  oi 
the  times,  the  mark  of  a  public  wioit, 
the  index  to  an  extraordinary  and 
transient  condition  of  the  mind.  What. 
is  this  condition  which  gives  rise  to  so 
universal  to  taste  for  poetry  ?  Whac 

*  Ibid,  r8,  p.  573.  t  Last  sonnet,  p.  539. 

J  Nathan  Drake,  Shakspeare  and  kis 
Times,  i.  Part  2,  ch.  2,  3,  4.  Among  these  233 
poets  the  authors  of  isolated  pieces  are  not 
reckoned,  but  only  those  who  published  or  col 
lected  their  works. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


127 


Its  it  breathes  life  into  their  books  ? 
How  happens  it,  that  amongst  the 
least,  in  spite  of  pedantries,  awkward- 
nesses, in  the  rhyming  chronicles  or 
descriptive  cyclopedias,  we  meet  with 
brilliant  pictures  and  genuine  love- 
cries  ?  How  happens  it,  that  when  this 
generation  was  exhausted,  true  poetry 
ended  in  England,  as  true  painting  in 
Italy  and  Flanders  ?  It  was  because 
an  epoch  of  the  mind  came  and  passed 
away,— that,  namely,  of  instinctive  and 
creative  conception.  These  men  had 
new  senses,  and  no  theories  in  their 
heads.  Thus,  when  they  took  a  walk, 
their  emotions  were  not  the  same  as 
ours.  What  is  sunrise  to  an  ordinary 
man  ?  A  white  smudge  on  the  edge  of 
the  sky,  between  bosses  of  clouds, 
amid  pieces  of  land,  and  bits  of  road, 
which  he  does  not  see  because  he  has 
seen  them  a  hundred  times.  But  for 
them,  all  things  have  a  soul  ;  I  mean 
that  they  feel  within  themselves,  indi- 
rectly, the  uprising  and  severance  of 
the  outlines,  the  power  and  contrast  of 
tints,  the  sad  or  delicious  sentiment, 
which  breathes  from  this  combination 
and  union  like  a  harmony  or  a  cry. 
How  sorrowful  is  the  sun,  as  he  rises 
in  a  mist  above  the  sad  sea-furrows  ; 
what  an  air  of  resignation  in  the  old 
trees  rustling  in  the  night  rain  ;  what  a 
feverish  tumult  in  the  mass  of  waves, 
whose  dishevelled  locks  are  twisted  for- 
ever on  the  surface  of  the  abyss  !  But 
the  great  torch  of  heaven,  the  lumin- 
ous god,  emerges  and  shines  ;  the  tall, 
soft,  pliant  herbs,  the  evergreen  mead- 
ows, the  expanding  roof  of  lofty 
oaks, — the  whole  English  landscape, 
continually  renewed  and  illumined 
by  the  flooding  moisture,  diffuses  an 
inexhaustible  freshness.  These  mead- 
ows, red  and  white  with  flowers,  ever 
moist  and  ever  young,  slip  off  their 
veil  of  golden  mist,  and  appear  sudden- 
ly, timidly,  like  beautiful  virgins.  Here 
Is  the  cuckoo-flower,  which  springs  up 
before  the  coming  of  the  swallow  ; 
there  the  hare-bell,  blue  as  the  veins 
of  a  woman  ;  the  marigold,  which  sets 
with  the  sun,  and,  weeping,  rises  with 
him.  Drayton,  in  his  Polyolbion,  sings 

Then  from  her  burnisht  gate  the  goodly  glit- 
tring  East 

Guilds  every  lofty  top,  which  late  the  hu- 
morous Night 


Bespangled  had  with  pearle,  to  please  the 
Mornings  sight  ; 

On  which  the  mirthfull  Quires,  with  their 
cleerc  open  throats, 

Unto  the  joyfull  Morne  so  straine  their  war- 
bling notes, 

That  Hills  and  Valleys  ring,  and  even  the 
ecchoing  Ayre 

Seemes  all  compos'd  of  sounds,  about  them 
everywhere.  .  .  . 

Thus  sing  away  the  Morne,  untill  the  mount- 
ing Sunne, 

Through  thick  exhaled  fogs,  his  golden  head 
hath  runne, 

And  through  the  twisted  tops  of  our  dose 
Covert  creeps, 

To  kiss  the  gentle  Shade,  th»  while  that 
sweetly  sleeps."  * 

A  step  further,  and  you  will  find  the 
old  gods  reappear.  They  reappear, 
these  living  gods — these  living  gods 
mingled  with  things  which  you  cannot 
help  meeting  as  soon  as  you  meet 
nature  again.  Shakspeare,  in  the 
Tempest,  sings  : 

"  Ceres,  most  bounteous  lady  thy  rich  leas 
Of  wheat,   rye,  barley,   vetches,    oats,   and 

pease  ; 
Thy  turfy  mountains,   where   live   nibbling 

sheep, 
And  flat  meads  thatch'd  with  stover,  them  to 

keep ; 

Thy  banks  with  peoned  and  lilied  brims, 
Which  spongy  April  at  thy  hest  betrims, 
To  make  cold  nymphs  chaste  crowns  .  .  . 
Hail,  many-colour'd  messenger  (Iris.)  .  .  . 
Who,   with    thy    saffron    wings,    upon    my 

flowers 

Diffuses!  honey-drops,  refreshing  showers, 
And  with  each  end  of  thy  blue  bow  dost 

crown 
My  bosky  acres  and  my  unshrubb'd  down."t 

In  Cymbeline,  he  says  : 

"  They  are  as  gentle  as  zephyrs,  blowing  be- 
low the  violet, 
Not  wagging  his  sweet  head."  \ 

Greene  writes  : 

"  When   Flora,  proud    in    pomp    of    all   her 
flowers, 

Sat  bright  and  gay, 
And  gloried  in  the  dew  of  Iris'  showers, 

And  did  display 

Her  mantle  chequered  all  with  gaudy 
green."  § 

The  same  author  also  says : 
"  How  oft  have  I  descending  Titan  seen, 
His  burning  locks  couch  in  the  sea-queen's 

lap; 

And  beauteous  Thetis  his  red  body  wrap 
In  watery  robes,  as  he  her  lord  had  been!"  |j 


*  M.  Drayton's  Polyolbion,  ed,  1622,  isth 
song,  p.  214.  t  Act  iv.  i.  J  Act  iv.  2. 

§  Greene's  Poems,  ed.  Bell,  Eurymachus  in 
Laudem  Mirimidtz,  p.  73. 

||  Ibid.  Melicertus?  description  of  his  Mis* 
tress,  p.  38. 


128 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


So  Spenser,  in  his  Faerie  Queene, 
sings : 

"  The  ioyous  day  gan  early  to  appeare  ; 
And  f  nyre  Aurora  from  the  deawy  bed 
Of  aged  Tithone  gan  herselfe  to  reare 
With  rosy  cheekes,  for  shame  as  blushing 

red: 

Her  golden  locks,  for  hast,  were  loosely  shed 
About  her  eares,  when  Una  her  did  marke 
Clymbe  to  her  charet,  all  with  flowers  spred, 
From  heven  high  to  chace  the  chearelesse 

darke  ; 

With  mery  note  her  lowd  salutes  the  mount- 
ing larke."  * 

All  the  splendor  and  sweetness  of  this 
moist  and  well-watered  land  ;  all  the 
specialties,  the  opulence  of  its  dissolv- 
ing tints,  of  its  variable  sky,  its  luxu- 
riant vegetation,  assemble  thus  about 
the  gods,  who  gave  them  their  beauti- 
ful form. 

In  the  life  of  every  man  there  are 
moments  when,  in  presence  of  objects, 
he  experiences  a  shock.  This  mass 
of  ideas,  of  mangled  recollections,  of 
mutilated  images,  which  lie  hidden  in 
all  corners  of  his  mind,  are  set  in 
motion,  organized,  suddenly  developed 
like  a  flower.  He  .is  enraptured  ;  he 
cannot  help  looking  at  and  admiring 
the  charming  creature  which  has  just 
appeared ;  he  wishes  to  see  it  again, 
and  others  like  it,  and  dreams  of  noth- 
ing else.  There  are  such  moments  in 
the  life  of  nations,  and  this  is  one  of 
them.  They  are  happy  in  contempla- 
ting beautiful  things,  and  wish  only  that 
they  should  be  the  most  beautiful  pos- 
sible. They  are  not  preoccupied,  as 
we  are,  with  theories.  They  do  not 
excite  themselves  to  express  moral  or 
philosophical  ideas.  They  wish  to  en- 
joy'through  the  imagination,  through 
the  eyes,  like  those  Italian  nobles,  who, 
at  the  same  time,  were  so  captivated 
by  fine  colors  and  forms,  that  they 
covered  with  paintings  not  only  their 
rooms  and  their  churches,  but  the  lids 
of  their  chests  and  the  saddles  of 
their  horses.  The  rich  and  green  sun- 
ny country ;  young,  gayly-attired  la- 
dies, blooming  with  health  and  love  ; 
half-draped  gods  and  goddesses,  mas- 
terpieces and  models  of  strength  and 
grace, — these  are  the  most  lovely  ob-  j 
iects  which  man  can  contemplate,  the  ' 
most  capable  of  satisfying  his  senses 


and  his  heart — of  giving  rise  to  smiles 
and  joy;  and  these  are  .the  objects 
which  occur  in  all  tl.e  poets  in  a  most 
wonderful  abundance  of  songs,  pas- 
torals, sonnets,  little  fugitive  pieces,  so 
lively,  delicate,  easily  unfolded,  that  we 
have  never  since  had  their  equals. 
What  though  Venus  and  Cupid  have 
lost  their  altars  ?  Like  the  contempo- 
rary painters  of  Italy,  they  willingly 
imagine  a  beautiful  naked  child,  drawn 
on  a  chariot  of  gold  through  the 
limpid  air  ;  or  a  woman,  redolent  with 
youth,  standing  on  the  waves,  \\  ucr. 
kiss  her  snowy  feet.  Harsh  Ben 
Jon  son  is  ravished  with  the  scene.  The 
disciplined  battalion  of  his  sturdy 
verses  changes  into  a  band  of  little 
graceful  strophes,  which  trip  as  lightly 
as  Raphael's  children.  He  sees  his 
lady  approach,  sitting  on  the  chariot  of 
Love,  drawn  by  swans  and  doves. 
Love  leads  the  car ;  she  passes  calm 
and  smiling,  and  all  hearts,  charmed  by 
her  divine  looks,  wish  no  other  joy 
than  to  see  and  serve  her  forever. 

"  See  the  chariot  at  hand  here  of  Love, 

Wherein  my  lady  rideth ! 
Each  that  draws  is  a  swan  or  a  dove, 

And  well  the  car  Love  guideth. 
As  she  goes,  all  hearts  do  duty 
Unto  her  beauty  ; 

And,  enamoured,  do  wish,  so  they  might 
But  enjoy  such  a  sight, 
That  they  still  were  to  run  by  her  side, 
Through  swords,  through  seas,  whither  she 

would  ride. 
Do  but  look  on  her  eyes,  they  do  light 

All  that  Love's  world  cprnpriseth ! 
Do  but  look  on  her  hair,  it  is  bright 

As  Love's  star  when  it  riseth!  .  .  . 
Have  you  seen  but  a  bright  lily  grow, 

Before  rude  hands  have  touched  it  ? 
Have  you  marked  but  the  fall  o'  the  snow, 

Before  the  soil  hath  smutched  it  ? 
Have  you  felt  the  wool  of  beaver  ? 

Or  swan's  down  ever  ? 
Or  have  smelt  o'  the  bud  o'  the  brier? 

Or  the  nard  in  the  fire  ? 
Or  have  tasted  the  bag  of  the  bee  ? 
O  so  white!    O   so  soft!    O  so    swe«     If 
she!"* 

What  can  be  more  lively,  moic  unlike 
measured  ai  d  art  ftcial  mythology  ? 
Like  Theocritus  and  Moschus,  they 
play  with  their  smiling  gods,  and  their 
belief  becomes  a  festival.  One  clay,  in 
an  alcove  of  a  wood,  Cupid  meets  a 
nymph  asleep  : 


*  Spenser's    Works,   ed.   Todd,    1863,    The        *  Ben  Jonson's  Poems,  ed.    R.  Bell.     Cek* 
Faerie  Queene,  i.  c.  n,  bt.  51.  bration  of  Char  is  ;  her  Triumph,  p.  12  5. 


JHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


129 


*'  Her  golden  hair  o'erspread  her  face, 

Her  careless  arms  abroad  were  cast, 
Her  quiver  had  her  pillow's  placed, 
Her  breast  lay  bare  to  every  blast."  * 

He  approaches  softly,  steals  her  arrows, 
and  puts  his  own  in  their  place.  She 
hears  a  noise  at  last,  raises  her  reclining 
head,  and  sees  a  shepherd  approach- 
ing. She  flees;  he  pursues.  She 
bends  her  bow,  and  shoots  her  arrows 
at  him.  He  only  becomes  more  ar- 
dent, and  is  on  the  point  of  seizing  her. 
In  despair,  she  takes  an  arrow,  and  bur- 
ies it  in  her  lovely  body.  Lo  !  she  is 
changed,  she  stops,  smiles,  loves,  draws 
near  him. 

"  Though  mountains  meet  not,  lovers  may. 
What  other  lovers  do,  did  they. 
The  god  of  Love  sat  on  a  tree, 
And  laught  that  pleasant  sight  to  see."  t 

A  drop  of  archness  falls  into  the  med- 
ley of  artlessness  and  voluptuous 
charm  ;  it  was  so  in  Longus,  and  in 
all  that  delicious  nosegay  called  the 
Anthology.  Not  the  dry  mocking  of 
Voltaire,  of  folks  who  possessed  only 
wit,  and  always  lived  in  a  drawing- 
room  ;  but  the  raillery  of  artists,  lovers 
whose  brain  is  full  of  color  and  form, 
who,  when  they  recount  a  bit  of  roguish- 
ness,  imagine  a  stooping  neck,  lowered 
eyes,  the  blushing  of  vermilion  cheeks. 
One  of  these  fair  ones  says  the  fol- 
lowing verses,  simpering,  and  we  can 
even  see  now  the  pouting  of  her  lips  : 

"  Love  in  my  bosom  like  a  bee 
Doth  suck  his  sweet. 
Now  with  his  wings  he  plays  with  me, 

Now  with  his  feet. 
Within  my  eyes  he  makes  his  rest, 
His  bed  amid  my  tender  breast, 
My  kisses  are  his  daily  feast. 
And  yet  he  robs  me  of  my  rest. 
-Ah!  wanton,  will  ye!  "  $ 

Whit  relieves  these  sportive  pieces  is 
their  splendor  of  imagination.  There 
are  effects  and  flashes  which  we  hardly 
dare  quote,  dazzling  and  maddening, 
as  in  the  Song  of  Songs: 

"  Her  eyes,  fair  eyes,  like  to  the  purest  lights 
That  animate  the  sun,  or  cheer  the  day  ; 
In  whom  the  shining  sunbeams  brightly  play, 
Whiles  fancy  doth  on  them  divine  delights. 

"  Her  cheeks  like  ripened  lilies  steeped  in 

wine, 
Or  fair  pomegranate  kernels  washed  in  milk, 

*  Cupid^s  Pastime,    unknown    author,   ab. 
162  u  t  Ibid. 

\  Rysalind's  Madrigal. 


Or  snow-white  threads  in  nets  of  crimson  silk, 
Or  gorgeous  clouds  upon  the  sun's  decline. 

"  Her  lips  are  roses  over-washed  with  dew, 
Or  like  the  purple  of  Narcissus'  flower  .  .  . 

"  Her  crystal  chin  like  to  the  purest  mould, 
Enchased  with  dainty  daisies  soft  and  white, 
Where  fancy's  fair  pavilion  once  is  pight, 
Whereas  embraced  his  beauties  he  doth  hold. 

"  Her  neck  like  to  an  ivory  shining  tower, 
Where  through  with  azure  veins  sweet  nectar 

runs, 
Or  like   the  down  of    swans  where    Senesse 

woons, 
Or  like  delight  that  doth  itself  devour. 

"  Her  paps  are  like  fair  apples  in  the  pnme 
As  round  as  orient  pearls,  as  soft  as  down  ; 
They  never  vail  their  fair  through  winter's 

frown, 
But  from  their  sweets  love  sucked  his  summer 

time."  * 

"  What  need  compare,   where  sweet  exceeds 

compare  ? 

Who  draws  his  thoughts  of  love  from  sense- 
less things, 

Their  pomp  and  greatest  glories  doth  impair, 
And  mounts  love's  heaven  with  overladen 
wings."  t 

I  can  well  believe  that  things  had  no 
more  beauty  then  than  now ;  but  I  am 
sure  that  men  found  them  more  beau- 
tiful. 

When  the  power  of  embellishment 
is  so  great,  it  is  natural  that  they 
should  paint  the  sentiment  which 
unites  all  joys,  whither  all  dreams  con- 
verge,— ideal  love,  and  in  particular, 
artless  and  happy  love.  Of  all  senti- 
ments, there  is  none  for  which  we  have 
more  sympathy.  It  is  of  all  the  most 
simple  and  sweet.  It  is  the  first  mo- 
tion of  the  heart,  and  the  first  word 
of  nature.  It  is  made  up  of  inno- 
cence and  self-abandonment.  It  is 
clear  of  reflection  and  effort.  It 
extricates  us  from  complicated  pas- 
sion, contempt,  regret,  hate,  violent  de- 
sires. It  penetrates  us,  and  we  breathe 
it  as  the  fresh  breath  of  the  morning 
wind,  which  has  swept  over  flowery 
meads.  The  nights  of  this  perilous 
court  inhaled  it,  and  were  enraptured, 
and  so  rested  in  the  contrast  from  their 
actions  and  their  dangers.  The  most 
severe  and  tragic  of  their  poets  turned 
aside  to  meet  it,  Shakspeare  among 
the  evergreen  oaks  of  the  forest  of  Ar- 
den,  J  Ben  Jonson  in  the  woods  of  Sher- 

*  Green's  Poems,  ed.  R.  Bell,  Menaphorf* 
Eclogue i  p.  41. 

t  Ibid.  Melicertus1  EclogTie,  p.  43. 
t  As  you  Like  it. 


130 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


wood,*  amid  the  wide  shady  glades, 
the  shining  leaves  and  the  moist  flow- 
ers, trembling  on  the  margin  of  lonely 
springs.  Marlowe  himself,  the  terrible 
painter  of  the  agony  of  Edward  II.,  the 
impressive  and  powerful  poet,  who 
wrote  Faustus,  Tamerlane,  and  the  Jew 
of  Malta,  leaves  his  sanguinary  dramas, 
his  high-sounding  verse,  his  images  of 
fury,  and  nothing  can  be  more  musical 
and  sweet  than  his  song.  A  shepherd, 
to  gain  his  lady-love,  says  to  her : 

"  Come  live  with  me  and  be  my  Love, 
And  we  will  all  the  pleasures  prove 
That  hills  and  valleys,  dale  and  field, 
And  all  the  craggy  mountains  yield. 
There  we  will  sit  upon  the  rocks, 
And  see  the  shepherds  feed  their  Hocks, 
By  shallow  rivers,  to  whose  falls 
Melodious  birds  sing  madrigals. 
There  will  I  make  thee  beds  of  roses 
And  a  thousand  fragrant  posies, 
A  cap  of  flowers,  and  a  kirtle 
Embroider'd  all  with  leaves  of  myrtle. 
A  gown  made  of  the  finest  wool, 
Which  from  our  pretty  lambs  we  pull, 
Fair  lindd  slippers  for  the  cold, 
With  buckles  of  the  purest  gold. 
A  belt  of  straw  and  ivy  buds, 
With  coral  clasps  and  amber  studs  : 
And  if  these  pleasures  may  thee  move, 
Come  live  with  me  and  be  my  Love.  .  .  . 
The  shepherd  swains  shall  dance  and  sing 
For  thy  delight  each  May-morning : 
If  these  delights  thy  mind  may  move, 
Then  live  with  me  and  be  my  Love  "  t 

The  unpolished  gentlemen  of  the 
period,  returning  from  hawking,  were 
more  than  once  arrested  by  such  rustic 
pictures  ;  such  as  they  were,  that  is  to 
say,  imaginative  and  not  very  citizen- 
like,  they  had  dreamed  of  figuring  in 
them  on  their  own  account.  But  while 
entering  into,  they  reconstructed  them  ; 
they  reconstructed  them  in  their  parks, 
prepared  for  Queen  Elizabeth's  en- 
trance, with  a  profusion  of  costumes 
and  devices,  not  troubling  themselves 
to  copy  rough  nature  exactly.  Im- 
probability did  not  disturb  them  ;  they 

*  The  Sad  Shepherd.  See  also  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  The  Faithful  Shepherdess. 

t  This  poem  was,  and  still  is,  frequently  at- 
tributed to  Shakspeare.  It  appears  as  his  in 
Knight's  edition,  published  a  few  years  ago, 
Isaac  Walton,  however,  writing  about  fifty 
years  after  Marlowe's  death,  attributes  it  to 
him.  In  Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury  it  is  also 
ascribed  to  the  same  author.  As  a  confirma- 
tion, let  us  state  that  Ithamore,  in  Marlowe's 
Jew  of  Malta,  says  to  the  courtesan  (Act  iv. 
Sc.  4): 
"  Thou  in  those  groves,  by  Dis  above, 

Shah  \ive  with  me,  and  be  my  love." — TR. 


were  not  minute  imitators,  students  of 
manners  :  they  created ;  the  country 
for  them  was  but  a  setting,  and  the 
complete  picture  came  from  their  fan- 
cies and  their  hearts.  Romantic  it 
may  have  been,  even  impossible,  but 
it  was  on  this  account  the  more  charm- . 
ing.  Is  there  a  greater  charm  than 
putting  on  one  side  this  actual  world 
which  fetters  or  oppresses  us,  to  float 
vaguely  and  easily  in  the  azure  and  the 
light,  on  the  summit  of  the  cloud- 
capped  land  of  fairies,  to  arrange  things 
according  to  the  pleasure  of  the  mo- 
ment, no  longer  feeling  the  oppressive 
laws,  the  harsh  and  resisting  frame 
work  of  life,  adorning  and  varying 
every  thing  after  the  caprice  and  the  re* 
fmements  of  fancy?  That  is  what  is 
done  in  these  little  poems.  Usually 
the  events  are  such  as  happen  nowhere 
or  happen  in  the  land  where  kings  turn 
shepherds  and  marry  shepherdesses. 
The  beautiful  Argentile  *  is  detained 
at  the  court  of  her  uncle,  who  wishes 
to  deprive  her  of  her  kingdom,  and 
commands  her  to  marry  Curan,  a  boor 
in  his  service ;  she  flees,  and  Curan  in 
despair  goes  and  lives  two  years  among 
the  shepherds.  One  day  he  meets  a 
beautiful  country-woman,  and  loves 
her  ;  gradually,  while  speaking  to  her, 
he  thinks  of  Argentile,  and  weeps  ;  he 
describes  her  sweet  face,  her  lithe  fig- 
ure,  her  blue-veined  delicate  wrists,  and 
suddenly  sees  that  the  peasant  girl  is 
weeping.  She  falls  into  his  arms,  and 
says,  "I  am  Argentile."  Now  Curan 
was  a  king's  son,  who  had  disguised 
himself  thus  for  love  of  Argentile.  He 
resumes  his  armor,  and  defeats  the 
wicked  king.  There  never  was  a 
braver  knight ;  and  they  both  reigned 
long  in  Northumberland.  From  a 
hundred  such  tales,  tales  of  the  spring- 
time, the  reader  will  perhaps  bear  with 
me  while  I  pick  out  one  more,  gay  ana 
simple  as  a  May  morning.  The  Prin- 
cess Dowsabel  came  down  one  morn- 
ing into  her  father's  garden  ;  she  gath- 
ers honeysuckles,  primroses,  violets, 
and  daisies  ;  then,  behind  a  hedge,  she 
heard  a  shepherd  singing,  and  that  so 
finely  that  she  loved  him  at  once.  He 
promises  to  be  faithful,  and  asks  for  a 

*  Chalmers'  English  Poets,  William  War- 
ner, Fourth  Book  of  Albion's  England,  :ht 
xx.  p.  551. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


kiss.     Her  cheeks  became  as  crimson 
as  a  rose  : 

"  With  that  she  bent  her  snow  white  knee, 
Down  by  the  shepherd  kneeled  she, 
And  him  she  sweetly  kiss'd. 


Wich  that  the  shepherd  whoop'd  for  joy; 
Quoth  he  :   'There's  never  shepherd's  be 
That  ever  was  so  blest.'  "  * 


boy 


Nothing  more;  is  it  not  enough?  It 
is  but  a  moment's  fancy-;  but  they  had 
such  fancies  every  moment.  Think 
what  poetry  was  likely  to  spring  from 
them,  how  superior  to  common  events, 
how  free  from  literal  imitation,  how 
smitten  with  ideal  beauty,  how  capable 
of  creating  a  world  beyond  our  sad 
world.  In  fact,  among  all  these  poems 
there  is  one  truly  divine,  so  divine  that 
the  reasoners  of  succeeding  ages  have 
found  it  wearisome,  that  even  now  but 
few  understand  it — Spenser's  Faerie 
Qifeene. 

One  day  Monsieur  Jourdain,  having 
turned  Mamamouchi  t  and  learned 
orthography,  sent  for  the  most  illustri- 
ous writers  of  the  age.  He  settled 
himself  in  his  arm-chair,  pointed  with 
his  finger  at  several  folding-stools  for 
them  to  sit  down,  and  said : 

"  I  have  read  your  little  productions,  gentle- 
men. They  have  afforded  me  much  pleasure. 
I  wish  to  give  you  some  work  to  do.  I  have 
given  some  lately  to  little  Lulli,  J  your  fellow- 
laborer.  It  was  at  my  command  that  he  intro- 
duced the  sea-shell  at  his  concerts, — a  melo- 
dious instrument,  which  no  one  thought  of  be- 
fore, and  which  has  such  a  pleasing  effect.  I 
insist  that  you  will  work  out  my  ideas  as  he  has 
worked  them  out,  and  I  give  you  an  order  for 
a  poem  in  prose.  What  is  not  prose,  you  know, 
is  verse ;  and  what  is  not  verse,  is  prose. 
When  I  say,  '  Nicolle,  bring  me  my  slippers 
and  give  me  my  nightcap,'  I  speak  prose.  Take 
this  sentence  as  your  model.  This  style  is 
much  more  pleasing  than  the  jargon  of  unfin- 
ished lines  which  you  call  verse.  As  for  the 
subject,  let  it  be  myself.  You  will  describe 
my  flowered  dressing-gown  which  I  have  put 
on  to  receive  you  in,  and  this  little  green 
velvet  undress  which  I  wear  underneath,  to  do 
my  morning  exercise  in.  You  will  set  down 
that  this  chintz  costs  a  louis  an  ell.  The  cle- 
icription,  if  well  worked  out,  will  furnish  some 
very  pretty  paragraphs,  and  will  enlighten  the 
public  as  to  the  cost  of  things.  I  desire  also 
that  you  should  speak  of  my  mirrors,my  carpets, 


^*  Chalmers1  English  Poets,  M.  Drayton's 
Fmrth  Eclogue,  iy.  p.  436. 

t  Mons.  Jourdain  is  the  hero  of  Moliere's 
comedy,  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme,  the  type 
->f  a  vulgar  and  successful  upstart ;  Mama- 
mouchi is  a  mock  title. — TR. 

%  Lulli,  a  celebrated  Italian  composer  of  the 
^ime  of  Moliere — TR. 


my  hangings.  My  tradesmen  will  let  you  have 
their  bills  ;  don't  fail  to  put  them  in.  I  shali 
be  glad  to  read  in  your  works,  all  fully  and 
naturally  set  forth,  about  my  father's  shop, 
who,  like  a  real  gentleman,  sold  cloth  to  oblige 
his  friends  ;  my  maid  Nicolle's  kitchen,  the 
genteel  behavior  of  Brusquet,  the  little  dog  of 
my  neighbor  M.  Dimanche.  You  might  also 
explain  my  domestic  affairs :  there  is  nothing 
more  interesting  to  the  public  than  to  hear  how 
a  million  may  be  scraped  together.  Tell  them 
also  that  my  daughter  Lucile  has  not  married 
that  little  rascal  Cleonte,  but  M.  Samuel  Ber- 
nard, who  made  his  fortune  as  a  fermier-gen- 
cral}  keeps  his  carriage  and  is  going  to  be  a 
minister  of  state.  _  For  this  I  will  pay  you 
liberally,  half-a-iouis  for  a  yard  of  writing. 
Come  back  in  a  month,  and  let  me  see  what 
my  ideas  have  suggested  to  you." 

We  are  the  descendants  of  M.  Jour- 
dain, and  this  is  how  we  have  been 
talking  to  the  men  of  genius  from  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  and  the  men 
of  genius  have  listened  to  us.  Hence 
arise  our  shoppy  and  realistic  novels. 
I  pray  the  reader  to  forget  them,  to 
forget  himself,  to  become  for  a  while  a 
poet,  a  gentleman,  a  man  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  Unless  we  bury  the 
M.  Jourdain  who  survives  in  us,  we 
shall  never  understand  Spenser. 

VI. 

Spenser  belonged  to  an  ancient 
family,  allied  to  great  houses;  was  a 
friend  of  Sidney  and  Raleigh,  the  two 
most  accomplished  knights  of  the  age 
— a  knight  himself,  at  least  in  heart  ; 
who  had  found  in  his  connections,  his 
friendships,  his  studies,  his  life,  every 
thing  calculated  to  lead  him  to  ideal 
poetry.  We  find  him  at  Cambridge, 
where  he  imbues  himself  with  the  no- 
blest ancient  philosophies  ;  in  a  north- 
ern country,  where  he  passes  through 
a  deep  and  unfortunate  passion  ;  at 
Penshurst,  in  the  castle  and  in  the 
society  where  the  Arcadia  was  pro- 
duced; with.  Sidney,  in  whom  survived 
entire  the  romantic  poetry  and  heroic 
jenerosity  of  the  feudal  spirit;  at 
court,  where  all  the  splendors  of  a 
disciplined  and  gorgeous  chivalry  were 
gathered  about  the  throne ;  finally,  at 
Kilcolman,  on  the  borders  of  a  beauti- 
ful lake,  in  a  lonely  castle,  from  which 
the  view  embraced  an  amphitheatre 
of  mountains,  and  the  half  of  Ire- 
and.  Poor  on  the  other  hand,*  not 
*  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  Spenser  was  so 
joor  as  he  is  generally  believed  to  have  been.— 
TR. 


132 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


fit  f>r  court,  and  though  favored  by 
the  queen,  unable  to  obtain  from  his 
patrons  any  thing  but  inferior  employ- 
ment ;  in  the  end,  wearied  of  solicita- 
tions, and  banished  to  his  dangerous 
property  in  Ireland,  whence  a  rebellion 
expelled  him,  after  his  house  and  child 
had  been  burned ;  he  died  three 
months  later,  of  misery  and  a  broken 
heart.*  Expectations  and  rebuffs,  many 
sorrows  and  many  dreams,  some  few 
joys,  and  a  sudden  and  frightful  calam- 
ity, a  small  fortune  and  a  premature 
end  ;  this  indeed  was  a  poet's  life. 
But  the  heart  within  was  the  true  poet 
— from  it  all  proceeded  ;  circumstances 
furnished  the  subject  only;  he  trans- 
formed them  more  than  they  him  ;  he 
received  less  than  he  gave.  Philosophy 
and  landscapes,  ceremonies  and  orna- 
ments, splendors  of  the  country  and 
the  court,  on  all  which  he  painted  or 
thought,  he  impressed  his  inward  no- 
bleness. Above  all,  his  was  a  soul  cap- 
tivated by  sublime  and  chaste  beauty, 
eminently  platonic  ;  one  of  these  lofty 
and  refined  souls  most  charming  of 
all,  who,  born  in  the  lap  of  nature, 
draw  thence  their  sustenance,  but 
soar  higher,  enter  the  regions  of  mys- 
ticism, and  mount  instinctively  in  or- 
der to  expand  on  the  confines  of  a  lof- 
tier world.  Spenser  leads  us  toMilton, 
and  thence  to  Puritanism,  as  Plato  to 
Virgil,  and  thence  to  Christianity. 
Sensuous  beauty  is  perfect  in  both, 
but  their  main  worship  is  for  moral 
beauty.  He  appeals  to  the  Muses : 

"  Revele  to  me  the  sacred  noursery 
Of  vertue,  which  with  you  doth  there  re- 

maine, 

Where  it  in  silver  bowre  does  hidden  ly 
1"  rom  view  of  men  and  wicked  worlds  dis- 

daine!  " 

He  encourages  his  knight  when  he 
sees  him  droop.  He  is  wroth  when  he 
sees  him  attacked.  He  rejoices  in  his 
justice,  temperance,  courtesy.  He  in- 
troduces in  the  beginning  of  a  song, 
)ong  stanzas  in  honor  of  friendship 
and  justice.  He  pauses,  after  relating  a 
.ovely  instance  of  chastity,  to  exhort 
women  to  modesty.  He  pours  out  the 
wealth  of  his  respect  and  tenderness  at 
the  feet  of  his  heroines.  If  any  coarse 

*  "  He    died    for  want  of    bread,  in    King 
Street."     Ben  Jonson,  qioted  by  Drummond. 


man  insults  them,  he  calls  to  their  aid 
nature  and  the  gods.  Never  does  he 
bring  them  on  his  stage  without  adorn- 
ing their  name  with  splendid  eulogy. 
He  has  an  adoration  for  beauty  worthy 
of  Dante  and  Plotinu?.  And  this,  be- 
cause he  never  considers  it  a  mere  har- 
mony of  color  and  form,  but  an  emana 
tion  of  unique,  heavenly,  imperishable 
beauty,  which  no  mortal  eye  can  see,  and 
which  is  the  masterpiece  of  the  great 
Author  of  the  worlds.*  Bodies  only 
render  it  visible  ;  it  does  not  live  in 
them  ;  charm  and  attraction  are  not  in 
things  but  in  the  immortal  idea  which 
shines  through  them : 

"  For  that  same  goodly  hew  of  white  and  red, 
With  which  the  cheekes  are  sprinckled,  shall 

decay, 

And  those  sweete  rosy  leaves,  so  fairly  spred 
Upon  the  lips,  shall  fade  and  fall  away 
To  that  they  were,  even  to  corrupted  clay : 
That  golden  wyre,  those  sparckling  stars  so 

bright, 
Shall  turne  to  dust,  and  lose  their  goodly 

light. 
But  that  faire  lampe,  from  whose  celestiall 

ray 
That  light  proceedes,  which  kindleth  lovers 

fire, 

Shall  never  be  extinguisht  nor  decay  ; 
But,  when  the  vitall  spirits  doe  expyre, 
Upon  her  native  planet  shall  retyre  ; 
For  it  is  heavenly  borne,  and  cannot  die, 
Being  a  parcell  of  the  purest  skie."  f 

In  presence  of  this  ideal  of  beauty,  love 
is  transformed : 

"  For  Love  is  lord  of  Truth  and  Loialtie, 
Lifting  himself  out  of  the  lowly  dust, 
On  golden  plumes  up  to  the  purest  skie, 
Above  the  reach  of  loathly  sinfull  lust, 
Whose  base  affect  through  cowardly  distrust 
Of  his  weake  wings  dare  not  to  heaven  fly, 
But  like  a  moldwarpe  in  the  earth  doth  ly."J 

Love  such  as  this  contains  all  that  is 
good,  and  fine,  and  noble.  It  is  the 
prime  source  of  life,  and  the  eternal 
soul  of  things.  It  is  this  love  which, 
pacifying  the  primitive  discord,  has 
created  the  harmony  of  the  spheres, 
and  maintains  this  glorious  universe, 
It  dwells  in  God,  and  is  God  Himself, 
come  down  in  bodily  form  to  regenerate 
the  tottering  world  and  save  the  human 
race  ;  around  and  within  animated  be- 
ings, when  our  eyes  can  pierce  outward 
appearances,  we'  behold  it  as  a  living 
light,  penetrating  and  embracing  every 

*  Hymns  of  Love  and  Beauty  ;  of  heavenly 
Love  and  Beauty. 

t  A  Hymne  in  Honour  of  Beautie,  I.  92-105 
\  A  Hymne  in  Honour  of  Love •,  /.  176-182. 


CHAP  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE 


133 


creature.  We  touch  here  the  sublime 
sharp  summit  where  the  world  of  mind 
and  the  world  of  sense  unite  ;  where 
man,  gathering  with  both  hands  the 
loveliest  flowers  of  either,  feels  himself 
at  the  same  time  a  pagan  and  a  Chris- 
tian. 

So  much,  as  a  testimony  to  his  heart. 
But  he  was  also  a  poet,  that  is,  pre- 
eminently a  creator  and  a  dreamer, 
and  that  most  naturally,  instinctively, 
unceasingly.  We  might  go  on  for- 
ever describing  this  inward  condition 
of  all  great  artists  ;  there  would  still 
remain  much  to  be  described.  It  is  a 
sort  of  mental  growth  with  them  ;  at 
every  instant  a  bud  shoots  forth,  and  on 
this  another,  and  still  another;  each 
producing,  increasing,  blooming  of  it- 
self, so  that  after  a  few  moments  we 
find  first  a  green  plant  crop  up,  then  a 
thicket,  then  a  forest.  A  character 
appears  to  them,  then  an  action,  then  a 
landscape,  then  a  succession  of  actions, 
characters,  landscapes,  producing,  com- 
pleting, arranging  themselves  by  in- 
stinctive development,  as  when  in  a 
dream  we  behold  a  train  of  figures 
which,  without  any  outward  compul- 
sion, display  and  group  themselves  be- 
fore our  eyes.  This  fount  of  living 
and  changing  forms  is  inexhaustible 
in  Spenser;  he  is  always  imaging;  it 
is  his  specialty.  He  has  but  to  close 
his  eyes,  and  apparitions  arise;  they 
abound  in  him,  crowd,  overflow ;  in 
vain  he  pours  them  forth;  they  con- 
tinually float  up,  more  copious  and  more 
dense.  Many  times,  following  the  in- 
exhaustible stream,  I  have  thought  of 
the  vapors  which  rise  incessantly  from 
the  sea,  ascend,  sparkle, commingle  their 
golden  and  snowy  scrolls,  while  under- 
neath them  new  mists  arise,  and  others 
again  beneath,  and  the  splendid  pro- 
cession never  grows  dim  or  ceases. 

But  what  distinguishes  him  from  all 
others  is  the  mode  of  his  imagination. 
Generally  with  a  poet  his  mind  fer- 
ments vehemently  and  by  fits  and 
starts ;  his  ideas  gather,  jostle  each 
other,  suddenly  appear  in  masses  and 
heaps,  and  burst  forth  in  sharp,  pierc- 
ing, concentrative  words ;  it  seems 
that  they  need  these  sudden  accumula- 
tions to  imitate  the  unity  and  life-like 
energy  of  the  objects  which  they  re- 
produce ;  at  least  almost  all  the  poets 


of  that  time,  Shakspeare  at  their  head, 
act  thus.  Spenser  remains  calm  in 
the  fervor  of  invention.  The  visions 
which  would  be  fever  to  another,  leave 
him  at  peace.  They  come  and  unfold 
themselves  before  him,  easily,  entire, 
uninterrupted,  without  starts.  He  is 
epic,  that  is,  a  narrator,  not  a  singei 
like  an  ode-writer,  nor  a  mimic  like  a 
play-writer.  No  modern  is  more  like 
Homer.  Like  Homer  and  the  great 
epic-writers,  he  only  presents  consecu- 
tive and  noble,  almost  classical  images, 
so  nearly  ideas,  that  the  mind  seizes 
them  unaided  and  unawares.  Like 
Homer,  he  is  always  simple  and  clear : 
he  makes  no  leaps,  he  omits  no  argu- 
ment, he  roos  no  word  of  its  primitive 
and  ordinary  meaning,  he  preserves  the 
natural  sequence  of  ideas.  Like  Ho- 
mer, again,  he  is  redundant,  ingenuous, 
even  childish.  He  says  every  thing,  he 
puts  down  reflections  which  we  have 
made  beforehand  ;  he  repeats  without 
limit  his  grand  ornamental  epithets. 
We  can  see  that  he  beholds  objects  in 
a  beautiful  uniform  light,  with  infinite 
detail ;  that  he  wishes  to  show  all  this 
detail,  never  fearing  to  see  his  happy 
dream  change  or  disappear;  that  he 
traces  its  outline  with  a  regular  move- 
ment, never  hurrying  or  slackening. 
He  is  even  a  little  prolix,  too  unmind- 
ful of  the  public,  too  ready  to  lose 
himself  and  dream  about  the  things  he 
beholds.  His  thought  expands  in  vast 
repeated  comparisons,  like  those  of  the 
old  Ionic  poet.  If  a  wounded  giant 
falls,  he  finds  him 

"  As  an  aged  tree, 

High  growing  on  the  top  of  rocky  clift. 
Whose  hart-strings  with  keene  steele  nigh  hew 

en  be, 

The  mightie  trunck  halfe  rent  with  ragged  rift, 
Doth  roll  adowne  the  rocks,  and  fall  with  fearv 

full  drift. 

Or  as  a  castle,  reared  high  and  round, 
By  subtile  engins  and  malitious  slight 
Is  undermined  from  the  lowest  ground, 
And  her  foundation  forst,  and  feebled  quighl, 
At  last  downe  falles ;  and  with   her  heaped 

hight 

Her  hastie  ruine  does  more  heavie  make, 
And  yields  it  selfe  unto  the  victours  might  • 
Such  was    this  Gyaunt's  fall,   that    seemd  to 

shake 
The  stedfast  globe  of  earth,  as  it  for  feare  did 

quake."  * 

He   develops   all   the  ideas  which  he 

handles.     All  his  phrases  become  pe 

*  The  Faerie  Qwenet  i.  c.  8,  st.  22,  23. 


134 


THE  RENAISSANCE, 


[BOOK  II. 


r/'ods.  Instead  of  compressing,  he  ex- 
pands. To  bear  this  ample  thought 
and  its  accompanying  train,  he  requires 
a  long  stanza,  ever  renewed,  long  alter-, 
nate  verses,  reiterated  rhymes,  whose 
uniformity  and  fulness  recall  the  ma- 
jestic sounds  which  undulate  eternally 
through  the  woods  and  the  fields.  To 
unfold  these  epic  faculties,  and  to  dis- 
play them  in  the  sublime  region  where 
his  soul  is  naturally  borne,  he  requires 
an  ideal  stage,  situated  beyond  the 
bounds  of  reality,  with  personages  who 
could  hardly  exist,  and  in  a  world 
which  could  never  be. 

lie  made  many  miscellaneous  at- 
tempts in  sonnets,  elegies,  pastorals, 
hymns  of  love,  little  sparkling  word 
pictures ;  *  they  were  but  essays,  in- 
capable for  the  most  part  of  support- 
ing his  genius.  Yet  already  his  mag- 
nificent imagination  appeared  in  them  ; 
gods,  men,  landscapes,  the  world  which 
he  sets  in  motion  is  a  thousand  miles 
from  that  in  which  we  live.  His  Shep- 
herd^s  Calendar t  is  a  thought-inspir- 
ing and  tender  pastoral,  full  of  delicate 
loves,  noble  sorrows,  lofty  ideas,  where 
no  voice  is  heard  but  of  thinkers  ar>cl 
poets.  His  Visions  of  Petrarch  and 
Dit  Bellay  are  admirable  dreams,  in 
which  palaces,  temples  of  gold,  splen- 
did landscapes,  sparkling  rivers,  mar- 
vellous birds,  appear  in  close  succession 
as  in  an  Oriental  fairy-tale.  If  he 
sings  a  "  Prothalamion,"  he  sees  two 
beautiful  swans,  white  as  snow,  who 
come  softly  swimming  down  amidst 
the  songs  of  nymphs  and  vermeil  roses, 
while  the  transparent  water  kisses 
their  silken  feathers,  and  murmurs 
with  joy : 

"  There,  in  H  meadow,  by  the  river's  side, 
.*.  flocke  of  Nymphes  I  chaunced  to  espy, 
All  lovely  daughters  of  the  Flood  thereby, 
With  goodly  greenish  locks,  all  loose  untyde, 
As  each  had  bene  a  bryde  ; 
And  each  one  had  a  little  wicker  basket, 
Made  of  fine  twigs,  entrayled  curiously, 
In  which  they  gathered  flowers  to  fill  their 

flasket, 

And  with  fine  fingers  cropt  full  feateously 
The  tender  stalkes  on  hye. 
Of  every  sort,  which  in  that  meadow  grew, 


*  The  Shepherd's  Calendar,  A  moretti,  Son- 
ttits,  Prothalamion,  Epithalamion,  Muiopot- 
mos,  Virgil"*  s  Gnat,  The  Ruines  of  Time,  The 
T  cares  of  the  Muses,  etc. 

t  Published  in  1589  ;  dedicated  to  Philip  Sid- 


Thsy  gathered  some  ;  the  violet,  pallid  blew, 
The  little  dazie,  that  at  evening  closes, 
The  virgin  lillie,  and  the  primrose  trew, 
With  store  of  vermeil  roses, 
To  deck  their  bridegroomes  posies 
Against  the  brydale-day,  which  was  not  long : 
Sweet  Themmes!  runne  softly,  till  I  end  my 
song. 

With  that  I  saw  two  Swannes  of  goodly  hewe 
Come  softly  swimming  downe  along  the  lee  . 
Two  fairer  birds  I  yet  did  never  see  ; 
The   snow,  which   doth   the   top   of   Pindvs 

strew, 

Did  never  whiter  shew  .  .  . 
So  purely  white  they  were, 
That  even  the  gentle  stream,  the  whicl  .hern 

bare, 
Seem'd  foule  to  them,  and  bad  his  billowes 

spare 

To  wet  their  silken  feathers,  least  they  might 
Soyie  their  fayre  plumes  with  water  not  so 

fayre, 

And  marre  their  beauties  bright, 
That  shone  as  heavens  light, 
Against   their  brydale   day,  which  was  nc-f 

long : 
Sweet  Themmes !  runne  softly,  till  I  end  my 

song!  "  * 

If  he  bewails  the  death  of  Sidney,  Sid- 
ney becomes  a  shepherd ;  he  is  slain 
like  Adonis ;  around  him  gather  weep- 
ing nymphs  : 

"  The  gods,  which  all  things  see,  this  same  be- 
held, 

And,  pittying  this  paire  of  lovers  trew, 
Tran  formed  them  there  lying  on  the  field, 
Into  one  flowre  that  is  both  red  and  blew  : 
It  first  growes  red,  and  then  to  blew  doth 

fade, 
Like  Astrophel,  which  thereinto  was  made. 

And  in  the  midst  thereof  a  star  appeares, 
As  fairly  formd  as  any  star  in  skyes  : 
Resembling  Stella  in  her  freshest  yeares, 
Forth  darting  beames   of   beautie  from  her 

eyes ; 

And  all  the  day  it  standeth  full  of  deow, 
Which  is  the  teares,  that  from  her  eyes  did 

flow."  t 

His  most  genuine  sentiments  become 
thus  fairy-like.  Magic  is  the  mould  of 
his  mind,  and  impresses  its  shape 
on  all  that  he  imagines  or  thinks. 
Involuntarily  he  robs  objects  of  their 
ordinary  form.  If  he  looks  z.\  a  lan^* 
scape,  after  an  instant  he  sees  it  quuc 
differently.  He  carries  it,  unconscious- 
ly, into  an  enchanted  land  ;  the  azure 
heaven  sparkles  like  a  canopy  of 
diamonds,  meadows  are  clothed  with 
flowers,  a  biped  population  flutters  in 
the  balmy  air,  palaces  of  jasper  shine 
among  the  trees,  radiant  ladies  appear 
on  carved  balconies  above  galleries  of 

*  Prothalamion,  I.  19-54. 
t  Astroplul,  L  181-192. 


CHAP.  L] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


'35 


emerald.  This  unconscious  toil  of 
mind  is  like  the  slow  crystallizations 
of  nature.  A  moist  twig  is  cast  into 
the  bottom  of  a  mine,  and  is  brought 
out  again  a  hoop  of  diamonds. 

At  last  he  finds  a  subject  which 
suits  him,  the  greatest  joy  permitted  to 
an  artist.  He  removes  his  epic  from 
the  common  ground  which,  in  the  hands 
of  Homer  and  Dante,  gave  expression 
to  a  living  creed,  and  depicted  national 
heroes.  He  leads  us  to  the  summit  of 
fairy  land,  soaring  above  history,  on 
tha  extreme  verge  where  objects 
vai.  dh  and  pure  idealism  begins  :  "  I 
haw*  undertaken  a  work,"  he  says,  "  to 
represent  all  the  moral  vertues,  assign- 
ing to  every  vertue  a  knight  to  be  the 
patron  and  defender  of  the  same ;  in 
whose  actions  and  feats  of  armes  and 
chivalry  the  operations  of  that  vertue, 
whereof  he  is  the  protector,  are  to  be 
expressed,  and  the  vices  and  unruly 
appetites  that  oppose  themselves 
against  the  same,  to  be  beaten  downe 
and  overcome."  *  In  fact,  he  gives  us 
an  allegory  as  the  foundation  of  his 
poem,  not  that  he  dreams  of  becoming 
a  wit,  a  preacher  of  moralities,  a  pro- 
pounder  of  riddles.  He  does  not  sub- 
ordinate image  to  idea  ;  he  is  a  seer, 
not  a  philosopher.  They  are  living 
men  and  actions  which  he  sets  in  mo- 
tion; only  from  time  to  time,  in  his 
poem,  enchanted  palaces,  a  whole  train 
of  splendid  visions  trembles  and 
divides  like  a  mist,  enabling  us  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  thought  which 
raised  and  arranged  it.  When  in  his 
Garden  of  Adonis  we  see  the  countless 
forms  of  all  living  things  arranged  in 
due  order,  in  close  compass,  awaiting 
life,  we  conceive  with  him  the  birth 
of  universal  love,  the  ceaseless  fertility 
of  the  great  mother,  the  mysterious 
swarm  of  creatures  which  rise  in  suc- 
cession from  her  "  wide  wombe  of  the 
world."  When  we  see  his  Knight  of 
the  Cross  combating  with  a  horrible 
woman-serpent  in  defence  of  his  belov- 
ed lady  Una,  we  dimly  remember  that, 
if  we  search  beyond  these  two  figures, 
we  shall  find  behind  one  Truth,  be- 
nind  the  other,  Falsehood.  We  per- 
ceive that  his  characters  are  not  flesh 

*  Words  attributed  to  him  by  Lodowick 
Bryskett,  Discourse  of  Civil  Life,  ed.  1606, 
p.  26. 


and  blood,  and  that  all  these  brilliant 
phantoms  are  phantoms,  and  nothing 
more.  We  take  pleasure  in  their 
brilliancy,  without  believing  in  their 
substantiality ;  we  are  interested  in 
their  doings,  without  troubling  our- 
selves about  their  misfortunes.  We 
know  that  their  tears  and  cries  are  not 
real.  Our  emotion  is  purified  and 
raised.  We  do  not  fall  into  gross 
illusion;  we  have  that  gentle  feeling  of 
knowing  ourselves  to  be  dreaming. 
We,  like  him,  are  a  thousand  leagues 
from  actual  life,  beyond  the  pangs  of 
painful  pity,  unmixed  terror,  violent 
and  bitter  hatred.  We  entertain  only 
refined  sentiments,  partly  formed, 
arrested  at  the  very  moment  they  were 
about  to  affect  us  with  too  sharp  a 
stroke.  They  slightly  touch  us,  and 
we  find  ourselves  happy  in  being  ex- 
tricated from  a  belief  which  was  begin 
ning  to  be  oppressive. 

VII. 

What  world  could  furnish  materials 
to  so  elevated  a  fancy  ?  One  only, 
that  of  chivalry;  for  none  is  so  far 
from  the  actual.  Alone  and  indepen- 
dent in  his  castle,  freed  from  all  the 
ties  which  society,  family,  toil,  usually 
impose  on  the  actions  of  men,  the  feu- 
dal hero  had  attempted  every  kind  of 
adventure,  but  yet  he  had  done  less 
than  he  imagined  ;  the  boldness  of  his 
deeds  had  been  exceeded  by  the  mad- 
ness of  his  dreams.  For  want  of  use- 
ful employment  and  an  accepted  rule 
his  brain  had  labored  on  an  unreason 
ing  and  impossible  track,  and  the  ur- 
gency of  his  wearisomeness  had  in- 
creased beyond  measure  his  craving 
for  excitement.  Under  this  stimulus 
his  poetry  had  become  a  world  of  im- 
agery. Insensibly  strange  conceptions 
had  grown  and  multiplied  in  his  brains, 
one  over  the  other,  like  ivy  woven 
round  a  tree,  and  the  original  trunk  had 
disappeared  beneath  their  rank  growth 
and  their  obstruction.  The  delicate 
fancies  of  the  old  Welsh  poetry,  the 
grand  ruins  of  the  German  epics,  the 
marvellous  splendors  of  the  conquered 
East,  all  the  recollections  which  four 
centuries  of  adventure  had  scattered 
among  the  minds  of  men,  had  become 
gathered  into  one  great  dream ;  and 
giants,  dwarfs,  monsters,  the  whole 


J36 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


P' 
h 


medley  of  imaginary  creatures,  of  su- 
perhuman exploits  and  splendid  fol- 
ies,  were  grouped  around  an  unique 
conception,  exalted  and  sublime  love, 
like  courtiers  prostrated  at  the  feet  of 
their  king.  It  was  an  ample  and  buoy- 
ant subject  -  matter,  from  which  the 
great  artists  of  the  age,  Ariosto,  Tasso, 
Cervantes,  Rabelais,  had  hewn  their 
poems.  But  they  belonged  too  complete- 
ly to  their  own  time  to  admit  of  their 
belonging  to  one  which  had  passed.* 
They  created  a  chivalry  afresh,  but  it 
was  not  genuine.  The  ingenious  Ari- 
osto, an  ironical  epicurean,  delights 
his  gaze  with  it,  and  grows  merry  over 
it,  like  a  man  of  pleasure,  a  skeptic 
who  rejoices  doubly  in  his  pleasure, 
because  it  is  sweet,  and  because  it  is 
forbidden.  By  his  side  poor  Tasso, 
inspired  by  a  fanatical,  revived,  facti- 
tious Catholicism,  amid  the  tinsel  of  an 
old  school  of  poetry,  works  on  the 
same  subject,  in  sickly  fashion,  with 
great  effort  and  scant  success.  Cer- 
vantes, himself  a  knight,  albeit  he 
loves  chivalry  for  its  nobleness,  per- 
ceives its  folly,  and  crushes  it  to  the 
ground  with  heavy  blows,  in  the  mis- 
haps of  the  wayside  inns.  More 
coarsely,  more  openly,  Rabelais,  a  rude 
commoner,  drowns  it  with  a  burst  of 
laughter,  in  his  merriment  and  nasti- 
ness.  Spenser  alone  takes  it  seriously 
and  naturally.  He  is  on  the  level  of  so 
much  nobleness,  dignity,  reverie.  He 
is  not  yet  settled  and  shut  in  by  that 
species  of  exact  common  sense  which 
was  to  found  and  cramp  the  whole 
modern  civilization.  In  his  heart  he 
inhabits  the  poetic  and  shadowy  land 
from  which  men  were  daily  drawing 
further  and  further  away.  He  is  en- 
amored of  it,  even  to  its  very  language  ; 
he  revives  the  old  words,  the  expres- 
sions of  the  middle  age,  the  style  of 
Chaucer,  especially  in  the  Shepherd's 
Calendar.  He  enters  straightway  upon 
the  strangest  dreams  of  the  old  story- 
filers,  without  astonishment,  like  a 
man  who  has  still  stranger  dreams  of 
his  own.  Enchanted  castles,  monsters 
and  giants,  duels  in  the  woods,  wan- 
dering ladies,  all  spring  up  under  his 
hands,  the  medieval  fancy  with  the 
mediaeval  generosity;  and  it  is  just  be- 

*  Ariosto,  1474-1533-  Tasso,  1544-1595.  Cer- 
vantes, 1547*1616.    Rabelais,  1483-1553. 


cause  this  world  is   unreal  that  it  so 
suits  his  humor. 

Is  there  in  chivalry  sufficient  to  fur- 
nish him  with  matter  ?  That  is  but 
one  world,  and  he  has  another.  Be- 
yond the  valiant  men,  the  glorified  im- 
ages of  moral  virtues,  he  has  the  gods, 
finished  models  of  sensible  beauty ; 
beyond  Christian  chivalry  he  has  the 
pagan  Olympus  ;  beyond  the  idea  of 
heroic  will  which  can  only  be  satisfied 
by  adventures  and  danger,  there  exists 
calm  energy,  which,  by  its  own  im- 
pulse, is  in  harmony  with  actual  exist- 
ence. For  such  a  poet  one  ideal  is  not 
enough ;  beside  the  beauty  of  effort  he 
places  the  beauty  of  happiness;  he 
couples  them,  not  deliberately  as  a 
philosopher,  nor  with  the  design  of  a 
scholar  like  Goethe,  but  because  they 
are  both  lovely;  and  here  and  there, 
amid  armor  and  passages  of  arms,  he 
distributes  satyrs,  nymphs,  Dia  \a,  Ve- 
nus, like  Greek  statues  amid  the  turrets 
and  lofty  trees  of  an  English  park. 
There  is  nothing  forced  in  the  union  ; 
the  ideal  epic,  like  a  superior  heav- 
en, receives  and  harmonizes  the  two 
worlds  ;  a  beautiful  pagan  dream  car- 
ries on  a  beautiful  dream  of  chivalry ; 
the  link  consists  in  the  fact  that  they 
are  both  beautiful.  At  this  elevation 
the  poet  has  ceased  to  observe  the 
differences  of  races  and  civilizations. 
He  can  introduce  into  his  picture 
whatever  he  will ;  his  only  reason  is, 
'*  That  suited ;  "  and  there  could  be  no 
better.  Under  the  glossy-leaved  oaks, 
by  the  old  trunk  so  deeply  rooted  in 
the  ground,  he  can  see  two  knights 
cleaving  each  other,  and  the  next  in- 
stant a  company  of  Fauns  who  came 
there  to  dance.  The  beams  of  light 
which  have  poured  down  upon  the 
velvet  moss,  the  green  turf  of  an  Eng- 
lish forest,  can  reveal  the  dishevelled 
locks  and  white  shoulders  of  nymphs. 
Do  we  not  see  it  in  Rubens  ?  And 
what  signify  discrepancies  in  the  happy 
and  sublime  illusion  of  fancy  ?  Are 
there  more  discrepancies  ?  Who  per- 
ceives them,  who  feels  them  ?  Who 
does  not  feel,  on  the  contrary,  that  to 
speak  the  truth,  there  is  but  one  woiid 
that  of  Plato  and  the  poets  ;  that  ac- 
tual phenomena  are  but  outlines  — • 
mutilated,  incomplete  and  blurred  out 
lines  —  wretched  abortions  scattered 


CHAP.  I.] 


.  THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE 


'37 


here  and  there  on  Time's  track,  like 
fragments  of  clay,  half  moulded,  then 
cast  aside,  lying  in  an  artist's  studio  ; 
that,  after  all,  invisible  forces  and 
ideas,  which  forever  renew  the  actual 
existences,  attain  their  fulfilment  only 
in  imaginary  existences ;  and  that  the 
poet,  in  order  to  express  nature  in  its 
entirety,  is  obliged  to  embrace  in  his 
sympathy  all  the  ideal  forms  by  which 
nature  reveals  itself?  This  is  the 
greatness  of  his  work ;  he  has  suc- 
ceeded in  seizing  beauty  in  its  fulness, 
because  he  cared  for  nothing  but 
beauty. 

The  reader  will  feel  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  give  in  full  the  plot  of  such  a 
poem.  In  fact,  there  are  six  poems, 
each  of  a  dozen  cantos,  in  which  the 
action  is  ever  diverging  and  converg- 
ing again,  becoming  confused  and 
starting  again ;  and  all  the  imaginings 
of  antiquity  and  of  the  middle  age  are, 
I  believe,  combined  in  it.  The  knight 
"  pricks  along  the  plaine,"  among  the 
trees,  and  at  a  crossing  of  the  paths 
meets  other  knights  with  whom  he  en- 
gages in  combat ;  suddenly  from  with- 
in a  cave  appears  a  monster,  half  wo- 
man and  half  serpent,  surrounded  by  a 
hideous  offspring ;  further  on  a  giant, 
with  three  bodies ;  then  a  dragon, 
great  as  a  hill,  with  sharp  talons  and 
vast  wings.  For  three  days  he  fights 
him,  and  twice  overthrown,  he  comes 
to  himself  only  by  aid  of  "  a  gracious 
ointment."  After  that  there  are  sav- 
age tribes  to  be  conquered,  castles  sur- 
rounded by  flames  to  be  taken.  Mean- 
while ladies  are  wandering  in  the  midst 
of  forests,  on  white  palfreys,  exposed 
to  the  assaults  of  miscreants,  now 
guarded  by  a  lion  which  follows  them, 
now  delivered  by  a  band  of  satyrs  who 
adore  them.  Magicians  work  mani- 
fold charms  ;  palaces  display  their  fes- 
tivities ;  tilt-yards  provide  interminable 
tournaments ;  sea-gods,  nymphs,  fairies, 
kings,  intermingle  in  these  feasts,  sur- 
prises, dangers. 

You  will  say  it  is  a  phantasmagoria. 
What  matter,  if  we  see  it  ?  And  we 
do  see  it,  for  Spenser  does.  His  sin- 
cerity communicates  itself  to  us.  He 
is  so  much  at  home  in  this  world,  that 
we  end  by  finding  ourselves  at  home  in 
it  too.  He  shows  no  appearance  of 
astonishment  at  astonish  ing  events ;  he 


comes  upon  them  so  natural!),  that 
he  makes  them  natural ;  he  defeats  the 
miscreants,  as  if  he  he  had  done  noth- 
ing else  all  his  life.  Venus,  Diana, 
and  the  old  deities,  dwell  at  his  gate 
and  enter  his  threshold  without  his 
taking  any  heed  of  them.  His  serenity 
becomes  ours.  We  grow  credulous 
and  happy  by  contagion,  and  to  the 
same  extent  as  he.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise  ?  Is  it  possible  to  refuse 
credence  to  a  man  who  paints  things 
for  us  with  such  accurate  details  and 
in  such  lively  colors  ?  Here  with  a 
dash  of  his  pen  he  describes  a  forest 
for  you ;  and  are  you  not  instantly  in 
it  with  him  ?  Beech  trees  with  their 
silvery  stems,  "  loftie  trees  iclad  with 
sommers  pride,  did  spred  so  broad, 
that  heavens  light  did  hide ;  "  rays  of 
light  tremble  or  the  bark  and  shine  on 
the  ground,  on  the  reddening  ferns  and 
low  bushes,  which,  suddenly  smitten 
with  the  luminous  track,  glisten  and 
glimmer.  Footsteps  are  scarcely  heard 
on  the  thick  beds  of  heaped  leaves; 
and  at  distant  intervals,  on  the  tall  her- 
bage, drops  of  dew  are  sparkling.  Yet 
the  sound  of  a  horn  reaches  us  through 
the  foliage  ;  how  sweetly  yet  cheerfully 
it  falls  on  the  ear  amidst  this  vast 
silence  !  It  resounds  more  loudly  ;  the 
clatter  of  a  hunt  draws  near;  "eft 
through  the  thicke  they  heard  one 
rudely  rush  ;  "  a  nymph  approaches, 
the  most  chaste  and  beautiful  in  the 
world.  Spenser  sees  her  ;  nay,  more 
he  kneels  before  her  : 

"  Her  face  so  faire,  as  flesh  it  seemed  not, 
But  hevenly  pourtraict  of  bright  angels  hew, 
Cleare  as  the  skye,  withouten  blame  or  blot, 
Through  goodly  mixture  of  complexions  dew; 
And  in  her   cheekes  the    vermeill  red   did 

shew 

Like  roses  in  a  bed  of  lillies  shed, 
The  which    ambrosiall  odours    from    them 

threw, 

And  gazers  sence  with  double  pleasure  fed, 
Hable  to  heale  the  sicke  and  to  revive  th« 

ded. 

In  her  faire  eyes  two  living  lamps  did  flame, 
Kindled  above  at  th'  Hevenly  Makers  light, 
And  darted  fyrie  beames  out  of  the  same  ; 
So  passing  persanc  and  so  wondrous  bright, 
That  quite  bereav'd  therasl:  Ve.lolde;s  sight: 
In  them  the  blinded  god  his  lustful!  fyre 
To  kindle  oft  assayd,  but  had  no  might ; 
For,  with  dredd  maiestie  and  awfull  yre. 
She  broke  his  wanton  daits,  and  quenched 

bace  desyre. 

Her  yvorie  forhead,  full  o  bountie  brave. 
Like  a  broad  table  did  itselfe  dispred, 


'38 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


For  Love  his  loftie  triumphes  to  engrave, 
And  write  the  battau'es  of  his  great  godhed  : 
All  good  and  honour  might  therein  be  red ; 
For  there  their  dwelling  was.     And,  when 

she  spake, 
Sweete  wordes,  like  dropping  honny,  she  did 

shed; 

And  'twixt  the  perles  and  rubins  softly  brake 
A  silver  sound,  that  heavenly  musicke  seemd 

to  make. 

Upon  her  eyelids  many  Graces  sate, 
Under  the  shadow  of  her  even  browes, 
Working  belgardes  and  amorous  retrate  ; 
And  everie  one  her  with  a  grace  endowes, 
And   everie    one  with    meekenesse    to   her 

bowes : 

So  glorious  mirrhour  of  celestiall  grace, 
And  soveraine  moniment  of  mortall  vowes, 
How  shall  frayle  pen  descrive  her  heavenly 

face, 
For  feare,  through  want  of  skill,  her  beauty 

to  disgrace  ! 

So  faire,  and  thousand  thousand  times  more 

faire, 

She  seemd,  when  she  presented  was  to  sight ; 
And  was  yclad,  for  heat  of  scorching  aire, 
All  in  a  silken  Camus  lilly  whight, 
Purfled  upon  with  many  a  folded  plight, 
Which  all  above  besprinckled  was  throughout 
With  golden  aygulets,  that  glistrecl  bright, 
Like   twinckling   starres  J  and  all   the   skirt 

about 
Was  hemd  with  golden  fringe. 

Below  her   ham    her  weed  did    somewhat 

trayne, 
And  her  streight  legs  most  bravely  were  em- 

bayld 

In  gilden  buskins  of  costly  cordwayne, 
All  bard  with  golden  bendes,  which  were  en- 

tayld 
With   curious  antickes,  and  full  fayre   au- 

mayld : 

Before,  they  fastned  were  under  her  knee 
In  a  rich  iewell,  and  therein  entrayld 
The  ends  of   all  the  knots,  that  none  might 

see 

How  they  within  their  fouldings  close  en- 
wrapped bee. 

Like  two  faire  marble    pillours  they  were 

seene, 

Which  doe  the  temple  of  the  gods  support, 
Whom  all   the  people   decke  with  girlands 

greene, 

And  honour  in  their  festivall  resort ; 
TLvse  same  with  stately  grace  and  princely 

port 
She  taught  to  tread,  when  she  herselfe  would 

grace ; 
But  with  the  woody  nymphes  when  she  did 

play, 

Or  when  the  flying  libbard  she  did  chace, 
She   could  them  nimbly  move,  and  after  fly 

apace. 

And  in  her  hand  a  sharpe  bore-speare  she 

held, 

And  at  her  backe  a  bovr  and  quiver  gay, 
Stuft  with  steel-headed  dartes  wherewith  she 

queld 

The  salvage  beastes  in  her  victorious  play, 
Knit  with  a  golden  bauldricke  which  forelay 


Athwart  her  snowy  brest,  and  did  divide 
Her  daintie  paps  ;  which,  like  young  fruit  in 

May, 

Now  little  gan  to  swell,  and  being  tide 
Through  her  thin  weed  their  places  only  sig 

nifide. 

Her  yellow  lockes,  crisped  like  golden  wye, 
About  her  shoulders  weren  loosely  si  ed, 
And,  when  the  winde  emongst  them   did  L- 

spyre, 

They  waved  like  a  penon  wyde  dispred 
And  low  behinde  her  backe  were  scattered  : 
And,  whether  art  it  were  or  heedlesse  hap, 
As  through  the  flouring  forrest  rash  she  fled, 
In  her  rude  heares  sweet  flowres  themselves 

did  lap, 
And  flourishing  fresh  leaves  and  blossomes 

did  enwrap."  * 

"  The  daintie  rose,  the  daughter  of  her  morne, 
More   deare  than  life  she   tendered,  whose 

flowre 

The  girlond  of  her  honour  did  adorne  ; 
Ne    suffered    she    the    middayes   scoiching 

powre. 
Ne  the  sharp  northerne  wind    thereon  to 

showre  ; 

But  lapped  up  her  silken  leaves  most  chayre, 
Whenso  the  froward  skye  began  to  lowre'; 
But,  spone  as  calmed  was  the  cristall  ayre, 
She  did  it  fayre  dispred,  and  let  to  florish 

fayre."  t 

He  is  on  his  knees  before  her,  I  repeat, 
as  a  child  on  Corpus  Christi  day, 
among  flowers  and  perfumes,  trans- 
ported with  admiration,  so  that  he  sees 
a  heavenly  light  in  her  eyes,  and  angel's 
tints  on  her  cheeks,  even  impressing 
into  her  service  Christian  angels  and 
pagan  graces  to  adorn  and  wait  upon 
her ;  it  is  love  which  brings  such 
visions  before  him ; 

"  Sweet  love,  that  doth  his  golden  wings  em- 
bay 
In  blessed  nectar  and  pure  pleasures  well." 

Whence  this  perfect  beauty,  this 
modest  and  charming  dawn,  in  which 
he  assembles  all  the  brightness,  all 
the  sweetness,  all  the  virgin  graces  of 
the  full  morning  ?  What  mother  begat 
her,  what  marvellous  birth  brought  to 
light  such  a  wonder  of  grace  and  puri- 
ty ?  One  day,  in  a  sparkling,  solitary 
fountain,  where  the  sunbeams  shone, 
Chrysogone  was  bathing  with  roses  and 
violets. 


allay  ; 


*  The  Faerie  Queene,  ii.  c.  3,  st.  22-30. 
t  Ibid.  iii.  c.  5,  St.  51. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


'39 


She  bath'd  with  roses  red  and  violets  blew, 
And  all  the  sweetest  flowers  that  in  the  f  orrest 

grew. 

Till  faint  through  yrkesome  wearines  adowne 
Upon  the  grassy  ground  herselfe  she  layd 
To    sleepe,    the   whiles   a  gentle   slombring 

swowne 
Upon  her  fell  all  naked  bare  displayd."  * 

The  beams  played  upon  her  body,  and 
"fructified"  her.  The  months  rolled 
on.  Troubled  and  ashamed  she  went 
into  the  "  wildernesse,"  and  sat  down, 
"  every  sence  with  sorrow  sore  op- 

?rest."  Meanwhile  Venus,  searching 
>r  her  boy  Cupid,  who  had  mutinied 
and  fled  from  her,  "wandered  in  the 
world."  She  had  sought  him  in  courts, 
cities,  cottages,  promising  "kisses 
sweet,  and  sweeter  things,  unto  the 
man  that  of  him  tydings  to  her  brings." 

"  Shortly  unto  the  wastefull  woods  she  came, 
Whereas   she    found   the  goddesse   (Diana) 

with  her  crew. 

After  late  chace  of  their  embrewed  game, 
Sitting  beside  a  fountaine  in  a  rew  ; 
Some  of  them  washing  with  the  liquid  dew 
From  off  their  dainty  limbs  the  dusty  sweat 
And   soyle,  which  did  deforme  their  lively 

hew; 

Others  lay  shaded  from  the  scorching  heat 
The  rest  upon  her  person  gave  attendance 

great. 

She,  having  hong  upon  a  bough  on  high 
Her  bow  and  painted  quiver,  had  unlaste 
Her  silver  buskins  from  her  nimble  thigh, 
And  her  lanck  loynes  ungirt,  and  brests  un- 

braste, 

After  her  heat  the  breathing  cold  to  taste  ; 
Her  golden  lockes,  that  late  in  tresses  bright 
Embreaded  were  for  hindring  of  her  haste, 
Now  loose  about  her  shoulders  hong  undight, 
And    were    with    sweet    Ambrosia    all    be- 

sprinckled  light."  t 

Diana,  surprised  thus,  repulses  Venus, 
"and  gan  to  smile,  in  scorne  of  her 
vaine  playnt,"  swearing  that  if  she 
should  catch  Cupid,  she  would  clip  his 
wanton  wings.  Then  she  took  pity  on 
the  afflicted  goddess,  and  set  herself 
with  her  to  look  for  the  fugitive.  They 
came  to  the  "  shady  covert "  where 
Chrysogone,  in  her  sleep,  had  given 
lirth  "  unawares,"  to  two  lovely  girls, 
"  as  faire  as  springing  day."  Diana 
took  one,  and  made  her  the  purest  of 
all  virgins.  Venus  carried  off  the  other 
to  the  Garden  of  Adonis,  "the  first 
seminary  of  all  things,  that  are  borne 
to  live  and  dye;"  where  Psyche,  the 
bride  of  Love,  disports  herself  ;  where 
Pleasure,  their  daughter,  wantons  with 

*  The  Faerie  Qw.ne,  iii.  c.  6,  st.  6  and  7. 
f  Ibid.  st.  17  and    8. 


the  Graces  ;  where  Adonis,  "  lapped  in 
flowres  and  pretious  spycery,"  "  liveth 
in  eternal  bliss,"  and  came  back  to  life 
through  the  breath  of  immortal  Love. 
She  brought  her  up  as  her  daughter, 
selected  her  to  be  the  most  faithful  of 
loves,  and  after  long  trials,  gave  her 
hand  to  the  good  knight  Sir  Scuda? 
more. 

That  is  the  kind  of  thing  we  meet 
with  in  the  wondrous  forest  Are  you 
ill  at  ease  there,  and  do  you  wish  to 
leave  it  because  it  is  wondrous  ?  At 
every  bend  in  the  alley,  at  every  change 
of  the  light,  a  stanza,  a  word,  reveals 
a  landscape  or  an  apparition.  It  is 
morning,  the  white  dawn  gleams  faintly 
through  the  trees ;  bluish  vapors  veil 
the  horizon,  and  vanish  in  the  smiling 
air  ;  the  springs  tremble  and  murmur 
faintly  amongst  the  mosses,  and  on 
high  the  poplar  leaves  begin  to  stir  and 
flutter  like  the  wings  of  butterflies.  A 
knight  alights  from  his  horse,  a  valiant 
knight,  who  has  unhorsed  many  a  Sar- 
acen, and  experienced  many  an  adven- 
ture. He  unlaces  his  helmet,  and  on  a 
sudden  you  perceive  the  cheeks  of  a 
young  girl ; 

"  Which  doft,  her  golden  lockes,  that  were  up- 
bound 

Still  in  a  knot,  unto  her  heeles  downe  traced, 
And  like  a  silken  veile  in  compasse  round 
About  her  backe  and  all  her  bodie  wound  ; 
Like  as  the  shining  skie  in  summers  night, 
What   time   the   dayes  with   scorching  heat 

abound, 

Is  creasted  all  with  lines  of  firie  light, 
That  it  prodigious  seemes  in  common  peoples 
sight."  * 

It  is  Britomart,  a  virgin  and  a  heroine, 
like  Clorinda  or  Marfisa,!  but  how 
much  more  ideal !  The  deep  senti- 
ment of  nature,  the  sincerity  of  reverie, 
the  ever-flowing  fertility  of  inspiration, 
the  German  seriousness,  reanimate  in 
this  poem  classical  or  chivalrous  con- 
ceptions, even  when  they  are  the  oldest 
or  the  most  trite.  The  train  of  splen- 
dors and  of  scenery  never  ends.  Deso- 
late promontories,  cleft  with  gaping 
chasms  ;  thunder-stricken  and  black- 
ened masses  of  rocks,  against  which 
the  hoarse  breakers  dash ;  palaces 

*  Ibid.  iv.  c.  r,  st.  13. 

t  Clorinda,  the  heroine  of  the  infidel  army  in 


Orlando  Innamorato. — TR. 


Boya 


140 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  U 


sparkling  with  gold,  wherein  ladies, 
beauteous  as  angels,  reclining  care- 
lessly on  purple  cushions,  listen  with 
sweet  smiles  to  the  harmony  of  music 
played  by  unseen  hands;  lofty  silent 
walks,  where  avenues  of  oaks  spread 
their  motionless  shadows  over  clusters 
of  virgin  violets,  and  turf  which  never 
mortal  foot  has  trod; — to  all  these 
beauties  of  art  and  nature  he  adds  the 
marvels  of  mythology,  and  describes 
them  with  as  much  of  love  and  sin- 
cerity as  a  painter  of  the  Renaissance 
or  an  ancient  poet.  Here  approach  on 
chariots  of  shell,  Cymoent  and  her 
nymphs  : 

'*  A  teme  of  dolphins  raunged  in  aray 

Drew  the  smooth  charett  of  sad  Cymoent  J 
They  were  all  taught  by  Triton  to  obay 
To  the  long  raynes  at  her  commaundement : 
As  swifte  as  swallowes  on  the  waves  they 

went, 
That  their  brode  flaggy  finnes  no  fome  did 

reare, 

Ne  bubling  rowndell  they  behinde  them  sent ; 
The  rest,  of  other  fishes  drawen  weare  ; 
Which  with  their  finny  oars  the  swelling  sea 

did  sheare."  * 

Nothing,  again,  can  be  sweeter  or  calm- 
er than  the  description  of  the  palace  of 
Morpheus : 

"  He,  making  speedy  way  through  spersed  ayre, 
And  through  the  world  of  waters  wide  and 

deepe, 

To  Morpheus  house  doth  hastily  repaire. 
Amid  the  bowels  of  the  earth  full  steepe, 
And  low,  where  dawning  day  doth  never 

peepe 

His  dwelling  is ;  there  Tethys  his  wet  bed 
Doth    ever  wash,   and    Cynthia    still   doth 

steepe 

In  silver  deaw  his  ever-drouping  hed, 
Whiles  sad  Night  over  him  her  mantle  black 

doth  spred. 

And,  more  to  lulle  him  in  his  slumber  soft, 
A  trickling  streame  from  high  rock  tumbling 

downe 

And  ever-drizzling  raine  upon  the  loft, 
Mixt  with  a  murmuring  winde,  much  like  the 

sowne 

Of  swarming  bees,  did  cast  him  in  a  swowne. 
No  other  noyse,  nor  peoples  troublous  cryes, 
As  still  are  wont  t'  annoy  the  walled  towne, 
Might  there  be  heard:  but  careless  Quiet 

lyes, 
Wrapt  in   eternall  silence  farre  from    eni- 

myes."  t 

Observe  also  in  a  corner  of  this  forest, 
SL  band  of  satyrs  dancing  under  the 
preen  leaves.  They  come  leaping  like 
wanton  kids,  as  g?y  as  birds  of  joyous 
spring.  The  fail  Hellenore,  whom 

*  The  Faerie  Queene,  iii.  c.  4,  st.  33. 
t  Ibid.  i.  c.  i,  st.  39  and  41. 


they  have  chosen  for  "  May-lady," 
"  daunst  lively "  also,  faughing,  and 
"  with  girlonds  all  bespredd."  The 
wood  re-echoes  the  sound  of  their 
"merry  pypes."  "Their  horned  feet 
the  greene  gras  wore."  "  All  day  they 
daunced  with  great  lustyhedd,"  with 
sudden  motions  and  alluring  looks, 
while  about  them  their  flock  feed  on 
"  the  brouzes,"  at  their  pleasure.*  In 
every  book  we  see  strange  processions 
pass  by,  allegorical  and  picturesque 
shows,  like  those  which  were  then  dis- 
played at  the  courts  of  princes  ;  now  a 
masquerade  of  Cupid,  now  of  the 
Rivers,  now  of  the  Months,  now  of 
the  Vices.  Imagination  was  never 
more  prodigal  or  inventive.  Proud  Lu- 
cifera  advances  in  a  chariot  "  adorned 
all  with  gold  and  girlonds  gay,"  beam- 
ing like  the  dawn,  surrounded  by  a 
crowd  of  courtiers  whom  she  dazzles 
with  her  glory  and  splendor :  "  six 
unequall  beasts  "  draw  her  along,  and 
each  of  these  is  ridden  by  a  Vice. 
Idleness  "  upon  a  slouthfull  asse  .  .  . 
in  habit  blacke  .  .  .  like  to  an  holy 
monck,"  sick  for  very  laziness,  lets  his 
heavy  head  droop,  and  holds  in  his 
hand  a  breviary  which  he  does  not 
read  ;  gluttony,  on  "  a  filthie  swyne," 
crawls  by  in  his  deformity,  "  his  belly 
.  .  .  upblowne  with  luxury,  and  eke 
with  fatnesse  swollen  were  his  eyne ; 
and  like  a  crane  his  necke  was  long 
and  fyne,"  drest  in  vine-leaves,  through 
which  one  can  see  his  body  eaten  by 
ulcers,  and  vomiting  along  the  road  the 
wine  and  flesh  with  which  he  is  glutted. 
Avarice  seated  between  "  two  iron  cof- 
fers," "  upon  a  camell  loaden  all  with 
gold,"  is  handling  a  heap  of  coin,  with 
threadbare  coat,  hollow  cheeks,  and 
feet  stiff  with  gout.  Envy  "  upon  a 
ravenous  wolfe  still  did  chaw  between 
his  cankred  teeth  a  venemous  tode, 
that  all  the  poison  ran  about  his  chaw," 
and  his  discolored  garment  "  ypainted 
full  of  eies,"  conceals  a  snake  wound 
about  his  body.  Wrath,  covered  with 
a  torn  and  bloody  robe,  comes  riding 
on  a  lion,  brandishing  about  his  head 
"  a  burning  brond,"  his  eyes  sparkling, 
his  face  pale  as  ashes,  grasping  in  his 
feverish  hand  the  haft  of  his  dagger. 
The  strange  and  terrible  procession 
passes  on,  led  by  the  solemn  harmony 
*  Ibid.  iii.  c.  10,  st.  43-45. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


141 


of  the  stanzas  ;  and  the  grand  music 
of  oft-repeated  rhymes  sustains  the 
imagination  in  this  fantastic  world, 
which,  with  its  mingled  horrors  and 
splendors,  has  just  been  opened  to  its 
flight. 

Yet  all  this  is  little.  However  much 
mythology  and  chivalry  can  supply, 
they  do  not  suffice  for  the  needs  of 
this  poetical  fancy.  Spenser's  charac- 
teristic is  the  vastness  and  overflow  of 
his  picturesque  invention.  Like  Ru- 
bens, whatever  he  creates  is  beyond  the 
region  of  all  traditions,  but  complete 
in  all  parts,  and  expresses  distinct 
ideas.  As  with  Rubens,  his  allegory 
swells  its  proportions  beyond  all  rule, 
and  withdraws  fancy  from  all  law,  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  to 
harmonize  forms  and  colors.  For,  if 
ordinary  minds  receive  from  allegory 
a  certain  weight  which  oppresses  them, 
lofty  imaginations  receive  from  it 
wings  which  carry  them  aloft.  Freed 
by  it  from  the  common  conditions  of 
life,  they  can  dare  all  things,  beyond 
imitation,  apart  from  probability,  with 
no  other  guides  but  their  inborn  energy 
and  their  shadowy  instincts.  For  three 
days  Sir  Guyon  is  led  by  the  cursed 
spirit,  the  tempter  Mammon,  in  the 
subterranean  realm,  across  wonderful 
gardens,  trees  laden  with  golden  fruits, 
glittering  palaces,  and  a  confusion  of 
all  worldly  treasures.  They  have  de- 
scended into  the  bowels  of  the  earth, 
and  pass  through  caverns,  unknown 
abysses,  silent  depths.  "An  ugly 
Feend  .  .  .  with  monstrous  stalke 
behind  him  stept,"  without  Guyons' 
knowledge,  ready  to  devour  him  on  the 
least  show  of  covetousness.  The  bril- 
liancy of  the  gold  lights  up  hideous 
figures,  and  the  beaming  metal  shines 
tvith  a  beauty  more  seductive  in  the 
gloom  of  the  infernal  prison. 

'  That   Houses  forme  within  was  rude  and 

strong, 

Lyke  an  huge  cave  hewne  out  of  rocky  clifte, 
From  whose  rough  vaut  the  ragged  breaches 

hong 

Embost  with  massy  gold  of  glorious  guifte, 
And  with  rich  metall  loaded  every  rifte, 
That  heavy  mine  they  did  seeme  to  threatt  ; 
And  over  them  Arachne  high  did  lifte 
Her  cunning  web,  andspred  her  subtile  nett, 
Enwrapped  in  fowle  smoke  and  clouds  more 

black  than  iett. 

Both  roote,  and  floore.  and  walls,  were  all  of 
gold, 


But  overgrowne  with  dust  and  old  decay, 
And  hid  m  darknes,  that  none  could  behold 
The  hew  thereof  ;  for  vew  of  cherefull  day 
Did  never  in  that  House  itselfe  display, 
But  a  faint  shadow  of  uncertein  light ; 
Such  as  a  lamp,  whose  life  does  fade  away ; 
Or  as  the  moone,  cloathed  with  clowdy  night, 
Does  show  to  him  that  walkes  in  feare  and 
sad  affright. 

In  all  that  rowme  was  nothing  to  be  scene 
But  huge  great  yron  chests  and  coffers  strong* 
All  bard  with  double  bends,  that  none  could 

weene 

Them  to  enforce  by  violence  or  wrong  ; 
On  every  side  they  placed  were  along. 
But  all  the  grownd  with  sculs  was  scattered 
And  dead  mens  bones,  which  round  about 

were  flong ; 
Whose  lives,  it  seemed,  whilome  there  were 

shed, 
And  their  vile  carcases  now  left  unburied.  .  . 

Thence    'orward  he  him  ledd  and  shortly 

brought 

Unto  another  rowme,  ^hose  '-ore  forthright 
To  him  did  open  as  it  had  beene  taught : 
Therein  an  hundred  raunges  weren  pight, 
And  hundred  fournaces  all  burning  bright ; 
By  ever/  fournace  many  Feends  did  byde, 
Deformed  creatures,  horrible  in  sight  ; 
And  every  Feend  his  busie  paines  applyde 
To  melt  the  golden  metall,  ready  to  be  tryde. 

One  with  great  bellowes  gathered  filling  ayre, 
And  with  forst  wind  the  fewell  did  inflame  ; 
Another  did  the  dying  bronds  repayre 
With  yron   tongs,  and  sprinckled  ofte   the 

same 
With   liquid  waves,   fiers  Vulcans  rage  to 

tame, 
Who,   maystring  them,  renewd  his  former 

heat: 
Some  scumd  the  drosse  that  from  the  metall 

came ; 

Some  stird  the  molten  owre  with  ladles  great : 
And  every  one  did  swincke,  and  every  one 

did  sweat  .  .  . 

He  brought  him,  through  a  darksom  narrow 

strayt, 

To  a  broad  gate  all  built  of  beaten  gold : 
The  gate  was  open ;  but  therein  did  wayt 
A  sturdie  Villein,  stryding  stiffe  and  bold, 
As  if  the  Highest  God  defy  he  would : 
In  his  right  hand  an  yron  club  he  held 
But  he  himselfe  was  all  of  golden  mould, 
Yet  had  both  life  and  sence,  and  well  could 

weld 
That  cursed  weapon,  whet  his  cruell  foes  he 

queld  .  .  . 
He  brought  him  in.    The  rowme  was  large 

and  wyde, 

As  it  some  gyeld  or  solemne  temple  weare  ; 
Many  great  golden  pillours  did  upbeare 
The  massy  roofe,  and  riches  huge  sustayne  J 
And  every  pilldur  decked  was  full  deare 
With  crownes,  and  diademes,  and  titles  vaine, 
Which  mortall  princes  wore  whiles  they  on 

earth  did  rayne. 

A  route  of  people  there  assembled  were, 
Of  every  sort  and  nation  under  skye, 
Which   with  great  uprore  preaced  to  dran 
nere 


142 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


To  th'  upper  part,  where  was  advaunced  hye 
A  stately  siege  of  soveraine  maiestye  ; 
And  thereon  satt  a  Woman  gorgeous  gay, 
And  richly  cladd  in  robes  of  royaltye, 
That  never  earthly  prince  in  such  aray 
His  glory  did  enhaunce,  and  pompous  pryde 
display  .  .  . 

There,  as  in  glistring  glory  she  did  sitt, 
She  held  a  great  gold  chaine  ylincked  well, 
Whose  upper  end  to  highest  heven  was  knitt, 
And  lower  part  did  reach  to  lowest  hell."  * 

No  artist's  dream  matches  these  vis- 
i  jus  :  the  glow  of  the  furnaces  beneath 
the  vaults  of  the  cavern,  the  lights 
flickering  over  the  crowded  figures,  the 
throne,  and  the  strange  glitter  of  the 
gold  shining  in  every  direction  through 
the  darkness.  The  allegory  assumes 
gigantic  proportions.  When  the  ob- 
ject is  to  show  temperance  struggling 
with  temptations,  Spenser  deems  it  ne- 
cessary to  mass  all  the  temptations  to- 
gether. He  is  treating  of  a  general 
virtue  ;  and  as  such  a  virtue  is  capable 
of  every  sort  of  resistance,  he  re- 
quires from  it  every  sort  of  resistance 
alike  ;  —  after  the  test  of  gold,  that  of 
pleasure.  Thus  the  grandest  and  the 
most  exquisite  spectacles  follow  and 
are  contrasted  with  each  other,  and  all 
are  supernatural  ;  the  graceful  and  the 
terrible  are  side  by  side,  —  the  happy  gar- 
dens close  by  with  the  cursed  subter- 
ranean cavern. 


No  gate,  but  like  one,  being  goodly  dight 
With  bowes  and  braunches,  which  did  br 
dilate 


broad 


Their  clasping  armes  in  wanton  wreathings 
intricate  : 

So  fashioned  a  porch  with  rare  device, 
Archt  over  head  with  an  embracing  vine, 
Whose  bounches  hanging  downe  seemed  to 

entice 

All  passers-by  to  taste  their  lushious  wine, 
And  did  themselves  into  their  hands  incline, 
As  freely  offering  to  be  gathered  ; 
Some  deepe  empurpled  as  the  hyacine, 
Some  as  the  rubine  laughing  sweetely  red, 
Some  like  faire  emeraudes,  not  yet  well  ri- 

pened. .  .  . 

And  in  the  midst  of  all  a  fountaine  stood, 
Of  richest  substance  that  on  earth  might  bee, 
So  pure  and  shiny  that  the  silver  flood 
Through  every  channell  running  one  might 

see  ; 

Most  goodly  it  with  curious  ymageree 
Was  over-wrought,    and    shapes    of    naked 

boyes, 

Of  which  some  seemed  with  lively  iollitee 
To  fly  about,  playing  their  wanton  toyes, 
Whylest  others  did  themselves  embay  in 

liquid  ioyes. 


*  The  Faerie  Que<.  nt ,  ii.  c.  7,  st.  28-46. 


And  over  all  of  purest  gold  was  spred 
A  trayle  of  yvie  in  his  native  hew  ; 
For  the  rich  metall  was  so  coloured, 
That  wight,  who  did  not  well  avis'd  it  vew, 
W.oulcl  surely  deeme  it  to  bee  yvie  trew; 
Low  his  lascivious  armes  adown  did  creepe. 
That  themselves  dipping  in  the  silver  dew 
Their  fleecy  flowres  they  fearfully  did  steepe. 
Which  drops  of  christall  seemd  for  wantonea 
to  weep. 

Infinit  streames  continually  did  well 

Out  of  this  fountaine,  sweet  and  faire  to  see, 

The  which  into  an  ample  laver  fell, 

And  shortly  grew  to  so  great  quantitie, 

That  like  a  little  lake  it  seemd  to  bee  ; 

Whose  depth  exceeded  not  three  cubits  hight, 

That  through  the  waves  one  might  the  t  jt- 

torn  see, 

All  pav'd  beneath  with  jaspar  shining  bright, 
That  seemd  the  fountaine  in  that  sea  did 

sayle  upright.  .  .  . 

The  ioyous  birdes,  shrouded  in  chearefull 

shade, 

Their  notes  unto  the  voice  attempred  sweet ; 
Th'  angel icall  soft  trembling  voyces  made 
To  th'  instruments  divine  respondence  meet  , 
The  silver-sounding  instruments  did  meet 
With  the  base  murmur  of  the  waters  fall ; 
The  waters  fall  with  difference  discreet, 
Now  soft,  now  loud,  unto  the  wind  did  call  J 
The  gentle  warbling  wind  low  answered  t« 

all.  .  .  . 

Upon  a  bed  of  roses  she  was  layd, 

As  faint  through  heat,  or  dight  to  pleasant 

sin  ; 

And  was  arayd,  or  rather  disarayd, 
All  in  a  vele  of  silke  and  silver  thin, 
That  hid  no  whit  her  alabaster  skin, 
But  rather  shewd  more  white,  if  more  might 

bee  : 

More  subtile  web  Arachne  cannot  spur: ; 
Nor  the  fine  nets,  which  oft  we  woven  see 
Of  scorched  deaw,  do  not  in  th'  ayre  more 

lightly  flee. 

Her  snowy  brest  was  bare  to  ready  spoyle 
Of  hungry  eies,  which  n'  ote  therewith  be 

fild ; 
And  yet,  through  languour  of  her  late  sweet 

toyle, 
Few  drops,  more  cleare   then  nectar,  forth 

distild, 

That  like  pure  orient  perles  adowne  it  trild  ; 
And  her  faire  eyes,  sweet  smyling  in  delight, 
Moystened  their  fierie  beames,  with  which 

she  thrild 
Fraile  harts,  yet  quenched  not,  like  starry 

lights 
Which  sparckling  on  the  silent  waves,  does 

seeme  more  bright."  * 

Do  we  find  here  nothing  but  fairy 
land  ?  Yes  ;  here  are  finished  pictures 
true  and  complete,  composed  with  a 
painter's  feeling,  with  choice  of  tints 
and  outlines  ;  our  eyes  are  delighted 
by  them.  This  reclining  Acrasia  has 
the  pose  of  a  goddess,  or  of  one  of 

*  Ibid.  12,  st.  53-78. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


Titian's  courtesans.  An  Italian  artist 
might  copy  these  gardens,  these  flowing 
waters,  these  sculptured  loves,  those 
wreaths  of  creeping  ivy  thick  with 
glossy  leaves  and  fleecy  flowers.  Just 
before,  in  the  infernal  depths,  the 
lights,  with  their  long  streaming  rays, 
were  fine,  half-smothered  by  the  dark- 
ness ;  the  lofty  throne  in  the  vast  hall, 
between  the  pillars,  in  the  midst  of  a 
swarming  multitude,  connected  all  the 
forms  around  it  by  drawing  all  looks 
towards  one  centre.  The  poet,  here 
and  throughout,  is  a  colorist  and  an 
architect.  However  fantastic  his  world 
may  be,  it  is  not  factitious ;  if  it  does 
not  exist,  it  might  have  been  ;  indeed, 
it  should  have  been ;  it  is  the  fault  of 
circumstances  if  they  do  not  so  group 
themselves  as  to  bring  it  to  pass ;  taken 
by  itself,  it  possesses  that  internal  har- 
mony by  which  a  real  thing,  even  a 
still  higher  harmony,  exists,  inasmuch 
as,  without  any  regard  to  real  things,  it 
is  altogether,  and  in  its  least  detail, 
constructed  with  a  view  to  beauty.  Art 
has  made  its  appearance :  this  is  the 
great  characteristic  of  the  age,  which 
distinguishes  the  Faerie  Queene  from  all 
similar  tales  heaped  up  by  the  middle 
age.  Incoherent,  mutilated,  they  lie 
like  rubbish,  or  roughhewn  stones, 
which  the  weak  hands  of  the  trouveres 
could  not  build  into  a  monument.  At 
last  the  poets  and  artists  appear,  and 
with  them  the  conception  of  beauty,  to 
wit,  the  idea  of  general  effect.  They 
understand  proportions,  relations,  con- 
trasts ;  they  compose.  In  their  hands 
the  blurred  vague  sketch  becomes  de- 
fined, complete,  separate  ;  it  assumes 
color — is  made  a  picture.  Every  object 
thus  conceived  and  imaged  acquires  a 
definite  existence  as  soon  as  it  assumes 
a  true  form  ;  centuries  after,  it  will  be 
acknowledged  and  admired,  and  men 
will  be  touched  by  it ;  and  more,  they 
tfill  be  touched  by  its  author ;  for,  be- 
*  ;des  the  object  which  he  paints,  the 
poet  paints  himself.  His  ruling  idea  is 
stamped  upon  the  work  which  it  pro- 
duces and  controls.  Spenser  is  supe- 
rior to  his  subject,  comprehends  it  fully, 
frames  it  with  a  view  to  its  end,  in 
order  to  impress  upon  it  the  proper 
mark  of  his  soul  and  his  genius.  Each 
story  is  modulated  with  respect  to 
another,  and  all  with  respect  to  a  cer- 


tain effect  which  is  being  worked  out  - 
Thus  a  beauty  issues  from  this  harmo- 
ny,— the  beauty  in  the  poet's  heart, — • 
which  his  whole  work  strives  to  ex- 
press ;  a  noble  and  yet  a  cheerful  beau- 
ty, made  up  of  moral  elevation  and 
sensuous  seductions,  English  in  senti- 
ment, Italian  in  externals,  chivalric  in 
subject,  modern  in  its  perfection,  repre. 
se'nting  a  unique  and  wonderful  epoch, 
the  appearance  of  paganism  in  a 
Christian  race,  and  the  worship  of  £01  ** 
by  an  imagination  of  the  North. 

§  3.  PROSE. 


Such  an  epoch  can  scarcely  last,  and 
the  poetic  vitality  wears  itself  out  by 
its  very  efflorescence,  so  that  its  expan- 
sion leads  to  its  decline.  From  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  subsidence  of  manners  and  genius 
grows  apparent.  Enthusiasm  and  re- 
spect decline.  The  minions  and  court- 
fops  intrigue  and  pilfer,  amid  pedantry, 
puerility,  and  show.  The  court  plun- 
ders, and  the  nation  murmurs.  The 
Commons  begin  to  show  a  stern  front, 
and  the  king,  scolding  them  like  a 
schoolmaster,  gives  way  before  them 
like  a  little  boy.  This  sorry  monarch 
(James  I.)  suffers  himself  to  be  bullied 
by  his  favorites,  writes  to  them  like  a 
gossip,  calls  himself  a  Solomon,  airs  his 
literary  vanity,  and  in  granting  an 
audience  to  a  courtier,  recommends 
him  to  become  a  scholar,  and  expects 
to  be  complimented  on  his  own  schol- 
arly attainments.  The  dignity  of  the 
government  is  weakened,  and  the  peo- 
ple's loyalty  is  cooled.  Royalty  de- 
clines, and  revolution  is  fostered.  At 
the  same  time,  the  noble  chivalric 
paganism  degenerates  into  a  base  and 
coarse  sensuality.  The  king,  we  are 
told,  on  one  occasion,  had  got  so  drunk 
with  his  royal  brother  Christian  of 
Denmark,  that  they  both  had  to  be 
carried  to  bed.  Sir  John  Harrirgton 
says  : 

"  The  ladies  abandon  their  sobriety,  and  are 
seen  to  roll  about  in  intoxication.  .  .  .  The 
Lady  who  did  play  the  Queen's  part  (in  the 
Masque  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba)  did  carry  most 
precious  gifts  to  both  their  Majesties  ;  but,  for- 
getting the  steppes  arising  to  the  canopy,  over- 
set her  caskets  into  his  Danish  Majesties  laj>, 
and  fell  at  his  feet,  tho  I  rather  think  it  was  in 


144 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


his  face.  Much  was  the  hurry  and  confusion  ; 
cloths  and  napkins  were  at  hand,  to  make  all 
clean.  His  Majesty  then  got  up  and  would 
dance  with  the  Queen  of  Sheba ;  but  he  fell 
down  and  humbled  himself  before  her,  and  was 
carried  to  an  inner  chamber  and  laid  on  a  bed 
of  state  ;  which  was  not  a  little  defiled  with  the 
presents  of  the  Queen  which  had  been  bestowed 
on  his  garments ;  such  as  wine,  cream,  jelly, 
beverage,  cakes,  spices,  and  other  good  matters. 
The  entertainment  and  show  went  forward,  and 
most  of  the  presenters  went  backward,  or  fell 
down  |  wine  did  so  occupy  their  upper  cham- 
bers. Now  did  appear,  in  rich  dress,  Hope, 
Faith,  and  Charity  :  Hope  did  assay  to  speak, 
but  wine  rendered  her  endeavours  so  feeble 
t'  lat  she  withdrew,  and  hoped  the  king  would 
excuse  her  brevity:  Faith  .  .  .  left  the  court 
in  a  staggering  condition.  .  .  .  They  were  both 
sick  and  spewing  in  the  lower  hall.  Next  came 
Victory,  who  ...  by  a  strange  medley  of  ver- 
sification .  .  .  and  after  much  lamentable  ut- 
terance was  led  away  like  a  silly  captive,  and 
laid  to  sleep  in  the  outer  steps  of  the  anti-cham- 
ber. As  for  Peace,  she  most  rudely  made  war 
with  her  olive  branch,  and  laid  on  the  pates  of 
those  who  did  oppose  her  coming.  I  ne'er  did 
see  such  lack  of  good  order,  discretion,  and  so- 
briety in  our  Queen's  days."  * 

Observe  that  these  tipsy  women  were 
great  ladies.  The  reason  is,  that  the 
grand  ideas  which  introduce  an  epoch, 
end  in  their  exhaustion,  by  preserving 
nothing  but  their  vices ;  the  proud 
sentiment  of  natural  life  becomes  a 
vulgar  appeal  to  the  senses.  An  en- 
trance, an  arch  of  triumph  under  James 
I.,  often  represented  obscenities  ;  and 
later,  when  the  sensual  instincts,  exas- 
perated by  Puritan  tyranny,  begin  to 
raise  their  heads  once  more,  we  shall 
find  under  the  Restoration  excess  revel- 
ling in  its  low  vices,  and  triumphing  in 
its  shamelessness. 

Meanwhile  literature  undergoes  a 
change ;  the  powerful  breeze  which 
had  wafted  it  on,  and  which,  amidst 
singularity,  refinements,  exaggerations, 
had  made  it  great,  slackened  and  di- 
minished. With  Carew,  Suckling, 
and  Herrick,  prettiness  takes  the  place 
of  the  beautiful.  That  which  strikes 
them  is  no  longer  the  general  features 
of  things ;  and  they  no  longer  try  to 
express  the  inner  character  of  what 
they  describe.  They  no  longer  pos- 
sess that  liberal  conception,  that  in- 
stinctive penetration,  by  which  we 
sympathize  with  objects,  and  grow 
capable  of  creating  them  anew.  They 
no  longer  boast  of  that  overflow  of 
emotions,  that  excess  of  ideas  and 

*  Nugce  Antiques,  i.  349  et passim. 


images,  which  compelled  a  man  to  re- 
lieve himself  by  words,  to  act  exter- 
nally, to  represent  freely  and  boldly 
the  interior  drama  which  made  his 
whole  body  and  heart  tremble.  They 
are  rather  wits  of  the  court,  cavaliers 
of  fashion,  who  wish  to  show  off  their 
imagination  and  style.  In  their  hands 
love  becomes  gallantry ;  they  write 
songs,  fugitive  pieces,  compliments  to 
the  ladies.  There  are  no  more  up- 
wellings  from  the  heart.  They  write 
eloquent  phrases  in  order  to  be  ap- 
plauded, and  flattering  exaggerations 
in  order  to  please.  The  divine  faces, 
the  serious  or  profound  looks,  the  vir- 
gin or  impassioned  expressions  which 
burst  forth  at  every  step  in  the  early 
poets,  have  disappeared  ;  here  we  see 
nothing  but  agreeable  countenances, 
painted  in  agreeable  verses.  Black- 
guardism is  not  far  off  ;  we  meet  with 
it  already  in  Suckling,  and  crudity  to 
boot,  and  prosaic  epicurism ;  their 
sentiment  is  expressed  before  long,  in 
such  a  phrase  as  :  "  Let  us  amuse  our 
selves,  and  a  fig  for  the  rest."  The 
only  objects  they  can  still  paint,  are 
little  graceful  things,  a  kiss,  a  May- 
day festivity,  a  dewy  primrose,  a  daf- 
fodil, a  marriage  morning,  a  bee.* 

*  "  Some  asked  me  where  the  Rubies  grew, 

And  nothing  I  did  say  ; 
But  with  my  finger  pointed  to 

The  lips  of  Julia. 
Some  ask'd    how  Pearls    did  grow,   and 

where  ; 

Then  spake  I  to  my  girle, 
To  part  her  lips,  and  shew  me  there 

The  quarelets  of  Pearl. 
One  ask'd  me  where  the  roses  grew  ; 

I  bade  him  not  go  seek  ; 
But  forthwith  bade  my  Julia  show 
A  bud  in  either  cheek." 

HERRICK'S  Hesperides,  ed.  Walford, 
1859  ;  The  Rock  of  Ruozes,  p.  32. 

"  About  the  sweet  bag  of  a  bee, 

Two  Cupids  fell  at  odds  ; 
And  whose  the  pretty  prize  shu'd  be, 

They  vow'd  to  ask  the  Gods. 
Which  Venus  hearing,  thither  came, 

And  for  their  boldness  stript  them  ; 
And  taking  thence  from  each  his  flame, 

With  rods  of  mirtle  whipt  them. 

Which  done,  to  still  their  wanton  cries, 

When  quiet  grown  sh'ad  seen  them, 

She  kist  and  wip'd  their  dove-like  eyes, 

And  gave  the  bag  between  them." 

HERRICK,  Ibid.  ;   The  Bag  q/ tht 
Bee,  p.  41. 

"  Why  so  pale  and  wan,  fond  lover? 

Pr'ythee,  why  so  pale  ? 
Will,  when  looking  well  can't  move  her 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN-  RENAISSANCE. 


Herrick  and  Suckling  especially  pro- 
duce little  exquisite  poems,  delicate, 
ever  pleasant  or  agreeable,  like  those 
attributed  to  Anacreon,  or  those  which 
abound  in  the  Anthology.  In  fact, 
here,  as  at  the  Grecian  period  alluded 
to,  we  are  in  the  decline  of  paganism ; 
energy  departs,  the  reign  of  the  agree- 
able begins.  People  do  not  relinquish 
the  worship  of  beauty  and  pleasure, 
but  daUy  with  them.  They  deck  and 
fi,t  :hem  to  their  taste ;  they  cease  to 
ia*xlue  and  bend  men,  who  enjoy  them 
whilst  they  amuse  them.  It  is  the  last 
beam  of  a  setting  sun;  the  genuine 
poetic  sentiment  dies  out  with  Sedley, 
Waller,  and  the  rhymesters  of  the 
Restoration  ;  they  write  prose  in  verse ; 
their  heart  is  on  a  level  with  their 
style,  and  with  an  exact  language  we 
find  the  commencement  of  a  new  age 
and  a  new  art. 

Side  by  side  with  prettiness  comes 
affectation  ;  it  is  the  second  mark  of 
the  decadence.  Instead  of  writing  to 
express  things,  they  write  to  say  them 
well ;  they  outbid  their  neighbors,  and 
strain  every  mode  of  speech ;  they 
push  art  over  on  the  side  to  which  it 
had  a  leaning ;  and  as  in  this  age  it 
had  a  leaning  towards  vehemence  and 
imagination,  they  pile  up  their  empha- 
sis and  coloring.  A  jargon  always 
springs  out  of  a  style.  In  all  arts,  the 
first  masters,  the  inventors,  discover 
the  idea,  steep  themselves  in  it,  and 
leave  it  to  effect  its  outward  form. 

Looking  ill  prevail  ? 

Pr' ythee,  why  so  pale  ? 
Why  so  dull  and  mute,  young  sinner? 

Pr'ythee,  why  so  mute  ? 
Will,  when  speaking  well  can't  win  her, 

Saying  nothing  do't  ? 

Pr'ythee,  why  so  mute  ? 
Quit,  quit  for  shame  :  this  will  not  move, 

This  cannot  take  her  ; 
If  of  herself  she  will  not  love, 

Nothing  can  make  her. 

The  devil  take  her!" 

Sir  JOHN  SUCKLING'S  Works,  ed.  A. 
Suckling,  1836,  p.  70. 

As  when  a  lady,  walking  Flora's  bower, 
"icks  here  a  pink,  and  there  a  gilly-flower, 
Now  plucks  a  violet  from  her  purple  bed, 
And  then  a  primrose,  the  year's  maidenhead, 
There  nips  the  brier,  here  the  lover's  pansy, 
Shifting  her  dainty  pleasures  with  her  fancy, 
This  on  her  arms,  and  that  she  lists  to  wear 
Upon  the  borders  of  her  curious  hair  ; 
\t  length  a  rose-bud  (passing  all  the  rest) 
She  plucks,  and  bosoms  in  her  lily  breast. 
QUAKLHS.    Stanzas. 


Then  come  the  second  class,  the  im- 
itators, who  sedulously  repeat  this 
form,  and  alter  it  by  exaggeration. 
Some  nevertheless  have  talent,  as 
Quarles,  Herbert,  Habington,  Donne 
in  particular,  a  pungent  satirist,  of 
terrible  crudeness,  *  a  powerful  poet, 
of  a  precise  and  intense  imagination, 
who  still  preserves  something  of  the 
energy  and  thrill  of  the  original  inspi- 
ration.f  But  he  deliberately  spoils  all 
these  gifts,  and  succeeds  with  great 
difficulty  in  concocting  a  piece  of  non- 
sense. For  instance,  the  impassioned 
poets  had  said  to  their  mistress,  that 
if  they  lost  her,  they  should  hate  all 
other  women.  Donne,  in  order  to 
eclipse  them,  says : 

"  O  do  not  die,  for  I  shajl  hate 
All  women  so,  when  thou  art  gone, 
That  thee  I  shall  not  celebrate 
When  I  remember  thou  wast  one."  t 

Twenty  times  while  reading  him  we 
rub  our  brow,  and  ask  with  astonish- 
ment, how  a  man  could  have  so  tor- 
mented and  contorted  himself,  strained 
his  style,  refined  on  his  refinement,  hit 
upon  such  absurd  comparisons  ?  But 
this  was  the  spirit  of  the  age ;  they 

*  See,  in  particular,  his  satire  against  cour- 
tiers.    The  following  is  against  imitators. 
"  But  he  is  worst,  who  (beggarly)  doth  chaw 
Others  wit's  fruits,  and  in  his  ravenous  maw 
Rankly  digested,  doth  those  things  out-spew, 
As  his  owne  things ;  and  they  're  his  owne, 

't  is  true, 
For  if  one  eate  my  meate,  though    it   be 

knowne 

The  meat  was  mine,  th*  excrement  is  hit 
owne." 

DONNE'S  Satires,  1639. 

Satire  ii.  p.  128. 
t  "  When  I  behold  a  stream,  which  frcm  ta* 

spring 

Doth  with  doubtful  melodious  murmurii  gt 
Or  in  a  speechless  slumber  calmly  ride 
Her  wedded  channel's  bosom,  and  there 

chide 

And  bend  her  brows,  and  swell,  if  ;tny  bough 
Does   but   stoop  down    to  kiss    her  utmost 

brow  ; 

Yet  if  her  often  gnawing  kisses  win 
The  traiterous  banks  to  gape  and  let  her  in, 
She  rusheth  violently  and  doth  divorce 
Her  from    her  native    and    her    long-kept 

course, 
And  roares,  and  braves  it,  and  in  gallant 

scorn 

In  flatt'ring  eddies  promising  return, 
She  flouts  her  channel,  which  thenceforth  is 

dry, 
Then  say  I :  That  is  she,  and  this  am  I." 

DONNE,  Elegy  vi 
t  Poems,  1639 :  A  Feaver,  p.  15, 

7 


146 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


made  an  effort  to  be  ingeniously  absurd. 
A  flea  had  bitten  Donne  and  his  mis- 
tress, and  he  says : 

"  This  flea  is  you  and  I,  and  this 
Our  manage  bed  and  manage  temple  is. 
Though   Parents  grudge,  and  you,   w'   are 

met, 

And  cloyster'd  in  these  living  walls  of  Jet. 
Though  use  make  you  apt  to  kill  me, 
Let  not  to  that  selfe-murder  added  be, 
And  sacrilege,  three  shis  in  killing  three."  * 

The  Marquis  de  Mascarille  t  never 
fo?rd  any  thing  to  equal  this.  Would 
}ou  have  believed  a  writer  could  in- 
vent such  absurdities?  She  and  he 
made  but  one,  for  both  are  but  one  with 
the  flea,  and  so  one  could  not  be  killed 
without  the  other.  Observe  that  the 
wise  Malherbe  wrote  very  similar  enor- 
mities, in  the  Tears  of  St.  Peter,  and 
that  the  sonneteers  of  Italy  and  Spain 
reach  -simultaneously  the  same  height 
of  folly,  and  you  will  agree  that 
throughout  Europe  at  that  time  they 
were  at  the  close  of  a  poetical  epoch. 

On  this  boundary  line  of  a  closing 
and  a  dawning  literature  a  poet  ap- 
peared, one  of  the  most  approved  and 
illustrious  of  his  time,  Abraham  Cow- 
ley,  |  a  precocious  child,  a  reader  and 
a  versifier  like  Pope,  and  who,  like 
Pope,  having  known  passions  less  than 
books,  busied  himself  less  about  things 
than  about  words.  Literary  exhaus- 
tion has  seldom  been  more  manifest. 
He  possesses  all  the  capacity  to  say 
whatever  pleases  him,  but  he  has  pre- 
cisely nothing  to  say.  The  substance 
has  vanished,  leaving  in  its  place  an 
empty  form.  In  vain  he  tries  the  epic, 
the  Pindaric  strophe,  all  kinds  of  stan- 
zas, odes,  short  lines,  long  lines ;  in 
vain  he  calls  to  his  assistance  botanical 
and  philosophical  similes,  all  the  erudi- 
tion of  the  university,  all  the  recollec- 
tions of  antiquity,  all  the  ideas  of  new 
science :  we  yawn  as  we  read  him. 
Except  in  a  few  descriptive  verses,  two 
or  three  graceful  tendernesses,  §  he 
feels  nothing,  he  speaks  only  ;  he  is  a 
poet  of  the  brain.  His  collection  of 

*  Ibid.  The  Flea,  p.  i. 

t  A  valet  in  Mo'iere's  Les  Precieuses  Ridi- 
cules, who  apes  and  exaggerates  his  master's 
manners  and  style,  and  pretends  to  be  a  mar- 
quess. He  also  appears  in  LS Etourdi  and  Le 
depit  A  moureux,  by  the  same  author. — TR. 

%  1608-1667.  I  ref£r  to  tne  eleventh  edition 
of  1710. 

§  The  Spring  (The  Mistress,  i.  72). 


amorous  pieces  is  but  a  vehicle  for  a 
scientific  test,  and  serves  to  show  that 
he  has  read  the  authors,  that  he  knows 
geography,  that  he  is  well  versed  in 
anatomy,  that  he  has  a  smattering  of 
medicine  and  astronomy,  that  he  has 
at  his  service  comparisons  and  allu- 
sions enough  to  rack  the  brains  of  his 
readers.  He  will  speak  in  this  wise  : 

"  Beauty,  thou  active — passive  111! 
Which   dy'st   thyself  as  fast  as   thou   clcst 
kill !  » 

or  will  remark  that  his  mistress  is  to 
blame  for  spending  three  hours  every 
morning  at  her  toilet,  because 

"  They  make  that  Beauty  Tyranny, 
That's  else  a  Civil-government." 

After  reading  two  hundred  pages,  you 
feel  disposed  to  box  his  ears.  You 
have  to  think,  by  way  of  consolation, 
that  every  grand  age  must  draw  to  a 
close,  that  this  one  could  not  do  so 
otherwise,  that  the  old  glow  of  enthu- 
siasm, the  sudden  flood  of  rapture, 
images,  whimsical  and  audacious  fan- 
cies, which  once  rolled  through  the 
minds  of  men,  arrested  now  and  cooled 
down,  could  only  exhibit  dross,  a 
curdling  scum,  a  multitude  of  brilliant 
and  offensive  points.  You  say  to 
yourself  that,  after  all,  Cowley  had 
perhaps  talent  ;  you  find  that  he  had 
in  fact  one,  a  new  talent,  unknown  to 
the  old  masters,  the  sign  of  a  new 
culture,  which  needs  other  manners, 
and  announces  a  new  society.  Cowley 
had  these  manners,  and  belongs  to 
this  society.  He  was  a  well- governed, 
reasonable,  well-informed,  polished, 
well-educated  man,  who  after  twelve 
years  of  service  and  writing  in  France, 
under  Queen  Henrietta,  retires  at  last 
wisely  into  the  country,  where  he 
studies  natural  history,  and  prepares 
a  treatise  on  religion,  philosophizing 
on  men  and  life,  fertile  in  general  re- 
flections and  ideas,  a  moralist,  bidding 
his  executor  "  to  let  nothing  stand  in 
his  writings  which  might  seem  the  least 
in  the  world  to  be  an  offence  against 
religion  or  good  manners."  Such  in- 
tentions and  su:h  a  life  produce  and 
indicate  less  a  poet,  that  is,  a  seer,  a 
creator,  than  a  literary  man,  I  mean  a 
man  who  can  think  and  speak,  and 
who  therefore  ought  to  have  read  much, 
learned  much,  written  much,  ought  to 


CHAP.  I  ] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


147 


possess  a  calm  and  clear  mind,  to  be 
accustomed  to  polite  society,  sustain- 
ed conversation,  pleasantry.  In  fact, 
Cowley  is  an  author  by  profession,  the 
oldest  of  those,  who  in  England  deserve 
the  name.  His  prose  is  as  easy  and 
sensible  as  his  poetry  is  contorted  and 
unreasonable.  A  polished  man,  wri- 
ting for  polished  men,  pretty  much  as 
he  would  speak  to  them  in  a  drawing- 
room, — this  I  take  to  be  the  idea  which 
they  had  of  a  good  author  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  It  is  the  idea  which 
Cowley's  Essays  leave  of  his  character ; 
it  is  the  kind  of  talent  which  the  wri- 
ters of  trie  coming  age  take  for  their 
model  ;  and  he  is  the  first  of  that  grave 
and  amiable  group  which,  continued  in 
Temple,  reaches  so  far  as  to  include 
Addison. 

II 

Having  reached  this  point,  the  Re- 
naissance seemed  to  have  attained  its 
limit,  and,  like  a  drooping  and  faded 
flower,  to  be  ready  to  leave  its  place 
for  a  new  bud  which  began  to  spring 
up  amongst  its  withered  leaves.  At 
all  events,  a  living  and  unexpected 
shoot  sprang  from  the  old  declining 
stock.  At  the  moment  when  art  lan- 
guished, science  shot  forth  ;  the  whole 
labor  of  the  age  ended  in  this.  The 
fruits  are  not  unlike  ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  come  from  the  same  sap,  and  by 
the  diversity  of  the  shape  only  mani- 
fest two  distinct  periods  of  the  inner 
growth  which  has  produced  them. 
Every  art  ends  in  a  science,  and  all 
poetry  in  a  philosophy.  For  science 
and  philosophy  do  but  translate  into 
precise  formulas  the  original  concep- 
tions which  art  and  poetry  render  sen- 
sible by  imaginary  figures  :  when  once 
the  idea  of  an  epoch  is  manifested  in 
verse  by  ideal  creations,  it  naturally 
comes  to  be  expressed  in  prose  by  posi- 
tive arguments.  That  which  had 
struck  men  on  escaping  from  ecclesias- 
tical oppression  and  monkish  asceticism 
was  the  pagan  idea  of  a  life  true  to  na- 
ture, and  freely  developed.  They  had 
found  nature  buried  behind  scholasti- 
cism, and  they  had  expressed  it  in 
poems  and  paintings;  in  Italy  by  su- 
perb healthy  corporeality,  in  England 
by  vehement  and  unconventional  spirit- 


uality, with  such  divination  of  its  laws, 
instincts,  and  forms,  that  we  might  ex 
tract  from  their  theatre  and  their  pic 
tures  a  complete  theory  of  soul  and 
body.  When  enthusiasm  is  past,  curi 
osity  begins.  The  sentiment  of  beauty 
gives  way  to  the  need  of  truth.  The 
theory  contained  in  works  of  imagina- 
tion frees  itself.  The  gaze  continues 
fixed  on  nature,  not  to  admire  now, 
but  to  understand.  From  painting  we 
pass  to  anatomy,  from  the  drama  to 
moral  philosophy,  from  grand  poetical 
divinations  to  great  scientific  views  ; 
the  second  continue  the  first,  and  the 
same  mind  displays  itself  in  both;  for 
what  art  had  represented,  and  science 
proceeds  to  observe,  are.  living  things, 
with  their  complex  and  complete  struc- 
ture, set  in  motion  by  their  internal 
forces,  with  no  supernatural  interven- 
tion. Artists  and  savants,  all  set  out, 
without  knowing  it  themselves,  from 
the  same  master  conception,  to  wit, 
that  nature  subsists  of  herself,  that 
every  existence  has  in  its  own  womb 
the  source  of  its  action,  that  the  causes 
of  events  are  the  innate  laws  of  things  ; 
an  all-powerful  idea,  from  which  was 
to  issue  the  modern  civilization,  and 
which,  at  the  time  I  write  of,  produced 
in  England  and  Italy,  as  before  in 
Greece,  genuine  sciences,  side  by  side 
with  a  complete  art :  after  da  Vinci 
and  Michel  Angelo,  the  school  of  anat- 
omists, mathematicians,  naturalists,end- 
ing  with  Galileo;  after  Spenser,  Ben 
Jonson,  and  Shakspeare,  the  school 
of  thinkers  who  surround  Bacon  and 
lead  up  to  Harvey. 

We  have  not  far  to  look  for  this 
school.  In  the  interregnum  of  Chris- 
tianity the  dominating  bent  of  mind 
belongs  to  it.  It  was  paganism  which 
reigned  in  Elizabeth's  court,  not  only 
in  letters,  but  in  doctrine, — a  paganism 
of  the  north,  always  serious,  generally 
sombre,  but  which  was  based,  like  that 
of  the  south,  on  natural  forces.  In 
some  men  all  Christianity  had  passed 
away;  many  proceeded  to  atheism 
through  excess  of  rebellion  and  de- 
bauchery, like  Marlowe  and  Greene. 
Wilh  others,  like  Shakspeare,  the  idea 
of  God  scarcely  makes  its  appearance ; 
they  see  in  our  poor  short  human  life 
only  a  dream,  and  beyond  it  the  long 
sad  sleep  :  for  them,  death  is  the  goal 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


148 


of  life  ;  at  most  a  dark  gulf,  into  which 
man  plunges,  uncertain  of  the  issue. 
If  they  carry  their  gaze  beyond,  they 
perceive,*  not  the  spiritual  soul  wel- 
comed into  a  purer  world,  but  the 
corpse  abandoned  to  the  damp  earth, 
or  the  ghost  hovering  about  the  church- 
yard. They  speak  like  skeptics  or  su- 
perstitious men,  never  as  true  believers. 
Their  heroes  have  human,  not  religious 
virtues;  against  crime  they  rely  on 
honor  and  the  love  of  the  beautiful, 
not  on  piety  and  the  fear  of  God.  If 
others,  at  intervals,  like  Sidney  and 
Spenser,  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  Divine, 
it  is  as  a  vague  ideal  light,  a  sublime 
Platonic  phantom,  which  has  no  resem- 
blance to  a  personal  God,  a  strict 
inquisitor  of  the  slightest  motions  of 
the  heart.  He  appears  at  the  summit, 
of  things,  like  the  splendid  crown  of 
the  world,  but  He  does  not  weigh  upon 
human  life  ;  He  leaves  it  intact  and 
free,  only  turning  it  towards  the  beau- 
tiful. Man  does  not  know  as  yet  the 
sort  of  narrow  prison  in  which  official 
cant  and  respectable  creeds  were,  later 
on,  to  confine  activity  and  intelligence. 
Even  the  believers,  sincere  Christians 
like  Bacon  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
discard  all  oppressive  sternness,  reduce 
Christianity  to  a  sort  of  moral  poetry, 
and  allow  naturalism  to  subsist  be- 
neath religion.  In  such  a  broad  and 
open  channel,  speculation  could  spread 
its  wings.  With  Lord  Herbert  ap- 
peared a  systematic  deism  ;  with  Milton 
and  Algernon  Sidney,  a  philosophical 
religion  ;  Clarendon  went  so  far  as  to 
compare  Lord  Falkland's  'gardens  to 
the  groves  of  Academe.  Against  the 
rigorism  of  the  Puritans,  Chillingworth, 
Hales,  Hooker,  the  greatest  doctors  of 
me  English  Church,  give  a  large  place 
to  natural  reason, — so  large,  that  never 
even  to  this  day,  has  it  made  such  an 
advance. 

An  astonishing  irruption  of  facts — 
t/.e  discovery  of  America,  the  revival 
of  antiquity,  the  restoration  of  philol- 
ogy, the  invention  of  the  arts,  the 
development  of  industries,  the  march 
of  human  curiosity  over  the  whole  of 
the  past  and  the  whole  of  the  globe — 

*  See  in  Shakspeare,  The  Tempest,  Measure 
for  Meastire,  Hamlet :  in  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  Thierry  and  Tlteodoret^  Act  iv.  ; 
Webster,  passi  m. 


[BOOK  II 


came  to  furnish  subject-matter,  and 
prose  began  its  reign.  Sidney  Wilson, 
Ascham,  and  Puttenham  explored  the 
the  rules  of  style  ;  Hackluyt  and  Pur- 
chas  compiled  the  cyclopaedia  of  travel 
and  the  description  of  every  land ; 
Holinshed,  Speed,  Raleigh,  Stowe, 
Knolles,  Daniel,  Thomas  May,  Lord 
Herbert,  founded  history ;  Camden, 
Spelman,  Cotton,  Usher,  and  Selden 
inaugurate  scholarship;  a  legion 'of 
patient  workers,  of  obscure  collect- 
ors, of  literary  pioneers,  amassed,  ar- 
ranged, and  sifted  the  documents  which 
Sir  Robert  Cotton  and  Sir  Thomas 
Bodley  stored  up  in  their  libraries  ; 
whilst  Utopians,  moralists,  painters  of 
manners — Thomas  More,  Joseph  Hall, 
John  Earle,  Owen  Feltham,  Burton — 
described  and  passed  judgment  on  the 
modes  of  life,  continued  with  Fuller, 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  and  Isaac  Wal- 
ton up  to  the  middle  of  the  next  cen- 
tury, and  add  to  the  number  of  contro- 
versialists and  politicians  who,  with 
Hooker,  Taylor,  Chillingworth,  Alger- 
non Sidney,  Harrington,  study  religion, 
society,  church  and  state.  A  copious 
and  confused  fermentation,  from  which 
abundance  of  thoughts  rose,  but  few 
notable  books.  Noble  prose,  such  as 
was  heard  at  the  court  of  Louis  XIV., 
in  the  house  of  Pollio,  in  the  schools  at 
Athens,  such  as  rhetorical  and  sociable 
nations  know  how  to  produce,  was 
altogether  lacking.  These  men  had 
not  the  spirit  of  analysis,  the  art  of 
following  step  by  step  the  natural 
order  of  ideas,  nor  the  spirit  of  con- 
versation, the  talent  never  to  weary  or 
shock  others.  Their  imagination  is 
too  little  regulated,  and  their  manners 
too  little  polished.  They  who  had 
mixed  most  in  the  world,  even  Sidney, 
speak  roughly  what  they  think,  and  as 
they  think  it.  Instead  of  glossing  they 
exaggerate.  They  blurt  out  *",  and 
withhold  nothing.  When  they  do  not 
employ  excessive  compliments,  they 
take  to  coarse  jokes.  They  are  ignorant 
of  measured  liveliness,  refined  raillery, 
delicate  flattery.  They  rejoice  in  gross 
puns,  dirty  allusions.  They  mistake  in- 
volved charades  and  grotesque  images 
for  wit.  Though  they  are  great  lords 
and  ladies,  they  talk 'like  ill-bred  per- 
sons, lovers  of  buffoonery,  of  shows,  and 
bear  fights.  With  some,  as  Overbury 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


149 


or  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  prose  is  so 
much  run  over  by  poetry,  that  it  covers 
its  narrative  with  images,  and  hides 
ideas  under  its  pictures.  They  load 
their  style  with  flowery  comparisons, 
which  produce  one  another,  and  mount 
one  above  another,  so  that  sense  dis- 
appears, and  ornament  only  is  visible. 
In  short,  they  are  generally  pedants, 
still  stiff  with  the  rust  of  the  school ; 
they  divide  and  subdivide,  propound 
theses,  definitions;  they  argue  solidly 
and  heavily,  and  quote  their  authors  in 
Latin,  and  even  in  Greek  ;  they  square 
their  massive  periods,  and  learnedly 
knock  their  adversaries  down,  and 
their  readers  too,  as  a  natural  conse- 
quence. They  are  never  on  the  prose- 
level,  but  always  above  or  below  — 
above  by  their  poetic  genius,  below  by 
the  weight  of  their  education  and  the 
barbarism  of  their  manners.  But  they 
think  seriously  and  for  themselves  ; 
they  are  deliberate  ;  they  are  convinced 
and  touched  by  what  they  say.  Even 
in  the  compiler  we  find  a  force  and 
loyalty  of  spirit,  which  give  confidence 
and  cause  pleasure.  Their  writings 
are  like  the  powerful  and  heavy  en- 
gravings of  their  contemporaries,  the 
maps  of  Hofnagel  for  instance,  so  harsh 
and  so  instructive  ;  their  conception 
is  sharp  and  clear  ;  they  have  the  gift 
of  perceiving  every  object,  not  under 
a  general  aspect,  like  the  classical 
writers,  but  specially  and  individually. 
It  is  not  man  in  the  abstract,  the  citi- 
zen as  he  is  everywhere,  the  countryman 
as  such,  that  they  represent,  but  James 
or  Thomas,  Smith  or  Brown,  of  such 
a  parish,  from  such  an  office,  with  such 
and  such  attitude  or  dress,  distinct  from 
all  others ;  in  short,  they  see,  not  the 
idea,  but  the  individual.  Imagine  the 
disturbance  that  such  a  disposition 
produces  in  a  man's  head,  how  the 
regular  order  of  ideas  becomes  deranged 
by  it ;  how  every  object,  with  the  in- 
finite medley  of  its  forms,  properties, 
appendages,  will  thenceforth  fasten 
itself  by  a  hundred  points  of  contact 
unforeseen  to  other  objects,  and  bring 
before  the  mind  a  series  and  a  family  ; 
•vhat  boldness  language  will  derive 
jfom  it;  what  familiar,  picturesque, 
absurd  words,  will  break  forth  in  suc- 
cession ;  how  the  dash,  the  unforeseen, 
the  originality  and  inequality  of  inven- 


tion will  stand  out.  Imagine,  at  the 
same  time,  what  a  hold  this  form  of 
mind  has  on  objects,  how  many  facts 
it  condenses  in  each  conception ;  what 
amass  of  personal  judgments,  foreign 
authorities,  suppositions,  guesses,  im- 
aginations, it  spreads  over  every  sub- 
ject ;  with  what  venturesome  and  crea- 
tive fecundity  it  engenders  both  truth 
and  conjecture.  It  is  an  extraordinary 
chaos  of  thoughts  and  forms,  often 
abortive,  still  more  often  barbarous, 
sometimes  grand.  But  from  this  super- 
fluity something  lasting  and  great  is 
produced,  namely  science,  and  we  have 
only  to  examine  more  closely  into  one 
or  two  of  these  works  to  see  the  lew 
creation  emerge  from  the  blocks  and 
the  debris. 

III. 

Two  writers  especially  display  this 
state  of  mind.  The  first,  Robert  Bur- 
ton, a  clergyman  and  university  recluse, 
who  passed  his  life  in  libraries,  and 
dabbled  in  all  the  sciences,  as  learn- 
ed as  Rabelais,  having  an  inexhausti- 
ble and  overflowing  memory  ;  unequal, 
moreover,  gifted  with  enthusiasm,  and 
spasmodically  gay,  but  as  a  rule  sad 
and  morose,  to  the  extent  of  confessing 
in  his  epitaph  that  melancholy  made 
up  his  life  and  his  death  ;  in  the  first 
place  original,  liking  his  own  common 
sense,  and  one  of  the  earliest  models 
of  that  singular  English  mood  which, 
withdrawing  man  within  himself,  de- 
velops in  him,  at  one  time  imagina- 
tion, at  another  scrupulosity,  at  an- 
other oddity,  and  makes  of  him,  accord- 
ing to  circumstances,  a  poet,  an  ec- 
centric, a  humorist,  a  madman,  or  a 
puritan.  He  read  on  for  thirty  years, 
put  an  encyclopaedia  into  his  head, 
and  now,  to  amuse  and  relieve  himself, 
takes  a  folio  of  blank  paper.  Twenty 
lines  of  a  poet,  a  dozen  lines  of  a  trea- 
tise on  agriculture,  a  folio  page  of 
heraldry,  a  description  of  rare  fishes, 
a  paragraph  of  a  sermon  on  patience, 
the  record  of  the  fever  fits  of  hypochon- 
dria, the  history  of  the  particle  that,  a 
scrap  of  metaphysics,  —  this  is  what 
passes  through  his  brain  in  a  quarter 
of  an  hour:  it  is  a  carnival  of  ideas 
and  phrases,  Greek,  Latin,  German, 
French,  Italian,  philosophical,  geomet- 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


rical,  medical,  poetical,  astrological, 
musical,  pedagogic,  heaped  one  on  the 
other ;  an  enormous  medley,  a  prodig- 
ious mass  of  jumbled  quotations,  jost- 
ling thoughts,  with  the  vivacity  and 
the  transport  of  a  feast  of  unreason. 

"  This  roving  humour  (though  not  with  like 
success)  I  have  ever  had,  and>  like  a  ranging 
spaniel  that  barks  at  every  bird  he  sees,  leaving 
his  game,  I  have  followed  all,  saving  that  which 
I  should,  and  may  justly  complain,  and  truly, 
qui  ubique  est,  nusquam  est,  which  Gesner  did 
in  modesty,  that  I  have  read  many  books*  but 
to  little  purpose,  for  want  of  good  method,  I 
have  confusedly  tumbled  over  divers  authors  in 
our  libraries  with  small  profit,  for  want  of  art, 
order,  memory,  judgment.  I  never  travelled 
but  in  map  or  card,  in  which  my  unconfined 
thoughts  have  freely  expatiated,  as  having  ever 
been  especially  delighted  with  the  study  of  cos- 
mography. Saturn  was  lord  of  my  geniture, 
culminating,  etc.,  and  Mars  principal  sigmfica- 
tor  of  manners,  in  partile  conjunction  with  mine 
ascendent ;  both  fortunate  in  their  houses,  etc. 
I  am  not  poor,  I  am  not  rich  ;  nihil  est,  nihil 
deest ;  I  have  little;  I  want  nothing:  all  my 
treasure  is  in  Minerva's  tower.  Greater  prefer- 
ment as  I  could  never  get,  so  am  I  not  in  debt 
for  it.  I  have  a  competency  (laus  Deo)  from 
my  noble  and  munificent  patrons.  Though  I 
live  still  a  collegia!  student,  as  Democritus  in 
his  garden,  and  lead  a  monastique  life,  ipse 
•mihi  theatrum,  sequestred  from  those  tumults 
and  troubles  of  the  world,  et  tat^iam  in  spec- 
ula posilus  (as  he  said),  in  some  high  place 
above  you  all,  like  Stdicus  sapiens,  omnia 
scecula  prceterita  prcesentiaque  videns,  uno 
•uelut  intuitu,  I  hear  and  see  what  is  done 
abroad,  how  others  run,  ride,  turmoil,  and 
macerate  themselves  in  court  and  countrey. 
Far  from  these  wrangling  lawsuits,  aula  vani- 
tatem,fori  ambitionem,  rider e  mecum  soleo  : 
I  laugh  at  all,  only  secure,  lest  my  suit  go 
amiss,  my  ships  perish,  corn  and  cattle  mis- 
carry, trade  decay  ;  I  have  no  wife  nor  chil- 
dren, good  or  bad,  to  provide  for  ;  a  mere  spec- 
tator of  other  men's  fortunes  and  adventures, 
and  how  they  act  their  parts,  which  methinks 
are  diversely  presented  unto  me,  as  from  a 
common  theatre  or  scene.  I  hear  news  every 
day:  and  those  ordinary  rumours  of  war, 
plagues,  fires,  inundations,  thefts,  murders, 
massacres,  meteors,  comets,  spectrums,  prodi- 
gies, apparitions ;  of  towns  taken,  cities  be- 
sieged in  France,  Germany,  Turkey,  Persia, 
Jt'oiand,  etc.,  daily  musters  and  preparations, 
arj.d  such  like,  which  these  tempestuous  times 
afford,  battles  fought,  so  many  men  slain, 
moiiomachies,  shipwracks,  piracies,  and  sea- 
fights,  peace,  leagues,  stratagems  and  fresh 
alarms — a  vast  confusion  of  vows,  wishes,  ac- 
tions, edicts,  petitions,  lawsuits,  pleas,  laws, 
proclamations,  complaints,  grievances, — are 
daily  brought  to  our  ears :  new  books  every 
day,  pamphlets,  currantoes,  stories,  whole  cata- 
logues of  volumes  of  all  sorts,  new  paradoxes, 
opinions,  schisms,  heresies,  controversies  in 
philosophy,  religion,  etc.  Now  come  tidings 
of  weddings,  maskings,  mummeries,  entertain- 
ments, jubilies,  embassies,  tilts  and  tourna- 
ments, trophies,  triumphs,  revels,  sports,  playes:  , 


then  again,  as  in  a  new  shifted  scene,  treasons; 
cheating  tricks,  robberies,  enormous  villaniea 
in  all  kinds,  funerals,  burials,  death  of  princes, 
new  discoveries,  expeditions ;  now  comical, 
then  tragical  matters.  To-day  we  hear  of  new 
lords  and  officers  created,  to-morrow  of  some 
great  men  deposed,  and  then  again  of  fresh 
honours  conferred:  one  is  let  loose,  another 
imprisoned :  one  purchaseth,  another  breaketh  : 
he  thrives,  his  neighbour  turns  bankrupt ;  now 
plenty,  then  again  dearth  and  famine  ;  one 
runs,  another  rides,  wrangles,  laughs,  weeps, 
etc.  Thus  I  daily  hear,  and  such  like,  both 
private  and  publick  news."  * 

"  For  what  a  world  of  books  offers  itself,  in 
all  subjects,  arts,  and  sciences,  to  the  sweet 
content  and  capacity  of  the  reader?  In  arith- 
metick,  geometry,  perspective,  optick,  astrono- 
my, architecture,  sculptura,  pictura,  of  which 
so  many  and  such  elaborate  treatises  are  of  late 
written  :  in  mechanicks  and  their  mysteries, 
military  matters,  navigation,  riding  of  horses, 
fencing,  swimming,  gardening,  planting,  great 
tomes  of  husbandry,  cookery,  faulconry,  hunt- 
ing, fishing,  fowling,  etc.,  with  exquisite  pic- 
tures of  all  sports,  games,  and  what  not.  In 
musick,  metaphysicks,  natural  and  moral  phi- 
losophy, philologie,  in  policy,  heraldry,  gene- 
alogy, chronology,  etc.,  they  afford  great  tomes, 
or  those  studies  of  antiquity,  etc.,  et  quid  sub- 
til tus  arithmeticis  i?iventionibus  ?  quid  jucun- 
dius  musicis  rationibus  ?  qriid  div inius  astron- 
omicis  ?  quid  rectius  geometricis  demonstra- 
tionibus  ?  What  so  sure,  what  so  pleasant  ? 
He  that  shall  but  see  the  geometrical  tower  of 
Garezenda  at  Bologne  in  Italy,  the  steeple  and 
clock  at  Strasborpugh,  will  admire  the  effects 
of  art,  or  that  engine  of  Archimedes  to  remove 
the  earth  itself  if  he  had  but  a  place  to  fasten 
his  instrument*.  A  rchimedis  cochlea,  and  rare 
devises  to  corrivate  waters,  musick  instruments, 
and  trisyllable  echoes  again,  again,  and  again 
repeated,  with  miriades  of  such.  What  vast 
tomes  are  extant  in  law,  physick,  and  divinity, 
for  profit,  pleasure,  practice,  speculation,  in 
verse  or  prose,  etc. !  Their  names  alone  are 
the  subject  of  whole  volumes  ;  we  have  thou- 
sands of  authors  of  all  sorts,  many  great  libra- 
ries, full  well  furnished,  like  so  many  dishes  of 
meat,  served  out  for  several  palates,  and  he  is 
a  very  block  that  is  affected  with  none  of  them. 
Some  take  an  infinite  delight  to  study  the  very 
languages  wherein  these  books  are  written — 
Hebrew,  Greek,  Syriack,  Chalde,  Arabick,  etc. 
Methinks  it  would  well  please  any  man  to  look 
upon  a  geographical  map  (sriavi animum  delec- 
tatione  allicere,  ob  incredibilem  rerum  varie- 
tatem  etjucunditatem,  et  ad pleniorem  suicog- 
nitionem  excitare),  chorographical,  tope  graph- 
ical delineations  ;  to  behold,  as  it  were,  ,1  tha 
remote  provinces,  towns,  cities  of  the  wot  Jd,  and 
never  to  go  forth  of  the  limits  of  his  study  ,  to 
measure, by  the  scale  and  compasse,  their  e  <tent, 
distance,  examine  their  site.  Charles  the  Great 
(as  Platina  writes)  had  three  faire  silver  tables, 
"n  one  of  which  superficies  was  a  large  map  of 
Constantinople,  in  the  second  Rome  neatly  en- 
graved,in  the  third  an  exquisite  description  of  the 
whole  world  ;  and  much  delight  he  took  in  them. 
What  greater  pleasure  can  there  now  be,  than 


*  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  i2th  ed. 
vols. :  Democritus  to  the  Reader,  i.  4. 


182  x, 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


to  view  those  elaborate  maps  of  Ortelius,  Mer- 
cator,  Hondius,  etc.  ?  to  peruse  those  books  of 
cities  put  out  by  Braunus  and  Hogenbergius? 
to  read  those  exquisite  descriptions  of  Maginus, 
Munster,  Herrera,  Laet,  Merula,  Boterus,  Le- 
ander  Albertus,  Camden,  Leo  Afer,  Adricom- 
ius,  Nic.  Gerbelius,  etc.  ?  those  famous  expe- 
ditions of  Christopher  Columbus,  Americus 
Vespucius,  Marcus  Polus  the  Venetian,  Lod. 
Vertomannus,  Aloysius  Cadamustus,  etc.?  those 
accurate  diaries  of  Portugals,  Hallanders,  of 
Bartison,  Oliver  a  Nort,  etc.,  Hacluit's  Voy- 
ages, Pet.  Martyr's  Decades,  Benzo,  Lerius, 
Linschoten's  relations,  those  Hodaeporicons  of 
Tod.  a  Meggen,  Brpcarde  the  Monke,  Breden- 
bachius,  Jo.  Dublinius,  Sands,  etc.,  to  Jerusa- 
lem, Egypt,  and  other  remote  places  of  the 
world?  those  pleasant  itineraries  of  Paulus 
Hentzerus,  Jodocus  Sincerus,  Dux  Polonus, 
etc.?  to  read  Bellonius  observations,  P.  Gillius 
his  survayes  ;  those  parts  of  America,  set  out, 
and  curiously  cut  in  pictures,  by  Fratres  a  Bry  ? 
To  see  a  well  cut  herbal,  hearbs,  trees,  flowers, 
plants,  all  vegetals,  expressed  in  their  proper 
colours  to  the  life,  as  that  of  Matthiolus  upon 
Dioscorides,  Delacampius,  Lobel,  Bauhinus, 
and  that  last  voluminous  and  mighty  herbal  of 
Besler  of  Noremberge  ;  wherein  almost  every 

Elant  is  to  his  own  bignesse.  To  see  birds, 
easts,  and  fishes  of  the  sea,  spiders,  gnats, 
serpents,  flies,  etc.,  all  creatures  set  out  by  the 
same  art,  and  truly  expressed  in  lively  colours, 
with  an  exact  description  of  their  natures,  ver- 
tues,  qualities,  etc.,  as  hath  been  accurately 
performed  by  ./Elian,  Gesner,  Ulysses  Aldro- 
vandus,  Bellonius,  Rondoletius,  Hippolytus 
Salviauus,  etc."* 

He  is  never-ending  ;  words,  phrases, 
overflow,  are  heaped  up,  overlap  each 
other,  and  flow  on,  carrying  the  reader 
along,  deafened,  stunned,  half-drown- 
ed, unable  to  touch  ground  in  the  del- 
uge. Burton  is  inexhaustible.  There 
are  no  ideas  which  he  does  not  iterate 
under  fifty  forms  ;  when  he  has  ex- 
hausted his  own,  he  pours  out  upon 
us  other  men's — the  classics,  the  rarest 
authors,  known  only  by  savants — au- 
thors rarer  still,  known  only  to  the 
learned  ;  he  borrows  from  all.  Un- 
derneath these  deep  caverns  of  erudi- 
tion and  science,  there  is  one  blacker 
and  more  unknown  than  all  the  others, 
rilled  with  forgotten  authors,  with 
crackjavv  names,  Besler  of  Nuremberg, 
Adricomius,  Linschoten,  Brocarde, 
Bredenbachius.  Amidst  all  these  ante- 
diluvian monsters,  bristling  with  Latin 
terminations,  he  is  at  his  ease  ;  he  sports 
with  them,  laughs,  skips  from  one  to  the 
other,  drives  them  all  abreast.  He  is 
like  old  Proteus,  the  sturdy  rover,  who 

*  Anatomy  of  Melancholy^  i.  \  art  2,  sec.  2, 
Mem.  4,  p.  420,  et  passim. 


in  one  hour,  with  his  team  of  hippopot- 
ami, makes  the  circuit  of  the  ocean. 

What  subject  does  he  take  ?  Melan 
choly,  his  own  individual  mood ;  and 
he  takes  it  like  a  schoolman.  None  of 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas'  treatises  is  more 
regularly  constructed  than  his.  This 
torrent  of  erudition  flows  in  geometri- 
cally planned  channels,  turning  off  at 
right  angles  without  deviating  by  a 
line.  At  the  head  of  every  part  you 
will  find  a  synoptical  and  analytical 
table,  with  hyphens,  brackets,  each 
division  begetting  its  subdivisions,  each 
subdivision  its  sections,  each  section 
its  subsections  :  of  the  malady  in  gen- 
eral, of  melancholy  in  particular,  of  its 
nature,  its  seat,  its  varieties,  causes, 
symptoms,  prognosis ;  of  its  cure  by 
permissible  means,  by  forbidden  means, 
by  dietetic  means,  by  pharmaceutical 
means.  After  the  scholastic  process, 
he  descends  from  the  general  to  the 
particular,  and  disposes  each  emotion 
and  idea  in  its  labelled  case.  In  this 
framework,  supplied  by  the  middle 
age,  he  heaps  up  the  whole,  like  a  man 
of  the  Renaissance, — the  literary  de- 
scription of  passions  and  the  medical 
description  of  madness,  details  of  the 
hospital  with  a  satire  on  human  follies, 
physiological  treatises  side  by  side 
with  personal  confidences,  the  recipes 
of  the  apothecary  with  moral  counsels, 
remarks  on  love  with  the  history  of 
evacuations.  The  discrimination  of 
ideas  has  not  yet  been  effected ;  doctor 
and  poet,  man  of  letters  and  savant, 
he  is  all  at  once ;  for  want  of  dams, 
ideas  pour  like  different  liquids  into 
the  same  vat  with  strange  spluttering 
and  bubbling,  with  an  unsavory  smell 
and  odd  effect.  But  the  vat  is  full, 
and  from  this  admixture  are  produced 
potent  compounds  which  no  preceding 
age  has  known, 

IV. 

For  in  this  mixture  there  is  an  ef- 
fectual leaven,  the  poetic  sentiment, 
which  stirs  up  and  animates  the  vast 
erudition,  which  will  not  be  confined 
to  dry  catalogues ;  which,  interpreting 
every  fact,  every  object,  disentangles 
or  divines  a  mysterious  soul  within  it, 
and  agitates  the  whole  mind  of  man, 
by  representing  to  him  the  restless 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


world  within  and  without  him  as  a 
grand  enigma.  Let  us  conceive  a 
kindred  mind  to  Shakspeare's,  a  scholar 
and  an  observer  instead  of  an  actor 
and  a  poet,  who  in  place  of  creating  is 
occupied  in  comprehending,  but  who, 
like  Shakspeare,  applies  himself  to 
living  things,  penetrates  their  internal 
structure,  puts  himself  in  communica- 
tion with  their  actual  laws,  imprints  in 
himself  fervently  and  scrupulously  the 
smallest  details  of  their  outward  ap- 
pearance ;  who  at  the  same  time  ex- 
tends his  penetrating  surmises  beyond 
the  region  of  observation,  discerns  be- 
hind visible  phenomena  some  world 
obscure  yet  sublime,  and  trembles  with 
a  kind  of  veneration  before  the  vast, 
indistinct,  but  peopled  darkness  on 
whose  surface  our  little  universe  hangs 
quivering.  Such  a  one  is  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  a  naturalist,  a  philosopher,  a 
scholar,  a  physician,  and  a  moralist, 
almost  the  last  of  the  generation  which 
produced  Jeremy  Taylor  and  Shak- 
speare. No  thinker  bears  stronger 
witness  to  the  wandering  and  inven- 
tive curiosity  of  the  age.  No  writer 
has  better  displayed  the  brilliant  and 
sombre  imagination  of  the  North.  No 
one  has  spoken  with  a  more  eloquent 
emotion  of  death,  the  vast  night  of 
forgetfulness,  of  the  all-devouring  pit, 
of  human  vanity,  which  tries  to  create 
an  ephemeral  immortality  out  of  glory 
or  sculptured  stones.  No  one  has  re- 
vealed, in  more  glowing  and  original 
expressions,  the  poetic  sap  which  flows 
through  all  the  minds  of  the  age. 

"But  the  iniquity  of  oblivion  blindly  scat- 
tereth  her  poppy,  and  deals  with  the  memory 
of  men  without  distinction  to  merit  of  per- 
oetuity.  Who  can  but  pity  the  founder  of  the 
pyramids?  Herostratus  lives  that  burnt  the 
cemple  of  Piana,  he  is  almost  lost  that  built  it. 
Time  hath  spared  the  epitaph  of  Adrian's 
horse,  confounded  that  of  himself.  In  vain 
we  compute  our  felicities  by  the  advantage  of 
our  good  names,  since  bad  have  equal  duration  ; 
and  Thersites  is  like  to  live  as  long  as  Aga- 
memnon. Who  knows  whether  the  best  of 
men  be  known,  or  whether  there  be  not  more 
remarkable  persons  forgot  than  any  that  stand 
remembered  in  the  known  account  of  time  ? 
Without  the  favour  of  the  everlasting  register, 
the  first  man  had  been  as  unknown  as  the  last, 
and  Methuselah's  long  life  had  been  his  only 
chronicle. 

"  Oblivion  is  not  to  be  hired.  The  greater 
Dart  must  be  content  to  be  as  though  they  had 
no  ^n,  tc  be  found  in  the  register  of  God, 
*ot  -  the  record  of  man.  Twenty-seven 


names  make  up  the  first  story  before  the  flood, 
and  the  recorded  names  ever  since  contain  not 
one  living  century.  The  number  of  the  dead 
long  exceedeth  all  that  shall  Jive.  The  nigh 
of  time  far  surpasseth  the  day,  and  who  knows 
when  was  the  equinox?  Every  hour  adds  unto 
the  current  arithmetick  which  scarce  stands 
one  moment.  And  since  death  must  be  the 
Lucina  of  life,  and  even  Pagans  could  doubt, 
whether  thus  to  live  were  to  die  ;  since  our 
longest  sun  sets  at  right  declensions,  and 
makes  but  winter  arches,  and  therefore  it  can- 
not be  long  before  we  lie  down  in  darkness, 
and  have  our  light  in  ashes  ;  since  the  brother 
of  death  daily  hamnts  us  with  dying  mementos, 
and  time,  that  grows  old  in  itself,  bids  us  hope 
no  long  duration  ; — diuturnity  is  a  dream,  and 
folly  of  expectation. 

"Darkness  and  light  divide  the  course  of 
time,  and  oblivion  shares  with  memory  a  great 
part  even  of  our  living  beings  ;  we  slightly  re- 
member our  felicities,  and  the  smartest  strokes 
of  affliction  leave  but  short  smart  upon  us. 
Sense  endureth  no  extremities,  and  sorrows 
destroy  us  or  themselves.  To  weep  into  stones 
are  fables.  Afflictions  induce  callosities ; 
miseries  are  slippery,  or  fall  like  snow  upon 
us,  which  notwithstanding  is  no  unhappy  stu- 
pidity. To  be  ignorant  of  evils  to  come,  and 
forgetful  of  evils  past,  is  a  merciful  provision 
of  nature,  whereby  we  digest  the  mixture  of 
our  few  and  evil  days  ;  and  our  delivered  senses 
not  relapsing  into  cutting  remembrances,  our 
sorrows  are  not  kept  raw  by  the  edge  of 
repetitions.  .  .  .  All  was  vanity,  feeding  the 
wind,  and  folly.  The  Egyptian  mummies, 
which  Cambyses  or  time  hath  spared,  avarice 
now  consumeth.  Mummy  is  become  mer- 
chandise, Mizriam  cures  wounds,  and  Pharaoh 
is  sold  for  balsams.  .  .  .  Man  is  a  noble 
animal,  splendid  in  ashes,  and  pompous  in  the 
grave,  solemnizing  nativities  and  deaths  with 
equal  lustre,  nor  omitting  ceremonies  of  bravery 
in  the  infancy  of  his  nature.  .  .  .  Pyramids, 
arches,  obelisks,  were  but  the  irregularities  of 
vain  glory,  and  wild  enormities  of  ancient 
magnanimity."  * 

These  are  almost  the  words  of  a 
poet,  and  it  is  just  this  poet's  imagi- 
nation which  urges  him  onward  into 
science.!  Face  to  face  with  the  pro- 
ductions of  nature  he  abounds  in 
conjectures,  comparisons  ;  he  gropes 
about,  proposing  explanations,  making 
trials,  extending  his  guesses  like  so 
many  flexible  and  vibrating  feelers 
into  the  four  corners  of  the  globe, 
into  the  most  distant  regions  of  fancy 
and  truth.  As  he  looks  upon  the  tree- 
like and  foliaceous  crusts  which  are 
formed  upon  the  surface  of  freezing 
liquids,  he  asks  himself  if  this  be  not  a 
regeneration  of  vegetable  essences,  dis- 

*  The  Works  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  ed. 
Wilkin,  1852,  3  vols.  Hydriotaphia,  hi.  ch.  v. 
44,  et  passim* 

t  See  Milsand,  Etude  sur  Sir  Thoma.. 
Browne,  Revue  des  Deux  Monde,  1858. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


solved  in  the  liquid.  At  the  sight  of 
curdling  blood  or  milk,  he  inquires 
whether  there  be  not  something  anal- 
ogous to  the  formation  of  the  bird  in 
the  egg,  or  to  that  coagulation  of  chaos 
which  gave  birth  to  our  world.  In 
presence  of  that  impalpable  force 
which  makes  liquids  freeze,  he  asks  if 
apoplexy  and  cataract  are  not  the 
effects  of  a  like  power,  and  do  not 
indicate  also  the  presence  of  a  con- 
gealing agency.  He  is  in  presence  of 
nature  as  an  artist,  a  man  of  letters  in 
presence  of  a  living  countenance,  mark- 
ing every  feature,  every  movement  of 
physiognomy,  so  as  to  be  able  to  divine 
the  passions  and  the  inner  disposition,' 
ceaselessly  correcting  and  undoing  his 
interpretations,  kept  in  agitation  by 
thought  of  the  invisible  forces  which 
operate  beneath  the  visible  envelope. 
The  whole  of  the  middle  age  and  of 
antiquity,  with  their  theories  and  im- 
aginations, Platonism,  Cabalism,  Chris- 
tian theology,  Aristotle's  substantial 
forms,  the  specific  forms  of  the  al- 
chemists,— all  human  speculations,  en- 
tangled and  transformed  one  within 
the  other,  meet  simultaneously  in  his 
brain,  so  as  to  open  up  to  him  vistas 
of  this  unknown  world.  The  accu- 
mulation, the  pile.,  the  confusion,  the 
fermentation  and  the  inner  swarming, 
mingled  with  vapors  and  flashes,  the 
tumultuous  overloading  of  his  imagina- 
tion and  his  mind,  oppress  and  agitate 
him.  In  this  expectation  and  emotion 
his  curiosity  takes  hold  of  every  thing  ; 
in  reference  to  the  least  fact,  the  most 
special,  the  most  obsolete,  the  most 
chimerical,  he  conceives  a  chain  of 
complicated  investigations,  calculating 
how  the  ark  could  contain  all  creatures, 
with  their  provision  of  food ;  how 
Perpenna,  at  a  banquet,  arranged  the 
guests  so  as  to  strike  Sertorius  ;  what 
trees  must  have  grown  on  the  banks  of 
Acheron,  supposing  that  there  were 
any  ;  whether  quincunx  plantations  had 
not  their  origin  in  Eden,  and  whether 
the  numbers  and  geometrical  figures 
contained  in  the  lozenge-form  are  not 
met  with  in  all  the  productions  of 
nature  and  art.  You  may  recognize 
here  the  exuberance  and  the  strange  ca- 
prices of  an  inner  development  too  am- 
ple and  too  strong.  Archaeology,  chem- 
•stry,  history,  nature,  there  is  nothing  in 


which  he  is  not  passi(  nately  interested, 
which  does  not  cause  his  memory  and 
his  inventive  powers  to  overflow,  which 
does  not  summon  up  within  him  the 
idea  of  some  force,  certainly  admirable, 
possibly  infinite.  But  what  completes 
his  picture,  what  signalizes  the  advance 
of  science,  is  the  fact  that  his  imagina- 
tion provides  a  counterbalance  against 
itself.  He  is  as  fertile  in  doubts  as  he 
is  in  explanations.  If  he  sees  a  thou- 
sand reasons  which  tend  to  one  view, 
he  sees  also  a  thousand  which  tend  to 
the  contrary.  At  the  two  extremities 
of  the  same  fact,  he  raises  up  to  the 
clouds,  but  in  equal  piles,  the  scaffold- 
ing of  contradictory  arguments.  Hav- 
ing made  a  guess,  he  knows  that  it  is 
but  a  guess  ;  he  pauses,  ends  with  a 
perhaps,  recommends  verification.  His 
writings  consist  only  of  opinions,  given 
as  such ;  even  his  principal  work  is  a 
refutation  of  popular  errors.  In  the 
main,  he  proposes  questions,  suggests 
explanations,  suspends  his  judgments, 
nothing  more ;  but  this  is  enough : 
when  the  search  is  so  eager,  when  the 
paths  in  which  it  proceeds  are  so 
numerous,  when  it  is  so  scrupulous  in 
securing  its  hold,  the  issue  of  the  pur- 
suit is  sure  ;  we  are  but  a  few  steps 
from  the  truth. 

V. 

In  this  band  of  scholars,  dreamers, 
and  inquirers,  appears  the  most  com- 
prehensive, sensible,  originative  of  the 
minds  of  the  age,  Francis  Bacon,  a 
great  and  luminous  intellect,  one  of  the 
finest  of  this  poetic  progeny,  who,  like 
his  predecessors,  was  naturally  dis- 
posed to  clothe  his  ideas  in  the  mosf 
splendid  dress :  in  this  age,  a  thought 
did  not  seem  complete  until  it  had 
assumed  form  and  color.  But  what 
distinguishes  him  from  the  others  is, 
that  with  him  an  image  only  serves  to 
concentrate  meditation.  He  reflected 
long,  stamped  on  his  mind  all  the  parts 
and  relations  of  his  subject;  he  is  mas- 
ter of  it,  and  then,  instead  of  exposing 
this  complete  idea  in  a  graduated  chain 
of  reasoning,  he  embodies  it  in  a  com- 
parison so  expressive,  exact,  lucid,  that 
behind  the  figure  we  perceive  all  the 
details  of  the  idea,  like  liquor  in  a 
fine  crystal  vase.  Judge  of  his  style 
by  a  single  example  : 
7* 


'54 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


"  For  as  water,  whether  it  be  the  dew  of 

Heaven  or  the  spnngs  of  the  earth,  easily  scat- 
ters and  loses  itself  in  the  ground,  except  it  be 
collected  into  some  receptacle,  where  it  may  by 
union  and  consort  comfort  and  sustain  itself 
(and  for  that  cause,  the  industry  of  man  has  de- 
vised aqueducts,  cisterns,  and  pools,  and  like- 
wise beautified  them  with  various  ornaments  of 
magnificence  and  state,  as  well  as  for  use  and 
necessity)  ;  so  this  excellent  liquor  of  knowl- 
edge, whether  it  descend  from  divine  inspira- 
tion or  spring  from  human  sense,  would  soon 
perish  and  vanish  into  oblivion,  if  it  were  not 
preserved  in  books,  traditions,  conferences,  and 
especially  in  places  appointed  for  such  matters 
as  universities,  colleges,  and  schools,  where  it 
iruy  have  both  a  fixed  habitation,  and  means 
and  opportunity  of  increasing  and  collecting  it- 
self." * 

"The  greatest  error  of  all  the  rest,  is  the 
mistaking  or  misplacing  of  the  last  or  farthest 
end  of  knowledge  :  for  men  have  entered  into  a 
desire  of  learning  and  knowledge,  sometimes 
upon  a  natural  curiosity  and  inquisitive  appe- 
tite ;  sometimes  to  entertain  their  minds  with 
variety  and  delight ;  sometimes  for  ornament 
and  reputation  ;  and  sometimes  to  enable  them 
to  victory  of  wit  and  contradiction  ;  and  most 
times  for  lucre  and  profession  ;  and  seldom  sin- 
cerely to  give  a  true  account  of  their  gift  of  rea- 
son, to  the  benefit  and  use  of  men :  as  if  there 
were  sought  in  knowledge  a  couch  whereupon 
to  rest  a  searching  and  restless  spirit ;  or  a  ter- 
race, for  a  wandering  and  variable  mind  to 
walk  up  and  down  with  a  fair  prospect  ;  or  a 
tower  of  state,  for  a  proud  mind  to  raise  itself 
upon  ;  or  a  fort  or  commanding  ground,  for 
strife  and  contention ;  or  a  shop,  for  profit  or 
sale ;  and  not  a  rich  storehouse,  for  the  glory 
of  the  Creator,  and  the  relief  of  man's  es- 
tate." t 

This  is  his  mode  of  thought,  by  sym- 
bols, not  by  analysis ;  instead  of  ex- 
plaining his  idea,  he  transposes  and 
translates  it,  —  translates  it  entire,  to 
the  smallest  details,  enclosing  all  in  the 
majesty  of  a  grand  period,  or  in  the 
brevity  of  a  striking  sentence.  Thence 
springs  a  style  of  admirable  richness, 
gravity,  and.  vigor,  now  solemn  and 
symmetrical,  now  concise  and  piercing, 
always  elaborate  and  full  of  color.  \ 
There  is  nothing  in  English  prose 
superior  to  his  diction. 

Thence  is  derived  also  his  manner 
of  conceiving  things.  He  is  not  a  dia- 
lectician, like  Hobbes  or  Descartes,  apt 
in  arranging  ideas,  in  educing  one  from 
another,  in  leading  his  reader  from  the 
simple  to  the  complex  by  an  unbroken 

*  Bacon's   Works.    Translation  of  the  De 
.ncntis  Scientuirum,    Book   ii.  ;    To  the 

t  Ibid.  Book  i.     The  true  end  of  learning 
mistaken. 
t  Especially  in  the  Essaj  j. 


chain.  He  is  a  producer  of  concep- 
tions and  of  sentences.  The  matter 
being  explored,  he  says  to  us  :  "  Such 
it  is ;  touch  it  not  on  that  side  ;  it  must 
be  approached  from  the  other."  Noth- 
ing more ;  no  proof,  no  effort  to  con- 
vince :  he  affirms,  and  does  nothing 
more ;  he  has  thought  in  the  manner 
of  artists  and  poets,  and  he  speaks  after 
the  manner  of  prophets  and  seers. 
Cogitata  et  visa  this  title  of  one  of  hi* 
books  might  be  the  -  title  of  all.  The 
most  admirable,  the  Novum  Organum, 
is  a  string  of  aphorisms, — a  collection, 
as  it  were,  of  scientific  decrees,  as  of  an 
oracle  who  foresees  the  future  and  re- 
veals the  truth.  And  to  make  the  re- 
semblance complete,  he  expresses  them 
by  poetical  figures,  by  enigmatic  ab- 
breviations, almost  in  Sibylline  verses  : 
Idola  spec-fas,  Idola  tribtis,  Idola  fori, 
Idola  theatri^  every  one  will  recall  these 
strange  names,  by  which  he  signifies 
the  four  kinds  of  illusions  to  which  man 
is  subject*  Shakspeare  and  the  seers 
do  not  contain  more  vigorous  or  ex- 
pressive condensations  of  thought,  more 
resembling  inspiration,  and  in  Bacon 
they  are  to  be  found  everywhere.  On 
the  whole,  his  process  is  that  of  the 
creators  ;  it  is  intuition,  not  reasoning. 
When  he  has  laid  up  his  stoie  of  facts, 
the  greatest  possible,  on  some  vast  sub- 
ject, on  some  entire  province  of  the 
mind,  on  the  whole  anterior  philosophy, 
on  the  general  condition  of  the  sci- 
ences, on  the  power  and  limits  of  human 
reason,  he  casts  over  all  this  a  com- 
prehensive view,  as  it  were  a  great  net, 
brings  up  a  universal  idea,  condenses 
his  idea  into  a  maxim,  and  hands  it  to 
us  with  the  words,  "  Verify  and  profit 
by  it." 

There  is  nothing  more  hazardous, 
more  like  fantasy,  than  this  mode  of 
thought,  when  it  is  not  checked  by 
natural  and  strong  good  sense.  This 
common  sense,  which  is  a  kind  of  natu- 
ral divination,  the  stable  equilibrium  of 
an  intellect  always  gravitating  to  the 
true,  like  the  needle  to  the  pole,  Bacoa 
possesses  in  the  highest  degree.  He 
has  a  pre-eminently  practical,  even  an 

*  See  also  Novum  Organutn,  Books  i.  and 
11.  ;  the  twenty-seven  kinds  of  examples,  with 
their  metaphorical  names :  Instantia  cmcis, 
dvoortU  janua:,  Instautice  iunuentes,  poly- 
chrest<Z)  magicce,  etc. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


155 


utilitarian  mind,  such  as  we  meet  with 
later  in  Bentham,  and  such  as  their 
business  habits  were  to  impress  more 
and  more  upon  the  English.  At  the 
age  of  sixteen,  while  at  the  university, 
he  was  dissatisfied  with  Aristotle's 
philosophy,*  not  that  he  thought  meanly 
of  the  author,  whom,  on  the  contrary, 
he  calls  a  great  genius  ;  but  because  it 
seemed  to  him  of  no  practical  utility, 
incapable  of  producing  works  which 
might  promote  the  well-being  of  men. 
We  see  that  from  the  outset  he  struck 
upon  his  dominant  idea :  all  else  comes 
to  him  from  this ;  a  contempt  for  an- 
tecedent philosophy,  the  conception  of 
a  different  system,  the  entire  reforma- 
tion of  the  sciences  by  the  indication  of 
a  new  goal,  the  definition  of  a  distinct 
method,  the  opening  up  of  unsuspected 
anticipations.!  It  is  never  speculation 
which  he  relishes,  but  the  practical 
application  of  it.  His  eyes  are  turned 
not  to  heaven,  but  to  earth,  not  to  things 
abstract  and  vain,  but  to  things  palp- 
able and  solid,  not  to  curious  but  to 
profitable  truths.  He  seeks  to  better 
the  condition  of  men,  to  labor  for  the 
welfare  of  mankind,  to  enrich  human 
life  with  new  discoveries  and  new  re- 
sources, to  equip  mankind  with  new 
powers  and  new  instruments  of  action. 
His  philosophy  itself  is  but  an  instru- 
ment, organum,  a  sort  of  machine  or 
lever  constructed  to  enable  the  intellect 
to  raise  a  weight,  to  break  through  ob- 
stacles, to  open  up  vistas,  to  accom- 
plish tasks  which  had  hitherto  surpass- 
ed its  power.  In  his  eyes,  every  special 
science,  like  science  in  general,  should 
be  an  implement.  He  invites  mathe- 
maticians, to  quit  their  pure  geometry, 
to  study  numbers  only  with  a  view  to 
natural  philosophy,  to  seek  formulas 
only  to  calculate  real  quantities  and 
natural  motions.  He  recommends 
uoralists  to  study  the  soul,  the  pas- 
6K>iu,  habits,  temptations,  not  merely  in 
8i  speculative  way,  but  with  a  view  to 
the  cure  or  diminution  of  vice,  and  as- 
signs to  the  science  of  morals  as  its 
goal  the  amelioration  of  morals.  For 
him,  the  object  of.  science  is  always  the 

*  The  Works  of  Francis  Bacon,  London, 
1824,  vol.  vii.  p.  2  Latin  Biography  by  Raw- 

ev'r 

t  This  point  is  brought  out  by  the  review  of 
Lord  Macaulay,  Critical  and  Historical  Es- 
Tays,  vol.  iii. 


establishment  of  an  art,  that  is,  the 
production  of  something  of  practical 
utility ;  when  he  wished  to  describe 
the  efficacious  nature  of  his  philosophy 
by  a  tale,  he  delineated  in  the  Neu. 
Atlantis,  with  a  poet's  boldness  and  the 
precision  of  a  seer,  almost  employing 
the  very  terms  in  use  now,  modern 
applications,  and  the  present  organiza- 
tion of  the  sciences,  academies,  obser- 
vatories, airballoons,submarine  vessels, 
the  improvement  of  land,  the  trans- 
mutation of  species,  regenerations,  the 
discovery  of  remedies,  the  preservation 
of  food.  The  end  of  our  foundation, 
says  his  principal  personage,  is  the 
knowledge  of  causes  and  secret  mo- 
tions of  things,  and  the  enlarging  of  the 
bounds  of  human  empire,  to.  the  effect- 
ing of  all  things  possible.  And  this 
"  possible  "  is  infinite. 

How  did  this  grand  and  just  concep- 
tion originate  ?  Doubtless  common 
sense  and  genius  too  were  necessary 
to  its  production ;  but  neither  common 
sense  nor  genius  was  lacking  to  men  : 
there  had  been  more  than  one  who, 
observing,  like  Bacon,  the  progress  of 
particular  industries,  could,  like  him, 
have  conceived  of  universal  industry, 
and  from  certain  limited  ameliorations 
have  advanced  to  unlimited  ameliora- 
tion. Here  we  see  the  power  of  con- 
nection; men  think  they  do  every 
thing  by  their  individual  thought,  and 
they  can  do  nothing  without  the  assist- 
ance of  the  thoughts  of  their  neigh- 
bors ;  they  fancy  that  they  are  follow- 
ing the  small  voice  within  them,  but 
they  only  hear  it  because  it  is  swelled 
by  the  thousand  buzzing  and  imperious 
voices,  which,  issuing  from  all  sur- 
rounding or  distant  circumstances,  are 
confounded  with  it  in  an  harmonious 
vibration.  Generally  they  hear  it,  as 
Bacon  did,  from  the  first  moment  of 
reflection  ;  but  it  had  become  inaudible 
among  the  opposing  sounds  which 
came  from  without  to  smother  it. 
Could  this  confidence  in  the  infinite 
enlargement  of  human  power,  this 
glorious  idea  of  the  universal  conquest 
of  nature,  this  firm  hope  in  the  con- 
tinual increase  of  well-bein-g  and  happi- 
ness,- have  germinated,  grown,  occu- 
pied an  intelligence  entirely,  and 
thence  have  struck  its  roots,  been  pro* 
pagated  and  spread  over  neighboring 


'56 

'ntelligences,  in  a  time  of  discourage- 
ment and  decay,  when  men  believed 
the  end  of  the  world  at  hand,  when 
things  were  falling  into  ruin  about 
them,  when  Christian  mysticism,  as  in 
the  first  centuries,  ecclesiastical  tyr- 
anny, as  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
were  convincing  them  of  their  impo- 
tence, by  perverting  their  intellectual 
efforts  and  curtailing  their  liberty. 
On  the  contrary,  such  hopes  must 
then  have  seemed  to  be  outbursts  of 
pride,  or  suggestions  of  the  carnal 
mind.  They  did  seem  so ;  and  the 
last  representatives  of  ancient  science, 
and  the  first  of  the  new,  were  exiled 
or  imprisoned,  assassinated  or  burned. 
In  order  to  be  developed  an  idea  must 
be  in  harmony  with  surrounding  civili- 
zation ;  before  man  can  expect  to  at- 
tain the  dominion  over  nature,  or  at- 
tempts to  improve  his  condition,  ame- 
lioration must  have  begun  on  all  sides, 
industries  have  increased,  knowledge 
have  been  accumulated,  the  arts  ex- 
panded, a  hundred  thousand  irrefuta- 
ble witnesses  must  have  come  inces- 
santly to  give  proof  of  his  power  and 
assurance  of  his  progress.  The  "mas- 
culine birth  of  the  time "  (temforis 
fartus  masculus]  is  the  title  which 
Bacon  applies  to  his  work,  and  it  is  a 
true  one.  In  fact,  the  whole  age  co- 
operated in  it ;  by  this  creation  it  was 
finished.  The  consciousness  of  human 
power  and  prosperity  gave  to  the  Re- 
naissance its  first  energy,  its  ideal,  its 
poetic  materials,  its  distinguishing  fea- 
tures ;  and  now  it  furnishes  it  with  its 
final  expression,  its  scientific  doctrine, 
and  its  ultimate  object. 

We  may  add  also,  its  method.  For, 
the  end  of  a  journey  once  determined, 
the  route  is  laid  down,  since  the  end 
always  determines  the  route ;  when 
the  point  to  be  reached  is  changed, 
the  path  of  approach  is  changed,  and 
science,  varying  its  object,  varies  also 
its  method.  So  long  as  it  limited 
its  effort  to  the  satisfying  an  idle  curi- 
osity, opening  out  speculative  vistas, 
establishing  a  sort  of  opera  in  specula- 
tive minds,  it  could  launch  out  any 
moment  into  metaphysical  abstractions 
and  distinctions  :  it  was  enough  for  it  to 
skim  over  exper  ence  ;  it  soon  quitted 
it.  and  caine  all  at  once  upon  great 
fcrords,  quiddities,  the  principle  of  in- 


TIIE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BooK  II. 


dividuation,  final  causes.  Half  proofs 
sufficed  science  ;  at  bottom  it  did  not 
care  to  establish  a  truth,  but  to  get  an 
opinion  ;  and  its  instrument,  the  syllo- 
gism, was  serviceable  only  for  refuta- 
tions, not  for  discoveries :  it  took  gen 
eral  laws  for  a  starting-point  mstead  of 
a  point  of  arrival :  instead  of  going  to 
find  them,  it  fancied  them  found.  The 
syllogism  w?.s  good  in  the  schools,  not 
in  nature ;  it  made  disputants,  net 
discoverers.  From  the  moment  that 
science  had  art  for  an  end,  and  men 
studied  in  order  to  act,  all  was  trans- 
formed ;  for  we  cannot  act,  without  cer- 
tain and  precise  knowledge.  P'orces, 
before  they  can  be  employed,  must 
be  measured  and  verified ;  before  we 
can  build  a  house,  we  must  know  ex- 
actly the  resistance  of  the  beams,  or 
the  house  will  collapse ;  before  we 
can  cure  a  sick  man,  we  must  know 
with  certainty  the  effect  of  a  remedy, 
or  the  patient  will  die.  Practice  makes 
certainty  and  exactitude  a  necessity  to 
science,  because  practice  is  impossible 
when  it  has  nothing  to  lean  upon  but 
guesses  and  approximations.  How 
can  we  eliminate  guesses  and  approx- 
imations ?  How  introduce  into  science 
solidity  and  precision  ?  We  must  im- 
itate the  cases  in  whiclrscience,  issuing 
in  practice,  has  proved  to  be  precise 
and  certain,  and  these  cases  are  the  in« 
dustries.  We  must,  as  in  the  indus- 
tries, observe,  essay,  grope  about,  ver- 
ify, keep  our  mind  fixed  on  sensible 
and  particular  things,  advance  to  gen- 
eral rules  only  step  by  step  ;  not  an- 
ticipate experience,  but  follow  it ;  not 
imagine  nature,  but  interpret  it.  For 
every  general  effect,  such  as  heat, 
whiteness,  hardness,  liquidity,  we  must 
seek  a  general  condition,  so  that  in 
producing  the  condition  we  may  pro- 
duce the  effect.  And  for  this  it  is  ne- 
cessary, by  fit  rejections  and  exclusions, 
to  extract  the  condition  sought  from 
the  heap  of  facts  in  which  it  lies 
buried,  construct  the  table  of  cases 
from  which  the  effect  is  absent,  the 
table  where  it  is  present,  the  table 
where  the  effect  is  shown  in  various 
degrees,  so  as  to  isolate  and  bring  to 
light  the  condition  which  produced  it.* 
Then  we  shall  have,  not  useless  uni- 
versal axioms,  but  efficacious  mediate 
*  Novum  Organwn)  ii.  15  and  16. 


:HAP.  I.J 


THE  PAGAN  RENAISSANCE. 


axioms,  true  laws  from  which  we 
can  derive  works,  and  which  are  the 
sources  of  power  in  the  same  degree 
as  the  sources  of  light.*  Bacon  de- 
scribed and  predicted  in  this  modern 
science  and  industry,  their  correspond- 
ence, method,  resources,  principle  ;  and 
after  more  than  two  centuries,  it  is  still 
to  him  that  we  go  even  at  the  present 
day  to  look  for  the  theory  of  what  we 
are  attempting  and  doing. 

Beyond  this  great  view,  he  has  dis- 
covered nothing.  Cowley,  one  of  his 
admirers,  rightly  said  that,  like  Moses 
on  Mount  Pisgah,  he  was  the  first  to 
announce  the  promised  land  ;  but  he 
might  have  added  quite  as  justly,  that, 
like  Moses,  he  did  not  enter  there. 
He  pointed  out  the  route,  but  did  not 
travel  it ;  he  taught  men  how  to  dis- 
cover natural  laws,  but  discovered 
none.  His  definition  of  heat  is  ex- 
tremely imperfect.  His  Natural  His- 
tory is  full  of  fanciful  explanations.! 
Like  the  poets,  he  peoples  nature  with 
instincts  and  desires ;  attributes  to 
bodies  an  actual  voracity,  to  the  atmos- 
phere a  thirst  for  light,  sounds,  odors, 
vapors,  which  it  drinks  in  ;  to  metals 
a  sort  of  haste  to  be  incorporated  with 
acids.  He  explains  the  duration  of 
the  bubbles  of  air  which  float  on  the 
surface  of  liquids,  by  supposing  that 
air  has  a  very  small  or  no  appetite  for 
height.  He  sees  in  every  quality, 
weight,  ductility,  hardness,  a  distinct 
essence  which  has  its  special  cause  ;  so 
that  when  a  man  knows  the  cause  of 
every  quality  of  gold,  he  will  be  able 
to  put  all  these  causes  together,  and 
make  gold.  In  the  main,  with  the  al- 
chemists, Paracelsus  and  Gilbert,  Kep- 
ler himself,  with  all  the  men  of  his 
time,  men  of  imagination,  nourished  on 
Aristotle,  he  represents  nature  as  a 
compound  of  secret  and  living  energies, 
inexplicable  and  primordial  forces,  dis- 
trict and  indecomposable  essences, 
adapted  each  by  the  will  of  the  Creator 
to  produce  a  distinct  effect.  He  almost 
saw  souls  endowed  with  latent  repug- 
nances and  occult  inclinations,  which 
aspire  to  or  resist  certain  directions, 
certain  mixtures,  and  certain  localities. 
On  this  account  also  he  confounds 

*  Nomim  Organum,  i.  i.  3. 
t  Natural  History ,  800,  24,  etc.     De  Aug- 
mentis,  iii.  i. 


every  thing  in  his  researches  in  an 
undistinguishable  mass,  vegetative  and 
medicinal  properties,  mechanical  and 
curative,  physical  and  moral,  without 
considering  the  most  complex  as  de- 
pending on  the  simplest,  but  each  on 
the  contrary  in  itself,  and  taken  apart, 
as  an  irreducible  and  independent  ex- 
istence. Obstinate  in  this  error,  the 
thinkers  of  the  age  mark  time  without 
advancing.  They  see  clearly  with  Ba- 
con the  wide  field  of  discovery,  but 
they  cannot  enter  upon  it.  They  want 
an  idea,  and  for  want  of  this  idea  they 
do  not  advance.  The  disposition  of 
mind  which  but  now  was  a  ever,  is  be- 
come an  obstacle :  it  must  _e  changed, 
that  the  obstacle  may  be  got  rid  of. 
For  ideas,  I  mean  great  and  efficacious 
ones,  do  not  come  at  will  nor  by  chance, 
by  the  effort  of  an  individual,  or  by  a 
happy  accident.  Methods  and  philoso- 
phies, as  well  as  literatures  and  relig- 
ions, arise  from  the  spirit  o£  the  age  ; 
and  this  spirit  of  the  age  makes  them 
potent  or  powerless.  One  state  of 
public  intelligence  excludes  a  certain 
kind  of  literature  ;  another,  a  certain 
scientific  conception.  When  it  hap- 
pens thus,  writers  and  thinkers  labor 
in  vain,  the  literature  is  abortive,  the 
conception  does  not  make  its  appear- 
ance. In  vain  they  turn  one  way  and 
another,  trying  to  remove  the  weight 
which  hinders  them ;  something  more 
powerful  than  themselves  paralyzes 
their  hands  and  frustrates  their  en- 
deavors. The  central  pivot  of  the 
vast  wheel  on  which  human  affairs 
move  must  be  displaced  one  notch, 
that  all  may  move  with  its  motion.  At 
this  moment  the  pivot  was  moved,  and 
thus  a  revolution  of  the  great  wheel 
begins,  bringing  round  a  new  concep- 
tion of  nature,  and  in  consequence  that 
part  of  the  method  which  was  lacking. 
To  the  diviners,  the  creators,  the  com- 
prehensive and  impassioned  mil  ids 
who  seized  objects  in  a  lump  and  in 
masses,  succeeded  the  discursive  think- 
ers, the  systematic  thinkers  the  grad- 
uated and  clear  logicians,  who,  dis> 
posing  ideas  in  continuous  series,  lead 
the  hearer  gradually  from  the  simple  to 
the  most  complex  by  easy  and  unbroken 
paths.  Descartes  superseded  Bacon; 
the  classical  age  obliterated  the  Re- 
naissance ;  poetry  and  lofty  imagination 


158 


gave  way  before  rhetoric,  eloquence 
and  analysis.  In  this  transformation 
of  mind,  ideas  were  transformed 
Every  thing  was  drained  dry  and  sim- 
plified. The  universe,  like  all  else 
was  reduced  to  two  or  three  notions 
and  the  conception  of  nature,  whicl: 
was  poetical,  became  mechanical.  In- 
stead of  souls,  living  forces,  repugnan- 
ces, and  attractions,  we  have  pulleys 
levers,  impelling  forces.  The  world, 
which  seemed  a  mass  of  instinctive 
powers,  is  now  like  a  mere  machinery 
of  cog-wheels.  Beneath  this  adventur- 
ous supposition  lies  a  large  and  certain 
truth  :  that  there  is,  namely,  a  scale  of 
facts,  some  at  the  summit  very  complex, 
others  at  the  base  very  simple ;  those 
above  having  their  origin  in  those  be- 
low, so  that  the  lower  ones  explain  the 
higher ;  and  that  we  must  seek  the 
primary  laws  of  things  in  the  laws  of 
motion.  The  search  was  made,  and 
Galileo  found  them.  Thenceforth  the 
work  of  the  Renaissance,  outstripping 
the  extreme  point  to  which  Bacon  had 
pushed  it,  and  at  which  he  had  left  it, 
was  able  to  proceed  onward  by  itself, 
and  did  so  proceed,  without  limit. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


CHAPTER  II. 


WE  must  look  at  this  world  more 
closely,  and  beneath  the  ideas  which 
are  developed  seek  for  the  living  men  ; 
it  is  the  theatre  especially  which  is  the 
original  product  of  the  English  Renais- 
sance, and  it  is  the  theatre  especially 
which  will  exhibit  the  men  of  the 
English  Renaissance.  Forty  poets, 
amongst  them  ten  of  superior  rank,  as 
well  as  one,  the  greatest  of  all  artists 
who  have  represented  the  soul  in 
words  ;  many  hundreds  of  pieces,  and 
nearly  fifty  masterpieces;  the  drama 
extended  over  all  the  provinces  of  his- 
tory, imagination,  and  fancy,  —  expand- 
ed so  as  to  embrace  comedy,  tragedy, 
pastoral  and  fanciful  literature  —  to 
represent  all  degrees  of  human  con- 
dition, and  all  the  caprices  of  human 
invention  —  to  express  all  the  percepti- 
Dle  details  of  actual  truth,  and  all  the 


philosophic  grandeur  of  general  reflec- 
tion ;  the  stage  disencumbered  of  all 
precept  and  freed  from  all  imitation, 
given  up  and  appropriated  in  the  mi- 
nutest particulars  to  the  reigning  taste 
and  public  intelligence  :  all  this  was  a 


I. 

Let  us  try,  then,  to  set  before  cur 
eyes  this  public,  this  audience,  and  this 
stage — all  connected  with  one  another, 
as  in  every  natural  and  living  work ; 
and  if  ever  there  was  a  living  and 
natural  work,  it  is  here.  There  were 
already  seven  theatres  in  London,  in 
Shakspeare's  time,  so  brisk  and  univer- 
sal was  the  taste  for  dramatic  repre- 
sentations. Great  and  rude  contri- 
vances, awkward  in  their  construction, 
barbarous  in  their  appointments ;  but 
a  fervid  imagination  readily  supplied 
all  that  they  lacked,  and  hardy  bodies 
endured  all  inconveniences  without 
difficulty.  On  a  dirty  site,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Thames,  rose  the  principal  the- 
atre, the  Globe,  a  sort  of  hexagonal 
tower,  surrounded  by  a  muddy  .ditch, 
on  which  was  hoisted  a  red  flag.  The 
common  people  could  enter  as  well  as 
the  rich  :  there  were  sixpenny,  two- 
penny, even  penny  seats ;  but  they 
could  not  see  it  without  money.  If  it 
rained,  and  it  often  rains  in  London, 
:he  people  in  the  pit,  butchers,  mercers, 
oakers,  sailors,  apprentices,  receive  the 
streaming  rain  upon  their  heads.  I 
suppose  they  did  not  trouble  them- 
selves about  it ;  it  was  not  so  long 
since  they  began  to  pave  the  streets  o£ 
London  ;  and  when  men,  like  these, 
have  had  experience  of  sewers  and  pud- 
dles, they  are  not  afraid  of  catching  cold. 
While  waiting  for  the  piece,  they  amuse 
:hemselves  after  their  fashion,  drink 
:>eer,  crack  nuts,  eat  fruit,  howl,  and 
now  and  then  resort  to  their  fists  ;  they 
lave  been  known  to  fall  upon  the 
actors,  and  turn  the  theatre  upside 
down.  At  other  times  they  were  dis- 
.atisfied  and  went  to  the  tavern  to  give 
he  poet  a  hiding,  or  toss  him  in  a 

*  "The  very  age  and  body  of  the  time,  his 
orm  and  pressure." — Shakspeare. 


I 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


blanket ;  they  were  coarse  fellows,  and 
there  was  no  month  when  the  cry  of 
"  Clubs  "  did  not  call  them  out  of  their 
shops  to  exercise  their  brawny  arms. 
When  the  beer  took  effect,  there  was 
a  great  upturned  barrel  in  the  pit,  a 
peculiar  receptacle  for  general  use. 
The  smell  rises,  and  then  comes  the 
cry,  "  Burn  the  juniper  !  "  They  burn 
some  in  a  plate  on  the  stage,  and  the 
heavy  smoke  fills  the  air.  Certainly 
the  folk  there  assembled  could  scarcely 
get  disgusted  at  any  thing,  and  cannot 
have  had  sensitive  noses.  In  the  time 
of  Rabelais  there  was  not  much  clean- 
liness to  speak  of.  Remember  that 
they  were  hardly  out  of  the  middle  age, 
and  that  in  the  middle  age  man  lived 
on  a  dunghill. 

Above  them,  on  the  stage,  were  the 
spectators  able  to  pay  a  shilling,  the 
elegant  people,  the  gentlefolk.  These 
were  sheltered  from  the  rain,  and  if 
they  chose  to  pay  an  extra  shilling, 
could  have  a  stool.  To  this  were  re- 
duced the  prerogatives  of  rank  and  the 
devices  of  comfort :  it  often  happened 
that  there  were  not  stools  enough ; 
then  they  He  down  on  the  ground :  |jiis 
was  not  a  time  to  be  dainty.  They 
play  cards,  smoke,  insult  the  pit,  who 
gave  it  them  back  without  stinting,  and 
throw  apples  at  them  into  the  bargain. 
They  also  gesticulate,  swear  in  Italian, 
French,  English  ;  *  crack  aloud  jokes 
in  dainty,  composite,  high-colored, 
words  :  in  short,  they  have  the  ener- 
getic, original,  gay  manners  of  artists, 
the  same  humor,  the  same  absence  of 
constraint,  and,  to  complete  the  resem- 
blance, the  same  desire  to  make  them- 
selves singular,  the  same  imaginative 
cravings,  the  same  absurd  and  pictu- 
resque devices,  beards  cut  to  a  point, 
into  the  shape  of  a  fan,  a  spade,  the 
letter  T,  gaudy  and  expensive  dresses, 
copied  from  five  or  six  neighboring 
nations,  embroidered,  laced  with  gold, 
motley,  continually  heightened  in  effect, 
or  changed  for  others  :  there  was,  as  it 
were,  a  carnival  in  their  brains  as  well 
as  on  their  backs. 

With  such  spectators  illusions  could 
be  produced  wjthout  much  trouble  : 
here  were  no  preparations  or  per- 
spectives ;  few  _r  no  movable  scenes : 

*  Ben  Jonson,  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  ; 
Cynthia* s  Revels. 


their  imaginations  took  all  this  upon 
them.  A  scroll  in  big  letters  an- 
nounced to  the  public  that  they  were 
in  London  or  Constantinople  ;  and 
that  was  enough  to  carry  the  public  to 
the  desired  place.  There  was  no  trou- 
ble about  probability.  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney writes  : 

"  You  shall  have  Asia  of  the  one  side,  and 
Africke  of  the  other,  and  so  many  other  under- 
kingdomes,  that  the  Plaier  when  hee  comes  in, 
must  ever  begin  with  telling  where  hee  is,  or 
else  the  tale  will  not  be  conceived.  Now  shall 
you  have  three  Ladies  walke  to  gather  flowers, 
and  then  wee  must  beleeve  the  stage  to  be  a 
garden.  By  and  by  wee  heare  newes  of  ship- 
wracke  in  the  same  place,  then  wee  are  to  blame 
if  we  accept  it  not  for  a  rocke  ;  .  .  .  while  in 
the  meane  time  two  armies  flie  in,  represented 
with  foure  swordes  and  bucklers,  and  then  what 
hard  heart  will  not  receive  it  for  a  pitched  field  ? 
Now  of  time  they  are  much  more  liberall.  For 
ordinary  it  is,  that  two  young  Princes  fall  in 
love,  after  many  traverses,  shee  is  got  with 
childe,  delivered  of  a  faire  boy,  hee  is  lost, 
groweth  a  man,  falleth  in  love,  and  is  readie  to 
get  another  childe  ;  and  all  this  in  two  houres 
space."  * 

Doubtless  these  enormities  were  some- 
what reduced  under  Shakspeare ;  with 
a  few  hangings,  crude  representations 
of  animals,  towers,  forests,  they  assisted 
somewhat  the  public  imagination.  But 
after  all,  in  Shakspeare's  plays  as  in  all 
others,  the  imagination  from  within  is 
chiefly  drawn  upon  for  the  machinery ; 
it  must  lend  itself  to  all,  substitute  all, 
accept  for  a  queen  a  young  man  who 
has  just  been  shaved,  endure  in  one 
act  ten  changes  of  place,  leap  suddenly 
over  twenty  years  or  five  hundred 
miles,t  take  half  a  dozen  supernume- 
raries for  forty  thousand  men,  and  to 
have  represented  by  the  rolling  of  the 
drums  all  the  battles  of  Caesar,  Henry 
V.,  Coriolanus,  Richard  III.  And 
imagination,  being  so  overflowing  and 
so  young,  accepts  all  this !  Recall 
your  own  youth;  for  my  part,  the 
deepest  emotions  I  have  ever  felt  at  a 
theatre  were  given  to  me  by  a  strolling 
bevy  of  four  young  girls,  playing 
comedy  and  tragedy  on  a  stage  in  a 
coffeehouse  ;  true,  I  was  eleven  years 
old.  So  in  this  theatre,  at  this  moment, 
their  souls  were  fresh,  as  ready  to  feel 
every  thing  as  the  poet  was  to  dare 
every  thing. 

*  The  Defence  of  Poet  ze,  ed.  1629,  p.  562. 
t  Winter's  Tale  ;  Cymbeline  ;  Julius  Catsar* 


i6o 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


II. 


These  are  but  externals ;  let  us  try 
to  advance  further,  to  observe  the  pas- 
sions, the  bent  of  mind,  the  inner  man : 
it  is  this  inner  state  which  raised  and 
modelled  the  drama,  as  every  thing 
else  ;  invisible  inclinations  are  every- 
where the  cause  of  visible  works,  and 
the  interior  shapes  the  exterior.  What 
are  these  townspeople,  courtiers,  this 
public,  whose  taste  fashions  the 
theatre  ?  what  is  there  peculiar  in  the 
structure  and  condition  of  their  minds  ? 
The  condition  must  needs  be  peculiar  ; 
for  the  drama  flourishes  all  of  a  sud- 
den, and  for  sixty  years  together,  with 
marvellous  luxuriance,  and  at  the  end 
of  this  time  is  arrested  so  that  no  effort 
could  ever  revive  it.  The  structure 
must  be  peculiar  ;  for  of  all  theatres, 
old  and  new,  this  is  distinct  in  form, 
and  displays  a  style,  action,  characters, 
an  idea  of  life,  which  are  not  found  in 
any  age  or  any  country  beside.  This 
particular  feature  is  the  free  and  com- 
plete expansion  of  nature. 

What  we  call  nature  in  men  is,  man 
such  as  he  was  before  culture  and  civ- 
ilization had  deformed  and  reformed 
him.  Almost  always,  when  a  new  gen- 
eration arrives  at  manhood  and  con- 
sciousness, it  finds  a  code  of  precepts 
impose  on  it  with  all  the  weight  and 
authority  of  antiquity.  A  hundred 
kinds  of  chains,  a  hundred  thousand 
kinds  of  ties,  religion,  morality,  good 
breeding,  every  legislation  which  regu- 
lates sentiments,  morals,  manners,  fet- 
ter and  tame  the  creature  of  impulse 
and  passion  which  breathes  and  frets 
within  each  of  us.  There  is  nothing 
like  that  here.  It  is  a  regeneration, 
and  the  curb  of  the  past  is  wanting 
to  the  present  Catholicism,  reduced 
->  external  ceremony  and  clerical  chi- 
canery, had  just  ended  ;  Protestantism, 
arrested  in  its  first  gropings  after  truth, 
>r  straying  into  sects,  had  not  yet 
gained  the  mastery;  the  religion  of 
discipline  was  grown  feeble,  and  the 
religion  of  morals  was  not  yet  estab- 
lished ;  men  ceased  to  listen  to  the 
directions  of  the  clergy,  and  had  not 
yet  spelt  out  the  law  of  conscience. 
The  church  was  turned  into  an  assem- 
bly-room, as  in  Italy  ;  the  young  fel- 
Ws  came  to  St.  Paul's  to  walk,  laugh. 


chatter,  display  their  new  cloaks  ;  the 
thing  had  even  passed  into  a  custom. 
They  paid  for  the  noise  they  made  with 
their  spurs,  and  this  tax  was  a  source 
of  income  to  the  canons  ;*  pickpockets, 
loose  girls,  came  there  by  crowds ; 
these  latter  struck  their  bargains  while 
service  was  going  on.  Imagine,  in 
short,  that  the  scruples  of  conscience 
and  the  severity  of  the  Puritans  were 
at  that  time  odious  and  ridiculed  on 
the  stage,  and  judge  of  the  difference 
between  this  sensual,  unbridled  Eng- 
land, and  the  correct,  disciplined,  stiff  . 
England  of  our  own  time.  Ecclesiasti- 
cal or  secular,  we  find  no  signs  of  rule. 
In  the  failure  of  faith,  reason  had  not 
gained  sway,  and  opinion  is  as  void  of 
authority  as  tradition.  The  imbecile 
age,  which  has  just  ended,  continues 
buried  in  scorn,  with  its  ravings,  its 
verse-makers,  and  its  pedantic  text- 
books ;  and  out  of  the  liberal  opinions 
derived  from  antiquity,  from  Italy, 
France,  and  Spain,  every  one  could 
pick  and  choose  as  it  pleased  him, 
without  stooping  to  restraint  or  ac- 
knowledging a  superiority.  There  was 
no  model  imposed  on  them,  as  nowa- 
days ;  instead  of  affecting  imitation, 
they  affected  originality.!  Each  strove 
to  be  himself,  with  his  own  oaths, 
peculiar  ways,  costumes,  his  specialties 
of  conduct  and  humor,  and  to  be  unlike 
every  one  else.  They  said  not,  "  So 
and  so  is  done,"  but"  I  do  so  and  so." 
Instead  of  restraining  they  gave  free 
vent  to  themselves.  There  was  no 
etiquette  of  society;  save  for  an  exag- 
gerated jargon  of  chivalresque  cour- 
tesy, they  are  masters  of  speech  and 

*  Strype,  in  his  A  nnals  of  the  Reformation 
(1571),  says:  "  Many  now  were  wholly  departed 
from  the  communion  of  the  church,  and  came 
no  more  to  hear  divine  service  in  their  parish 
churches,  nor  received  the  holy  sacrament,  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  of  the  realm."  Richaid 
Baxter,  in  his  Life,  published  in  1696,  says- : 
"We  lived  in  a  country  that  had  but  litt'e 
preaching  at  all.  ...  In  the  village  where  I 
lived  the  Reader  read  the  Common  Prayc.r 
briefly  ;  and  the  rest  of  the  day,  even  till  dark 
night  almost,  except  Eating  time,  was  spent  in 
•Dancing  under  a  Maypole  and  a  great  tree,  not 
far  from  my  father's  door,  where  all  the  Town 
did  meet  together.  And  though  one  of  my 
father's  own  Tenants  was  the  piper,  he  could 
not  restrain  him  nor  break  the  sport.  So  that 
we  could  not  read  the  Scripture  in  our  family 
without  the  great  disturbance  of  the  Taber  and 
Pipe  and  noise  in  the  street." 

t  Ben  Jonson,  Every  Man  in  his  Humour* 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


161 


action  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment, 
\  ou  will  find  them  free  from  deco- 
rum, as  of  all  else.  In  this  outbreak 
jtnd  absence  of  fetters,  they  resemble 
fine  strong  horses  let  loose  in  the  mea- 
dow. Their  inborn  instincts  have  not 
been  tamed,  nor  muzzled,  nor  dimin- 
ished. 

On  the  contrary,  they  have  been 
preserved  intact  by  bodily  and  military 
training  ;  and  escaping  as  they  were 
from  barbarism,  not  from  civilization, 
they  had  not  been  acted  upon  by  the 
innate  softening  and  hereditary  tem- 
pering which  are  now  transmitted  with 
the  blood,  and  civilize  a  man  from  the 
moment  of  his  birth.  This  is  why  man, 
who  for  three  centuries  has  been  a 
domestic  animal,  was  still  almost  a 
savage  beast,  and  the  force  of  his  mus- 
cles and  the  strength  of  his  nerves 
increased  the  boldness  and  energy  of 
his  passions.  Look  at  these  unculti- 
vated men,  men  of  the  people,  how 
suddenly  the  blood  warms  and  rises  to 
their  face  ;  their  fists  double,  their  lips 
press  together,  and  those  hardy  bodies 
rush  at  once  into  action.  The  courtiers 
of  that  age  were  like  our  men  of  the 
people.  They  had  the  same  taste  for 
the  exercise  of  their  limbs,  the  same 
indifference  toward  the  inclemencies  of 
the  weather,  the  same  coarseness  of 
language,  the  same  undisguised  sen- 
suality. They  were  carmen  in  body 
and  gentlemen  in  sentiment,  with  the 
dress  of  actors  and  the  tastes  of  artists. 
"  At  fourtene,"  says  John  Hardyng,  "  a 
lordes  sonnes  shalle  to  felde  hunte  the 
dere.  and  catch  an  hardynesse.  For 
dere  to  hunte  and  slea,  and  see  them 
blede,  ane  hardyment  gyffith  to  his 
courage.  ...  At  sextene  yere,  to  wer- 
ray  and  to  wage,  to  juste  and  ryde, 
and  castels  to  assayle  .  .  .  and  every 
day  his  armure  to  assay  in  fete  of 
armes  with  some  of  his  meyne."  * 
When  ripened  to  manhood,  he  is  em- 
ployed with  the  bow,  in  wrestling, 
leaping,  vaulting.  Henry  VIII. 's  court, 
in  its  noisy  merriment,  was  like  a  vil- 
lage fair.  The  king,  says  Holinshed, 
exercised  himself  "  dailie  in  shooting, 
singing,  dancing,  wrestling,  casting  of 
the  barre,  plaieing  at  the  recorders, 
flute,  virginals,  in  setting  of  songs, 

*  The  Chronicle  of  John  Hardyng  (1436),  ed. 
H.  Ellis,  1812.     Preface. 


and  making  of  ballads."  He  leaps  the 
moats  with  a  pole,  and  was  once  with- 
in an  ace  of  being  killed.  He  is  so 
fond  of  wrestling,  that  publicly,  on  the 
field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  he  seized 
Francis  I.  in  his  arms  to  try  a  throw 
with  him.  This  is  how  a  common  sol- 
dier or  a  bricklayer  nowadays  tries  a 
new  comrade.  In  fact,  they  regarded 
gross  jests  and  brutal  buffooneries  as 
amusements,  as  soldiers  and  bricklay- 
ers do  now.  In  every  nobleman's 
house  there  was  a  fool,  whose  business 
it  was  to  utter  pointed  jests,  to  make 
eccentric  gestures,  horrible  faces,  to 
sing  licentious  songs,  as  we  might  hear 
now  in  a  beer-house.  They  thought 
insults  and  obscenity  a  joke.  They 
were  foul-mouthed,  they  listened  to 
Rabelais'  words  undiluted,  and  de- 
lighted in  conversation  which  would 
revolt  us.  They  had  no  respect  for 
humanity ;  the  rules  of  properties  and 
the  habits  of  good  breeding  began  only 
under  Louis  XIV.,  and  by  imitation  of 
the  French ;  at  this  time  they  all  blurt- 
ed out  the  word  that  fitted  in,  and 
that  was  most  frequently  a  coarse  word. 
You  will  see  on  the  stage,  in  Shak- 
speare's  Pericles,  the  filth  of  a  haunt  of 
vice.*  The  great  lords,  the  well- 
dressed  ladies,  speak  Billingsgate. 
When  Henry  V.  pays  his  court  to 
Catherine  of  France,  it  is  with  the 
coarse  bearing  of  a  sailor  who  may 
have  taken  a  fancy  to  a  sutler  ;  and 
like  the  tars  who  tattoo  a  heart  on 
their  arms  to  prove  their  love  for  the 
girls  they  left  behind  them,  there  were 
men  who  "  devoured  sulphur  and  drank 
urine "  t  to  win  their  mistress  by  a 
proof  of  affection.  Humanity  is  as 
much  lacking  as  decency.  \  Blood, 

*  Act  iv.  2  and  4.     See  also  the  character  of 

Calypso  in  Massinger  ;  Putana  in  Ford  \  Pro- 

:alyce  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
t  Middleton,  Drttch  Courtezan. 
%  Commission  given  by  Henry  VIII.  to  the 
Earl  of  Hertford,  1544  :  "  You  are  there  to  put 
all  to  fire  and  sword  ;  to  burn  Edinburgh  town, 
and  to  raze  and  deface  it,  when  you  have  sacked 

t,  and  gotten  what  you  can  out  of  it.  ...  Do 
what  you  can  out  of  hand,  and  without  long 
tarrying,  to  beat  down  and  overthrow  the  castle, 
sack  Holyrood-House,  and  as  many  towns  and 
villages  about  Edinburgh  as  ye  conveniently 
can  ;  sack  Leith,  and  burn  and  subvert  it,  and 
ill  the  rest,  putting  man,  woman,  and  child  to 
fire  and  sword,  without  exception,  when  any 
resistance  shall  be  made  against  you  ;  and  this 
done,  pass  over  to  the  Fife  land,  and  extend 

ike  extremities  and  destructions  in.  all  towns 


l62 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


suffering,  does  not  move  them.  The 
court  frequents  bear  and  bull  bait- 
jigs,  where  dogs  are  ripped  up  and 
chained  beasts  are  sometimes  beaten 
to  death,  and  it  was,  says  an  officer  of 
the  palace,  "  a  charming  entertain- 
ment." *  No  wonder  they  used  their 
arms  like  clodhoppers  and  gossips. 
Elizabeth  used  to  beat  her  maids  of 
honor,  "so  that  these  beautiful  girls 
could  often  be  heard  crying  and 
lamenting  in  a  piteous  manner."  One 
day  she  spat  upon  Sir  Mathew's  fringed 
coat ;  at  another  time,  when  Essex, 
whom  she  was  scolding,  turned  his 
back,  she  gave  him  a  box  on  the  ear, 
It  was  then  the  practice  of  great  ladies 
to  beat  their  children  and  their  ser- 
vants. Poor  Jane  Grey  was  sometimes 
so  wretchedly  "  boxed,  struck,  pinched, 
and  ill-treated  in  other  manners  which 
she  dare  not  relate/'  that  she  used  to 
wish  herself  dead.  Their  first  idea  is  to 
come  to  words,  to  blows,  to  have  satis- 
faction. As  in  feudal  times,  they  ap- 
peal at  once  to  arms,  and  retain  the 
habit  of  taking  the  law  in  their  own 
hands,  and  without  delay.  "On 
Thursday  laste,"  writes  Gilbert  Talbot 
to  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Shrews- 
bury, "  as  my  Lorde  Rytche  was  ryd- 
ynge  in  the  streates,  there  was  one 
"Wyndam  that  stode  in  a  dore,  and 
sliotte  a  dagge  at  him,  thynkynge  to 
have  slayne  him  ....  The  same 
daye,  also,  as  Sr  John  Conway  was 

S>ynge  in  the  streetes,  Mr-  Lodovyke 
revell  came  sodenly  upon  him,  and 
stroke  him  on  the  hedd  wth  a  sworde. 
...  I  am  forced  to  trouble  yor  Honors 
w*11  thes  tryflynge  matters,  for  I  know 
no  greater."  t  No  one,  not  even  the 
queen  is  safe  among  these  violent  dis- 
positions. \  Again,  when  one  man 
struck  another  in  the  precincts  of  the 
court,  his  hand  was  cut  off,  and  the 
and  villages  whereunto  ye  may  reach  conven- 
iently, not  forgetting  amongst  all  the  rest,  so 
to  spoil  and  turn  upside  down  the  cardinal's 
town  of  St.  Andrew's,  as  the  upper  stone  may 
be  the  nether,  and  not  one  stick  stand  by 
another,  sparing  no  creature  alive  within  the 
same,  specially  such  as  either  in  friendship  or 
blood  be  allied  to  the  cardinal.  This  journey 
shall  succeed  most  to  his  majesty's  honour." 

*  Laneham,  A  Goodly  Relief. 

f  isth  February,  1587.  Nathan  Drake, 
Shakspeare  and  his  Times,  ii.  p.  165.  See  also 
Jhe  same  work  for  all  these  details. 

t  Essex,  when  struck  by  the  queen,  put  his 
*iand  on  the  hilt  of  his  sword. 


arteries  stopped  with  a  red-hot  iron. 
Only  such  atrocious  imitations  of  their 
own  crimes,  and  the  painful  image  of 
bleeding  and  suffering  flesh,  could  tame 
their  vehemence  and  restrain  the  up- 
rising of  their  instincts.  Judge  now 
what  materials  they  furnish  to  ihe  the- 
atre, and  what  characters  they  look  for 
at  the  theatre.  To  please  the  public, 
the  stage  cannot  deal  too  much  in  open 
lust  and  the  strongest  passions ;  it 
must  depict  man  attaining  the  limit  of 
his  desires,  unchecked,  almost  mad, 
now  trembling  and  rooted  before  the 
white  palpitating  flesh  which  his  eyes 
devour,  now  haggard  and  grinding  his 
teeth  before  the  enemy  whom  he  wishes 
to  tear  to  pieces,  now  carried  beyond 
himself  and  overwhelmed  at  the  sight 
of  the  honors  and  wealth  which  he 
covets,  always  raging  and  enveloped  in 
a  tempest  of  eddying  ideas,  sometimes 
shaken  by  impetuous  joy,  more  often 
on  the  verge  of  fury  and  madness, 
stronger,  more  ardent,  more  daringly 
let  loose  to  infringe  on  reason  and  law 
than  ever.  We  hear  from  the  stage  as 
from  the  history  of  the  time,  these 
fierce  murmurs  :  the  sixteenth  century 
is  like  a  den  of  lions. 

Amid  passions  so  strong  as  these 
there  is  not  one  lacking.  Nature 
appears  here  in  all  its  violence,  but  also 
in  all  its  fulness.  If  nothing  had  been 
weakened,  nothing  had  been  mutilated. 
It  is  the  entire  man  who  is  displayed, 
heart,  mind,  body,  senses,  with  his 
noblest  and  finest  aspirations,  as  with 
his  most  bestial  and  savage  appetites, 
without  the  preponderance  of  any  domi- 
nant circumstance  to  cast  him  alto- 
gether in  one  direction,  to  exalt  or 
degrade  him.  He  has  not  become 
rigid,  as  he  will  be  under  Puritanism. 
He  is  not  uncrowned  as  in  the  Restora- 
tion. After  the  hollowness  and  weari- 
ness of  the  fifteenth  century,  he  rose  up 
by  a  second  birth,  as  before  in  Greece 
man  had  risen  by  a  first  birth  ;  and 
now,  as  then,  the  temptations  of  the 
outer  world  came  combined  to  raise  his 
faculties  from  their  sloth  and  torpor. 
A  sort  of  generous  warmth  spread 
over  them  to  ripen  and  make  them 
flourish.  Peace,  prosperity,  comfort 
began ;  new  industries  and  increasing 
activity  suddenly  multiplied  objects  of 
utility  and  luxury  tenfold.  America 


:HAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


and  India,  by  their  discovery,  caused 
the  treasures  and  prodigies  heaped  up 
afar  over  distant  seas  to  shine  before 
their  eyes ;  antiquity  re-discovered, 
sciences  mapped  out,  the  Reformation 
begun,  books  multiplied  by  printing, 
ideas  by  books,  doubled  the  means  of 
enjoyment,  imagination,  and  thought. 
People  wanted  to  enjoy,  to  imagine, 
and  to  think ;  for  the  desire  grows  with 
the  attraction,  and  here  all  attractions 
were  combined.  There  were  attractions 
for  the  senses,  in  the  chambers  which 
they  began  to  warm,  in  the  beds  newly 
furnished  with  pillows,  in  the  coaches 
which  they  began  to  use  for  the  first 
time.  There  were  attractions  for  the 
imagination  in  the  new  palaces,  ar- 
ranged after  the  Italian  manner  ;  in 
the  variegated  hangings  from  Flanders  ; 
in  the  rich  garments,  gold-embroidered, 
which,  being  continually  changed,  com- 
bined the  fancies  and  the  splendors  of 
all  Europe.  There  were  attractions  for 
the  mind,  in  the  noble  and  beautiful 
writings  which,  spread  abroad,  trans- 
lated, explained,  brought  in  philosophy, 
eloquence,  and  poetry,  from  restored 
antiquity,  and  from  the  surrounding 
Renaissances.  Under  this  appeal  all 
aptitudes  and  instincts  at  once  started 
up  ;  the  low  and  the  lofty,  ideal  and 
sensual  love,  gross  cupidity  and  pure 
generosity.  Recall  what  you  yourself 
experienced,  when  from  being  a  child 
'ou  became  a  man :  what  wishes  for 
lappiness,  what  breadth  of  anticipation, 
what  intoxication  of  heart  wafted  you 
towards  all  joys  ;  with  what  impulse 
your  hands  seized  involuntarily  and  all 
at  once  every  branch  of  the  tree,  and 
would  not  let  a  single  fruit  escape. 
At  sixteen  years,  like  Cherubin,*  we 
wish  for  a  servant  girl  while  we  adore 
aMadcnna;  we  are  capable  of  every 
species  of  covetousness,  and  also  of 
e\  cry  species  of  self-denial ;  we  find 
virtue  more  lovely,  our  meals  more 
enjoyable ;  pleasure  has  more  zest, 
heroism  more  worth ;  there  is  no  allure- 
ment which  is  not  keen ;  the  sweetness 
and  novelty  of  things  are  too  strong ; 
and  in  the  hive  of  passions  which 
buzzes  within  us,  and  stings  us  like  the 
sting  of  a  bee,  we  can  do  nothing  but 
plunge,  one  after  another,  in  all  direc- 

*  A    page   in  the   Mariage  de  Figaro,    a 
comedy  by  Beaumarchais. — TR. 


C 


163 


tions.  Such  were  the  men  of  this  time, 
Raleigh,  Essex,  Elizabeth,  Henry  VIII. 
himself,  excessive  and  inconstant,  ready 
for  devotion  and  for  crime,  violent  in 
good  and  evil,  heroic  with  strange  weak- 
nesses, humble  with  sudden  changes 
of  mood,  never  vile  with  premeditation 
like  the  roysterers  of  the  Restoration, 
never  rigid  on  principle  like  the  Puri- 
tans of  the  Revolution,  capable  of  weep- 
ing like  children,*  and  of  dying  like 
men,  often  base  courtiers,  more  than 
once,  true  knights,  displaying  constantly, 
amidst  all  these  contradictions  of  bear- 
ing, only  the  fulness  of  their  charac- 
ters. Thus  prepared,  they  could  take 
in  every  thing,  sanguinary  ferocity 
and  refined  generosity,  the  brutality  of 
shameless  debauchery,  and  the  most 
divine  innocence  of  love,  accept  all  the 
characters,  prostitutes  and  virgins, 
princes  and  mountebanks,  pass  quickly 
from  trivial  buffoonery  to  lyrical  sublim- 
ities, listen  alternately  to  the  quibbles 
of  clowns  and  the  songs  of  lovers.  The 
drama  even,  in  order  to  imitate  and 
satisfy  the  fertility  of  their  nature,  must 
talk  all  tongues,  pompous,  inflated 
verse,  loaded  with  imagery,  and  side 
by  side  with  this,  vulgar  prose  :  more, 
it  must  distort  its  natural  style  and 
limits  ;  put  songs,  poetical  devices, 
into  the  discourse  of  courtiers  and  the 
speeches  of  statesmen  ;  bring  on  the 
stage  the  fairy  world  of  the  opera,  as 
Middleton  says,  gnomes,  nymphs  of  the 
land  and  sea,  with  their  groves  and 
their  meadows  ;  compel  the  gods  to 
descend  upon  the  stage,  and  hell  itself 
to  furnish  its  world  of  marvels.  No 
other  theatre  is  so  complicated;  for 
nowhere  else  do  we  find  men  so  com- 
plete. 

III. 

In  this  free  and  universal  expansion, 
the  passions  had  their  special  bent 
withal,  which  was  an  English  one, 
inasmuch  as  they  were  English.  After 
all,  in  every  age,  under  every  civiliza- 
tion, a  people  is  always  itself.  What- 
ever be  its  dress,  goat-skin  blouse,  gold- 
laced  doublet,  black  dress-coat,  the 
five  or  six  great  instincts  which  it  pos- 
sessed in  its  forests,  follow  it  in  its 
palaces  and  offices.  To  this  day,  war- 

*  The  great  Chancellor  Burleigh  often  wept 
so  harshly  was  he  used  by  Elizabeth. 


164 

like  passions,  a  gloomy  humor,  subsist 
under  the  regularity  and  propriety 
of  modern  manners.*  Their  native 
energy  aud  harshness  pierce  through 
the  perfection  of  culture  and  the 
habits  of  comfort.  Rich  young  men, 
on  leaving  Oxford,  go  to  hunt  bears 
on  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  ele- 
phant in  South  Africa,  live  under  can- 
vas, box,  jump  hedges  on  horseback, 
sail  their  yachts  on  dangerous  coasts, 
delight  in  solitude  and  peril.  The  an- 
cient Saxon,  the  old  rover  of  the  Scan- 
dinavian seas,  has  not  perished.  Even 
at  school  the  children  roughly  treat 
one  another,  withstand  one  another, 
fight  like  men ;  and  their  character  is 
so  indomitable,  that  they  need  the  birch 
and  blows  to  reduce  them  to  the  disci- 
pline of  law.  Judge  what  they  were 
in  the  sixteenth  century;  the  English 
race  passed  then  for  the  most  warlike 
of  Europe,  the  most  redoubtable  in 
battle,  the  most  impatient  of  any  thing 
like  slavery.f  "  English  savages  "  is 
what  Cellini  calls  them  ;  and  the  "  great 
shins  of  beef  "  with  which  they  fill 
themselves,  keep  up  the  force  and 
ferocity  of  their  instincts.  To  harden 
them  thoroughly,  institutions  work  in 
the  same  groove  with  nature.  The  na- 
tion is  armed,  every  man  is  brought  up 
like  a  soldier,  bound  to  have  arms  ac- 
cording to  his  condition,  to  exercise 
himself  on  Sundays  or  holidays  ;  from 
the  yeoman  to  the  lord,  the  old  military 
constitution  keeps  them  enrolled  and 
ready  for  action.  J  In  a  state  which 
resembles  an  army,  it  is  necessary  that 
punishments,  as  in  an  army,  shall  in- 
spire terror;  and  to  make  them  worse, 
the  hideous  Wars  of  the  Roses,  which 
on  every  flaw  of  the  succession  to  the 
throne  are  ready  to  break  out  again, 
are  ever  present  in  their  recollection. 
Such  instincts,  such  a  constitution, 

*  Compare,  to  understand  this  character,  the 
parts  assigned  to  James  Harlowe  by  Richard- 
son, old  Osborne  by  Thackeray,  Sir  Giles 
Overreach  by  Massinger,  and  Manly  by  Wych- 
erley. 

t  Hentzner's  Travels;  Benvenuto  Cellini. 
See  passim,  the  costumes  printed  in  Venice 
ind  Germany:  Bellicosissimi.  Froude,  i.  pp. 
«9»  52. 

$  This  is  not  so  true  of  the  English  now,  if  it 
vas  in  the  sixteenth  century,  as  it  is  of  conti- 
nental nations.  The  French  lyctes  are  far 
more  military  in  character  than  English  schools. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


such  a  history,  rai  ,es  before  them,  with 
tragic  severity,  an  idea  of  life  :  death 
is  at  hand,  as  well  as  wounds,  the  block, 
tortures.  The  fine  cloaks  of  purple 
which  the  Renaissances  of  the  vSouth 
displayed  joyfully  in  the  sun,  to  wear 
like  a  holiday  garment,  are  here  stained 
with  blood,  and  edged  with  black. 
Throughout,*  a  stern  discipline,  and 
the  axe  ready  for  every  suspicion  of 
treason  ;  great  men,  bishops,  a  chan- 
cellor, princes,  the  king's  relatives^ 
queens,  a  protector,  all  kneeling  in  the 
straw,  sprinkled  the  Tower  with  their 
blood  ;  one  after  the  other  they  march- 
ed past,  stretched  out  their  necks  ; 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  Queen  Anne 
Boleyn,  Queen  Catherine  Howird,  the 
Earl  of  Surrey,  Admiral  Seymour,  the 
Duke  of  Somerset,  Lady  Jane  Grey 
and  her  husband,  the  Duke  of  North- 
umberland, Mary  Stewart,  the  Earl  of 
Essex,  all  on  the  throne,  or  on  the  steps 
of  the  throne,  in  the  highest  rank  of 
honors,  beauty,  youth,  and  genius  ;  of 
the  bright  procession  nothing  is  left 
but  senseless  trunks,  marred  by  the 
tender  mercies  of  the  executioner. 
Shall  I  count  the  funeral  pyres,  the 
hangings,  living  men  cut  down  from 
the  gibbet,  disembowelled,  quartered,! 
their  limbs  cast  into  the  fire,  their  heads 
exposed  on  the  walls  ?  There  is  a 
page  in  Holinshed  which  reads  like  a 
death  register : 

"  The  five  and  twentith  dale  of  Maie  (1535)* 
was  in  saint  Paules  church  at  London  exam- 
ined nineteene  men  and  six  women  born  in 
Holland,  whose  opinions  were  (heretical). 
Fourteene  of  them  were  condemned,  a  man 
and  a  woman  of  them  were  burned  in  Smith- 
field,  the  other  twelve  were  sent  to  other 
townes,  there  to  be  burnt.  On  the  nineteenth 
of  June  were  three  moonkes  of  the  Charter- 
house hanged,  drawne,  and  quartered  at 
Tiburne,  and  their  heads  and  quarters  set 
up  about  London,  for  denieng  the  king  to  be 
supreme  head  of  the  church.  Also  the  one  and 
twentith  of  the  same  moneth,  and  for  the  same 
cause,  doctor  John  Fisher,  bishop  of  Roches- 
ter, was  beheaded  fc  r  denieng  of  the  suprema* 
cie,  and  his  head  set  upon  London  bridge,  but 
his  bodie  buried  within  Barking  churchyard. 
The  pope  had  elected  him  a  cardmall,  and  sent 
his  hat  as  far  as  Calais,  but  his  head  was  off 
before  his  hat  was  on :  so  that  they  met  not. 
On  the  sixt  of  Julie  was  f  T  Thomas  Moore ' 


*  Froude's  Hist,  of  England,  vols.  i.  ii.  iii 
t  "  When  his  heart  was  torn  out  he  uttered 

a  deep  groan."— Execution  of  Parry;  Strype, 

in.  251. 


,       U\J\.t 

± 


CHAP.  II  ] 


THE   THE  A  7  RE. 


headed  for  the  like  crime,  that  is  to  wit,  for 
denieng  the  king  to  be  supreme  head."  * 

None  of  these  murders  seem  extraor- 
dinary ;  the  chroniclers  mention  them 
without  growing  indignant  ;  the  con- 
demned go  quietly  to  the  block,  as  if 
the  thing  were  perfectly  natural.  Anne 
Boleyn  said  seriously,  before  giving  up 
her  head  to  the  executioner  :  "  I  praie 
God  save  the  king,  and  send  him  long 
to  reigns  over  you,  for  a  gentler,  nor 
a  more  mercifull  prince  was  there 
never."  t  Society  is,  as  it  were,  in  a 
state  of  siege,  so  incited  that  beneath 
the  idea  of  order  every  one  entertained 
the  idea  of  the  scaffold.  They  saw  it, 
the  terrible  machine,  planted  on  all  the 
highways  of  human  life  ;  and  the  by- 
ways as  well  as  the  highways  led  to  it. 
A  sort  of  martial  law,  introduced  by 
conquests  into  civil  affairs,  entered 
thence  into  ecclesiastical  matters,}  and 
social  economy  ended  by  being  en- 
slaved by  it.  As  in  a  camp,  §  expen- 
diture, dress,  the  food  of  each  class, 
are  fixed  and  restricted  ;  no  one  might 
stray  out  of  his  district,  be  idle,  live 
after  his  own  devices.  Every  stranger 
was  seized,  interrogated  ;  if  he  could 
not  give  a  good  account  of  himself,  the 
parish-stocks  bruised  his  limbs  ;  as  in 
time  of  war  he  would  have  passed  for  a 
spy  and  an  enemy,  if  caught  amidst  the 
army.  Any  person,  says  the  law.  || 
found  living  idly  or  loiteringly  for  the 
space  of  three  days,  shall  be  marked 
with  a  hot  iron  on  his  breast,  and  ad- 
judged as  a  slave  to  the  man  who  shall 
inform  against  him.  This  one  "shall 
take  the  same  slave,  .and  give  him 
bread,  water,  or  small  drink,  and  refuse 
meat,  and  cause  him  to  work,  by  beat- 
Ing,  chaining,  or  otherwise,  in  such 
work  and  labor  as  he  shall  put  him  to, 
be  it  never  so  vile."  He  may  sell  him, 
bequeath  him,  let  him  out  for  hire,  or 
trade  upon  him  "  after  the  like  sort  as 
they  may  do  of  an  ;  other  their  moveable 
goods  or  chattels^"  put  a  ring  of  iron 
about  his  neck  or  leg  ;  if  he  runs  away 
and  absents  himself  for  fourteen  days, 
he  is  branded  on  the  forehead  with  a 
hot  iron,  and  remains  a  slave  for  the 


793- 


*  Holinshed,  Chronicles  of  England,  Hi.  p. 
3-  t  Ibid.  p.  797. 

ry  IV   and  Henry  V. 

|j  In  1547. 


\  Under  Henry  I 
§  tfroude,  i.  15. 


whole  of  his  life;  if  he  runs  away  a 
second  time,  he  is  put  to  death.  Some- 
times, says  More,  you  might  see  a  score 
of  thieves  hung  on  the  same  gibbet. 
In  one  year  *  forty  persons  were  put 
to  death  in  the  county  of  Somerset 
alone,  and  in  each  county  there  were 
three  or  four  hundred  vagabonds  who 
would  sometimes  gather  together  and 
rob  in  armed  bands  of  sixty  at  a  time. 
Follow  the  whole  of  this  history  close- 
ly, the  fires  of  Mary,  the  pillories  of 
Elizabeth,  and  it  is  plain  that  the  moral 
tone  of  the  land,  like  its  physical  con- 
dition, is  harsh  by  comparison  with 
other  countries.  They  have  no  relish 
in  their  enjoyments,  as  in  Italy;  what  is 
called  Merry  England  is  England  given 
up  to  animal  spirits,  a  coarse  animation 
produced  by  abundant  feeding,  continu- 
ed prosperity,  courage,  and  self-reliance; 
voluptuousness  does  not  exist  in  this 
climate  and  this  race.  Mingled  with 
the  beautiful  popular  beliefs,  the  lugu- 
brious dreams  and  the  cruel  nightmare 
of  witchcraft  make  their  appearance. 
Bishop  Jewell,  preaching  before  the 
queen,  tells  her  that  witches  and  sor- 
cerers within  these  few  last  years  are 
marvellously  increased.  Some  minis- 
ters assert 

"  That  they  have  had  in  their  parish  at  one  in- 
stant,  xvij  or  xviij  witches  ;  meaning  such  as 
could  worke  miracles  supernaturallie  ;  that  they 
work  spells  by  which  men  pine  away  even  unto 
death,  their  colour  fadeth,  their  flesh  rottcth, 
their  speech  is  benumbed,  their  senses  are  be- 
reft ;  that  instructed  by  the  devil,  they  make 
ointments  of  the  bowels  and  members  of  chil- 
dren, whereby  they  ride  in  the  aire,  and  accom- 
plish all  their  desires.  When  a  child  is  not 
baptized,  or  defended  by  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
then  the  witches  catch  them  from  their  mothers 
sides  in  the  night  .  .  .  kill  them  ...  or  after 
buriall  steale  them  out  of  their  graves,  and 
seeth  them  in  a  caldron,  untill  their  flesh  be 
made  potable.  ...  It  is  an  infallible  rule,  that 
everie  fortnight,  or  at  the  least  everie  moneth, 
each  witch  must  kill  one  child  at  the  least  for 
hir  part." 

Here  was  something  to  make  the 
teeth  chatter  with  fright.  Add  to  this  re- 
volting and  absurd  descriptions,  wretch- 
ed tomfooleries,  details  about  the  infer- 
nal cauldron,  all  the  nastinesses  which 
could  haunt  the  trite  imagination  of  a 
hideous  and  drivelling  old  woman,  and 
you  have  the  spectacles,  provided  b^ 
Middleton  and  Shakspeare,  and  which 
*  In  1596. 


i66 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK    II 


suit  the  sentiments  of  the  age  and  the 
national  humor.  The  fundamental 
gloom  pierces  through  the  glow  and 
rapture  of  poetry.  Mournful  legends 
have  multiplied  ;  every  churchyard  has 
its  ghost ;  wherever  a  man  has  been 
murdered  his  spirit  appears.  Many 
people  dare  not  leave  their  village 
after  sunset.  In  the  evening,  before 
bedtime,  men  talk  of  the  coach  which 
is  seen  drawn  by  headless  horses,  with 
headless  postilions  and  coachmen,  or 
of  unhappy  spirits  who,  compelled  to 
inhabit  the  plain,  under  the  sharp 
north-east  wind,  pray  for  the  shelter 
of  a  hedge  or  a  valley.  They  dream 
terribly  of  death : 

'*  To  die  and  go  we  know  not  where  ; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction  and  to  rot ; 
This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod  ;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice  ; 
To  be  imprison'd  in  the  viewless  winds, 
And    blown    with    restless    violence,  round 

about 
The  pendent  world ;   or  to   be   worse  than 

worst 

Of  those  that  lawless  and  incertain  thought 
Imagine  howling  :  'tis  too  horrible  !  "  * 

The  greatest  speak  with  a  sad  resigna- 
tion of  the  infinite  obscurity  which 
embraces  our  poor,  short,  glimmering 
life,  our  life,  which  is  but  a  troubled 
dream  ;t  the  sad  state  of  humanity, 
which  is  passion,  madness,  and  sor- 
row ;  the  human  being  who  is  himself, 
perhaps,  but  a  vain  phantom,  a  grievous 
sick  man's  dream.  In  their  eyes  we 
roll  down  a  fatal  slope,  where  chance 
dashes  us  one  against  the  other,  and 
the  inner  destiny  which  urges  us  on- 
ward, only  shatters  after  it  has  blinded 
us.  And  at  the  end  of  all  is  "  the 
silent  grave,  no  conversation,  no  joyful 
tread  of  friends,  no  voice  of  lovers,  no 
careful  father's  counsel  ;  nothing's 
heard,  nor  nothing  is,  but  all  oblivion, 
dust,  and  endless  darkness."  \  If  yet 
there  were  nothing.  "  To  die,  to  sleep; 
to  sleep,  perchance  to  dream."  To 
dream  sadly,  to  fall  into  a  nightmare 
like  the  nightmare  of  life,  like  that  in 

*  Shakspeare,  Measure  for  Measure,  Actiii. 
..     See  also  The   Tempest,  Hamlet,  Macbeth. 

"  We  are  such  stuff 

As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
1&  rounded  with  a  sleep." — Tempest,  iv.  i. 

\  Beaumont    and    Fletcher.    Thierry   and 
Theodorett  Act  iv.  x. 


which  we  are  struggling  and  crying  to« 
day,  gasping  with  hoarse  throat  I — this 
is  their  idea  of  man  and  of  existence,  the 
national  idea,  which  fills  the  stage  with 
calamities  and  despair,  which  makes  3 
display  of  tortures  and  massacres,vvhich 
abounds  in  madness  and  crime,  which 
holds  up  death  as  the  issue  through' 
out.  A  threatening  and  sombre  fog 
veils  their  mind  like  their  sky,  and  joy, 
like  the  sun,  only  appears  in  its  full 
force  now  and  then.  They  are  differer  t 
from  the  Latin  race,  and  in  the  com- 
mon Renaissance  they  are  regenerated 
otherwise  than  the  Latin  races.  The 
free  and  full  development  of  pure  na- 
ture which,  in  Greece  and  Italy,  ends 
in  the  painting  of  beauty  and  happy 
energy,  ends  here  in  the  painting  of 
ferocious  energy,  agony,  and  death. 

IV. 

Thus  was  this  theatre  produced ;  a 
theatre  unique  in  history,  like  the  ad- 
mirable and  fleeting  epoch  from  which 
it  sprang,  the  work  and  the  picture  of 
this  young  world,  as  natural,  as  un- 
shackled, and  as  tragic  as  itself.  When 
an  original  and  national  drama  springs 
up,  the  poets  who  establish  it,  carry  in 
themselves  the  sentiments  which  it  rep- 
resents. They  display  better  than  other 
men  the  feelings  of  the  public,  because 
those  feelings  are  stronger  in  them  than 
in  other  men.  The  passions  which  sur- 
round them,  break  forth  in  their  heart 
with  a  harsher  or  a  juster  cry,  and 
hence  their  voices  become  the  voices  of 
all.  Chivalric  and  Catholic  Spain  had 
her  interpreters  in  her  enthusiasts  and 
her  Don  Quixotes :  in  Calderon,  first 
a  soldier,  afterwards  a  priest ;  in  Lope 
de  Vega,  a  volunteer  at  fifteen,  a  pas- 
sionate lover,  a  wandering  duellist,  a 
soldier  of  the  Armada,  finally,  a  priest 
and  familiar  of  the  Holy  Office ;  so  full 
of  fervor  that  he  fasts  till  he  is  exhaust- 
ed, faints  with  emotion  while  singing 
mass,  and  in  his  flagellations  stains  the 
walls  of  his  cell  with  blood.  Calm  and 
noble  Greece  had  in  her  principal  tragic 
poet  one  of  the  most  accomplished  and 
fortunate  of  her  sons  :  *  Sophocles,  first 
in  song  and  palaestra;  who  at  fifteen 

*  Ate7TOv>j0T]  8'  ei/  naicri  KOLL  nepi  TraAaurryai. 


.  . 

.   4»iAa0/jrcu6Ta.TOs  KCU  0eo</uA.»js  —Scholiast 


CHAP.  IL] 


THE  THEATRE. 


sang,  unclad,  the  paean  before  the  tro- 
phy of  Salamis,  and  who  afterwards,  as 
ambassador,  general,  ever  loving  the 
gods  and  impassioned  for  his  state1,  pre- 
sented, in  his  life  as  in  his  works,  the 
spectacle  of  the  incomparable  harmony 
which  made  the  beauty  of  the  ancient 
world,  and  which  the  modern  world 
will  never  more  attain  to.  Eloquent 
and  worldly  France,  in  the  age  which 
carried  the  art  of  good  manners  and 
conversation  to  its  highest  pitch,  finds, 
to  write  her  oratorical  tragedies  and  to 
paint  her  drawing-room  passions,  the 
most  able  craftsman  of  words,  Racine,  a 
courtier,  a  man  of  the  world  ;  the  most 
capable,  by  the  delicacy  of  his  tact  and 
the  adaptation  of  his  style,  of  making 
men  of  the  world  and  courtiers  speak. 
So  in  England  the  poets  are  in  har- 
mony with  their  works.  Almost  all  are 
Bohemians ;  they  sprung  from  the  peo- 
ple,* were  educated,  and  usually  studied 
at  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  but  they  were 
poor,  so  that  their  education  contrasts 
with  their  condition.  Ben  Jonson  is  the 
step-son  of  a  bricklayer,  and  himself  a 
bricklayer  ;  Marlowe  is  the  son  of  a 
shoemaker  ;  Shakspeare  of  a  wool  mer- 
chant ;  Massinger  of  a  servant  of  a  no- 
ble family.f  They  live  as  they  can,  get 
into  debt,  write  for  their  bread,  go  on 
the  stage.  Peele,  Lodge,  Marlowe,  Ben 
Jonson,  Shakspeare,  Heywood,  are  ac- 
tors ;  most  of  the  details  which  we 
have  of  their  lives  are  taken  from  the 
journal  of  Henslowe,  a  retired  pawn- 
broker, later  a  money-lender  and  man- 
ager of  a  theatre,  who  gives  them 
work,  advances  money  to  them,  re- 
ceives their  manuscripts  or  their 
wardrobes  as  security.  For  a  play 
he  gives  seven  or  eight  pounds  ;  after 
the  year  1600  prices  rise,  and  reach  as 
high  as  twenty  or  twenty-five  pounds. 
It  is  clear  that,  even  after  this  increase, 
the  trade  of  author  scarcely  brings  in 
bread.  In  order  to  earn  money,  it  was 
necessary,  like  Shakspeare,  to  become 
a  manager,  to  try  to  have  a  share  in  the 

*  Except  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 

t  Hartley  Coleridge,  in  his  Introdttctlon  to 
the  Dramatic  Works  of  Massinger  and  Ford, 
says  of  Massinger' s  father :  "We  are  not  cer- 
tified of  the  situation  which  he  held  in  the 
floble  household  (Earl  of  Pembroke),  but  we 
may  be  sure  that  it  was  neither  menial  nor 
mean.  Service  in  those  days  was  not  deroga- 
tory to  gentle  birth." — TR. 


E 


167 


property  of  a  theatre  ;  but  such  success 
is  rare,  and  the  life  which  they  lead,  a 
life  of  actors  and  artists,  improvident, 
full  of  excess,  lost  amid  debauchery 
and  acts  of  violence,  amidst  women  of 
evil  fame,  in  contact  with  young  prof 
ligates,among  the  temptations  of  misery, 
imagination  and  license,  generally  leads 
them  to  exhaustion,  poverty,  and  death. 
Men  received  enjoyment  from  them, 
but  neglected  and  despised  them.  One 
actor,  for  a  political  allusion,  was  sent 
to  prison,  and  only  just  escaped  losing 
his  ears ;  great  men,  men  in  office, 
abused  them  like  servants.  Heywood, 
who  played  almost  every  day,  bound 
himself,  in  addition,  to  write  a  sheet 
daily,  for  several  years  composes  at 
haphazard  in  taverns,  labors  and  sweats 
like  a  true  literary  hack,  and  dies 
leaving  two  hundred  and  twenty  pieces, 
of  which  most  are  lost.  Kyd,  one  of 
the  earliest  in  date,  died  in  misery. 
Shirley,  one  of  the  last,  at  the  end  of 
his  career,  was  obliged  to  become  once 
more  a  schoolmaster.  Massinger  dies 
unknown ;  and  in  the  parish  register 
we  find  only  this  sad  mention  of  him  ; 
"  Philip  Massinger,  a  stranger."  A 
few  months  after  the  death  of  Middle- 
ton,  his  widow  was  obliged  to  ask  alms 
of  the  city,  because  he  had  left  nothing. 
Imagination,  as  Drummond  said  of  Ben 
Jonson,  oppressed  their  reason ;  it  is 
the  common  failing  of  poets.  They 
wish  to  enjoy,  and  give  themselves 
wholly  up  to  enjoyment ;  their  mood, 
their  heart  governs  them  ;  in  their  life, 
as  in  their  works,  impulses  are  irresisti- 
ble ;  desire  comes  suddenly,  like  a 
wave,  drowning  reason,  resistance  — 
often  even  giving  neither  reason  nor 
resistance  time  to  show  themselves.* 
Many  are  roysterers,  sad  roysterers  of 
the  same  sort,  such  as  Musset  and 
Murger,  who  give  themselves  up  to 
every  passion,  and  "  drown  their  sor- 
rows in  the  bowl;"  capable  of  the 
purest  and  most  poetic  dreams,  of  the 

*  See,  amongst  others,  The  Woman  Killed, 
with  Kindness,  by  Heywood.  Mrs.  Frank- 
fort, so  upright  of  heart,  accepts  Wendoll  at 
his  first  offer.  Sir  Francis  Acton,  at  the  sight 
of  her  whom  he  wishes  to  dishonour,  and 
whom  he  hates,  falls  "into  an  ecstasy,"  and 
dreams  of  nothing  save  marriage.  Compare 
the  sudden  transport  of  Juliet,  Romeo,  Mac- 
beth, Miranda,  etc.  ;  the  counsel  of  Prospero 
to  Fernando,  when  he  leaves  him  alone  for  a 
moment  with  Miranda. 


j68 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


most  delicate  and  touching  tenderness 
and  who  yet  can  only  undermine  thei 
health  and  mar  their  fame.  Such  are 
Nash,  Decker,  and  Greene  ;  Nash,  a 
fantastic  satirist,  who  abused  his  talent 
and  conspired  like  a  prodigal  againsi 
good  fortune;  Decker,  who  passed  three 
years  in  the  King's  Bench  prison 
Greene,  above  all,  a  pleasing  wit, 
ccpious,  graceful,  who  took  a  deligh 
in  destroying  himself,  publicly  with 
tears  confessing  his  vices,*  and  the 
next  moment  plunging  into  them  again. 
These  are  mere  androgynes,  true  cour- 
tesans, in  manners,  body,  and  heart. 
Quitting  Cambridge,  "with  good  fel- 
lows as  free-living  as  himself,"  Greene 
had  travelled  over  Spain,  Italy,  '' ' 
which  places  he  sawe  and  practizde 
such  villainie  as  is  abhominable  to  de- 
clare." You  see  the  poor  man  is  can- 
did, not  sparing  himself  ;  he  is  natural ; 
passionate  in  every  thing,  repentance  or 
otherwise ;  above  all  of  ever-varying 
mood ;  made  for  self-contradiction ; 
not  self-correction.  On  his  return  he 
became,  in  London,  a  supporter  of 
taverns,  a  haunter  of  evil  places.  In 
his  Groatsworth  of  Wit  bought  with  a 
Million  of  Repentance  he  says  : 

"  I  was  dround  in  pride,  whoredom  was  my 
daily  exercise,  and  gluttony  with  drunkenness 
was  my  onely  delight.  .  .  .  After  I  had  wholly 
betaken  me  to  the  penning  of  plaies  (which 
was  my  continuall  exercise)  I  was  so  far  from 
calling  upon  God  that  I  sildome  thought  on 
God,  but  tooke  such  delight  in  swearing  and 
blaspheming  the  name  of  God  that  none  could 
thinke  otherwise  of  me  than  that  I  was  the 
child  of  perdition.  These  vanities  and  other 
trifling  pamphlets  I  penned  of  love  and  vaine 
fantasies  was  my  chiefest  stay  of  living  ;  and 
for  those  my  vaine  discourses  I  was  beloved  of 
the  more  vainer  sort  of  people,  who  being  my 
continuall  companions,  came  still  to  my  lodg- 
ing, and  there  would  continue  quaffing,  carows- 
ing,  and  surfeting  with  me  all  the  day  long. 
...  If  I  may  have  my  disire  while  1  live  I 
am  satisfied  ;  let  me  shift  after  death  as  I  may. 
.  .  .  '  Hell!'  quoth  I;  'what  talke  you  of 
hell  to  me  ?  I  know  if  I  once  come  there  I 
ehall  have  the  company  of  better  men  than  my- 
selfe ;  I  shall  also  meete  with  some  madde 
knaves  in  that  place,  and  so  long  as  I  shall  not 
sit  there  alone,  my  care  is  the  lesse.  ...  If  I 
feared  the  judges  of  the  bench  no  more  than  I 
dread  the  judgments  of  God  I  would  before  I 
slept  dive  into  one  carles  bagges  or  other,  and 
make  merrie  with  the  shelles  I  found  in  them 
*o  long  as  they  would  last.'  " 

*  Compare  La,  Vie  de  Bohtme  and  Les 
Nuits  cT Hiver,  by  Murger  ;  Confession  d'un 
Enfant  du  Stick,  by  A.  de  Mussel. 


A  little  later  he  is  seized  with  remorse, 
marries,  depicts  in  delicious  verse  the 
regularity  and  calm  of  an  upright  life ; 
then  returns  to  London,  spends  his 
property  and  his  wife's  fortune  with 
"  a  sorry  ragged  queane,"  in  the  com- 
pany of  ruffians,  pimps,  sharpers, 
courtesans ;  drinking,  blaspheming, 
wearing  himself  out  by  sleepless  nights 
and  orgies ;  writing  for  bread,  some- 
times amid  the  brawling  and  effluvia 
of  his  wretched  lodging,  lighting  upon 
thoughts  of  adoration  and  love,  worthy 
of  Rolla ;  *  very  often  disgusted  with 
himself,  seized  with  a  fit  of  weeping 
between  two  merry  bouts,  and  writing 
little  pieces  to  accuse  himself,  to  re- 
gret his  wife,  to  convert  his  comrades, 
or  to  warn  young  people  against  the 
tricks  of  prostitutes  and  swindlers. 
He  was  soon  worn  out  by  this  kind  of 
life  ;  six  years  were  enough  to  exhaust 
him.  An  indigestion  arising  from 
Rhenish  wine  and  pickled  herrings 
finished  him.  If  it  had  not  been  for 
his  landlady,  who  succored  him,  he 
"  would  have  perished  in  the  streets." 
He  lasted  a  little  longer,  and  then  his 
light  went  but ;  now  and  then  he 
begged  her  "  pittifully  for  a  penny  pott 
of  malmesie  ; "  he  was  covered  with 
ice,  he  had  but  one  shirt,  and  when 
lis  own  was  "  a  washing,"  he  was 
obliged  to  borrow  her  husband's. 

His  doublet  and  hose  and  sword 
were  sold  for  three  shillinges,"  and 
:he  poor  folks  paid  the  cost  of  his 
Durial,  four  shillings  for  the  winding- 
sheet,  and  six  and  fourpence  for  the 
}urial. 

In  such  low  places,  on  such  dung 
lills,  amid  such  excesses  and  violence, 
dramatic  genius  forced  its  way,  and 
amongst  others,  that  of  the  first,  of  the 
nost  powerful,  of  the  true  founder  of 
he  dramatic  school,  Christopher  Mar- 
owe. 

Marlowe  was  an  ill-regulated,  disso- 
ute,  outrageously  vehement  and  auda- 
:ious  spirit,  but  grand  and  sombre, 
with  the  genuine  poetic  frenzy ;  pagan 
moreover,  and  rebellious  in  manners 
.nd  creed.  In  this  universal  return  to 
he  senses,  and  in  this  impulse  of  nat- 
ral  forces  which  brought  on  the 
Renaissance,  the  corporeal  instincts 


*The  hero  of  one   of  Alfred  de    Mussel' • 
oems. — TR. 


CHAP. 


THE  THEATRE. 


and  the  ideas  which  hallow  them, 
break  forth  impetuously.  Marlowe, 
like  Greene,  like  Kett,*  is  a  skeptic, 
denies  God  and  Christ,  blasphemes 
the  Trinity,  declares  Moses  "  a  jug- 
gler," Christ  more  worthy  of  death 
than  Barabbas,  says  that  "  yf  he  wer  to 
write  a  new  religion,  he  wolde  under- 
take both  a  more  excellent  and  more 
k  admir?,b!«  •s^tfrode,"  and  "almost  in 
every  company  he  commeth,  perswa- 
deth  men  to  Athiesme."  f  Such  were 
the  rages,  the  rashnesses,  the  excesses 
which  liberty  of  thought  gave  rise  to  in 
these  new  minds,  who  for  the  first 
time,  after  so  many  centuries,  dared  to 
svalk  unfettered.  From  his  father's 
.shop,  crowded  with  children,  from  the 
straps  and  awls,  he  found  himself 
studying  at  Cambridge,  probably 
through  the  patronage  of  a  great  man, 
and  on  his  return  to  London,  in  want, 
amid  the  license  of  the  green-room, 
the  low  houses  and  taverns,  his  head 
was  in  a  ferment,  and  his  passions  be- 
came excited.  He  turned  actor ;  but 
having  broken  his  leg  in  a  scene  of  de- 
bauchery, he  remained  lame,  and  could 
no  longer  appear  on  the  boards.  He 
openly  avowed  his  infidelity,  and  a 
prosecution  was  begun,  which,  if  time 
had  not  failed,  would  probably  have 
brought  him  to  the  stake.  He  made 
love  to  a  drab,  and  in  trying  to  stab 
his  rival,  his  hand  was  turned,  so  that 
his  own  blade  entered  his  eye  and  his 
brain,  and  he  died,  cursing  and  blas- 
pheming. He  was  only  thirty  years  old. 
Think  what  poetry  could  emanate 
from  a  life  so  passionate,  and  occupied 
in  such  a  manner  !  First,  exaggerated 
declamation,  heaps  of  murder,  atroci- 
ties, a  pompous  and  furious  display  of 
tragedy  bespattered  with  blood,  and 
pai  sions  raised  to  a  pitch  of  madness. 
All  the  foundations  of  the  English 
stage,  frerrex  and  Porrex,  Cambyses, 
Hieronymo,  even  the  Pericles  of  Shak- 
speare,  reach  the  same  height  of  ex- 
t'avagance,  magniloquence,  and  hor- 
J  jr.J  It  is  the  first  outbreak  of  youth. 

*  Burnt  in  1589. 

t  I  have  used  Marlowe's  Works,  ed.  Dyce,  3 
vols.",  1850.  Append,  i.  vol.  3. — TR. 

I  See  especially  Titus  A  ndronicus,  attrib- 
uted to  Shakspeare  :  there  are  parricides, 
mothers  whom  they  cause  to  eat  their  chil- 
dren, a  young  girl  who  appears  on  the  stage 
violated,  with  her  tongue  and  hands  cut  off. 


169 


Recall  Schiller's  Robbers,  and  how 
modern  democracy  has  recognized  for 
the  first  time  its  picture  in  the  meta- 
phors and  cries  of  Charles  Moor.*  So 
here  the  characters  struggle  and  roar, 
stamp  on  the  earth,  gnash  their  teeth, 
shake  their  fists  against  heaven.  The 
trumpets  sound,  the  drums  beat,  coats 
of  mail  file  past,  armies  clash,  men  stab 
each  other,  or  themselves;  speeches 
are  full  of  gigantic  threats  and  lyrical 
figures ;  t  kings  die,  straining  a  bass 
voice  ;  "  now  doth  ghastly  death  with 
greedy  talons  gripe  my  bleeding  heart, 
and  like  a  harpy  tires  on  my  life." 
The  hero  in  Tamburlaine  the  Great  \  is 
seated  on  a  chariot  drawn  by  chained 
kings  ;  he  burns  towns,  drowns  women 
and  children,  puts  men  to  the  sword, 
and  finally,  seized  with  an  inscrutable 
sickness,  raves  in  monstrous  outcries 
against  the  gods,  whose  hands  afflict 
his  soul,  and  whom  he  would  fain  de- 
throne. There  already  is  the  picture 
of  senseless  pride,  of  blind  and  mur- 
derous rage,  which  passing  through 
many  devastations,  at  last  anus  against 
heaven  itself.  The  overflowing  of 
savage  and  immoderate  instinct  pro- 
duces this  mighty  sounding  verse,  this 
prodigality  of  carnage,  this  display  of 
splendors  and  exaggerated  colors,  this 
railing  of  demoniacal  passions,  this 
audacity  of  grand  impiety.  If  in  the 
dramas  which  succeed  it,  The  Massacre 
at  Paris,  J^he  Jew  of  Malta,  the  bom- 

*  The  chief  character  in  Schiller's  Robbers, 
a  virtuous  brigand  and  redresser  of  wrongs.— 
TR. 
t  For  in  a  field,  whose  superficies 

Is  cover'd  with  a  liquid  purple  veil, 

And  sprinkled  with  the  brains  of  slaughter'd 
men, 

My  royal  chair  of  state  shall  be  advanc'd  ; 

And  he  that  means  to  place  himself  therein, 

Must  armed  wade  up  to  the  chin  in  blood.  .  . 

And  I  would  strive  to  swim  through  pools  of 
blood, 

Or  make  a  bridge  of  murder' d  carcasses, 

Whose  arches  should  be  fram'd  with  bones 
of  Turks, 

Ere  I  would  lose  the  title  of  a  king. 

Tamburlaine,  part  ii.  i.  3- 

t  The  editor  of  Marlowe's  Works,  Picker- 
ing, 1826,  says  in  his  Introduction  :  "  Both  the 
matter  and  style  of  Tamburlaine,  however, 
differ  materially  from  Marlowe's  other  com- 
~->sitions,  and  doubts  have  more  than  once 

sen   suggested  as   to  whether  the  play  was 

•operly  assigned  to  him.  We  think  that  Mar- 
lowe did  not  write  it."  Dyce  is  of  a  contrary 
opinion. — TR. 


po 
be 


I7o 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


bast  decreases,  the  violence  remains. 
Barabas  the  Jew  maddened  with  hate, 
is  thenceforth  no  longer  human;  he 
has  been  treated  by  the  Christians  like 
a  beast,  and  he  hates  them  like  a  beast. 
He  advises  his  servant  Ithamore  in 
the  following  words : 

"  Hast  thou   no  trade  ?    then   listen    to    my 

words, 

And  I  will  teach  thee  that  shall  stick  by  thee : 
First,  be  thou  void  of  these  affections, 
Compassion,  love,  vain  hope,  and  heartless 

fear  ; 

Be  mov'd  at  nothing,  see  thou  pity  none, 
But   to   thyself  smile  when  the   Christians 

moan. 

...  I  walk  abroad  a-nights, 
And  kill  sick  people  groaning  under  walls  ; 
Som  atimes  I  go  about  and  poison  wells.  .  .  . 
Being  young,  I  studied  physic,  and  began 
To  practise  first  upon  the  Italian  ; 
There  I  enrich' d  the  priests  with  burials, 
And  always  kept  the  sexton's  arms  in  ure 
With  digging  graves  and  ringing  dead  men's 

knells.  .  .  . 

I  fill'd  the  jails  with  bankrouts  in  a  year, 
And  with  young  orphans  planted  hospitals  ; 
And  every  moon  made  some  or  other  mad, 
And  now  and  then  one  hang  himself  for  grief, 


Pinning  upon  his  breast  a  long 
How  I  with  interest  tormented 


grea 
him. 


:at  scroll 


All  these  cruelties  he  boasts  of  and 
chuckles  over,  like  a  demon  who  re- 
joices in  being  a  good  executioner,  and 
plunges  his  victims  in  the  very  ex- 
tremity of  anguish.  His  daughter  has 
two  Christian  suitors ;  and  by  forged 
letters  he  causes  them  to  slay  each 
other.  In  despair  she  takes  the  veil, 
and  to  avenge  himself  he  poisons  his 
daughter  and  the  whole  convent.  Two 
friars  wish  to  denounce  him,  then  to 
convert  him  ;  he  strangles  the  first,  and 
jokes  with  his  slave  Ithamore,  a  cut- 
throat by  profession,  who  loves  his 
trade,  rubs  his  hands  with  joy,  and 
says  : 

"  Pull  amain, 

Tis  neatly  done,  sir  ;  here's  no  print  at  all. 
So,  let  him  lean  upon  his  staff  ;  excellent ! 
he  stands    as    if    he  were    begging    of 
bacon." t 

'  O  mistress,  I  have  the  bravest,  gravest,  se- 
cret, subtle,  bottle-nosed  knave  to  my 
master,  that  ever  gentleman  had."  \ 

The  second  friar  comes  up,  and  they 
accuse  him  of  the  murder  : 

"  Barabas.  Heaven  bless  me !  what,  a  friar  a 
murderer  I 


*  Marlowe's  The  Jew  of  Malta,  ii.  p.  275  ei 
fassim. 

t  Ibid.  iv.  p.  311.  J  Ibid.  iii.  p.  291 


When  shall  you  see  a  Jew  commit  the  like  ? 
Ithamore.  Why,  a  Turk  could  ha'  done  n« 

more. 
Bar.  To-morrow  is  the  sessions  ;  you  shall 

to  it- 
Come  Ithamore,  let's  help  to  take  him  hence. 
Friar,     Villains,  I  am  a  sacred  person ; 

touch  me  not. 
Bar.  The  law  shall  touch  you  ;  we'll  but 

lead  you,  we : 
'Las,  I  could  weep  at  your  calamity  I  '*  * 

We  have  also  two  other  poisonings, 
an  infernal  machine  to  blow  up  the 
Turkish  garrison,  a  plot  to  cast  the 
Turkish  commander  into  a  well.  Bara- 
ias  falls  into  it  himself,  and  dies  in  the 
hot  cauldron,!  howling,  hardened,  re- 
morseless, having  but  one  regret,  that 
he  had  not  done  evil  enough.  These 
are  the  ferocities  of  the  middle  age  ; 
we  might  find  them  to  this  day  among 
the  companions  of  Ali  Pacha,  among 
the  pirates  of  the  Archipelago ;  we  re- 
tain pictures  of  them  in  the  paintings 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  which  repre- 
sent a  king  with  his  court,  seated 
calmly  round  a  living  man  who  is  being 
layed ;  in  the  midst  the  flayer  on  his 
knees  is  working  conscientiously,  very 
careful  not  to  spoil  the  skin.  J 

All  this  is  pretty  strong,  you  will 
say  ;  these  people  kill  too  readily,  and 
too  quickly.  It  is  on  this  very  account 
that  the  painting  is  a  true  one.  For 
the  specialty  of  the  men  of  the  time,  as 
of  Marlowe's  characters,  is  the  abrupt 
commission  of  a  deed ;  they  are  chil- 
dren, robust  children.  As  a  horse  kicks 
out  instead  of  speaking,  so  they  pull 
out  their  knives  instead  of  asking  an  ex- 
planation. Nowadays  we  hardly  know 
what  nature  is  ;  instead  of  observing 
it  we  still  retain  the  benevolent  prej- 
udices of  the  eighteenth  century ;  we 
only  see  it  humanized  by  two  centuries 
of  culture,  and  we  take  its  acquired 
calm  for  an  innate  moderation.  The 
foundations  of  the  natural  man  are 
irresistible  impulses,  passions,  desires, 
greeds  ;  all  blind.  He  sees  a  woman,  § 
thinks  her  beautiful  ;  suddenly  he 
rushes  towards  her  ;  people  try  to  re- 
strain him,  he  kills  these  people,  gluts 
his  passion,  then  thinks  no  more  of  it, 

*  Ibid.  iv.  p.  313. 

t  Up  to  this  time,  in  England,  poisoners  were 
cast  into  a  boiling  cauldron. 

Jin  the  Museum  of  Ghent. 

§  See  in  the  Jeiu  of  Malta  the  seduction  ol 
Ithamore,  by  Bellamira,  a  rough,  but  truly  adj 
mirable  picture. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


save  when  at  times  a  vague  picture  of 
a  moving  lake  of  blood  crosses  his 
brain  and  makes  him  gloomy.  Sudden 
and  extreme  resolves  are  confused  in 
his  mind  with  desire  ;  barely  planned, 
the  thing  is  done ;  the  wide  interval 
which  a  Frenchman  places  between 
the  idea  of  an  action  and  the  action  it- 
self is  not  to  be  found  here.*  Barabas 
conceived  murders,  and  straightway 
murders  were  accomplished  ;  there  is  no 
deliberation,  no  pricks  of  conscience  ; 
that  is  how  he  commits  a  score  of  them ; 
his  daughter  leaves  him,  he  becomes 
unnatural,  and  poisons  her  ;  his  con- 
fidential servant  betrays  him,  he  dis- 
guises himself,  and  poisons  him.  Rage 
seizes  these  men  like  a  fit,  and  then 
they  are  forced  to  kill.  Benvenuto 
Cellini  relates  how,  being  offended,  he 
tried  to  restrain  himself,  but  was  nearly 
suffocated ;  and  that  in  order  to  cure 
himself,  he  rushed  with  his  dagger 
upon  his  opponent.  So,  in  Edward 
//.,  the  nobles  immediately  appeal  to 
arms  ;  all  is  excessive  and  unforeseen  : 
between  two  replies  the  heart  is  turned 
upside  down,  transported  to  the  ex- 
tremes '  of  hate  or  tenderness.  Ed- 
ward, seeing  his  favorite  Gaveston 
again,  pours  out  before  him  his  treas- 
ure, casts  his  dignities  at  his  feet,  gives 
him  his  seal,  himself,  and,  on  a  threat 
from  the  Bishop  of  Coventry,  suddenly 
cries : 

"  Throw  off  his  golden  mitre,  rend  his  stole, 
And  in  the  channel  christen  him  anew."  f 

Then,  when  the  queen  supplicates  : 

"  Fawn  not  on  me,  French  strumpet !  get  thee 

gone.  .  .  . 
Speak  not  unto  her :  let  her  droop  and  pine."t 

Furies  and  hatreds  clash  together  like 
horsemen  in  battle.  The  Earl  of  Lan- 
caster draws  his  sword  on  Gaveston  to 
slay  him,  before  the  king;  Mortimer 
wounds  Gaveston.  These  powerful 
loud  voices  growl ;  the  noblemen  will 

*  Nothing  could  be  falser  than  the  hesitation 
and  arguments  of  Schiller's  William  Tell;  for 
a  contrast,  see  Goethe's  Goetz  von  Berlich- 
ingen.  In  1377,  Wiclif  pleaded  in  St.  Paul's 
before  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  that  raised 
a  quarrel.  The  Duke  of  Lancaster,  Wiclif's 
protector,  "  threatened  to  drag  the  bishop  out 
of  the  church  by  the  hair  ;  "  and  next  day  the 
furious  crowd  sacked  the  duke's  palace. 

t  Marlowe,  Edward  the  Second,  i.  p.  173. 

\  Ibid.  p.  186. 


not  even  let  a  dog  approach  the  prince^ 
and  rob  them  of  their  rank.  Lancaster 
says  of  Gaveston  : 

"  .  .  .  .  He  comes  not  back, 
Unless  the  sea  cast  up  his  shipwrack'd  body. 
Warwick.  And  to  behold  so  sweet  a  sight  as 

that, 
There's  none  here  but  would  run  his  horse  to 

death."  * 

They  have  seized  Gaveston,  and  in- 
tend to  hang  him  "  at  a  bough  ;  "  they 
refuse  to  let  him  speak  a  single  minute 
with  the  king.  In  vain  they  are  en- 
treated; when  they  do  at  last  consent, 
they  are  sorry  for  it ;  it  is  a  prey  they 
want  immediately,  and  Warwick,  seiz- 
ing him  by  force,  "  strake  off  his  head 
in  a  trench."  Those  are  the  men  of 
the  middle  age.  They  have  the  fierce- 
ness, the  tenacity,  the  pride  of  big, 
well-fed,  thorough-bred  bulldogs.  It 
is  this  sternness  and  impetuosity  of 
primitive  passions  which  produced  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  for  thirty  years 
drove  the  nobles  on  each  other's 
swords  and  to  the  block. 

What  is  there  beyond  all  these  fren- 
zies and  gluttings  of  blood  ?  The  idea 
of  crushing  necessity  and  inevitable 
ruin  in  which  every  thing  sinks  and 
comes  to  an  end.  Mortimer,  brought 
to  the  block,  says  with  a  smile : 

"  Base  Fortune,  now  I  see,  that  in  thy  wheel 
There  is  a  point,  to  which  when  men  aspire, 
They  tumble  headlong  down :  that  point  I 

touch' d, 
And,  seeing  there  was  no  place  to  mount  up 

higher, 

Why  should  I  grieve  at  my  declining  fall  ? — 
Farewell,  fair  queen  ;  weep  not  for  Mortimer, 
That  scorns  the  world,  and,  as  a  traveller, 
Goes  to  discover  countries  yet  unknown."  t 

Weigh  well  these  grand  words ;  they 
are  a  cry  from  the  heart,  the  profound 
confession  of  Marlowe,  as  also  of  By- 
ron, and  of  the  old  sea-kings.  The 
northern  paganism  is  fully  exj:  rested 
in  this  heroic  and  mournful  sigh  :  i;  is 
thus  they  imagine  the  world  so  long  as 
they  remain  on  the  outside  of  Chns- 
tianity,  or  as  soon  as  they  quit  it.  ThviS, 
when  men  see  in  life,  as  they  did,  noth- 
ing but  a  battle  of  unchecked  passions, 
and  in  death  but  a  gloomy  sleep,  per- 
haps filled  with  mournful  dreams,  there 
is  no  other  supreme  good  but  a  day 
of  enjoyment  and  victory.  They  glu 

*  Ibid.  p.  188. 

t  Edward  the  Second,  last  scene,  p.  288. 


172 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


themselves,  shutting  their  eyes  to  the 
issue,  except  that  they  may  be  swal- 
lowed up  on  the  morrow.  That  is  the 
master-thought  of  Doctor  Faustus,  the 
greatest  of  Marlowe's  dramas:  to 
satisfy  his  soul,  no  matter  at  what  price, 
or  with  what  results : 

"  A  sound  magician  is  a  mighty  god.  .  .  . 
How  am  I  glutted  with  conceit  of  this  1  ... 
I'll  have  them  fly  to  India  for  gold, 
Ransack  the  ocean  for  orient  pearl.   .  .  . 
I'll  have  them  read  me  strange  philosophy, 
And  tell  the  secrets  of  all  foreign  kings  ; 
I'll  have  thorn  wall  all  Germany  with  brass, 
And  make   swift  Rhine  circle  fair  Werten- 

berg.  .   .  . 
Like  lions    shall  they  guard  us  when  we 

please  j 
Like  Almain  rutters  with  their  horsemen's 

staves, 

Or  Lapland  giants,  trotting  by  our  sides  ; 
Sometimes  like  women,  or  unwedded  maids, 
Shadowing  more  beauty  in  their  airy  brows 
Than  have  the  white  breasts  of  the  queen  of 

love."  * 

What  brilliant  dreams,  what  desires, 
what  vast  or  voluptuous  wishes,  worthy 
of  a  Roman  Caesar  or  an  eastern  poet, 
eddy  in  this  teeming  brain  !  To  satiate 
them,  to  obtain  four-and-twenty  years 
of  power,  Faustus  gives  his  soul,  with- 
out fear,  without  need  of  temptation, 
at  the  first  outset,  voluntarily,  so  sharp 
is  the  prick  within  : 

"  Had  I  as  many  souls  as  there  be  stars, 
I'd  give  them  all  for  Mephistophilis. 
By  him  I'll  be  great  emperor  of  the  world, 
And  make  a  bridge  thorough  the  moving  air. . 
Why  shouldst  thou  not  ?  Is  not  thy  soul  thine 
own  ?  "  f 

And  with  that  he  gives  himself  full 
swing  :  he  wants  to  know  every  thing, 
to  have  every  thing  :  a  book  in  which 
he  can  behold  all  herbs  and  trees 
which  grow  upon  the  earth;  another 
in  which  shall  be  drawn  all  the  con- 
stellations and  planets  ;  another  which 
shall  bring  him  gold  when  he  wills  it, 
and  "the  fairest  courtezans  :  "  another 
which  summons  "men  in  armour" 
ready  to  execute  his  commands,  and 
which  holds  "  whirlwinds,  tempests, 
thunder  and  lightning  "  chained  at  his 
disposa".  He  is  like  a  child,  he  stretch- 
es out  his  hands  for  every  thing  shin- 
ing ;  then  grieves  to  think  of  hell,  then 
lets  himself  be  diverted  by  shows : 

*  Marlowe,  Doctor  Faustus^  i.  p.  9,  et  pas- 
tim. 

t  Ibid.  pp.  27,  29. 


"  Faustus.  O  tliis  feeds  my  soul  I 
Lucifer.  Tut,  Faustus,  in  hell  is  all  man- 

ner  of  delight. 
Faustus.  Oh,  might  I  see  hell,  and  retura 

again, 
How  happy  were  I  then!"  .  .  .* 

He  is  conducted,  being  invisible,  over 
the  whole  world:  lastly  to  Rome, 
amongst  the  ceremonies  of  the  Pope's 
court.  Like  a  schoolboy  du/ing  a  holi- 
day, he  has  insatiable  eyes,  he  forgets 
every  thing  before  a  pageant,  he  amuses 
hims'elf  in  playing  tricks,  in  giving  the 
Pope  a  box  on  the  ear,  in  beating  the 
monks,  in  performing  magic  tricks  be- 
fore princes,  finally  in  drinking,  feast- 
ing, filling  his  belly,  deadening  his 
thoughts.  In  his  transport  he  becomes 
an  atheist,  and  says  there  is  no  hell, 
that  those  are  "  old  wives'  tales."  Then 
suddenly  the  sad  idea  knocks  at  the 
gates  of  his  brain. 

"  I  will  renounce  this  magic,  and  repent  .  .  . 
My  heart's  so  harden'd,  I  cannot  repent : 
Scarce  can  I  name  salvation,  faith,  or  hea- 
ven, 

But  fearful  echoes  thunder  in  mine  ears, 
1  Faustus,  thou  art  damn'd  I '    then  swords, 

and  knives, 

Poison,  guns,  halters,  and  envenom'd  steel 
Are  laid  before  me  to  despatch  myself ; 
And  long  ere  this  I  should  have   done  the 

deed, 
Had    not   sweet   pleasure   conquer'd    deep 

despair. 

Have  not  I  made  blind  Homer  sing  to  me 
Of  Alexander's  love  and  OZnon's  death  ? 
And  hath  not  he,  that  built  the  walls  of 

Thebes 

With  ravishing  sound  of  his  melodious  harp, 
Made  music  with  my  Mephistophilis  ? 
Why  should  I  die,  then,  or  basely  despair  ? 
I  am  resolv'd  ;  Faustus  shall  ne'er  repent.— 
Come  Mephistophilis,  let  us  dispute  again, 
And  argue  of  divine  astrology. 
Tell  me,  are  there  many  heavens  above  the 

moon  ? 

Are  all  celestial  bodies  but  one  globe, 
As  is  the  substance  of  this  centric  earth?.  "  t 
"  One  thing  .  .   .  let  me  crave  of  thee 

To  glut  the  longing  of  my  heart's  desire.  .  .  . 
Was  this  the  face  that  launch'd  a  thousand 

ships, 

And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium  ? 
Sweet  Helen,  make  me  immortal  with  a  kiss! 
Her  lips  suck  forth  my  soul :  see,  where  it 

flies  !— 

Come,  Helen,  come,  give  me  my  soul  again 
Here  will  I  dwell,  for  heaven  is  in  these  lips, 
And  all  is  dross  that  is  not  Helena.  .  .  . 
O  thou  art  fairer  than  the  evening  air 
Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars !  "  J 

"  Oh,  my  God,  I  would  weep  !  but  the 

*  Ibid.  p.  43.  t  Ibid.  p.  37. 

t  Ibid.  p.  75. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


173 


devil  draws  in  my  tears.  Gush  forth 
blood,  instead  of  tears  !  yea,  life  and 
soul !  Oh,  he  stays  my  tongue !  I 
would  lift  up  my  hands  ;  but  see,  they 
hold  them,  they  hold  them  :  Lucifer 
and  Mephistophilis."  .  .  .* 

"  Ah,  Faustus, 

Now  hast  thou  but  one  bare  hour  to  live, 
And  then  thou  must  be  damn'd  perpetually ! 
Stand  still,  you  ever-moving  spheres  of  heaven, 
That   time   may   cease,    and   midnight   never 

come.  .  .  . 
The  stars  move  still,  time  runs,  the  clock  will 

strike, 
The   devil  will  comei   and    Faustus   must  be 

damn'd. 
Oh,  I'll  leap  up  to  my  God! — Who  pulls  me 

down  ? — 
See,  see,  where  Christ's  blood  streams  in  the 

firmament ! 
One  drop  would  save  my  soul,  half  a  drop :  ah, 

my  Christ, 

Ah,  rend  not  my  heart  for  naming  of  my  Christ, 
Yet  will  I  call  on  him.  .  .  . 
Ah,  half  the  hour  is  past!  'twill  all  be  past 

anon.  .  .  . 

Let  Faustus  live  in  hell  a  thousand  years, 
A  hundred  thousand,  and  at  last  be  sav'd.  .  .  . 
It  strikes,  it  strikes.  .  .  . 
Oh  soul,  be  chang'd  into  little  water-drops, 
And  fall  into  the  ocean,  ne'er  be  found!  "  t 

There  is  the  living,  struggling,  natural, 
personal  man,  not  the  philosophic  type 
which  Goethe  has  created,  but  a  prim- 
itive and  genuine  man,  hot-headed,fiery, 
the  slave  of  his  passions,  the  sport  of 
his  dreams,  wholly  engrossed  in  the 
present,  moulded  by  his  lusts,  contra- 
dictions, and  follies,  who  amidst  noise 
and  starts,cries  of  pleasure  and  anguish, 
rolls,  knowing  it  and  willing  it,  down 
the  slope  and  crags  of  his  precipice. 
The  whole  English  drama  is  here,  as  a 
plant  in  its  seed,  and  Marlowe  is  to 
Shakspeare  what  Perugino  was  to 
Raphael. 

V. 

Gradually  art  is  being  formed  ;  and 
toward  the  close  of  the  century  it  is 
complete.  Shakspeare,  Beaumont, 
Fletcher,  Ben  Jonson,  Webster,  Mas- 
singer,  Ford,  Middleton,  Heywood, 
appear  together,  or  close  upon  each 
other,  a  new  and  favored  generation, 
flourishing  largely  in  the  soil  fertilized 
by  the  efforts  of  the  generation  which 
preceded  them.  Thenceforth  the 
scenes  are  developed  and  assume 

*  Marlowe,  Doctor  Faustus,  p.  78. 
t  Ibid,  p,  80. 


consistency;  the  characters  cease  to 
move  all  of  a  piece,  the  drama  is  no 
longer  like  a  piece  of  statuary.  The 
poet  who  a  little  while  ago  knew  only 
how  to  strike  or  kill,  introduces  now  a 
sequence  of  situation  and  a  rationale  in 
intrigue.  He  begins  to  prepare  the 
way  for  sentiments,  to  forewarn  i;s  of 
events,  to  combine  effects,  and  we  find 
a  theatre  at  last,  the  most  complete 
the  most  life-like,  and  also  the  most 
strange  that  ever  existed. 

We  must  follow  its  formation,  and 
regard  the  drama  when  it  was  formed, 
that  is,  in  the  minds  of  its  authors. 
What  was  going  on  in  these  minds? 
What  sorts  of  ideas  were  born  there, 
and  how  were  they  born  ?  In  the  first 
place,  they  see  the  event,  whatever  it 
be,  and  they  see  it  as  it  is ;  I  mean 
that  they  have  it  within  themselves, 
with  its  persons  and  details,  beautiful 
and  ugly,  even  dull  and  grotesque.  If 
it  is  a  trial,  the  judge  is  there,  in  their 
minds,  in  his  place,  with  his  physiog- 
nomy and  hts  warts ;  the  plaintiff  in 
another  place,  with  his  spectacles  and 
brief -bag;  the  accused  is  opposite, 
stooping  and  remorseful ;  each  with  his 
friends,  cobblers,  or  lords  ;  then  the 
buzzing  crowd  behind,  all  with  their 
grinning  faces,  their  bewildered  or 
kindling  eyes.*  It  is  a  genuine  trial 
which  they  imagine,  a  trial  like  those 
they  have  seen  before  the  justice, 
where  they  screamed  or  shouted  as 
witnesses  or  interested  parties,  with 
their  quibbling  terms,  their  pros  and 
cons,  the  scribblings,  the  sharp  voices 
of  the  counsel,  the  stamping  of  feet, 
the  crowding,  the  smell  of  their  fel- 
low-men, and  so  forth.  The  endless 
myriads  of  circumstances  which  ac- 
company and  influence  every  event, 
crowd  round  that  event  in  their  heads, 
and  not  merely  the  externals,  that  is, 
the  visible  and  picturesque  traits,  the 
details  of  color  and  costume,  but  also, 
and  chiefly,  the  internals,  that  is,  the 
motions  of  anger  and  joy,  the  secret 
tumult  of  the  soul,  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
ideas  and  passions  which  are  expressed 
by  the  countenance,  swell  the  veins, 
make  a  man  to  grind  his  teeth,  to 
clench  his  fists,  which  urge  him  on  or 

*  See  the  trial  of  Vittoria  Corombona,  of  Vir- 
ginia in  Webster,  of  Coriolanus  and  Julius 
Caesar  in  Shakspeare. 


174 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


restrain  him.  They  see  all  the  details, 
the  tides  that  sway  a  man,  one  from 
without,  another  from  within,  one 
through  another,  one  within  another, 
both  together  without  faltering  and 
without  ceasing.  And  what  is  this 
insight  but  sympathy,  an  imitative  sym- 
pathy, which  puts  us  in  another's  place, 
which  carries  over  their  agitations  to 
our  own  breasts,  which  makes  our  life 
a  little  world,  able  to  reproduce  the 
great  one  in  abstract  ?  Like  the  char- 
acters they  imagine,  poets  and  specta- 
tors make  gestures,  raise  their  voices, 
act.  No  speech  or  story  can  show 
their  inaer  mood,  but  it  is  the  scenic 
effect  which  can  manifest  it.  As  some 
men  invent  a  language  for  their  ideas, 
so  these  act  and  mimic  them ;  theatri- 
cal imitation  and  figured  representation 
is  their  genuine  speech :  all  other  ex- 
pression, the  lyrical  song  of  ^schylus, 
the  reflective  symbolism  of  Goethe,  the 
oratorical  development  of  Racine, 
would  be  impossible  for  them.  Invol- 
untarily, instantaneously,  without  fore- 
cast, they  cut  life  into  scenes,  and  carry 
it  piecemeal  on  the  boards ;  this  goes 
so  far,  that  often  a  mere  character 
becomes  an  actor,*  playing  a  part  with- 
in a  part ;  the  scenic  faculty  is  the 
natural  form  of  their  mind.  Beneath 
the  effort  of  this  instinct,  all  the  acces- 
sor}' parts  of  the  drama  come  before  the 
footlights  and  expand  before  our  eyes. 
A  battle  has  been  fought;  instead  of 
relating  it,  they  bring  it  before  the 
public,  trumpets  and  drums,  pushing 
crowds,  slaughtering  combatants.  A 
shipwreck  happens ;  straightway  the 
ship  is  before  the  spectator,  with  the 
sailors'  oaths,  the  technical  orders  of  the 
pilot.  Of  all  the  details  of  human  life,t 
tavern-racket  and  statesmen's  councils, 
scullion's  talk  and  court  processions, 
domestic  tenderness  and  pandering, — 
none  is  too  small  or  too  lofty  :  these 
things  exist  in  life— let  them  exist  on 
the  stage,  each  in  full,  in  the  rough, 
atrocious,  or  absurd,  just  as  they  are, 
no  matter  how.  Neither  in  Greece,  nor 
Italy,  nor  Spain,  nor  France,  has  an 
art  been  seen  which  tried  so  boldly  to 

*  Falstaff  in  Shakspeare  ;  the  queen  in  Lon- 
don, by  Greene  and  Decker ;  Rosalind  in 
bhakspeare. 

t  In  Webster's  Duchess  of  Malfi  there  is  an 
admirable  accouchement  scene. 


express  the  soul,  and  its  innermost 
depths  —  the  truth,  and  the  whole 
truth. 

How  did  they  succeed,  and  what  is 
this  new  art  which  tramples  on  all  or- 
dinary rules  ?  It  is  an  art  for  all  that, 
since  it  is  natural ;  a  great  art,  since  it 
embraces  more  things,  and  that  more 
deeply  than  others  do,  like  the  art  of 
Rembrandt  and  Rubens  ;  but  like 
theirs,  it  is  a  Teutonic  art,  and  one 
whose  every  step  is  in  contrast  with 
those  of  classical  art.  What  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  the  originators  of  the 
latter,  sought  in  every  thing,  was  charm 
and  order.  Monuments,  statues,  and 
paintings,  the  theatre,  eloquence  and 
poetry,  from  Sophocles  to  Racine,  they 
shaped  all  their  work  in  the  same 
mould,  and  attained  beauty  by  the  same 
method.  In  the  infinite  entanglement 
and  complexity  of  things,  they  grasped 
a  small  number  of  simple  ideas,  which 
they  embraced  in  a  small  number  of 
simple  representations,  so  that  the  vast 
confused  vegetation  of  life  is  presented 
to  the  mind  from  that  time  forth,  pruned 
and  reduced,  and  perhaps  easily  em- 
braced at  a  single  glance.  A  square  of 
walls  with  rows  of  columns  all  alike  ;  a 
symmetrical  group  of  draped  or  un- 
draped  forms ;  a  young  man  standing 
up  and  raising  one  arm;  a  wounded 
warrior  who  will  not  return  to  the 
camp,  though  they  beseech  him :  this, 
in  their  noblest  epoch,  was  their  archi- 
tecture, their  painting,  their  sculpture, 
and  their  theatre.  No  poetry  but  \ 
few  sentiments  not  very  intricate,  al- 
ways natural,  not  toned  down,  intelli- 
gible to  all ;  no  eloquence  but  a  con  - 
tinuous  argument,  a  limited  vocabulary, 
the  loftiest  ideas  brought  down  to  their 
sensible  origin,  so  that  children  can 
understand  such  eloquence  and  feel 
such  poetry ;  and  in  this  sense  they  are 
classical.*  In  the  hands  of  Frenchmen, 
the  last  inheritors  of  the  simple  art, 
these  great  legacies  of  antiquity  under- 
go no  change.  If  poetic  genius  is  less, 
the  structure  of  mind  has  not  altered. 
Racine  puts  on  the  stage  a  sole  action, 

*  This  is,  in  fact,  the  English  view  of  the 
French  mind,  which  is  doubtless  a  refinement, 
many  times  refined,  of  the  classical  spirit.  But 
M.  Taine  has  seemingly  not  taken  into  account 
such  products  as  the  Medea  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  works  of  Aristophanes  and  the  Latin 
sensualists  on  the  other.— TR. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


'75 


whose  details  he  adjusts,  and  whose 
course  he  regulates  ;  no  incident,  noth- 
ing unforeseen,  no  appendices  or  in- 
congruities ;  no  secondary  intrigue. 
The  subordinate  parts  are  effaced  ;  at 
the  most  four  or  five  principal  charac- 
ters, the  fewest  possible ;  the  rest,  re- 
duced to  the  condition  of  confidants, 
take  the  tone  of  their  masters,  and  mere- 
ly reply  to  them.  All  the  scenes  are 
connected,  and  flow  insensibly  one  into 
the  other ;  and  every  scene,  like  the  en- 
t'ie  i  iece,  has  its  order  and  progress. 
The  tragedy  stands  out  symmetrically 
and  clear  in  the  midst  of  human  life, 
like  a  complete  and  solitary  temple 
which  limns  its  regular  outline  on  the 
luminous  azure  of  the  sky.  In  England 
all  is  different.  All  that  the  French 
call  proportion  and  fitness  is  wanting ; 
Englishmen  do  not  trouble  themselves 
about  them,  they  do  not  need  them. 
There  is  no  unity ;  they  leap  suddenly 
over  twenty  years,  or  five  hundred 
leagues.  There  are  twenty  scenes  in 
an  act — we  stumble  without  prepara- 
tion from  one  to  the  other,  from  tragedy 
to  buffoonery ;  usually  it  appears  as 
though  the  action  gained  no  ground  ; 
the  different  personages  waste  their 
time  in  conversation,  dreaming,  dis- 
playing their  character.  We  were 
moved,  anxious  for  the  issue,  and  here 
they  bring  us  in  quarrelling  servants, 
lovers  making  poetry.  Even  the  dia- 
logue and  speeches,  which  we  would 
think  ought  particularly  to  be  of  a 
regular  and  continuous  flow  of  engross- 
ing ideas,  remain  stagnant,  or  are 
scattered  in  windings  and  deviations. 
At  first  sight  we  fancy  we  are  not  ad- 
vancing, we  do  not  feel  at  every  phrase 
that  we  have  made  a  step.  There  are 
none  of  those  solid  pleadings,  none  of 
those  conclusive  discussions,  which 
;very  moment  add  reason  to  reason, 
rl  jection  to  objection ;  people  might 
say  that  the  different  personages  only 
knew  how  to  scold,  to  repeat  them- 
selves, and  to  mark  time.  And  the 
disorder  is  as  great  in  general  as  in 
particular  things.  They  heap  a  whole 
reign,  a  complete  war,  an  entire  novel, 
into  a  drama ;  they  cut  up  into  scenes 
an  English  chronicle  or  an  Italian 
novel :  this  is  all  their  art ;  the  events 
matter  little  ;  whatever  they  are,  they 
accept  them.  They  have  no  idea  of 


progressive  and  individual  action.  Two 
or  three  actions  connected  endwise,  or 
entangled  one  with  another,  two  01 
three  incomplete  endings  badly  con 
trived,  and  opened  up  again  ;  no  ma- 
chinery but  death,  scattered  right  and 
left  and  unforeseen :  such  is  the  logic 
of  their  method.  The  fact  is,  that  our 
logic,  the  Latin,  fails  them.  Their 
mind  does  not  march  by  the  smooth 
and  straightforward  paths  of  rhetoric 
and  eloquence.  It  reaches  the  same 
end,  but  by  other  approaches.  It  is  at 
once  more  comprehensive  and  less  reg- 
ular than  ours.  It  demands  a  concep- 
tion more  complete,  but  less  consecu- 
tive. It  proceeds,  not  as  with  us,  by  a 
line  of  uniform  steps,  but  by  sudden 
leaps  and  long  pauses.  It  does  not  rest 
satisfied  with  a  simple  idea  drawn  from 
a  complex  fact,  but  demands  the  com- 
plex fact  entire,  with  its  numberless 
particularities,  its  interminable  ramifi- 
cations. It  sees  in  man  not  a  general 
passion — ambition,  anger,  or  love  ;  not 
a  pure  quality  —  happiness,  avarice, 
folly  ;  but  a  character,  that  is,  the  im- 
print, wonderfully  complicated,  which 
inheritance,  temperament,  education, 
calling,  age,  society,  conversation, 
habits,  have  stamped  on  every  man  ; 
an  incommunicable  and  individual  im- . 
print,  which,  once  stamped  in  a  man, 
is  not  found  again  in  any  other.  It  sees 
in  the  hero  not  only  the  hero,  but  the 
individual,  with  his  manner  of  walking, 
drinking,  swearing,  blowing  his  nose ; 
with  the  tone  of  his  voice,  whether  he 
is  thin  or  fat ;  *  and  thus  plunges  to  the 
bottom  of  things,  with  every  look,  as 
by  a  miner's  deep  shaft.  This  sunk,  it 
little  cares  whether  the  second  shaft  be 
two  paces  or  a  hundred  from  the  first ; 
enough  that  it  reaches  the  same  depth, 
and  serves  equally  well  to  display  the 
inner  and  invisible  layer.  Logic  is  here 
from  beneath,  not  from  above.  It  is 
the  unity  of  a  character  which  binds 
the  two  actions  of  the  personage,  as  the 
unity  of  an  impression  connects  the  two 
scenes  of  a  drama.  To  speak  exactly, 
the  spectator  is  like  a  man  whom  we 
should  lead  along  a  wall  pierced  at 
separate  intervals  with  little  windows ; 
at  every  window  he  catches  for  an  in- 

*  See  Hamlet,  Coriolanus,  Hotspur.  Th« 
queen  in  Hamlet  (v.  2)  says:  "  He  (Hamlet)'s 
fat,  and  scant  of  breath." 


i76 


stant  a  glimpse  of  a  new  landscape, 
with  its  million  details  :  the  walk  over, 
if  he  is  of  Latin  race  and  training,  he 
finds  a  medley  of  images  jostling  in  his 
head,  and  asks  for  a  map  that  he  may 
recollect  himself ;  if  he  is  of  German 
race  and  training,  he  perceives  as  a 
whole,  by  natural  concentration,  the 
wide  country  which  he  has  only  seen 
piece-meal.  Such  a  conception,  by  the 
multitude  of  details  which  it  combines, 
and  by  the  depth  of  the  vistas  which  it 
embraces,  is  a  half-vision  which  shakes 
the  whole  soul.  What  its  works  are 
about  to  show  us  is,  with  what  energy, 
what  disdain  of  contrivance,  what 
vehemence  of  truth,  it  dares  to  coin 
and  hammer  the  human  medal ;  with 
what  liberty  it  is  able  to  reproduce  in 
full  prominence  worn  out  characters, 
and  the  extreme  flights  of  virgin  nature. 

VI. 

Let  us  consider  the  different  person- 
ages which  this  art,  so  suited  to  depict 
real  manners,  and  so  apt  to  paint  the 
living  soul,  goes  in  search  of  amidst 
the  real  manners  and  the  living  souls  of 
its  time  and  country.  They  are  of  two 
kinds,  as  befits  the  nature  of  the 
drama  :  one  which  produces  terror,  the 
other  which  moves  to  pity  ;  these  grace- 
ful and  feminine,  those  manly  and  vio- 
lent. All  the  differences  of  sex,  all  the 
extremes  of  life,  all  the  resources  of  the 
stage,  are  embraced  in  this  contrast ; 
and  if  ever  there  was  a  complete  con- 
trast, it  is  here. 

The  reader  must  study  for  himself 
some  of  these  pieces,  or  he  will  have 
no  idea  of  the  fury  into  which  the  stage 
is  hurled;  force  and  transport  are 
driven  every  instant  to  the  point  of 
atrocity,  and  further  still,  if  there  be 
any  further.  Assassinations,  poison- 
ings, tortures,  outcries  of  madness  and 
rage  ;  no  passion  and  no  suffering  are 
too  extreme  for  their  energy  or  their 
effort.  Anger  is  with  them  a  madness, 
ambition  a  frenzy,  love  a  delirium. 
Hippolyto,  who  has  lost  his  mistress, 
says,  "  Were  thine  eyes  clear  as  mine, 
thou  might'st  behold  her,  watching  up- 
on yon  battlements  of  stars,  how  I  ob- 
serve them."  *  Aretus,  to  be  avenged 
on  Valentinian,  poisons  him  after 

*Middleton,  The  Honest  Whore,  parti,  iv.i. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BooK  II. 


poisoning  himself,  and  with  the  death- 
rattle  in  his  throat,  is  brought  to  his 
enemy's  side,  to  give  him  a  foretaste  of 
agony.  Queen  Brunhalt  has  panders 
with  her  on  the  stage,  and  causes  her 
two  sons  to  slay  each  other.  Death 
everywhere  ;  at  the  close  of  every  play, 
all  the  great  people  wade  in  blood : 
with  slaughter  and  butcheries,  the  stage 
becomes  a  field  of  battle  or  a  church- 
yard.* Shall  I  describe  a  few  of  these 
tragedies  ?  In  the  Duke  of  Milan, 
Francesco,  to  avenge  his  sister,  who 
has  been  seduced,  wishes  to  seduce  in 
his  turn  the  Duchess  Marcelia,  wife  of 
Sf  orza,  the  seducer  ;  he  desires  her,  he 
will  have  her ;  he  says  to  her,  with 
cries  of  love  and  rage  : 

"  For  with  this  arm  I'll  swim  through  seas  of 

blood, 

Or  make  a  bridge,  arch'd  with  the  bones  of  men, 
But  I  will  grasp  my  aims  in  you,  my  dearest, 
Dearest,  and  best  of  women !  "  t 

For  he  wishes  to  strike  the  duke 
through  her,  whether  she  lives  or  dies, 
if  not  by  dishonor,  at  least  by  murder ; 
the  first  is  as  good  as  the  second,  nay 
better,  for  so  he  will  do  a  greater  in- 
jury. He  calumniates  her,  and  the 
duke,  who  adores  her,  kills  her  ;  then, 
being  undeceived,  loses  his  senses,  will 
not  believe  she  is  dead,  has  the  body 
brought  in,  kneels  before  it,  rages  and 
weeps.  He  knows  now  the  name  of 
the  traitor,  and  at  the  thought  of  him 
he  swoons  or  raves  : 

'  I'll  follow  him  to  hell,  but  I  will  find  him, 
And  there  live  a  fourth  Fury  to  torment  him. 
Then,  for  this  cursed  hand  and  arm  that  guided 
The  wicked  steel,  I'll  have  them,  joint  by  joint, 
With  burning  irons  sear'd  off,  which  I  will  eat, 
I  being  a  vulture  fit  to  taste  such  carrion."  J 

Suddenly  he  gasps  for  breath,  and  falls; 
Francesco  has  poisoned .  him.  The 
duke  dies,  and  the  murderer  is  led  to 
torture.  There  are  worse  scenes  than 
this  ;  to  find  sentiments  strong  enough,, 
they  go  to  those  which  change  the 
very  nature  of  man.  Massinger  puts 
on  the  stage  a  father  who  judges  and 
condemns  his  daughter,  stabbed  by  her 

*  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Valentinian^ 
Thierry  and  Theodoret.  See  Massinger'a 
Picture,  which  resembles  Musset's  Barberine. 
Its  crudity,  the  extraordinary  and  repulsive 
energy,  will  show  the  difference  of  the  two  ages-, 

t  Massinger's  Works,  ed-  H.  Coleridge, 
1859,  Duke  of  Milan,  ii.  i. 

i  Duke  of  Milan,  v.  2. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


177 


husband ;  Webster  and  Ford,  a  son 
who  assassinates  his  mother;  Ford, 
the  incestuous  loves  of  a  brother  and 
sister.*  Irresistible  love  overtakes 
then* ;  the  ancient  love  of  Pasiphae 
and  Myrrha,  a  kind  of  madness-like 
enchantment,  and  beneath  which  the 
will  entirely  gives  way.  Giovanni 
says: 

"  Lost !  I  am  lost !     My  fates  have  doom'd  my 

death! 

The  more  I  strive,  I  love  ;  the  more  I  love, 
The  less  I  hope:  I  see  my  ruin  certain.  .  .  . 
I  have  even  wearied  heaven  with  pray'rs,  dried 

up 

The  spring  of  my  continual  tears,  even  starv'd 
My  veins  with  daily  fasts  :  what  wit  or  art 
Could  counsel,  I  have  practis'd  ;  but,  alas ! 
I  find  all  these  but  dreams,  and  old  men's  tales, 
To  fright  unsteady  youth  :  I  am  still  the  same  ; 
Or  I  must  speak,  or  burst."  t 

What  transports  follow  !  what  fierce 
and  bitter  joys,  and  how  short  too,  how 
grievous  and  mingled  with  anguish, 
especially  for  her  !  She  is  married  to 
another.  Read  for  yourself  the  admi- 
rable and  horrible  scene  which  repre- 
sents the  wedding  night.  She  is 
pregnant,  and  Soranzo,  the  husband, 
drags  her  along  the  ground,  with  curses, 
demanding  the  name  of  her  lover : 

(i  Come  strumpet,  famous  whore  ?  .  .  . 

Harlot,  rare,  notable  harlot, 
That  with  thy  brazen  face  maintain'st  thy  sin, 
Was  there  no  man  in  Parma  to  be  bawd 
To  your  loose  cunning  whoredom  else  but  I  ? 
Must  your  hot  itch  and  plurisy  of  lust, 
The  heyday  of  your  luxury,  be  fed 
Up  to  a  surfeit,  and  could  none  but  I 
Be  pick'd  out  to  be  cloak  to  your  close  tricks, 
Your  belly-sports? — Now  I  must  be  the  dad 
To  all  that  gallimaufry  that  is  stuffed 
In  thy  corrupted  bastard-bearing  womb  ? 
Say,  must  I  ? 

Annabella.  Beastly  man?  why,  'tis  thy  fate. 
I  su'd  not  to  thee.  .  .  . 

S.     Tell  me  by  whom."  J 

She  gets  excited,  feels  and  cares  for 
nothing  more,  refuses  to  tell  the  name 
of  her  lover,  and  praises  him  in  the 
following  words.  This  praise  in  the 
midst  of  danger  is  like  a  rose  she  has 
plucked,  and  of  which  the  odor  intox- 
icates her : 

*  Massinger,  The  Fatal  Dowry  ;  Webster 
and  Ford,  A  late  Murther  of  the  Sonne  upon 
the  Mother  (a  play  not  extant)  ;  Ford,  '  Tis 
i>ity  she's  a  IVhore.  See  also  Ford's  Broken 
Heart,  with  its  sublime  scenes  of  agony  and 
madness. 

t  Ford's  Works,  ed.  H.  Coleridge,  1859, 
'Tis pity  she's  a  Whoret  i.  3. 

\  Ibid.  iv.  3. 


"  A .  Soft!  'twas  not  in  my  bargain. 
Yet    somewhat,    sir,    to    stay    your    longing 

stomach 

I  am  content  t'  acquaint  you  with  THE  man, 
The  more  than  man,  that  got  this  sprightly 

boy, — 

(For  'tis  a  boy,  and  therefore  glory,  sir, 
Your  heir  shall  be  a  son-) 

S.  Damnable  monster? 

A .  Nay.  an  you  will  not  hear  I'll  fjr  eak  n« 
more. 

S.  Yes,  speak,  and  speak  thy  .tit. 

A .  A  match,  a  match  ?  .  .  . 
You,  why  you  are  not  worthy  once  to  name 
His  name  without  true  worship,  or,  indeed, 
Unless  you  kneel'd  to  hear  another  came  him. 

.S.  Whatwashecall'd? 

A .  We  are  not  come  to  that ; 
Let  it  suffice  that  you  shall  have  the  glory 
To  father  what  so  brave  a  father  got.  .  .  . 

S.  Dost  thou  laugh  ? 

Come,  whore,  tell  me  your  lover,  or,  by  truth 
I'll  hew  thy  flesh  to  shreds  ;  who  is't?  "  * 

She  laughs ;  the  excess  of  shame  and 
terror  has  given  her  courage ;  she  in- 
sults him,  she  sings ;  so  like  a  woman ! 

"  A'  (Sings)  Che  morte  piu  dolceche  morir* 

per  amore. 
S.  Thus  will  I  pull  thy  hair,  and  thus  I'll 

drag 

Thy  lust  be-leper'd  body  through  the  dust.  .  .  . 

(Hales  her  »/  and  down) 

A.  Be  a  gallant  hangman.  .  .  . 

I  leave  revenge  behind,  and  thou  shalt  feel 't.  . 

(To  Vasquez.}  Pish,  do  not  beg  for  me,  I  prize 

my  life 

As  nothing  ;  if  the  man  will  needs  be  mad, 
Why,  let  him  take  it."  t 

In  the  end  all  is  discovered,  and  the 
two  lovers  know  they  must  die.  For 
the  last  time,  they  see  each  other  in 
Annabella's  chamber,  listening  to  the 
noise  of  the  feast  below  which  shall 
serve  for  their  funeral-feast.  Gio- 
vanni, who  has  made  his  resolve  like  a 
madman,  sees  Annabella  richly  dressed, 
dazzling.  He  regards  her  in  silence, 
and  remembers  the  past.  He  weeps 
and  says : 

"  These  are  the  funeral  tears, 
Shed  on  your  grave  ;  these  furrow'd-up  my 

cheeks 

When  first  I  lov'd  and  knew  not  how  to  woo.  .  . 
Give  me  your  hand  :  how  sweetly  life  doth  ran 
In  these  well-colour'd  veins  !     How  constantly 
These  palms  do  promise  health  !  .  .  . 
Kiss  me  again,  forgive  me.  .  .  Farewell."  \  .  . 

He  then  stabs  her,  enters  the  banquet- 
ing room,  with  her  heart  upon  his  dag- 
ger: 


*  Ibid. 


t  Ibid. 
8* 


t  Ibid.  v.  5. 


i78 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


"  Sorauzo  see  this  heart,  which  was  thy  wife's. 
Thus  I  exchange  it  royally  for  thine."  * 

He  kills  him,  and  casting  himself  on 
the  swords  of  banditti,  dies.  It  would 
seem  that  tragedy  could  go  no  fur- 
thur. 

But  it  did  go  further ;  for  if  these  are 
melodramas,  they  are  sincere,  com- 
posed, not  like  those  of  to-day,  by 
Grub  Street  writers  for  peaceful  citi- 
zens, but  by  impassioned  men,  expe- 
rienced in  tragical  arts,  for  a  violent, 
over-fed  melancholy  race.  From 
Shakspeare  to  Milton,  Swift,  Hogarth, 
no  race  has  been  more  glutted  with 
coarse  expressions  and  horrors,  and  its 
poets  supply  them  plentifully;  Ford 
less  so  than  Webster ;  the  latter^  a 
sombre  man,  whose  thoughts  seem  in- 
cessantly to  be  haunting  tombs  and 
charnel-houses.  "  Places  in  court,"  he 
says,  "  are  but  like  beds  in  the  hospital, 
where  this  man's  head  lies  at  that  man's 
foot,  and  so  lower  and  lower."  t  Such 
are  his  images.  No  one  has  equalled 
Webster  in  creating  desperate  char- 
acters, utter  wretches,  bitter  misan- 
thropes,}: in  blackening  and  blasphem- 
ing human  life,  above  all,  in  depicting 
the  shameless  depravity  and  refined 
ferocity  of  Italian  manners. §  The  Duch- 
ess of  Malfi  has  secretly  married  her 
steward  Antonio,  and  her  brother  learns 
that  she  has  children;  almost  mad  || 
with  rage  and  wounded  pride,  he  re- 
mains silent,  waiting  until  he  knows 
the  name  of  the  father;  then  he 
arrives  all  of  a  sudden,  means  to  kill 
her,  but  so  that  she  shall  taste  the  lees 
of  death.  She  must  suffer  much,  but 
above  all,  she  must  not  die  too  quickly ! 
She  must  suffer  in  mind ;  these  griefs 

*    T  is  pity  she's  a  Whore,  v.  6. 

t  Webster's  Works,  ed.  Dyce,  1857,  Duchess 
of  Malfi,  i.  i. 

\  The  characters  of  Bosola,  Flaminio. 

§  See  Stendhal  Chronicles  of  Italy,  The 
Cenci,  The  Duchess  of  Pallia-no,  and  all  the 
biographies  of  the  time  ;  of  the  Borgias,  of 
Bianca  Capello,  of  Vittoria  Accoramboni. 

II  Ferdinand,  one  of  the  brothers,  says  (ii.  5) : 

"  I  would  have  their  bodies 
Burnt  in  a  coal-pit  with  the  ventage  stopp'd, 
That  their  curs'd  smoke  might  not  ascend  to 

heaven  ; 

Or  dip  the  sheets  they  lie  in  in  pitch  or  sulphur, 
Wrap    them    in't,   and  then  light    them  as  a 

match  ; 

Or  else  to-boil  their  bastard  to  a  cullis, 
And  give't  his  lecherous  father  to  renew 
The  ain  of  his  back." 


are  worse  than  the  body's.  He  sends 
assassins  to  kill  Antonio,  and  mean- 
while comes  to  her  in  the  dark,  with 
affectionate  words  ;  pretends  to  be 
reconciled,  and  suddenly  shows  her 
waxen  figures,  covered  with  wounds, 
whom  she  takes  for  her  slaughtered 
husband  and  children.  She  staggers 
under  the  blow,  and  remains  in  gloom 
without  crying  out.  Then  she  says  : 

!  Good  comfortable  fellow, 
Persuade  a  wretch  that's  broke  upon   the 

wheel 
To  have  all  his  bones  new  set  ;  entreat  him 

live 
To  be  executed  again.    Who  must  despatch 

me?  ... 
Bosola.  Come,  be  of  comfort,  I  will  sava 

your  life. 

Duchess.  Indeed,  I  have  not  leisure  to  tend 
So  small  a  business. 

B.  Now,  by  my  life,  I  pity  you. 
D.  Thou  art  a  fool,  then, 

To  waste  thy  pity  on  a  thing  so  wretched 
As  cannot  pity  itself.  I  am  full  of  daggers."* 

Slow  words,  spoken  in  a  whisper,  as  in 
a  dream,  or  as  if  she  were  speaking  of 
a  third  person.  Her  brother  sends  to 
her  a  company  of  madmen,  who  leap 
and  howl  and  rave  around  her  in 
mournful  wise  ;  a  pitiful  sight,  calcu- 
lated to  unseat  the  reason  ;  a  kind  of 
foretaste  of  hell.  She  says  nothing, 
looking  upon  them  ;  her  heart  is  dead, 
her  eyes  fixed,  with  vacant  stare  : 

Car  tola.  What  think  you  of,  madam? 
Duchess.  Of  nothing  : 
When  I  muse  thus,  I  sleep. 

C.  Like  a  madman,  with  your  eyes  open? 

D.  Dost  thou  think  we  shall  know  one 
another 

In  the  other  world  ? 

C.  Yes,  out  of  question, 

D.  O  that  it  were  possible  we  might 

But  hold  some  two  days'  conference  with  the 

dead! 
From  them  I  should  learn  somewhat,  I  am 

I  never  'shall  know  here.     I'll    tell  thee  a 

miracle  ; 

I  am  not  mad  yet,  to  my  cause  of  sorrow  : 
The  heaven  o'er  my  head  seems  ma'ie  of  mOx» 

ten  brass, 
The  earth  of  flaming  sulphur,  yet  I  am  not 

mad. 

I  am  acquainted  with  sad  misery 
As  the  tann'd  galley-slave  is  with  his  oar."  f 

In  this  state,  the  limbs,  like  those  of 
one  who  has  been  newly  executed,  still 
quiver,  but  the  sensibility  is  worn  out 
the  miserable  body  only  stirs  mechani 


*  Duchess  of  Malfi,  iv. 


t  Ibid.  iv.  2. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


179 


cnlly;  it  has  suffered  too  much.  At 
last  the  gravedigger  comes  with  execu- 
tioners, a  coffin,  and  they  sing  before 
her  a  funeral  dirge  : 

'•  Duchess.  Farewell,  Cariola  .  .  . 

I  pray  thee,  look  thou  giv'st  my  little  boy 
Some  syrup  for  his  cold,  and  let  the  girl 
Say  her  prayers  ere  she  sleep. — Now,  what 

you  please  : 
What  death  ? 
Bo  sola.  Strangling  ;  here  are  your  execu- 
tioners. 

D.  I  forgive  them  : 
The  apoplexy,  catarrh,  or  cough  o'  the  lungs 
Would  do  as  much  as  they  do.  .  .  .  My  body 
Bestow  upon  my  women,  will  you  ?  .  .  . 
Go,  tell  my  brothers,  when  I  am  laid  out, 
They  then  may  feed  in  quiet."  * 

After  the  mistress  the  maid ;  the  latter 
cries  and  struggles : 

*{  Cariola*  I  will  not  die  ;  I  must  not ;  I  am 

contracted 
To  a  young  gentleman. 

\st  Executioner.     Here's  your  wedding- 
ring. 

C.   If  you  kill  me  now, 

I  am  damn'd,     I  have  not  been  at  confession 
This  two  years. 

B.  WhenPt 

C.  I  am  quick  with  child."  % 

They  strangle  her  also,  and  the  two 
children  of  the  duchess.  Antonio  is 
assassinated  ;  the  cardinal  and  his  mis- 
tress, the  duke  and  his  confidant,  are 
poisoned  or  butchered  ;  and  the  solemn 
words  of  the  dying,  in  the  midst  of  this 
butchery,  utter,  as  from  funereal  trum- 
pets, a  general  curse  upon  existence  : 

"  We  are  only  like  dead  walls  or  vaulted  graves, 
That,  ruin'd  yield  no  echo.  Fare  you  well,  .  . 

O,  this  gloomy  world ! 
In  what  a  shadow,  or  deep  pit  of  darkness, 
Doth  womanish  and  fearful  mankind  live  !  "§ 

"  In  all  our  quest  of  greatness, 
Like  wanton  boys,  whose  pastime  is  their 

care, 

We  follow  after  bubbles  blown  in  the  air. 
Pleasure  of  life,  what  is't?   only  the  good 

hours 

Of  an  ague  ;  merely  a  preparative  to  rest, 
To  endure  vexation.  .  .  . 
Whether  we  fall  by  ambition,  blood,  or  lust, 
Like  diamonds,  we  are  cut  with  our  own 

dust."  || 

Vou  will  find  nothing  sadder  or  greater 
from  the  Edda  to  Lord  Byron. 

We  can  well  imagine  what  powerful 

*  Duchess  of  Malfi,  iv.  2. 

t  "  When,"  an  exclamation  of  impatience, 
equivalent  to  "make  haste,"  very  common 
among  the  old  English  dramatists.— TR. 

\  Duchess  of  Malfi,  iv.  2. 

§  Ibid.  v.  5.  |j  Ibid.  v.  4  and  5. 


characters  are  necessary  to  sustain 
these  terrible  dramas.  All  these  per- 
sonages are  ready  for  extreme  acts; 
their  resolves  break  forth  like  blows  of 
a  sword ;  we  follow,  meet  at  every 
change  of  scene  their  glowing  eyes, 
wan  lips,  the  starting  of  their  muscles, 
the  tension  of  their  whole  frame.  Their 
powerful  will  contracts  their  violent 
hands,  and  their  accumulated  passion 
breaks  out  in  thunder-bolts,  which  tear 
and  ravage  all  around  them,  and  in 
their  own  hearts.  We  know  them,  the 
heroes  of  this  tragic  population,  lago, 
Richard  III.,  Lady  Macbeth,  Othello, 
Coriolanus,  Hotspur,  full  of  genius, 
courage,  desire,  generally  mad  or  crim- 
inal, always  self-driven  to  the  tomb. 
There  are  as  many  around  Shakspeare 
as  in  his  own  works.  Let  me  exhibit 
one  character  more,  written  by  the 
same  dramatist,  Webster.  No  one, 
except  Shakspeare,  has  seen  further 
into  the  depths  of  diabolical  and  un- 
chained nature.  The  "  White  Devil " 
is  the  name  which  he  gives  to  his 
heroine.  His  Vittoria  Corombona  re- 
ceives as  her  lover  the  Duke  of  Brachi- 
ano,  and  at  the  first  interview  dreams 
of  the  issue : 

"  To  pass  away  the  time,  I'll  tell  your  grace 
A  dream  I  had  last  night." 

It  is  certainly  well  related,  and  still  bet- 
ter chosen,  of  deep  meaning  and  very 
clear  import.  Her  brother  Flaminio 
says,  aside : 

"  Excellent  devil !    she  hath  taught  him  in  a 

dream 

To  make  away  his  duchess  and  her  hus- 
band."* 

So,  her  husband,  Camillo,  is  strangled, 
the  Duchess  poisoned,  and  Vittoria, 
accused  of  the  two  crimes,  is  brought 
before  the  tribunal.  Step  by  step,  like 
a  soldier  brought  to  bay  with  his  back 
against  a  wall,  she  defends  herself,  re- 
futing and  defying  judges  and  advo- 
cates incapable  of  blenching  or  quail- 
ing, clear  in  mind,  ready  in  word,  amid 
insults  and  proofs,  even  menaced  with 
death  on  the  scaffold.  The  advocate 
begins  to  speak  in  Latin. 

"  Vittoria.  Pray  my  lord,  let  him  speak  his 

usual  tongue  ; 
I'll  make  no  answer  else. 


1  Vittoria  Corombona,  i.  3. 


i8o 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


Francisco  de  Mcdicis.  Why,  you  under- 
stand Latin. 

V.  I  do,  sir  ;  but  amongst  this  auditory 
Which  come  to  hear  my  cause,  the  half  or 

more 
May  be  ignorant  in't." 

She  wants  a  duel,  bare-breasted,  in 
open  day,  and  challenges  the  advocate  : 

"  I  am  at  the  mark,  sir:  I'll  give  aim  to  you, 
And  tell  you  how  near  you  shoot." 

She  mocks  his  legal  phraseology,  in- 
sults him,  with  biting  irony  : 

•*  Surely,  my  lords,  this  lawyer  here  hath  swal- 
low' d 

Some  pothecaries'  bills,  or  proclamations  ; 

And  now  the  hard  and  undigestible  words 

Come  up,  like  stones  we  use  give  hawks  for 
physic : 

Why,  this  is  Welsh  to  Latin." 

Then,  to  the  strongest  adjuration  of 
the  judges : 

"  To  the  point, 

Find  me  but  guilty,  sever  head  from  bod}', 
We'll  part  good  friends  ;  I  scorn  to  hold  my 

life 

At  yours,  or  any  man's  entreaty,  sir.  .  .  . 
These  are  but  feigned  shadows  of  my  evils : 
Terrify  babes,  my  lord,  witli  painted  devils  ; 
I  am  past  such  needless  palsy.     For  your 

names 
Of  whore  and  murderess,  they  proceed  from 

you, 

As  if  a  man  should  spit  against  the  wind  ; 
The  filth  returns  in's  face."  * 

Argument  for  argument :  she  has  a 
parry  for  every  blow  :  a  parry  and  a 
thrust : 

"  But  take  you  your  course  :  it  seems  you  have 

beggar' d  me  first, 
And    now  would    fain    undo    me.     I   have 

houses, 

Jewels,  and  a  poor  remnant  of  crusadoes : 
Would  those  would  make  you  charitable  I  " 

Then,  in  a  harsher  voice  : 

*    In  faith,  my  lord,  you  might  go  pistol  flies  ; 
The  sport  would  be  more  noble." 

They  condemn  her  to  be  shut  up  in  a 
house  of  convertites : 

'  J-'.  A  house  of  convertites!  What's  that? 

Monticelso.  A  house  of  penitent  whores. 

V.  Do  the  noblemen  in  Rome 
trect  it  for  their  wives,  that  I  am  sent 
To  lodge  there  ?  "  t 

The  sarcasm  comes  home  like  a  sword- 
thrust ;  then  another  behind  it;  then 
cries  and  curses.  She  will  not  bend, 

*  Webster  Dyce,  1857,  Vittoria  Corombona, 

*J]>.   20-21. 

t  Vittoria  Corombona,  iii.  2,  p.  23. 


idy 

ith 


she  will  not  weep.  She  goes  off  erect 
bitter  and  more  haughty  than  ever : 

"  I  will  not  weep  ; 

No,  I  do  scorn  to  call  up  one  poor  tear 
To  fawn  on  your  injustice  :  bear  me  hence 
Unto  this  house  of — ,  what's  your  mitigating 
title  ? 

Mont.  Of  convertites. 

V.  It  shall  not  be  a  house  of  convertites  ; 
My  mind  shall  make  it  honester  to  me 
Than  the  Pope's  palace,  and  more  peaceable 
Than  thy  soul,  though  thou  art  a  cardinal."* 

Against  her  furious  lover,  who  accuses 
her  of  unfaithfulness,  she  is  as  strong 
as  against  her  judges  ;  she  copes  with 
him,  casts  in  his  teeth  the  death  of  his 
duchess,  forces  him  to  beg  pardon,  to 
marry  her ;  she  will  play  the  corned; 
to  the  end,  at  the  pistol's  mouth,  witi 
the  shamelessness  and  courage  of  a 
courtesan  and  an  empress  ;  t  snared 
at  last,  she  will  be  just  as  brave  and 
more  insulting  when  the  dagger's  point 
threatens  her  : 

"  Yes,  I  shall  welcome  death 
As  princes  do  some  great  ambassadors  ; 
I'll  meet  thy  weapon  half  way.  .  .  .  'Tvras  a 

manly  blow  ; 
The  next  thou  giv'st,  murder  some  sucking 

infant ; 
And  then  thou  wilt  be  famous."  $ 

When  a  woman  unsexes  herself,  her 
actions  transcend  man's,  and  there  is 
nothing  which  she  will  not  suffer  or 
dare. 

VII. 

Opposed  to  this  band  of  tragic  char- 
acters, with  their  distorted  features, 
brazen  fronts,  combative  attitudes,  is  a 
troop  of  sweet  and  timid  figures,  pre- 
eminently tender-hearted,  the  most 
graceful  and  loveworthy,  whom  it  has 
been  given  to  man  to  depict.  In  Shak- 
speare  you  will  meet  them  in  Miranda, 
Juliet,  Desdemona,  Virgilia,  Ophelia, 
Cordelia,  Imogen  ;  but  they  abound 
also  in  the  others  ;  and  it  is  a  character- 
istic of  the  race  to  have  furnished 
them,  as  it  is  of  the  drama  to  have  rep- 
resented them.  By  a  singular  coin- 
cidence, the  women  are  more  of  women, 
the  men  more  of  men,  here  than  else- 
where. The  two  natures  go  each  to 

*  Ibid.  p.  24. 

t  Compare   Mme.  Marneffe  in  Balzac's  La 
Cousine  Bette. 

Vittoria    Corontbotta^   v.   last  scene,   pp.- 
49-50. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


fts  extreme  :  in  the  one  to  boldness,  the 
spirit  of  enterprise  and  resistance,  the 
warlike,  imperious,  and  unpolished 
character  ;  in  the  other  to  sweetness, 
devotion,  patience,  inextinguishable  af- 
fection,*— a  thing  unknown  in  distant 
lands,  in  France  especially  so :  a  wo- 
man in  England  gives  herself  without 
drawing  back,  and  places  her  glory  and 
duty  in  obedience,  forgiveness,  adora- 
tion, wishing  and  professing  only  to  be 
melted  and  absorbed  daily  deeper  and 
deeper  in  him  whom  she  has  freely  and 
forever  chosen.f  It  is  this,  an  old 
German  instinct,  which  these  great 
painters  of  instinct  diffuse  here,  one 
and  all:  Penthea,  Dorothea,  in  Ford 
and  Greene  ;  Isabella  and  the  Duchess 
of  Main",  in  Webster ;  Bianca,  Ordella, 
Arethusa,  Juliana,  Euphrasia,  Amoret, 
and  others,  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  : 
there  are  a  score  of  them  who,  under 
the  severest  tests  and  the  strongest 
temptations,  display  this  wonderful 
power  of  self-abandonment  and  devo- 
tion.} The  soul,  in  this  race,  is  at 
once  primitive  and  serious.  Women 
keep  their  purity  longer  than  elsewhere. 
They  lose  respect  less  quickly;  weigh 
worth  and  characters  less  suddenly: 
they  are  less  apt  to  think  evil,  and  to 
take  the  measure  of  their  husbands. 
To  this  day,  a  great  lady,  accustomed 
to  company,  blushes  in  the  presence  of 
an  unknown  man,  and  feels  bashful 
like  a  little  girl :  the  blue  eyes  are 
dropt,  and  a  child-like  shame  flies  to 
her  rosy  cheeks.  English  women  have 
not  the  smartness,  the  boldness  of 
ideas,  the  assurance  of  bearing,  the 
precocity,  which  with  the  French  make 
of  a  young  girl,  in  six  months,  a  woman 
>f  intrigue  and  the  queen  of  a  drawing- 

*  Hence  the  happiness  and  strength  of  the 
marriage  tie.  In  France  it  is  but  an  association 
of  two  comrades,  tolerably  alike  and  tolerably 
equal,  which  gi/es  i*e  to  endless  disturbance 
and  bickering. 

t  See  the  representation  of  this  character 
throughout  English  and  German  literature. 
Stendhal,  an  acute  observer,  saturated  with 
Italian  and  French  morals  and  ideas,  is  aston- 
ished at  this  phenomenon.  He  understands 
nothing  of  this  kind  of  devotion,  "  this  slavery 
which  English  husbands  have  had  the  wit  to  im- 
pose on  their  wives  under  the  name  of  duty." 
These  are  "  the  manners  of  a  seraglio."  See 
also  Ccrinne,  by  Madame  de  Stael. 

t  A  perfect  woman  already :  meek  and  pa- 
tient.— HEYWOOD. 


room.*  Domestic  life  and  obedience 
are  more  easy  to  them.  More  pliant 
and  more  sedentary,  they  are  at  the 
same  time  more  concentrated  and  in- 
trospective, more  disposed  to  follow 
the  noble  dream  called  duty,  which  is 
hardly  generated  in  mankind  but  by 
silence  of  the  senses.  They  are  not 
tempted  by  the  voluptuous  sweetness 
which  in  southern  countries  is  breath- 
ed out  in  the  climate,  in  the  sky,  in 
the  general  spectacle  of  things ;  which 
dissolves  every  obstacle,  which  causes 
privation  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  snare 
and  virtue  as  a  theory.  They  can  rest 
content  with  dull  sensations,  dispense 
with  excitement,  endure  weariness ;  and 
in  this  monotony  of  a  regulated  exist- 
ence, fall  back  upon  themselves,  obey 
a  pure  idea,  employ  all  the  strength 
of  their  hearts  in  maintaining  their 
moral  dignity.  Thus  supported  by  in- 
nocence and  conscience,  they  introduce 
into  love  a  profound  and  upright  sen- 
timent, abjure  coquetry,  vanity,  and 
flirtation  :  they  do  not  lie  nor  simper. 
When  they  love,  they  are  not  tasting 
a  forbidden  fruit,  but  are  binding  them- 
selves for  their  whole  life.  Thus  un- 
derstood, love  becomes  almost  a  holy 
thing ;  the  spectator  no  longer  wishes 
to  be  spiteful  or  to  jest ;  women  do  not 
think  of  their  own  happiness,  but  of 
that  of  the  loved  ones  ;  they  aim  not 
at  pleasure,  but  at  devotion.  Euphra- 
sia, relating  her  history  to  Philaster, 
says : 

"  My  father  oft  would  speak     j 
Your  worth  and  virtue  ;  and,  as  I  did  grow 
More  and  more  apprehensive,  I  did  thirst 
To  see  the  man  so  prais'd  ;  but  yet  all  this 
Was  but  a  maiden  longing,  to  be  lost 
As  soon  as  found  ;  till  sitting  in  my  window. 
Printing  my  thoughts  in  lawn,  I  saw  a  god, 
I  thought,  (but  it  was  you)  enter  our  gates. 
My  blood  flew  out,  and  back  again  as  fast, 
As  I  had  puff'd  it  forth  and  suck'd  it  in 
Like  breath :  Then  was  I    call'd    away  in 

haste 

To  entertain  you.     Never  was  a  man, 
Heay'd  from  a  sheep-cote  to  a  sceptre,  rais'd 
So  high  in  thoughts  as  I :  You  left  a  kiss 
Upon  these  lips  then,  which  I  mean  to  keep 
From  you  for  ever.     I  did  hear  you  talk, 
Far  above  singing !     After  you  were  gone, 
I     grew    acquainted    with    my    heart,    and 

search'd 
What  stirr'd  it  so :  Alas  I  I  found  it  love  ; 


*  See,  by  way  of  contrast,  all  Moliere'i 
women,  so  French ;  even  Agnes  and  little 
Louison. 


182 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


Yet  far  from  lust ;  for  could  I  but  have  liv'd 
In  presence  of  you,  I  had  had  my  end."  * 

She  had  disguised  herself  as  a  page,t 
followed  him,  was  his  servant ;  what 
greater  happiness  for  a  woman  than  to 
serve  on  her  knees  the  man  she  loves  ? 
She  let  him  scold  her,  threaten  her 
with  death,  wound  her. 

"  Blest  be  that  hand ! 
It  meant  me  well.    Again,  for  pity's  sake !"^ 

Do  what  he  will,  nothing  but  words  of 
tenderness  and  adoration  can  proceed 
from  this  heart,  these  wan  lips.  More- 
over, she  takes  upon  herself  a  crime  of 
which  he  is  accused,  contradicts  him 
when  he  asserts  his  guilt,  is  ready  to 
die  in  his  place.  Still  more,  she  is  of 
use  to  him  with  the  Princess  Arethusa, 
whom  he  loves ;  she  justifies  her  rival, 
brings  about  their  marriage,  and  asks 
no  other  thanks  but  that  she  may  serve 
them  both.  And  strange  to  say,  the 
princess  is  not  jealous. 

"  Euphrasia.  Never,  Sir,  will  I 

Marry  ;  it  is  a  thing  within  my  vow : 
But  if  I  may  have  leave  to  serve  the  princess, 
To  see  the  virtues  of  her  lord  and  her, 
I  shall  have  hope  to  live. 

A  rethusa.  .   .  .  Come,  live  with  me  ; 

Live  free  as  I  do.     She  that  loves  my  lord, 
Curst  be  the  wife  that  hates  her !  "  § 

What  notion  of  love  have  they  in 
tfcis  country  ?  Whence  happens  it 
that  all  selfishness,  all  vanity,  all  ran- 
cor, every  little  feeling,  either  personal 
or  base,  flees  at  its  approach  ?  How 
comes  it  that  the  soul  is  given  up 
wholly,  without  hesitation,  without  re- 
serve, and  only  dreams  thenceforth  of 
prostrating  and  annihilating  itself,  as 
in  the  presence  of  a  god  ?  Biancha, 
thinking  Cesario  ruined,  offers  herself 
to  him  as  his  wife  ;  and  learning  that 
he  is  not  so,  gives  him  up  straightway, 
without  a  murmur  : 

"  Biancha.  So  dearly  I  respected  both  your 

fame 

And  quality,  that  I  would  first  have  perish'd 
In  my  sick  thoughts,  than  e'er  have  given  con- 
sent 

To  have  undone  your  fortunes,  by  inviting 
A  marriage  with  so  mean  a  one  as  I  am : 
I  should  have  died  sure,  and  no  creature  known 
The  sickness  that  had  kill'd  me.  .  .  .  Now 
since  I  know 

*  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Works,  ed.  G.Col- 
man,  3  vols.,  1811,  Philaster,  v. 
t  Like  Kaled  in  Byron's  Lara. 
\  Philaster,  iv.      '  §  Philaster ;  v. 


There  is  no  difference  'twixt  your  birth  and 

mine, 

Not  much  'twixt  our  estates  ("if  any  be, 
The  advantage  is  on  my  side)  I  come  willingly 
To  tender  you  the  first-fruits  of  my  heart, 
And  am  content  t'  accept  you  for  my  husband, 
Now  when  you  are  at  lowest.  .  .  . 

Cesario.  Why,  Biancha, 

Report  has  cozen'd  thee  ;  I  am  not  fallen 
From  my  expected  honours  or  possessions, 
Tho'  from  the  hope  of  birth-right. 

B.  Are  you  not  ? 

Then  I  am  lost  again!  I  have  a  suit  too  ; 
You'll  grant  it,  if  you  be  a  good  man.  .  .  . 
Pray  do  not  talk  of  aught  what  I  have  said 

t'ye.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Pity  me  ; 
But  never  love  me  more !    .  .  .    I'll  pray  for 

you, 

That  you  may  have  a  virtuous  wife,  a  fair  oni] 
And  when  I'm  dead  .  .  .  C.  Fy,  f y !  A. 

Think  on  me  sometimes, 

With  mercy  for  this  trespass  !     C.  Let  us  kis* 
At  parting,  as  at  coming !     B.  This  I  hav  s 
As  a  free  dower  to  a  virgin's  grave, 
All  goodness  dwell  with  you!  "  * 

Isabella,  Brachiano's  duchess  is  be- 
trayed, insulted  by  her  faithless  hus- 
band ;  to  shield  him  from  the  ven- 
geance of  her  family,  she  takes  upon 
herself  the  blame  of  the  rupture,  pur- 
posely plays  the  shrew,  and  leaving 
him  at  peace  with  his  courtesan,  dies 
embracing  his  picture.  Arethusa  al- 
lows herself  to  be  wounded  by  Philas- 
ter, stays  the  people  who  would  hold 
back  the  murderer's  arm,  declares  that 
he  has  done  nothing,  that  it  is  not  he, 
prays  for  him,  loves  him  in  spite  of  all, 
even  to  the  end,  as  though  all  his  acts 
were  sacred,  as  if  he  had  power  of  life 
and  death  over  her.  Ordella  devotes 
herself,  that  the  king,  her  husband, 
may  have  children ;  t  she  offers  her- 
self for  a  sacrifice,  simply,  without 
grand  words,  with  her  whole  heart : 

"  Ordella.  Let  it  be  what  it  may  then,  what 

it  dare, 
I  have  a  mind  will  hazard  it. 

Thierry.  But,  hark  you  ; 

What  may  that  woman  merit,  makes  this  bless* 

ing? 

O.  Only  her  duty,  sir.     T.  'Tis  terrible  1 
O.  'Tis  so  much  the  more  noble. 
T.  'Tis  full  of  fearful  shadows       O.  So  i 

sleep,  sir, 

Or  anything  that's  merely  ours,  and  mortal ; 
We  were  begotten  gods  else  :  but  those  fears 
Feeling  but  once  the  fires  of  nobler  thoughts, 
Fly,  like  the  shapes  of  clouds  we  form,  to  notli- 


I 


*  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  The  Fair  Maid 
of  the  Inn,  iv. 

t  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Thierry  and 
Theodoret,  The  Maid's  Tragedy,  Philaster 
See  also  the  part  of  I«uciiia  in  Valentinian, 


I 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


T.  Suppose  it  death!     O-    I  do.     T.    And 

endless  parting 

With  all  we  can  call  ouis,  with  all  our  sweet- 
ness, 
With  youth,  strength,  pleasure,  people,  time, 

nay  reason  ! 

For  in  the  silent  grave,  no  conversation, 
No  joyful  tread  of  friends,  no  voice  of  lovers, 
No  careful  father's  counsel,  nothing's  heard, 
Nor  nothing  is,  but  all  oblivion, 
Dust  and  an  endless  darkness  :  and  dare  you, 

woman, 
Desire  this  place?    O.    'Tis  of  all  sleeps  the 

sweetest : 

Children  begin  it  to  us,  strong  men  seek  it, 
Aucl   kings   from  height   of  all   their  painted 

glories 

F  ill,  like  spent  exhalations,  to  this  centre.  .  .  . 
T.  Then  you  can  suffer  ?     O.  As  willingly 

as  say  it. 

T.  Martell,  a  wonder  i 

iere  is  a  woman  that  dares  die. — Yet,  tell  me, 
Are  you  a  wife?  O.  1  am,  sir.  T.  And  have 

children  ? — 
She  sighs  and  weeps !     O.  Oh,  none,  sir.    T. 

Dare  you  venture 

For  a  poor  barren  praise  you  ne'er  shall  hear, 
To  part  with  these  sweet  hopes  ?  O.  With  all 

but  Heaven."* 

Is  not  this  prodigious  ?  Can  you  un- 
derstand how  one  human  being  can 
thus  be  separated  from  herself,  forget 
and  lose  herself  in  another  ?  They  do 
so  lose  themselves,  as  in  an  abyss. 
When  they  love '  in  vain  and  without 
hope,  neither  reason  nor  life  resist  ; 
they  languish,  grow  mad,  die  like 
Ophelia.  Aspasia,  forlorn, 

"  Walks  discontented,  with  her  watry  eyes 
Bent  on  the  earth.    The  unfrequented  woods 
Are  her  delight ;  and  when  she  sees  a  bank 
Stuck  full  of  flowers,  she  with  a  sigh  will  tell 
Her  servants  what  a  pretty  place  it  were 
To  bury  lovers  in  ;  and  make  her  maids 
Pluck  'em,  and  strew  her  over  like  a  corse. 
She  carries  with  her  an  infectious  grief, 
That  strikes  all  her  beholders  ;  she  will  sing 
The   mournful'st  things  that  ever  ear  hath 

heard, 

And  sigh  and  -sing  again  ;  and  when  the  rest 
Of  our  young  ladies,  in  their  wanton  blood, 
Tell   mirthful  tales  in   course,  that  fill  the 

room 

With  laughter,  she  will  with  so  sad  a  look 
Bring  forth  a  story  of  the  silent  death 
Of  si  me  forsaken  virgin,  which  her  grief 
Will  put  in  such  a  phrase,  that,  ere  she  end, 
Shr'll    send    them    weeping    one    by    one 

away."  t 

Like  a  spectre  about  a  tomb,  she  wan- 
ders forever  about  the  remains  of  her 
destroyed  love,  languishes,  grows  pale, 
swoons,  ends  by  causing  herself  to  be 
killed,  Sadder  still  are  those  who, 

*  Thierry  and  Tkeodoret,  iv.  i. 
t  Beaumont  and  F  letcher,  The  Maid's  Trag- 
dyti. 


183 


from  duty  or  submission,  allow  them, 
selves  to  be  married,  while  their  heart 
belongs  to  another.  They  are  not  re- 
signed, do  not  recover,  like  Pauline  in 
Polyeucte.  They  are  crushed  to  death. 
Penthea,  in  Ford's  Broken  Heart,  is  as 
upright,  but  not  so  strong,  as  Pauline ; 
she  is  the  English  wife,  not  the  Roman 
stoical  and  calm.*  She  despaiis, 
sweetly,  silently,  and  pines  to  death. 
In  her  innermost  heart  she  holds  her- 
self married  to  him  to  whom  she  has 
pledged  her  soul :  it  is  the  marriage  of 
the  heart  which  in  her  eyes  is  alone 
genuine;  the  other  is  only  disguised 
adultery.  In  marrying  Bassanes  she 
has  sinned  against  Orgilus ;  moral  in- 
fidelity is  worse  than  legal  infidelity, 
and  thenceforth  she  is  fallen  in  her  own 
eyes.  She  says  to  her  brother  : 

"  Pray,  kill  me.  .  .  . 

Kill,  me,  pray  ;  nay,  will  ye  ? 
Ithocles.  How  does  thy  lord  esteem  thee? 

P.  Such  an  one 

As  only  you  have  made  me  ;  a  faith-breaker, 
A  spotted  whore  ;  forgive  me,  I  am  one — 
In  act,   not  in   desires,  the  gods  must  wit- 
ness.   .  .  . 

For  she  that's  wife  to  Orgilus,  and  lives 
In  known  adultery  with  Bassanes, 
Is,    at    the    best,    a   whore.     Wilt  kill  me 

now?  .  .  . 

The  handmaid  to  the  wages 
Of  country  toil,  drinks  the  untroubled  streams 
With   leaping   kids,   and  with  the   bleating 

lambs, 

And  so  allays  her  thirst  secure  ;  whiles  I 
Quench  my  hot  sighs  with  fleetings  of  my 
tears."  t 

With  tragic  greatness,  from  the  height 
of  her  incurable  grief,  she  throws  her 
gaze  on  life : 

"  My  glass  of  life,  sweet  princess,  hath  few 

minutes 
Remaining    to    run    down ;    the  sands    are 

spent ; 
For  by  an  inward  messenger  I  feel 


*  Pauline  says,  in  Corneille's  Polyeucte  (iii. 
2)  : 
"  Avant  qu'abandonner  mon  a"me  a  mes  dou« 

leurs, 

II  me  faut  essayer  la  force  de  mes  pleurs  ; 
En  qualite  de  femme  ou  de  fille,  j'espere 
Qu'ils  vaincront  un  epoux,  ou  flechiront  un 

pere. 
Que  si  sur  1'un  et  1'autre  ils  manquent  de 

pouvoir, 

Je  ne  prendrai  conseil  que  de  mpn  de*sespoir. 
Apprends-moi  cependant  ce  qu'ils  ont  fait  au 

temple." 

We  could  not  find  a  more  reasonable  and  rea- 
soning woman.   So  with  Eliante,  and  Henriette, 
in  Moliere. 
t  Ford's  Broken  Heart*  iii.  2. 


i84 


The  summons  of  departure  short  and  certain. 

.  .  .  Glories 

Of  human  greatness  are  but  pleasing  dreams, 
And  shadows  soon  decaying  ;  on  the  stage 
Of  my  mortality,  my  youth  hath  acted 
Some  scenes  of  vaiuty,  drawn  out  at  length 
By  varied  pleasures,  sweeten'd  in  the  mix- 
ture, 

But  tragical  in  issue.  .  .  .  That  remedy 
Must  be  a  winding-sheet,  a  fold  of  lead, 
And  some  untrod-on  corner  in  the  earth."  * 

There  is  no  revolt,  no  bitterness ;  she 
affectionately  assists  her  brother  who 
has  caused  her  unhappiness  ;  she  tries 
to  enable  him  to  win  the  woman  he 
loves ;  feminine  kindness  and  sweet- 
ness overflow  in  her  in  the  depths  of 
her  despair.  Love  here  is  not  despotic, 
passionate,  as  in  southern  climes.  It 
is  only  deep  and  sad ;  the  source  of 
life  is  dried  up,  that  is  all ;  she  lives 
no  longer,  because  she  cannot ;  all  go 
by  degrees — health,  reason,  soul  ;  in 
the  end  she  becomes  mad,  and  behold 
her  dishevelled,  with  wide  staring  eyes, 
with  words  that  can  hardly  find  utter- 
ance. For  ten  days  she  has  not  slept, 
and  will  not  eat  any  more ;  and  the 
same  fatal  thought  continually  afflicts 
her  heart,  amidst  vague  dreams  of 
maternal  tenderness  and  happiness 
brought  to  nought,  which  come  and  go 
in  her  mind  like  phantoms  : 

"  Sure,  if  we  were  all  sirens,  we  should  sing 

pitifully, 

And  'twere  a  comely  music,  when  in  parts 
One  sung  another's  knell  ;  the  turtle  sighs 
When  he  hath  lost  his  mate  ;  and  yet  some 

say 

He  must  be  dead  first :  'tis  a  fine  deceit 
To  pass  away  in  a  dream!  indeed,  I've  slept 
With   mine   eyes  open,  a  great  while.     No 

falsehood 

Equals  a  broken  faith  ;  there's  not  a  hair 
Sticks  on  m/  nead,  but,  like  a  leaden  plum- 
met, 
It  sinks  me  to  the  grave :    I  must  creep 

thither  ; 

The  journey  is  not  long.  .  .  . 
Since  I  was  first  a  wife,  I  might  have  been 
Mother  to  many  pretty  prattling  babes  ; 
They  would  have  smiled  when  I  smiled  ;  and, 

for  certair , 
I  should  have  cried  when  they  cried  : — truly, 

brother, 

My  father  would  have  pick'd  me  out  a  hus- 
band, 

And  then  my  little  ones  had  been  no  bas- 
tards ; 

But  'tis  too  late  for  me  to  marry  now, 
I  am  past  child-bearing  ;  'tis  not  my  fault.  .  .  . 

Spare  your  hand ; 
Believe  me,  I'll  not  hurt  it.  ... 

*  Ford's  Broken  Heart,  iii.  5. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK   II 


Complain  not  though  I  wring  it  hard :  I'll 
kiss  it  ; 

Oh,  'tis  a  fine  soft  palm! — hark,  in  thine 
ear  ; 

Like  whom  do  I  look,  prithee  ? — nay,  no  whis- 
pering. 

Goodness !  we  had  been  happy  ;  too  much 
happiness 

Will  make  folk  proud,  they  say.  .  .  . 

There  is  no  peace  left  for  a  ravish'd  wife, 

Widow'd  by  lawless  marriage  ;  to  all  memory 

Penthea's,  poor  Penthea's  name  is  strumpet- 
ed.  .  .  . 

Forgive  me  ;  Oh  !  I  faint."  * 

She  dies,  imploring  that  some  gentle 
voice  may  sing  her  a  plaintive  air,  a 
farewell  ditty,  a  sweet  funeral  song.  I 
know  nothing  in  the  drama  more  pure 
and  touching. 

When  we  find  a  constitution  of  soul 
so  new,  and  capable  of  such  great  ef- 
fects, it  behoves  us  to  look  at  the 
bodies.  Man's  extreme  actions  come 
not  from  his  will,  but  his  nature. t  In 
order  to  understand  the  great  tensions 
of  the  whole  machine,  we  must  look 
upon  the  whole  machine, — I  mean 
man's  temperament,  the  manner  in 
which  his  blood  flows,  his  nerves 
quiver,  his  muscles  act :  the  moral  in- 
terprets the  physical,  and  human  qual- 
ities have  their  root  in  the  animal  spe- 
cies. Consider  then  the  species  in 
this  case — namely,  the  race  ;  for  the 
sisters  of  Shakspeare's  Ophelia  and 
Virgilia,  Goethe's  Clara  and  Margaret, 
Otway's  Belvidera,  Richardson's  Pa- 
mela, constitute  a  race  by  themselves, 
soft  and  fair,  with  blue  eyes,  lily  white- 
ness, blushing,  of  timid  delicacy,  seri- 
ous sweetness,  framed  to  yield,  bend, 
cling.  Their  poets  feel  it  clearly  when 
they  bring  them  on  the  stage ;  they 
surround  them  with  the  poetry  which 
becomes  them,  the  murmur  of  streams, 
the  pendent  willow-tresses,  the  frail 
and  humid  flowers  of  the  country,  so 
like  themselves  : 

"  The  flower,  that's  like  thy  face,  pale  prim. 

rose,  nor 

The  azure  harebell,  like  thy  veins  ;  no,  nor 
The  leaf  of  eglantine,  whom  *ot  to  slander, 
Out-sweeten'd  not  thy  breath."  J 


t  Ibid.  iv.  2. 

*  Schopenhauer,  Metaphysics  of  Love  ana 
Death.  Swift  also  said  that  death  and  love  are 
the  two  things  in  which  man  is  fundamentally 
irrational.  In  fact,  it  is  the  species  and  the  in- 
stinct which  are  displayed  in  them,  not  the  will 
and  the  individual. 

t  Cymbelinf)  iv.  2. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  THEATRE. 


They  make  them  sweet,  like  the  south 
wind,  which  with  its  gentle  breath 
causes  the  violets  to  bend  their  heads, 
abashed  at  the  slightest  reproach,  al- 
ready half  bowed  down  by  a  tender 
and  dreamy  melancholy.*  Philaster, 
speaking  of  Euphrasia,  whom  he  takes 
to  be  a  page,  and  who  has  disguised 
herself  in  order  to  be  near  him,  says : 

"  Hunting  the  buck, 
[  found  him  sitting  by  a  fountain-side, 
Of  which  he  borrow'd  some  to  quench  his 

thirst, 

And  paid  the  nymph  again  as  much  in  tears. 
A  garland  lay  him  by,  made  by  himself, 
Of  many  several  flowers,  bred  in  the  bay, 
Stuck  in  that  mystic  order,  that  the  rareness 
Delighted  me  :  But  ever  when  he  turn'd 
His  tender  eyes  upon  'em,  he  would  weep, 
As  if  he  meant  to  make  'em  grow  again. 
Seeing  such  pretty  helpless  innocence 
Dwell  in  his  face,  I  asked  him  all  his  story. 
He  told  me,  that  his  parents  gentle  dy'd, 
Leaving  him  to  the  mercy  of  the  fields, 
Which  gave  him   roots  ;  and  of  the  crystal 

springs, 
Which  did  not  stop  their  courses  ;  and  the 

sun, 
Which  still,  he  thank'd  him,  yielded  him  his 

light. 

Then  he  took  up  his  garland,  and  did  shew 
What  every  flower,  as  country  people  hold, 
Did  signify  ;  and  how  all,  order'd  thus, 
Express'd  his  grief :    And,  to  my  thoughts, 

did  read 

The  prettiest  lecture  of  his  country  art 
That  could  be  wish'd.  ...  I  gladly  enter- 

tain'd  him, 

Who  was  as  glad  to  follow  ;  and  have  got 
The  trustiest,  loving'st,  and  the  gentlest  boy 
That  ever  master  kept."  t 

The  idyl  is  self-produced  among  these 
human  flowers :  the  dramatic  action  is 
stopped  before  the  angelic  sweetness 
of  their  tenderness  and  modesty. 
Sometimes  even  the  idyl  is  born  com- 
plete and  pure,  and  the  whole  theatre 
is  occupied  by  a  sentimental  and  poet- 
ical kind  of  opera.  There  are  two  or 
three  such  plays  in  Shakspeare;  in 
rude  Jonson,  The  Sad  Shepherd ;  in 
Pletcher,  The  Faithful  Shepherdess. 
Ridiculous  titles  nowadays,  for  they 
.emind  us  of  the  interminable  plati- 
tudes of  d'Urfe,  or  the  affected  con- 
ceits of  Florian;  charming  titles,  if  we 
note  the  sincere  and  overflowing  poetry 
which  they  contain.  Amoret,  the  faith- 
ful shepherdess,  lives  in  an  imaginary 
country,  full  of  old  gods,  yet  English, 
like  the  dewy  verdant  landscapes  in 

*  The   death  of  Ophelia,  the   obsequies  of 
Imogen.  f  Philaster,  i. 


which  Rubens  sets  his  nymphs  danc- 
ing : 

"  Thro'  yon  same  bending  plain 
That  flings  his  arms  down  to  the  main, 
And  thro'  these  thick  woods,  have  I  run, 
Whose  bottom  never  kiss'd  the  sun 
Since  the  lusty  spring  began."  .  .  • 

"  For  to  that  holy  wood  is  consecrate 
A  virtuous  well,  about  whose  flow' ry  banks 
The  nimble-footed  fairies  dance  their  rounds) 
By  the  pale  moon-shine,  dipping  oftentimes 
Their  stolen  children,  so  to  make  them  free 
From  dying  flesh,  and  dull  mortality."   .  .     * 

"  See  the  dew-drops,  how  they  kiss 
Ev'ry  little  flower  that  is  ; 
Hanging  on  their  velvet  heads, 
Like  a  rope  of  christal  beads. 
See  the  heavy  clouds  low  falling 
And  bright  Hesperus  down  calling 
The  dead  Night  from  underground."  f 

These  are  the  plants  and  the  aspects 
of  the  ever  fresh  English  country,  now 
enveloped  in  a  pale  diaphanous  mist, 
now  glistening  under  the  absorbing 
sun,  teeming  with  grasses  so  full  of 
sap,  so  delicate,  that  in  the  midst  of 
their  most  brilliant  splendor  and  their 
most  luxuriant  life,  we  feel  that  to- 
morrow will  wither  them.  There,  on 
a  summer  night,  the  young  men  and 
girls,  after  their  custom, J  go  to  gather 
flowers  and  plight  their  troth.  Amoret 
and  Perigot  are  together  ;  Amoret, 

"  Fairer  far 
Than  the  chaste  blushing  morn,  or  that  fair 

star 
That  guides  the  wand' ring  seaman  thro'  the 

deep," 

modest  like  a  virgin,  and  tender  as  a 
wife,  says  to  Perigot : 

"  I  do  believe  thee  :  'Tis  as  hard  for  me 
To  think  thee  false,  and  harder,  than  for 

thee 
To  hold  me  foul."  § 

Strongly  as  she  is  tried,  her  heart, 
once  given,  never  draws  back.  Peri- 
got, deceived,  driven  to  despair,  per- 
suaded that  she  is  unchaste,  strikes 
her  with  his  sword,  and  casts  her 
bleeding  to  the  ground.  The  "  sullen 
shepherd "  throws  her  into  a  well  ; 
but  the  god  lets  fall  "  a  drop  from  his 
watery  locks  "  into  the  wound ;  the 
chaste  flesh  closes  at  the  touch  of  the 

*  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  The  Faithful 
Shepherdess^  i.  t  Ibid.  h. 

\  See  the  description  in  Nathan  Drake, 
Shakspeare  and  his  Times. 

§  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  The  Faithful 
Shepherdess^  i. 


i86 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


divine  water,  and  the  maiden,  recover- 
ing, goes  once  more  in  search  of  him 
sne  loves  : 

"  Spenk,  if  thou  be  here, 
My  Perigot!  Thy  Amoret,  thy  dear, 
CJls   on   thy  loved  name.    .    .   .   'Tis  thy 

friend, 

Thy  Amoret ;  come  hither,  to  give  end 
To  these  consumings.     Look  up,  gentle  boy, 
I  have  forgot  those  pains  and  dear  annoy 
I  suffer'd  for  thy  sake,  and  am  content 
To  be  thy  love  again.     Why  hast  thou  rent 
Those  curled  locks,  where  I  have  often  hung 
Ribbons,  and  damask-roses,  and  have  flung 
Waters  distill'd  to  make  thee  fresh  and  gay, 
Sweeter  than  nosegays  on  a  bridal  day  ? 
Why  dost  thou  cross  thine  arms,  and  hang 

thy  face 

Down  to  thy  bosom,  letting  fall  apace, 
from  those  two  little  Heav'ns,  upon  the 

ground, 
Show'rs  of  more  price,  more  orient,  and  more 

round, 
Than  those  that  hang  upon  the  moon's  pale 

brow? 
Cease  these  complainings,  shepherd!   I  am 

now 

The  same  I  ever  was,  as  kind  and  free, 
And  can  forgive  before  you  ask  of  me  : 
Indeed,  I  can  and  will."  * 

Who  could  resist  her  sweet  and  sad 
smile  ?  Still  deceived,  Perigot  wounds 
her  again ;  she  falls,  but  without  an- 
ger. 

"  So  this  work  hath  end! 

Farewell,  and  live!  be  constant  to  thy  friend 

That  loves  thee  next."  t 

A  nymph  cures  her,  and  at  last  Peri- 
got/disabused,  comes  and  throws  him- 
self on  his  knees  before  her.  She 
stretches  out  her  arms ;  in  spite  of  all 
that  he  had  done,  she  was  not  changed  : 

"  I  am  thy  love, 

Thy  Amoret,  for  evermore  thy  love  ! 
Strike   once   more  on  my  naked  breast,  I'll 

prove 
As  constant  still.    Oh,  could'st  thou  love  me 

yet, 

How  soon   could  I   my  former  griefs  for- 
get! "  I 

Such  are  the  touching  and  poetical 
figures  which  these  poets  introduce  in 
their  dramas,  or  in  connection  with 
their  dramas,  amidst  murders,-  assassi- 
nations, the  clash  of  swords,  the  howl 
of  slaughter,  striving  against  the  raging 
ITMI  who  adore  or  torment  them,  like 
them  carried  to  excess,  transported  by 
their  tenderness  as  the  others  by  their 
violence ;  it  is  a  complete  exposition, 

*  The  Faithful  Shepherdess,  iv. 

1  Ibid. 

\  Ibid.  v.  Compare,  as  an  illustration  of  the 
contrast  of  races,  the  Italian  pastorals,  Tasso's 
A  minta,  Guarini's  //  Pastor  fido,  etc. 


as  well  as  a  perfect  opposition  of  the 
feminine  instinct  ending  in  excessive 
self-abandonment,  and  of  masculine 
harshness  ending  in  murderous  infiexi 
bility.  Thus  built  up  and  thus  pro- 
vided, the  drama  of  the  age  was  en 
abled  to  bring  out  the  inner  depths  of 
man,  and  to  set  in  motion  the  most 
powerful  human  emotions ;  to  bring 
upon  the  stage  Hamlet  and  Lear, 
Ophelia  and  Cordelia,  the  death  of 
Desdemona  and  the  butcheries  of  Mac- 
beth. 


CHAPTER   III. 


WHEN  a  new  civilization  brings  a  new 
art  to  light,  there  are  about  a  dozen 
men  of  talent  who  partly  express  the 
general  idea,  surrounding  one  or  two 
men  of  genius  who  express  it  thorough- 
ly. Guillen  de  Castro,  Perez  de  Mon- 
talvan,  Tirzo  de  Molina,  Ruiz  de 
Alarcon,  Agustin  Moreto,  surrounding 
Calderon  and  Lope  de  Vega;  Grayer, 
Van  Oost,  Rombouts,  Van  Thulden, 
Van  Dyck,  Honthorst,  surrounding 
Rubens;  Ford,  Marlowe,  Massinger. 
Webster,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  sur- 
rounding Shakspeare  and  Ben  Jonson. 
The  first  constitute  the  chorus,  the 
others  are  the  leading  men.  They 
sing  the  same  piece  together,  and  at 
times  the  chorist  is  equal  to  the  solo 
artist ;  but  only  at  times.  Thus,  in  the 
dramas  which  I  have  just  referred  to, 
the  poet  occasionally  reaches  the  sum- 
mit of  his  art,  hits  upon  a  complete 
character,  a  burst  of  sublime  passion  ; 
then  he  falls  back,  gropes  amid  qualified 
successes,  rough  sketches,  feeble  im- 
itations, and  at  last  takes  refuge  in  the 
tricks  of  his  trade.  It  is  not  in  him, 
but  in  great  men  like  Ben  Jonson  and 
Shakspeare,  that  we  must  look  for  the 
attainment  of  his  idea  and  the  fulness 
of  his  art.  "  Numerous  were  the  wit- 
combats,"  says  Fuller,  "betwixt  him 
(Shakspeare)  and  Ben  Jonson,  which 
two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great 
galleon  and  an  English  man-of-war. 
Master  Jonson  (like  the  former)  was 
built  far  higher  in  learning  ;  solid,  but 
slow  in  his  performances.  Shak- 


CHAP.  III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


187 


speare,  with  the  English  man-of-war, 
jesser  in  bulk,  but  lighter  in  sailing, 
could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack  about  and 
take  advantage  of  all  winds  by  the  quick- 
ness of  his  wit  and  invention."  *  Such 
was  Ben  Jonson  physically  and  morally, 
and  his  portraits  do  but  confirm  this 
just  and  animated  outline  :  a  vigorous, 
heavy,  and  uncouth  person;  a  broad 
and  long  face,  early  disfigured  by 
scurvy,  a  square  jaw,  large  cheeks  ;  his 
animal  organs  as  much  developed  as 
those  of  his  intellect  :  the  sour  aspect 
of  a  man  in  a  passion  or  on  the  verge 
of  a  passion  ;  to  which  add  the  body 
of  an  athlete,  about  forty  years  of  age, 
"  mountain  belly,  ungracious  gait." 
Such  was  the  outside,  and  the  inside 
is  like  it.  He  was  a  genuine  English- 
man, big  and  coarsely  framed,  ener- 
getic, combative,  proud,  often  morose, 
and  prone  to  strange  splenetic  imag- 
inations. Pie  told  Drummond  that  for 
a  whole  night  he  imagined  "  that  he 
saw  the  Carthaginians  and  Romans 
fighting  on  his  great  toe."  t  Not  that 
he  is  melancholic  by  nature;  on  the 
contrary,  he  loves  to  escape  from  him- 
self by  free  and  noisy,  unbridled  merri- 
ment, by  copious  and  varied  converse, 
assisted  by  good  Canary  wine,  which 
he  imbibes,  and  which  ends  by  becom- 
ing a  necessity  to  him.  These  great 
phlegmatic  butchers'  frames  require  a 
generous  liquor  to  give  them  a  tone, 
and  to  supply  the  place  of  the  sun 
which  they  lack.  Expansive  more- 
over, hospitable,  even  lavish,  with  a 
frank  imprudent  spirit,  \  making  him 
forget  himself  wholly  before  Drum- 
mond, his  Scotch  host,  an  over  rigid 
and  malicious  pedant,  who  has  marred 
his  ideas  and  vilified  his  character. § 

*  Fuller's  Worthies,  ed.  Nuttall,  1840,  3 
rcrs.  iii.  284. 

(  There  is  a  similar  hallucination  to  be  met 
*rith  in  the  life  of  Lord  Castlereagh,  who  after- 
wards committed  suicide. 

%  His  character  lies  between  those  of  Field- 
ing and  Dr.  Johnson. 

§  Mr.  David  Laing  remarks,  however,  in 
Drummond's  defence,  that  as  "Jonson  died 
August  6,  1637,  Drummond  survived  till  De- 
cember 4,  1649,  and  no  portion  of  these  Notes 
(Conversations)  were  made  public  till  1711,  or 
sixty-two  years  after  Drummond's  death,  and 
seventy-four  after  Jonson's,  which  renders 
quite  nugatory  all  Gifford's  accusations  of 
Drummond's  having  published  them  '  without 
shame.'  As  to  Drummond  decoying  Jonson 
under  his  roof  with  any  premeditated  design  on 


What  we  know  of  his  life  is  in  har- 
mony with  his  person :  he  suffered 
much,  fought  much,  dared  much.  He 
was  studying  at  Cambridge,  when  his 
stepfather,  a  bricklayer,  recalled  him, 
and  taught  him  to  use  the  trowel.  He 
ran  away,  enlisted  as  a  common  soldier 
and  served  in  the  English  army,  at  that 
time  engaged  against  the  Spaniards  in 
the  Low  Countries,  killed  and  despoiled 
a  man  in  single  combat,  "  in  the  view 
of  both  armies."  He  was  a  man  of 
bodily  action,  and  he  exercised  his 
limbs  in  early  life.*  On  his  return  to 
England,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  he 
went  on  the  stage  for  his  livelihood,  and 
occupied  himself  also  in  touching  up 
dramas.  Having  been  challenged,  he 
fought  a  duel,  was  seriously  wounded, 
but  killed  his  adversary;  for  this  he 
was  cast  into  prison,  and  found  him- 
self "nigh  the  gallows."  A  Catholic 
priest  visited  and  converted  him ; 
quitting  his  prison  penniless,  at  twenty 
years  of  age,  he  married.  At  last,  four 
years  later,  his  first  successful  play  was 
acted.  Children  came,  he  must  earn 
bread  for  them ;  and  he  was  not  in- 
clined to  follow  the  beaten  track  to  the 
end,  being  persuaded  that  a  fine  philos- 
ophy— a  special  nobleness  and  dignity 
— ought  to  be  introduced  into  comedy, 
that  it  was  necessary  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  the  ancients,  to  imitate  their 
severity  and  their  accuracy,  to  be  above 
the  theatrical  racket  and  the  common 
improbabilities  in  which  the  vulgar  de- 
lighted. He  openly  proclaimed  his 
intention  in  his  prefaces,  sharply  railed 
at  his  rivals,  proudly  set  forth  on  the 
stage  t  his  doctrines,  his  morality,  his 
character.  He  thus  made  bitter  en- 
emies, who  defamed  him  outrageously 
and  before  their  audiences,  whom  he 
exasperated  by  the  violence  of  his 
satires,  and  against  whom  he  struggled 
without  intermission  to  the  end.  He 
did  more,  he  constituted  himself  a  judge 
of  the  public  corruption,  sharply  at- 
tacked the  reigning  vices,  "fearing  nj 
strumpet's  drugs,  nor  ruffian's  stab."  f 

his  reputation,  as  Mr.  Campbell  hasremarkedj 
no  one  can  seriously  believe  it." — Arckaolog* 
ica  Scotica,  vol.  iv.  page  243. — TR. 

*  At  the  age  of  forty-four  he  went  to  Scot- 
land on  foot. 

t  Parts  of  Crites  and  Asper. 

\  Every  Man  out  of  his  ffutnowt  i.  J  Gif  • 
ford's  Jonson,  p.  30. 


i88 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK 


II. 


He  treated  his  hearers  like  schoolboys, 
and  spoke  to  them  always  like  a  censor 
and  a  master.  If  necessary,  he  ventured 
further.  His  companions,  Marstonand 
Chapman,  had  been  committed  to  pris 
on  for  some  reflections  on  the  Scotch  in 
one  of  their  pieces  called  "  Eastward- 
Hoe  ;  "  and  the  report  spreading  that 
they  were  in  danger  of  losing  their  noses 
and  ears,  Jonson,  who  had  written  part 
of  the  piece,  voluntarily  surrendered 
himself  a  prisoner,  and  obtained  their 
pardon.  On  his  return,  amid  the  feast- 
ing and  rejoicing,  his  mother  showed 
him  a  violent  poison  which  she  intend- 
ed to  put  into  his  drink,  to  save  him 
from  the  execution  of  the  sentence  ;  and 
"to  show  that  she  was  not  a  coward," 
adds  Jonson,  "she  had  resolved  to 
drink  first."  We  see  that  in  vigorous 
actions  he  found  examples  in  his  own 
family.  Toward  the  end  of  his  life, 
money  was  scarce  with  him ;  he  was 
liberal,  improvident ;  his  pockets  always 
had  holes  in  them,  and  his  hand  was  al- 
ways ready  to  give;  though  he  had 
written  a  vast  quantity,  he  was  still 
obliged  to  write  in  order' to  live.  Paral- 
ysis came  on,  his  scurvy  became  worse, 
dropsy  set  in.  He  could  not  leave  his 
room,  nor  walk  without  assistance.  His 
last  plays  did  not  succeed.  In  the 
epilogue  to  the  New  Inn  he  says  : 

"  If  you  expect  more  than  you  had  to-night, 
The  maker  is  sick  and  sad.  .  .  . 
All  that  his  faint  and  falt'ring  tongue  doth 

crave, 

Is,  that  you  not  impute  it  to  his  brain, 
That's  yet    unhurt,  altho'   set    round  with 

pain, 
It  cannot  long  hold  out." 

His  enemies  brutally  insulted  him  : 

"  Thy  Pegasus  .  .  . 
He  had  bequeathed  his  belly  unto  thee, 
To  hold  that  little  learning  which  is  fled 
Into  thy  guts  from  out  thy  emptye  head." 

Inigo   Jones,   his   colleague,   deprived 
him  of  the  patronage  of  the  court.    He 
was  obliged  to  beg  a  supply  of  money 
from  the  Lord  Treasurer,  then  from  the 
Earl  of  Newcastle : 
*'  Disease,  the  enemy,  and  his  engineers, 
Want,  with  the  rest  of  his  concealed  com- 
peers, 
Have  cast   a  trench    about    me,  now    five 

years.  .  .  . 
The   muse   not  peeps  out,  one  of  hundred 

days  ; 

But  lies  blocked  up  and  straitened,  narrowed 
in, 


Fixed  to  the  bed  and  boards,  unlike  to  win 
Health,  or  scarce  breath,  as  she  had  nevel 
been."  * 

His  wife  and  children  were  dead  ;  he 
lived  alone,  forsaken,  waited  on  by  an 
old  woman.  Thus  almost  always  sadly 
and  miserably,  is  dragged  o-ut  and  ends 
the  last  act  of  the  human  comedy. 
After  so  many  years,  after  so  many 
sustained  efforts,  amid  so  much  glory 
and  genius,  we  find  a  poor  shattered 
body,  drivelling  and  suffering,  between 
a  servant  and  a  priest. 

II. 

This  is  the  life  of  a  combatant, 
bravely  endured,  worthy  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  by  its  crosses  and  its 
energy ;  courage  and  force  abounded 
throughout.  Few  writers  have  labored 
more,  and  more  conscientiously;  his 
knowledge  was  vast,  and  in  this  age  of 
eminent  scholars  he  was  one  of  the 
best  classics  of  his  time,  as  deep  as  he 
was  accurate  and  thorough,  having 
studied  the  most  minute  details  and 
understood  the  true  spirit  of  ancient 
life.  It  was  not  enough  for"  him  to 
have  stored  his  mind  from  the  best 
writers,  to  have  their  whole  works  con- 
tinually in  his  mind,  to  scatter  his  pages 
whether  he  would  or  no,  with  recollec- 
tions of  them.  He  dug  into  the  or- 
ators, critics,  scholiasts,  grammarians, 
and  compilers  of  inferior  rank ;  he 
picked  up  stray  fragments ;  he  took 
characters,  jokes,  refinements,  from 
Athenaeus,  Libanlas,  Philostratus.  He 
had  so  well  entered  into  and  digested 
the  Greek  and  Latin  ideas,  that  they 
were  incorporated  with  his  own.  They 
enter  into  his  speech  without  incon- 
gruity ;  they  spring  forth  in  him  as 
vigorous  as  at  their  first  birth  ;  he  orig- 
inates even  when  he  remembers.  On 
every  subject  he  had  this  thirst  fcr 
knowledge,  and  this  gift  of  masiering 
knowledge.  He  knew  alchemy  when 
he  wrote  the  Alchemist.  He  is  familiar 
with  alembics,  retorts,  receivers,  as  if 
he  had  passed  his  life  seeking  after  the 
philosopher's  stone.  He  explains  in- 
cineration, calcination,  imbibition,  rec- 
tification, reverberation,  as  well  as 
Agrippa  and  Paracelsus.  If  he  speaks 
*  Ben  Jonson's  Poems,  ed.  Bell,  An  Epistle 
Mendicant,  to  Richard,  Lord  Weston,  Lord 
High  Treasurer  (163 1),  p.  244. 


CHAP.  III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


189 


of  cosmetics,*  he  brings  out  a  shopful 
of  them ;  we  might  make  out  of  his 
plays  a  dictionary  of  the  oaths  and 
costumes  of  courtiers;  he  seems  to 
have  a  specialty  in  all  branches.  A 
still  greater  proof  of  his  force  is,  that 
his  learning  in  nowise  mars  his  vigor  ; 
heavy  as  is  the  mass  with  which  he 
loads  himself,  he  carries  it  without 
stooping.  This  wonderful  mass  of 
reading  and  observation  suddenly  be- 
gins to  move,  and  falls  like  a  mountain 
on  the  overwhelmed  reader.  We  must 
hear  Sir  Epicure  Mammon  unfold  the 
vision  of  splendors  and  debauchery,  in 
which  he  means  to  plunge,  when  he  has 
learned  to  make  gold.  The  refined 
and  unchecked  impurities  of  the  Roman 
decadence,  the  splendid  obscenities  of 
Heliogabalus,  the  gigantic  fancies  of 
luxury  and  lewdness,  tables  of  gold 
spread  with  foreign  dainties,  draughts 
of  dissolved  pearls,  nature  devastated 
to  provide  a  single  dish,  the  many 
crimes  committed  by  sensuality  against 
nature,  reason,  and  justice,  the  delight 
in  defying  and  outraging  law, — all  these 
images  pass  before  the  eyes  with  the 
dash  of  a  torrent  and  the  force  of  a 
great  river.  Phrase  follows  phrase 
without  intermission,  ideas  and  facts 
crowd  into  the  dialogue  to  paint  a  situa- 
tion, to  give  clearness  to  a  character, 
produced  from  this  deep  memory, 
directed  by  this  solid  logic,  launched 
by  this  powerful  reflection.  It  is  a 
pleasure  to  see  him  advance  weighted 
with  so  many  observations  and  recol- 
lections, loaded  with  technical  details 
and  learned  reminiscences,  without  de- 
viation or  pause,  a  genuine  literary 
Leviathan,  like  the  war  elephants  which 
used  to  bear  towers,  men,  weapons, 
machines,  on  their  backs,  and  ran  as 
swiftly  with  their  freight  as  a  nimble 
Bteed. 

In  the  great  dash  of  this  heavy  at- 
tempt, he  finds  a  path  which  suits  him. 
He  has  his  style.  Classical  erudition 
and  education  made  him  a  classic,  and 
he  writes  like  his  Greek  models  and 
his  Roman  masters.  The  more  we 
study  the  Latin  races  and  literatures  in 
contrast  with  the  Teutonic,  the  more 
fully  we  become  convinced  that  the 
proper  and  distinctive  gift  of  the  first 
is  the  art  of  development,  that  is,  of 

*  The  Devil  is  an  A  ss. 


drawing  up  ideas  in  continuous  rows, 
according  to  the  rules  of  rhetoric  and 
eloquence,  by  studied  transitions,  with 
regular  progress,  without  shock  or 
bounds.  Jonson  received  from  his  ac- 
quaintance with  the  ancients  the  habit 
of  decomposing  ideas,  unfolding  them 
bit  by  bit  in  natural  order,  making  him- 
self understood  and  believed.  From 
the  first  thought  to  the  final  conclusion, 
he  conducts  the  reader  by  a  continuous 
and  uniform  ascent.  The  track  never 
fails  with  him  as  with  Shakspeare.  He 
does  not  advance  like  the  rest  by  abrupt 
intuitions,  but  by  consecutive  deduc- 
tions ;  we  can  walk  with  him  without 
need  of  bounding,  and  we  are  con- 
tinually kept  upon  the  straight  path  : 
antithesis  of  words  unfolds  antithesis 
of  thoughts  ;  symmetrical  phrases  guide 
the  mind  through  difficult  ideas ;  they 
are  like  barriers  set  on  either  side  of 
the  road  to  prevent  our  falling  into  the 
ditch.  We  do  not  meet  on  our  way 
extraordinary,  sudden,  gorgeous  im- 
ages, which  might  dazzle  or  delay  us  ; 
we  travel  on,  enlightened  by  moderate 
and  sustained  metaphors.  Jonson  has 
all  the  methods  of  Latin  art;  even, 
when  he  wishes  it,  especially  on  Latin 
subjects,  he  has  the  last  and  most 
erudite,  the  brilliant  conciseness  of 
Seneca  and  Lucan,  the  squared,  equi- 
poised, filed  off  antithesis,  the  most 
happy  and  studied  artifices  of  oratori 
cal  architecture.*  Other  poets  are 
nearly  visionaries ;  Jonson  is  almost  a 
logician. 

Hence  his  talent,  his  successes,  and 
his  faults :  if  he  has  a  better  style  and 
better  plots  than  the  others,  he  is  not, 
like  them,  a  creator  of  souls.  He  is  toe 
much  of  a  theorist,  too  preoccupied  by 
rules.  His  argumentative  habits  spoil 
him  when  he  seeks  to  shape  and  motion 
complete  and  living  men.  No  one  is 
capable  of  fashioning  these  unless  he 
possesses,  like  Shakspeare,  the  imagin- 
ation of  a  seer.  The  human  being  is 
so  complex  that  the  logician  who  per- 
ceives his  different  elements  in  suc- 
cession can  hardly  study  them  all,  much 
less  gather  them  all  in  one  flash,  so  as 
to  produce  the  dramatic  response  or 
action  in  which  they  are  concentrated 
and  which  should  manifest  them.  To 
discover  such  actions  and  responses., 
*  Sejanusi  Catilina,  Passim. 


190 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


we  need  a  kind  of  inspiration  and  fever. 
Then  the  mind  works  as  in  a  dream. 
The  characters  move  within  the  poet, 
almost  involuntarily  :  he  waits  for  them 
to  speak,  he  remains  motionless,  hear- 
ing their  voices,  wholly  wrapt  in  con- 
templation, in  order  that  he  may  not 
disturb  the  inner  drama  which  they  are 
about  to  act  in  his  soul.  That  is  his 
artifice :  to  let  them  alone.  He  is 
q  ,ite  astonished  at  their  discourse ;  as 
he  observes  them,  he  forgets  that  it  is 
he  who  invents  them.  Their  mood, 
character,  education,  disposition  of 
mind,  situation,  attitude,  and  actions, 
form  within  him  so  well-connected  a 
whole,  and  so  readily  unite  into  pal- 
pable and  solid  beings,  that  he  dares 
not  attribute  to  his  reflection  or  reason- 
ing a  creation  so  vast  and  speedy. 
Beings  are  organized  in  him  as  in  na- 
ture, that  is,  of  themselves,  and  by  a 
force  which  the  combinations  of  his  art 
could  not  replace.*  Jonson  has  noth- 
ing wherewith  to  replace  it  but  these 
combinations  of  art.  He  chooses  a 
general  idea — cunning,  folly,  severity — 
and  makes  a  person  out  of  it.  This 
person  is  called  Crites,  Asper,  Sordido 
Deliro,  Pecunia,  Subtil,  and  the  trans- 
parent name  indicates  the  logical  pro- 
cess which  produced  it.  The  poet  took 
an  abstract  quality,  and  putting  to- 
gether all  the  actions  to  which  it  may 
give  rise,  trots  it  out  on  the  stage  in  a 
man's  dress.  His  characters,  like  those 
of  la  Bruyere  and  Theophrastus,  were 
hammered  out  of  solid  deductions. 
Now  it  is  a  vice  selected  from  the  cata- 
logue of  moral  philosophy,  sensuality 
thirsting  for  gold  :  this  perverse  double 
inclination  becomes  a  personage,  Sir 
Epicure  Mammon;  before  the  alche- 
mist, before  the  famulus,  before  his 
friend,  before  his  mistress,  in  public  or 
alone,  all  his  words  denote  a  greed  of 
pleasure  and  of  gold,  and  they  express 
nothing  more.t  Now  it  is  a  mania 
gathered  from  the  old  sophists,  a 
babbling  with  horror  of  noise ;  this 
jorm  of  mental  pathology  becomes  a 
personage,  Morose ;  the  poet  has  the 
air  of  a  doctor  who  has  undertaken  to 

*  Alfred  de  Musset,  preface  to  La  Coupe  et 
Us  Levres.  Plato  :  Ion. 

t  Compare  Sir  Epicure  Mammon  with  Baron 
Hulot  from  Balzac's  Causing  Bette.  Balzac, 
who  is  learned  like  Jonson,  creates  real  beings 
like  Shakspeare. 


record  exactly  all  the  desires  of  speech, 
all  the  necessities  of  silence,  and  to  re- 
cord nothing  else.  Now  he  picks  out 
a  ridicule,  an  affectation,  a  species  of 
folly,  from  the  manners  of  the  dandies 
and  the  courtiers;  a  mode  of  swearing, 
an  extravagant  style,  a  habit  of  gesticu- 
lating, or  any  other  oddity  contracted 
by  vanity  or  fashion.  The  hero  whom 
he  covers  with  these  eccentricities,  is 
overloaded  by  them.  He  disappears 
beneath  his  enormous  trappings  ;  he 
drags  them  about  with  him  everywhere; 
he  cannot  get  rid  of  them  for  an  in- 
stant. We  no  longer  see  the  man 
under  the  dress  ;  he  is  like  a  mannikin, 
oppressed  under  a  cloak,  too  heavy  for 
him.  Sometimes,  doubtless,  his  habits 
of  geometrical  construction  produce 
personages  almost  life-like.  Bobadil, 
the  grave  boaster ;  Captain  Tucca,  the 
begging  bully,  inventive  buffoon,  ridic- 
ulous talker ;  Amorphus  the  traveller, 
a  pedantic  doctor  of  good  manners, 
laden  with  eccentric  phrases,  create  as 
much  illusion  as  we  can  wish ;  but  it  is 
because  they  are  flitting  comicalities 
and  low  characters.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  a  poet  to  study  such  creatures ;  it  is 
enough  that  he  discovers  in  them  three 
or  four  leading  features  ;  it  is  of  little 
consequence  if  they  always  present 
themselves  with  the  same  attitudes ; 
they  produce  laughter,  like  the  Count- 
ess d1  Escarbagnas  or  any  of  the  Fdcheux 
in  Moliere  ;  we  want  nothing  else  of 
them.  On  the  contrary,  the  others 
weary  and  repel  us.  They  are  stage- 
masks,  not  living  figures.  Having  ac- 
quired a  fixed  expression,  they  persist 
to  the  end  of  the  piece  in  their  unvary- 
ing grimace  or  their  eternal  frown.  A 
man  is  not  an  abstract  passion.  He 
stamps  the  vices  and  virtues  which  he 
possesses  with  his  individual  maik. 
These  vices  and  virtues  receive,  on 
entering  into  him,  a  bent  and  form 
which  they  have  not  in  others.  No  cne 
is  unmixed  sensuality.  Take  a  thou- 
sand sensualists,  and  you  will  find  a 
thousand  different  modes  of  sensuality; 
for  there  are  a  thousand  paths,  a  thou- 
sand circumstances  and  degrees,  in 
sensuality.  If  Jonson  wanted  to  make 
Sir  Epicure  Mammon  a  real  being,  he 
should  have  given  him  the  kind  of  dis- 
position, the  species  of  education,  the 
manner  of  imagination,  which  produce 


CHAP.  III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


191 


sensuality.  When  we  wish  to  construct 
a  man,  we  must  dig  down  to  the  founda- 
tions of  mankind  ;  that  is,  we  must  de- 
fine to  ourselves  the  structure  of  his 
bodily  machine,  and  the  primitive  gait 
of  his  mind.  Jonson  has  not  dug 
sufficiently  deep,  and  his  constructions 
are  incomplete  ;  he  has  built  on  the 
surface,  and  he  has  built  but  a  single 
story.  He  was  not  acquainted  with  the 
whole  man,  and  he  ignored  man's 
basis  ;  he  put  on  the  stage  and  gave  a 
ic  presentation  of  moral  treatises,  frag- 
ments of  history,  scraps  of  satire ;  he 
did  not  stamp  new  beings  on  the  imag- 
ination of  mankind. 

He  possesses  all  other  gifts,  and  in 
particular  the  classical;  first  of  all,  the 
talent  for  composition.  For  the  first 
time  we  see  a  connected,  well-contrived 
plot,  a  complete  intrigue,  with  its  be- 
ginning, middle,  and  end ;  subordinate 
actions  well  arranged,  well  combined  ; 
an  interest  which  grows  and  never 
flags;  a  leading  truth  which  all  the 
events  tend  to  demonstrate ;  a  ruling 
idea  which  all  the  characters  unite  to 
illustrate  ;  in  short,  an  art  like  that 
which  Moliere  and  Racine  were  about 
to  apply  and  teach.  He  does  not,  like 
Shakspeare,  take  a  novel  from  Greene, 
a  chronicle  from  Holinshed,  a  life  from 
Plutarch,  such  as  they  are,  to  cut  them 
into  scenes,  irrespective  of  likelihood, 
indifferent  as  to  order  and  unity,  caring 
only  to  set  up  men,  at  times  wandering 
into  poetic  reveries,  at  need  finishing 
up  the  piece  abruptly  with  a  recognition 
or  a  butchery.  He  governs  himself 
and  his  characters;  he  wills  and  he 
knows  all  that  they  do,  and  all  that  he 
does.  But  beyond  his  habits  of  Latin 
regularity,  he  possesses  the  great  fac- 
ulty of  his  age  and  race, — the  senti- 
men<  of  nature  and  existence,  the  exact 
knowledge  of  precise  detail,  the  power 
in  frankly  and  boldly  handling  frank 
passions.  This  gift  is  not  wanting  in 
k;tj  writer  of  the  time ;  they  do  not 
fear  words  that  are  true,  shocking,  and 
striking  details  of  the  bedchamber  or 
medical  study  ;  the  prudery  of  modern 
England  and  the  refinement  of  mon- 
archical France  veil  not  the  nudity  of 
their  figures,  or  dim  the  coloring  of 
their  pictures.  They  live  freely,  amply, 
amidst  living  thing; ;  they  see  the  ins 
and  outs  of  lust  raging  without  any 


feeling  of  shame,  hypocrisy,  or  pallia 
tion  ;  and  they  exhibit  it  as  they  see  it, 
Jonson  as  boldly  as  the  rest,  occasion- 
ally more  boldly  than  the  rest,  strength- 
ened as  he  is  by  the  vigor  and  rugged- 
ness  of  his  athletic  temperament,  by  the 
extraordinary  exactness  and  abundance 
of  his  observations  and  his  knowledge. 
Add  also  his  moral  loftiness,  his  as- 
perity, his  powerful  chiding  wrath,  exas- 
perated and  bitter  against  vice,  his  will 
strengthened  by  pride  and  by  con 
science : 

"  With  an  armed  and  resolved  hand, 
I'll  strip  the  ragged  follies  of  the  time 
Naked  as  at  their  birth  .  .  .  and  with  a  whip 

of  steel, 

Print  wounding  lashes  in  their  iron  ribs. 
I  fear  no  mood  stampt  in  a  private  brow, 
When  I  am  pleas'd  t'  unmask  a  public  vice. 
I  fear  no  strumpet's  drugs,  nor  ruffian's  stab, 
Should  I  detect  their  hateful  luxuries  ; "  * 

above  all,  a  scorn  of  base  compliance, 
an  open  disdain  for 

"  Those  jaded  wits 
That  run  a  broken  pace  for  common  hire," — f 

an  enthusiasm,  or  deep  love  of 

"  A  happy  muse, 

Borne  on  the  wings  of  her  immortal  thought, 
That  kicks  at  earth  with  a  disdainful  heel, 
And  beats  at  heaven  gates  with   her  bright 
hoofs."  % 

Such  are  the  energies  which  he  brought 
to  the  drama  and  to  comedy ;  they 
were  great  enough  to  ensure  him  a  high 
and  separate  position. 

III. 

For  whatever  Jonson  undertakes, 
whatever  be  his  faults,  haughtiness, 
rough-handling,  predilection  for  mo- 
rality and  the  past,  antiquarian  and 
censorious  instincts,  he  is  never  little 
or  dull.  It  signifies  nothing  that  in  his 
Latinized  tragedies,  Sejanus,  Catiline, 
he  is  fettered  by  the  worship  of  the  old 
worn  models  of  the  Roman  decadence ; 
nothing  that  he  plays  the  scholar,  manu- 
factures Ciceronian  harangues,  hauls  in 
choruses  imitated  from  Seneca,  holds 
forth  in  the  style  of  Lucan  and  the 
rhetors  of  the  empire  ;  he  more  than 
once  attains  a  genuine  accent ;  through 
his  pedantry,  heaviness,  literary  adora- 
tion of  the  ancients,  nature  forces  it3 

*  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  Prologue 
t  Poetaster,  i.  i.  I  Ibid. 


I92 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


way ;  he  lights,  at  his  first  attempt,  on 
the  crudities,  horrors,  gigantic  lewd- 
ness,  shameless  depravity  of  imperial 
Rome ;  he  takes  in  hand  and  sets  in 
motion  the  lusts  and  ferocities,  the 
passions  of  courtesans  and  princesses, 
the  daring  of  assassins  and  of  great 
men,  which  produced  Messalina,  Agrip- 
pina,  Catiline,  Tiberius.*  In  the  Rome 
which  he  places  before  us  we  go  boldly 
and  straight  to  the  end ;  justice  and 
pity  oppose  no  barriers.  Amid  these 
customs  of  victors  and  slaves,  human 
nature  is  upset ;  corruption  and  villany 
are  held  as  proofs  of  insight  and  energy. 
Observe  how,  in  Sejamis,  assassination 
is  plotted  and  carried  out  with  marvel- 
lous coolness.  Livia  discusses  with 
Sejanus  the  methods  of  poisoning  her 
husband,  in  a  clear  style,  without  cir- 
cumlocution, as  if  the  subject  were  how 
to  gain  a  lawsuit  or  to  serve  up  a 
dinner.  There  are  no  equivocations, 
no  hesitation,  no  remorse  in  the  Rome 
of  Tiberius.  Glory  and  virtue  consist 
in  power ;  scruples  are  for  base  minds  ; 
the  mark  of  a  lofty  heart  is  to  desire  all 
and  to  dare  all.  Macro  says  rightly : 

*'  Men's  fortune  there  is  virtue  ;  reason  their 

will; 
Their  license,  law ;   and  their  observance, 

skill. 
Occasion    is    their   foil ;    conscience,    their 

stain  ; 
Profit,  their  lustre  ;  and  what  else  is,  vain."  f 

Sejanus  addresses  Livia  thus  : 

"  Royal  lady,  .  .  . 
Yet,    now    I    see     your   wisdom,    judgment, 

strength, 

Quickness,  and  will,  to  apprehend  the  means 
To  your  own  good  and  greatness,  I  protest 
Myself  through  rarified,  and  turn'd  all  flame 
In  your  affection."  J 

These  are  the  loves  of  the  wolf  and 
his  mate  ;  he  praises  her  for  being  so 
ready  to  kill.  And  observe  in  one 
moment  the  morals  of  a  prostitute 
appear  behind  the  manners  of  the 
poisoner.  Sejanus  goes  out,  and  im- 
mediately, like  a  courtesan,  Livia  turns 
to  her  physician,  saying  : 

"  How  do  I  look  to-day? 

Eudemus.      Excellent   clear,    believe    it. 

This  same  fucus 
Was  well  laid  on. 


*  See  the  second  Act  of  Catiline. 

t  The  Fall  of  Sejanus,  iii.  last  Scene. 

\  Ibid.  ii. 


Livia..  Methinks  'tis  here  not  whitCi 

E.     Lend  me  your  scarlet,  lady.    'Tis  the 

sun 

Rath  giv'n  some  little  taint  unto  the  ceruse, 
You  should  have  us'd  of  the  white  oil  I  gave 

you. 

Sejanus,  for  your  love  !     His  very  name 
Commandeth  above  Cupid  or  his  shafts.  .  .  . 
[Paints  her  cheeks. "\ 
"  'Tis  now  well,  lady,  you  should 
Use  of  the  dentifrice  I  prescrib  d  you  too, 
To  clear  your  teeth,  and  the  prepar'd  poma- 
tum, 

To  smooth  the  skin.     A  lady  cannot  be 
Too  curious  of  her  form,  that  still  would  hold 
The  heart  of  such  a  person,  made  her  cap- 
tive, 

A.S  you  have  his :  who,  to  endear  him  more 
In  your  clear  eye,  hath  put  away  his  wife  .    . 
Fair  Apicata,  and  made  spacious  room 
To  your  new  pleasures. 

L.  Have  not  we  return* d 

That  with  our  hate  to  Drusus,  and  discovery 
Of  all  his  counsels  ?  .  .  . 
E.     When  will  you    take    some  physic, 

lady? 

L.  When 

I  shall,  Eudemus :  but  let  Drusus'  drug 
Be  first  prepar'd. 

E.     Were  Lygdus  made,  that's  done.  .  .  . 
I'll  send  you  a  perfume,  first  to  resolve 
And  procure  sweat,  and  then  prepare  a  bath 
To  cleanse  and  clear  the  cutis  ;  against  when 
I'll  have  an  excellent  new  fucus  made 
Resistive  'gainst  the  sun,  the  rain  or  wind^ 
Which  you  shall  lay  on  with  a  breath  or  oil, 
As  you  best  like,   and  last  some  fourteen 

hours. 

This  change  came  timely,    lady,   for  your 
health/'  * 

He  ends  by  congratulating  her  on  her 
approaching  change  of  husbands  ;  Dru- 
sus was  injuring  her  complexion  ;  Seja- 
nus is  far  preferable;  a  physiological 
and  practical  conclusion.  The  Roman 
apothecary  kept  on  the  same  shelf  his 
medicine-chest,  his  chest  of  cosmetics, 
and  his  box  of  poisons. t 

After  this  we  find  one  after  another 
all  the  scenes  of  Roman  life  unfolded, 
the  bargain  of  murder,  the  comedy  of 
justice,  the  shamelessness  of  flattery, 
the  anguish  and  vacillation  of  the  sen- 
ate. When  Sejanus  wishes  to  buy  a 
conscience,  he  questions,  jokes,  plays 
round  the  offer  he  is  abouk  to  make, 
throws  it  out  as  if  in  pleasantry,  so  as 
to  be  able  to  withdraw  it,  if  need  be ; 
then,  when  the  intelligent  look  of  the 
rascal,  whom  he  is  trafficking  with, 
shows  that  he  is  understood  : 

*  Ibid. 

t  See  Catiline,  Act  ii . ;  a  very  fine  scene,  no 
less  plain  spoken  and  animated  'on  the  dissipa- 
tion of  the  higher  ranks  in  Rcir«e. 


CHAP.  III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


'*  Protest  not, 

Thy  looks  are  vows  to  me.  .  . 
Thou  art  a  man,  made  to  make  consuls.  Go."* 

Elsewhere,  the  senator  Latiaris  in  his 
own  house  storms  before  his  friend 
Sabinus,  against  tyranny,  openly  ex- 
presses a  desire  for  liberty,  provoking 
him  to  speak.  Then  two  spies  who 
were  hid  "  between  the  roof  and  ceil- 
ing," cast  themselves  on  Sabinus,  cry- 
ing, "  Treason  to  Caesar  !  "  and  drag 
him,  with  his  face  covered,  before  the 
tribunal,  thence  to  "  be  thrown  upon 
the  Gemonies."  t  So  when  the  senate 
is  assembled,  Tiberius  has  chosen  be- 
forehand the  accusers  of  Silius,  and 
their  parts  distributed  to  them.  They 
mumble  in  a  corner,  whilst  aloud  is 
heard,  in  the  emperor's  presence  : 

"  Cassar, 

Live  long  and  happy,  great  and  royal  Cassar; 
The  gods  preserve  thee  and  thy  modesty, 
Thy  wisdom  and  thy  innocence.  .  .  . 

Guard 

His  meekness,  Jove,  his  piety,  his  care, 
His  bounty."  % 

Then  the  herald  cites  the  accused ; 
Varro,  the  consul,  pronounces  the  in- 
dictment; Afer  hurls  upon  them  his 
bloodthirsty  eloquence:  the  senators 
get  excited  ;  we  see  laid  bare,  as  in 
Tacitus  and  Juvenal,  the  depths  of 
Roman  servility,  hypocrisy,  insensi- 
bility, the  venomous  craft  «>f  Tiberius. 
At  last,  after  so  many  others,  the  turn 
of  Sejanus  comes.  The  fathers  anx- 
iously assemble  in  the  temple  of  Apollo; 
for  some  days  past  Tiberius  has  seemed 
to  be  trying  to  contradict  himself  ;  one 
day  he  appoints  the  friends  of  his  fa- 
vorite to  high  places,  and  the  next  day 
sets  his  enemies  in  eminent  positions. 
The  senators  mark  the  face  of  Sejanus, 
and  know  not  what  to  anticipate  ; 
Sejanus  is  troubled,  then  after  a  mo- 
ment's cringing  is  more  arrogant  than 
ever.  The  plots  are  confused,  the 
rumors  contradictory.  Macro  alone  is 
in  the  confidence  of  Tiberius,  and 
soldiers  are  seen  drawn  up  at  the 
porch  of  the  temple,  ready  to  enter  at 
the  slightest  commotion.  'The  formula 
of  convocation  is  read,  and  the  council 
marks  the  names  of  those  who  do  not 
respond  to  the  summons  ;  then  Regu- 
lus  addresses  them,  and  announces 
that  Caesar 

*  The  Fall  of  Sejanus,  i.  f  Ibid.  iv. 

I  Ibid.  iii. 


"  Propounds  to  this  grave  senate,  the  bestow- 
ing 

Upon  the  man  he  loves,  honour'd  Sejanus, 
The  tribunitial  dignity  and  power : 
Here  are  his  letters,  signed  with  his  signet. 
What    pleaseth    now    the    Fathers    to   be 

done  ?  " 

"  Senators.    Read,  read  them,  open,  pub- 
licly read  them. 

Cotta.  Caesar  hath  honour'd  his  own  great- 
ness much 
In  thinking  of  this  act. 

Trio.  It  was  a  thought 

Happy,  and  worthy  Cassar. 

Latiaris.  And  the  lord 

As  worthy  it,  on  whom  it  is  directed  I 
Hater  ius.     Most  worthy ! 
Sanquinms.     Rome  did  never  boast  the 

virtue 

That  could  give   envy  bounds,  but  his  :  Se- 
janus— 

\st  Sen.     Honour'd  and  noble  ! 
zd Sen.     Good  and  great  Sejanus! 
Prcecones.     Silence  !  "  * 

Tiberius'  letter  is  read.  First,  long 
obscure  and  vague  phrases,  mingled 
with  indirect  protestations  and  accusa- 
tions, foreboding  something  and  reveal- 
ing nothing.  Suddenly  comes  an  in- 
sinuation against  Sejanus.  The  fathers 
are  alarmed,  but  the  next  line  reassures 
them.  A  word  or  two  further  on,  the 
same  insinuation  is  repeated  with 
greater  exactness.  "  Some  there  be 
that  would  interpret  this  his  public 
severity  to  be  particular  ambition  ;  and 
that,  under  a  pretext  of  service  to  us, 
he  doth  but  remove  his  own  lets :  al- 
leging the  strengths  he  hath  made  to 
himself,  by  the  praetorian  soldiers,  by 
his  faction  in  court  and  senate,  by  the 
offices  he  holds  himself,  and  confers 
on  others,  his  popularity  and  depend- 
ents, his  urging  (and  almost  driving) 
us  to  this  our  unwilling  retirement,  and 
lastly,  his  aspiring  to  be  our  son-in- 
law."  The  fathers  rise:  "This  is 
strange !  "  Their  eager  eyes  are  fixed 
on  the  letter,  on  Sejanus,  who  per- 
spires and  grows  pale;  their  thoughts 
are  busy  with  conjectures,  and  the 
words  of  the  letter  fall  one  by  one, 
amidst  a  sepulchral  silence,  caught  up 
as  they  fall  with  all  devouring  and 
attentive  eagernejss.  The  senators 
anxiously  weigh  the  value  of  these 
shifty  expressions,  fearing  to  com- 
promise themselves  with  the  favorite 
or  with  the  prince,  all  feeling  that  they 
must  understand,  if  they  value  their 
lives. 

*  Ibid.  v. 
9 


194 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


"  '  Ymfr  wisdoms,  conscript  fathers,  are 
able  to  examine,  and  censure  these  sugges- 
tions. But,  were  they  left  to  our  absolving 
voice,  we  durst  prono^^nce  them,  as  we  think 
them,  most  malicious.1 

Senator.  O,  he  has  restor'd  all ;  list. 

Prtzco.  '  Yet  are  they  offered  to  be  averred, 
and  on  the  lives  of  the  ityformers?  "  * 

At  this  word  the  letter  becomes 
menacing.  Those  next  Sejanus  forsake 
him.  "  Sit  farther.  .  .  .  Let's  remove  ! " 
The  heavy  Sanquinius  leaps  panting 
ever  the  benches.  The  soldiers  come 
in  ;  then  Macro.  And  now,  at  last,  the 
.etter  orders  the  arrest  of  Sejanus. 

"  Regulus.  Take  him  hence  ; 
And  all  the  gods  guard  Cassar  I 
Trio.  Take  him  hence. 
Haterius.  Hence. 
Cotta.  To  the  dungeon  with  him. 
Sanquinius.  He  deserves  it. 
Senator.  Crown  all  our  doors  with  bays. 
San*  And  let  an  ox, 

With    gilded    horns    and    garlands, 
Straight  be  led  unto  the  Capitol, 
Hat.  And  sacrific'd 

To  Jove,  for  Csesar's  safety. 
Tri.  All  our  gods 

Be  present  still  to  Caesar  !  .  .    . 
Cot.    Let  all  the  traitor's  titles  be  defac'd. 
Tri.   His  images  and  statues  be   pull'd 

down.  .  .  . 

Sen.   Liberty,  liberty,  liberty  !     Lead  on, 
And  praise  to  Macro  that  hath  saved 
Rome ! "  * 

It  is  the  baying  of  a  furious  pack  of 
hounds,  let  loose  at  last  on  him,  under 
whose  hand  they  had  crouched,  and 
who  had  for  a  long  time  beaten  and 
bruised  them.  Jonson  discovered  in 
his  own  energetic  soul  the  energy  of 
these  Roman  passions  ;  and  the  clear- 
ness of  his  mind,  added  to  his  profound 
knowledge,  powerless  to  construct 
characters,  furnished  him  with  general 
ideas  and  striking  incidents,  which 
suffice  to  depict  manners. 

IV. 

Moreover,  it  was  to  this  that  he 
turned  his  talent.  Nearly  all-  his  work 
consists  of  comedies,  not  sentimental 
inrj  fanciful  as  Shakspeare's,  but  imi- 
tatwe  and  satirical,  written  to  repre- 
sent and  correct  follies  and  vices.  He 
introducer  a  new  model ;  he  had  a 
doctrine ;  his  masters  were  Terence 
and  Plautus.  He  observes  the  unity  of 
time  and  place,  almost  exactly.  He 
ridicules  the  authors  who,  in  the  same 
play, 

*  The  Fall  of  Sejanus,  v. 


<c  Make  a  child  nowswadd  ed^  to  proceed 
Man,  and  then  shoot  up,  in  one  beard  and 

weed, 
Past  threescore  years  ;  or,  with  three  rusty 

swords, 
And  help  of    some  few  foot  and  half-foot 

words, 
Fight    over    York    and     Lancaster's    long 

jars.  . 
He    rather   prays   you  will  be    pleas'd  tc 

see."  * 

He  wishes  to  represent  on  the  stage 

"  One  such  to-day,  as  other  plays  shou'd  be  ; 
Where  neither  chorus  wafts  you  o'er  the 

seas, 
Nor  creaking  throne  comes  down  the  boys 

to  please : 

Nor  nimble  squib  is  seen  to  make  afeard 
The  gentlewomen.  .  .  . 
But  deeds,  and  language,  such  as  men  do 

use.  .  .  . 
You,  that  have  so  grac'd  monsters,  may  like 

men."  t 

Men,  as  we  see  them  in  the  streets 
with  their  whims  and  humors — 

*'  When  some  one  peculiar  quality 
Doth  so  possess  a  man,  that  it  doth  draw 
All  his  affects,  his  spirits,  and  his  powers 
In  their  confluctions,  all  to  run  one  way, 
This  may  be  truly  said  to  be  a  humour."  % 

It  is  these  humors  which  he  exposes  to 
the  light,  not  with  the  artist's  curi- 
osity, but  with  the  moralist's  hate  : 

"  I  will  scourge  those  apes, 
And  to  these  courteous  eyes  oppose  a  mirror, 
As  large  as  is  the  stage  whereon  we  act ; 
Where  they  shall  see  the  time's  deformity 
Anatomized  in  every  nerve,  and  sinew, 
With     constant     courage,    and     contempt    of 
fear.  .  .  . 

My  strict  hand 

Was  made  to  seize  on  vice,  and  with  a  gripe 
Squeeze  out  the  humour  of  such  spongy  souls, 
As  lick  up  every  idle  vanity."  § 

Doubtless  a  determination  so  strong 
and  decided  does  violence  to  the  dra- 
matic spirit.  Jonson's  comedies  are 
not  rarely  harsh  ;  his  characters  are 
too  grotesque,  laboriously  constructed, 
mere  automatons  ;  the  poet  thouglit 
less  of  producing  In  ing  beings  than  of 
scotching  a  vice ;  the  scenes  get  ar- 
ranged, or  are  confused  together  in  a 
mechanical  manner ;  we  see  the  pro- 
cess, we  feel  the  satirical  intention 
throughout ;  delicate  and  easy-flowing 
imitation  is  absent,  as  well  as  the  grace- 
ful fancy  which  abounds  in  Shakspeare. 
But  if  Jonson  comes  across  harsh  pas- 

*  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  Prologue. 

t  Ibid.  %  Ibid. 

§  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  Prologue. 


CHAP.  III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


sions,  visibly  evil  and  vile,  he  will 
derive  from  his  energy  and  wrath  the 
talent  to  render  them  odious  and  visi- 
ble, and  will  produce  a  Volpone^  a  sub- 
Jime  work,  the  sharpest  picture  of  the 
manners  of  the  age,  in  which  is  dis- 
played the  full  brightness  of  evil  lusts, 
in  which  lewdness,  cruelty,  love  of  gold, 
shamelessness  of  vice,  display  a  sinis- 
ter yet  splendid  poetry,  worthy  of  one 
of  Titian's  bacchanals.*  All  this  makes 
itself  apparent  in  the  first  scene,  when 
Volpone  says  : 

*  Good  morning  to  the  day ;  and  next,   my 

'  gold! 

Open  the  shrine,  that  I  may  see  my  saint. " 

This  saint  is  his  piles  of  gold,  jew- 
els, precious  plate: 

"  Hail  the  world's  soul,  and  mine  !    .  .   .  O 

them  son  of  Sol, 

But  brighter  than  thy  father,  let  me  kiss, 
With  adoration,  thee,  and  every  relick 
Of  sacred  treasure  in  this  blessed  room."  f 

Presently  after,  the  dwarf,  the  eunuch, 
and  the  hermaphrodite  of  the  house 
sing  a  sort  of  pagan  and  fantastic  inter- 
lude ;  they  chant  in  strange  verses  the 
metamorphoses  of  the  hermaphrodite, 
who  was  first  the  soul  of  Pythagoras. 
We  are  at  Venice,  in  the  palace  of  the 
magnifico  Volpone.  These  deformed 
creatures,  the  splendor  of  gold,  this 
strange  and  poetical  buffoonery,  carry 
the  thought  immediately  to  the  sensual 
city,  queen  of  vices  and  of  arts. 

The  rich  Volpone  lives  like  an  an- 
cient Greek  or  Roman.  Childless  and 
without  relatives,  playing  the  invalid, 
he  makes  all  his  flatterers  hope  to  be 
his  heir,  receives  their  gifts, 

"  Letting  the  cherry  knock  against  their  lips, 
And  draw  it  by  their   mouths,   and    back 
again."  %. 

Glad  to  have  their  gold,  but  still  more 
glad  to  deceive  them,  artistic  in  wick- 
edness as  in  avarice,  and  just  as  pleased 
tz  look  at  a  contortion  of  suffering  as 
at  the  sparkle  of  a  ruby. 

The  advocate  Voltore  arrives,  bear- 
ing a  "  huge  piece  of  plate."  Volpone 
throws  himself  on  his  bed,  wraps  him- 
self in  furs,  heaps  up  his  pillows,  and 
coughs  as  if  at  the  point  of  death  : 

*  Compare  Volpone  with  Regnard's  Ltga- 
taire  ',  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  with  the  begin- 
ning of  the  eighteenth  century. 

t  Volpone,  i.  i. 


"  Volpone.  I  thank  you,  signior  Voltore, 
Where  is  the  plate  ?  mine  eyes  are  bad.  .  .  . 

Your  love 
Hath  taste  in  this,  and  shall  not  be  unan- 

swer'd  .  .  . 

I  cannot  now  last  long.  .  .  I  feel  me  going,—- 
Uh,  uh,  uh,  uh  I  »  * 

He  closes  his  eyes,  as  though  exhaust- 
ed : 

"  Voltore.  Am  I  inscrib'd  his  heir  for  certain 

Mo  sea  (Volpone1  s  Parasite}.  Are  /<  v 

I  do  beseech  you,  sir,  you  will  vouchsafe 
To  write  me  in  your  famij  y.     All  my  hopes 
Depend  upon  your  worship :  I  am  lost, 
Except  the  rising  sun  do  shine  on  me. 

Volt.  It  shall  both  shine  and  warm  thee. 
Mosca. 

M.  Sir, 

I  am  man,  that  hath  not  done  your  love 
All  the  worst  offices  :  here  I  wear  your  keys, 
See  all  your  coffers  and  your  caskets  lock'd, 
Keep  the  poor  inventory  of  your  jewels, 
Your  plate  and  monies  ;  am  your  steward,  sir, 
Husband  your  goods  here. 

Volt.  But  am  I  sole  heir  ? 

M.  Without  a  partner,  sir;  confirm' d  this 

morning: 

The  wax  is  warm  yet,  and  the  ink  scarce  dry 
Upon  the  parchment. 

Volt.  Happy,  happy,  me  1 

By  what  good  chance,  sweet  Mosca  ? 

M.  Your  desert,  sir  J 

I  know  no  second  cause,"  t 

And  he  details  the  abundance  of  the 
wealth  in  which  Voltore  is  about  to 
revel,  the  gold  which  is  to  pour  upon 
him,  the  opulence  which  is  to  flow  in 
his  house  as  a  river : 

"  When  will  you  have  your  inventoiy  brought, 

sir? 
Or  see  a  copy  of  the  will  ?  " 

The  imagination  is  fed  with  precise 
words,  precise  details.  Thus,  one  af- 
ter another,  the  would-be  heirs  come 
like  beasts  of  prey.  The  second  who 
arrives  is  an  old  miser,  Corbaccio, 
deaf,  "  impotent,"  almost  dying,  who 
nevertheless  hopes  to  survive  Volpone. 
To  make  more  sure  of  it,  he  would 
fain  have  Mosca  give  his  master  a  nar- 
cotic. He  has  it  about  him,  this  ex- 
cellent opiate  :  he  has  had  it  prepared 
under  his  own  eyes,  he  suggests  it. 
His  joy  on  finding  Volpone  more  ill 
than  himself  is  bitterly  humorous  : 

"  Corbaccio.  How  does  your  patron  ?  .  .  . 

Mosca.  His  mouth 

Is  ever  gaping,  and  his  eyelids  hang. 

C.  Good. 

M.  A  freezing   numbness    stiffens    all    his 
joints, 


*  Ibid.  i.  3. 


t  Ibid. 


196 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK 


And  makes  the  colour  of  his  flesh  like  lead. 

C.  'Tisgood. 

M.  His  pulse  beats  slow,  and  dull. 

C.  Good  symptoms  still. 

M*  And  from  his  brain — 

C.  I  conceive  you  ;  good. 

M.  Flows   a  cold  sweat,   with  a-  continual 

rheum, 
Forth  the  resolved  corners  of  his  eyes. 

C.  Is't  possible?     Yet  I  am  better,  ha! 
How  does  he,  with  the  swimming  of  his  head  ? 

M    3,  sir,  'tis  past  the  scotomy  ;  he  now 
Ilaih  /ost  his  feeling,  and  hath  left  to  snort : 
V'ou  hardly  can  perceive  him,  that  he  breathes. 

C.  Excellent,  excellent !    sure  I  shall  out- 
last him : 

This    makes    me     young    again,    a    score    of 
years."  * 

If  you  would  be  his  heir,  says  Mosca, 
the  moment  is  favorable  ;  but  you  must 
not  let  yourself  be  forestalled.  Vol- 
tore  has  been  here,  and  presented  him 
with  this  piece  of  plate  : 


'  C. 


See,  Mosca,  look, 


Here,    I  have  brought  a  bag  of  bright  che- 
quines, 

Will  quite  weigh  down  his  plate.  .  .  . 
M.  Now,  would  I  counsel  you,  make  home 
with  speed  ; 

There,  frame  a  will  ;  whereto  you  shall  inscribe 

My  master  your  sole  heir.  .  .  . 
C.  This  plot 

Did  I  think  on  before.  .  .  . 
M.  And  you  so  certain  to  survive  him  — 
C.  Ay. 

M.  Being  so  lusty  a  man  — 
C.  'Tis  true."  t 

And  the  old  man  hobbles  away,  not 
hearing  the  insults  and  ridicule  thrown 
at  him,  he  is  so  deaf. 

When  he  is  gone  the  merchant  Cor- 
vino  arrives,  bringing  an  orient  pearl 


and  a  splendid  diamond  : 

orvino.  A 
rosca.   Sir, 
the  will 


Corvino.  Am  I  his  heir? 

Sir,   I  am  sworn,    I    may  not  show 


All  gaping  here  for  legacies :  but  I, 
Taking  the  vantage  of  his  naming  you, 
Signior  Corvino,  Senior  Corvino,  took 
Paper,  and  pen,  and  ink,  and  there  I  asked 

him, 
Whom   he   would  have   his  heir?      Corvino. 

Who 

Should  be  executor?     Corvino.     And, 
To  any  question  he  was  silent  to, 
I  still  interpreted  the  nods  he  made, 
Through    weakness,    for    consent:    and    sent 

home  th' others, 
Nothing   bequeikth'd    them,   but    to    cry   and 

curse. 


Cor.  O  my  dear  Mosca ! 
dren  ? 


Has  he  chil- 


*  Volpone,  i.  4. 


t  Ibid. 


11 


M.  Bastards, 
Some  dozen,  or  more,  that  he  begot  on  beg- 
gars, 

Gypsies,  and  Jews,  and  blacV-moors,  when  ha 
was  drunk.  .  .  . 

Speak  out : 

You  may  be  louder  yet.  .  <.  » 
Faith,  I  could  stifle  hi  /n  rarely  with  a  pillow, 
As  well  as  any  woman  that  should  keep  him. 
C.  Do  as  you  will ;  but  I'll  begone."  * 

Corvino  presently  departs ;  for  the 
passions  of  the  time  have  all  the 
beauty  of  frankness.  And  Volpone, 
casting  aside  his  sick  man's  garb,  cries  : 

"  My  divine  Mosca  I 

Thou  hast  to-day  out  gone  thyself.  .  .  .  Pre- 
pare 

Me  music,  dances,  banquets,  all  delights  ; 
The  Turk  is  not  more  sensual  in  his  pleasures, 
Than  will  Volpone."  t 

On  this  invitation,  Mosca  draws  a 
most  voluptuous  portrait  of  Corvino's 
wife,  Celia.  Smitten  with  a  sudden 
desire,  Volpone  dresses  himself  as  a 
mountebank,  and  goes  singing  under 
her  windows  with  all  the  sprightliness 
of  a  quack ;  for  he  is  naturally  a 
comedian,  like  a  true  Italian,  of  the 
same  family  as  Scaramouch,  as  good  an 
actor  in  the  public  square  as  in  his 
house.  Having  once  seen  Celia,  he 
resolves  to  obtain  her  at  any  price  : 

"  Mosca,  take  my  keys, 

Gold,  plate,  and  jewels,  all's  at  thy  devot'on  ; 
Employ  them   how  thou  wilt ;  nay,  coin  me 

too: 
So    thou,   in    this,   but    crown    my  longings, 

Mosca-"  J 

Mosca  then  tells  Corvino  that  some 
quack's  oil  has  cured  his  master,  and 
that  they  are  looking  for  a  "  young 
woman,  lusty  and  full  of  juice,"  to 
complete  the  cure : 

"  Have  you  no  kinswoman  ? 
Odso — Think,  think,  think,  think,  think,    .ink, 

think,  sir. 
One  o'  the  doctors  offer'd  there  his  daughter. 

Corvino.   H  ow ! 

Mosca.        Yes,  signior  Lupo,  the  physician. 

C.  His  daughter! 

M.  And  a  virgin,  sir.  .  .  . 

C.  Wretch! 

Covetous  wretch."  § 

Though  unreasonably  jealous,  Cor- 
vino is  gradually  induced  to  offer  his 
wife.  He  has  given  too  much  already, 
and  would  not  lose  his  advantage.  He 
is  like  a  half-ruined  gamester,  who  with 
a  shaking  hand  throws  on  the  green 

*  Volpone,  \.  5.  t  Ibid.        \  Ibid.  ii.  a. 


CHAP.  III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


'97 


cloth  the  remainder  of  his  fortune. 
He  brings  the  poor,  sweet  woman, 
weeping  and  resisting.  Excited  by  his 
own  hidden  pangs,  he  becomes  furious  : 

"  Be  daran'd  ! 
Heart,  I  will  drag  thee  hence,  home,  by  the 

hair  ; 
Cry  thee  a  strumpet  through  the  streets  ;  rip 

up 

Thy  mouth  unto  thine  ears  ;  and  slit  thy  nose  ; 
Like  a  raw  rochet  t  —  Do  not  tempt  me  ;  come, 
Yield,  I  am  loth  —  Death  1  I  will  buy  some 

slave 

Whom  I  will  kill,  and  bind  thee  to  him,  alive  ; 
And  at  my  window  hang  you  forth,  devising 
Some   monstrous  crime,  which   I,   in  capital 

letters, 

Will  eat  into  thy  flesh  with  aquafortis, 
And  burning  corsives,  on  this  stubborn  breast. 
Now,  by  the  blood  thou  hast  incensed,  I'll  do 

it! 
Celia.  Sir,  what  you  please,  you  may,  I  am 

your  martyr, 
Corvino.   Be  not  thus  obstinate,  I  have  not 

deserv'd  it  : 

Think  who  it  is  intreats  you.  Prithee,  sweet  ;  — 
Good  faith  thou  shalt  have  jewels,  gowns,  at- 

tires, 
What  thou  wilt  think,  and  ask.    Do  but  go 


For  my  sake.  —  At  my 
I    shall    remember 


kiss  him, 
Or  touch  him,   but, 

suit. — 
This  once.— No  1    not! 

this. 
Will  you  disgrace  me  thus  ?    Do  you  thirst 

my  undoing?  "  * 

Mosca  turned 
Volpone  : 


a    moment    before,  to 


acted  the  part  of  the  1  jvely  Antinous. 
In  his  transport  he  sings  a  love  song ; 
his  voluptuousness  culminates  in  poe- 
try ;  for  poetry  was  then  in  Italy  the 
blossom  of  vice.  He  spreads  before 
her  pearls,  diamonds,  carbuncles.  He 
is  in  raptures  at  the  sight  of  the  treas- 
ures, which  he  displays  and  sparkles 
before  her  eyes : 

"  Take  the*e 

And  wear,  and  lose  them :  yet  remains  it  ear- 
ring 

To  purchase  them  again,  and  this  whole  state. 
A  gem  but  worth  a  private  patrimony, 
Is  nothing:  we  will  eat  such  at  a  meal, 
The  heads  of  parrots,  tongues  of  nightingales, 
The  brains  of  peacocks,  and  of  estriches, 
Shall  be  our  food.  .  .  . 

Conscience  ?  'Tis  the  beggar's  virtue.  .  .  • 
Thy  baths  shall  be  the  juice  of  July  flowers, 
Spirit  of  roses,  and  of  violets, 
The  milk  of  unicorns,  and  panthers'  breath 
Gather'd  in  bags,  and  mixt  with  Cretan  wines. 
Our  drink  shall  be  prepared  gold  and  amber  ; 
Which  we  will  take,  until  my  roof  whirl  round 
With  the  vertigo  :  and  my  dwarf  shall  dance, 
My  eunuch  sing,  my  fool  make  up  the  antic, 
Whilst  we,    in    changed    shapes,   act    Ovid's 

tales, 

Thou,  like  Europa  now,  and  I  like  Jove, 
Then  I  like  Mars,  and  thou  like  Erycine  ; 
So,  of  the  rest,  till  we  have  quite  run  through, 
And  wearied  all  the  fables  of  the  gods."  * 

We  recognize  Venice  in  this  splendor 
of  debauchery  —  Venice,  the  throne 
of  Aretinus,  the  country  of  Tintoretto 
and  Giorgione.^  X^lpone  seizes  Celia: 

" 


Signior  Corvino  .  .  .  hearing  of  the  con 

tion  had 

So  lately,  for  your  health,  is  come  to  offer, 
Or  rather,  sir,  to  prostitute. — 


Sir,  ^T  i "  Xiu^f->  ^r  f  "^ele  rce  thee  ?  "     But  sud- 
isuj£r-\|  ar  i/  Bou&>  disinherited  son  of  Cor- 
''*    baccio,   wl&iii  Mosca   had    concealed 


Corvino. 


Thanks,  sweet  Mosca. 


Mosca*  Freely,  unask'd,  or  unintreated. 


C. 


Well. 


Mosca.  As  the  true  fervent  instance  of  his 

love, 
His    own    most  fair   and    proper  wife  ;     the 

beauty 
Only  of  price  in  Venice.  — 


C. 
Where 


'Tis  well  urg'd."  f 
see     such    blows 


launched  and  driven  hard,  full  in  the 
face,  by  the  violent  hand  of  satire  ? 
Celia  is  alone  with  Volpone,  who, 
throwing  off  his  feigned  sickness, 
comes  upon  her,  "  as  fresh,  as  hot,  as 
high,  and  in  as  jovial  plight,"  as  on 
the  gala-days  of  the  Republic,  when  he 

*  Volpone,  iii.  5.  We  pray  the  reader  to 
pardon  us  for  Ben  Jonson  s  broadness.  If  I 
omit  it,  I  cannot  depict  the  sixieenth  century. 
Grant  the  same  indulgence  to  the  historian  as 
:O  the  anatomist. 

t  VolJ>one^  iii. 


there  with  another  design,  enters  vio- 
lently, delivers  her,  wounds  Mosca,  and 
accuses  Volpone  before  the  tribunal,  of 
imposture  and  rape. 

The  three  rascals  who  aim  at  being 
his  heirs,  work  together  to  save  Vol- 
pone. Corbaccio  disavows  his  son, 
and  accuses  him  of  parricide.  Cor- 
vino declares  his  wife  an  adulteress,  the 
shameless  mistress  of  B  >nario.  Never 
on  the  stage  was  seen  such  energy  o£ 
lying,  such  open  villany.  The  hus- 
band, who  knows  his  wife  to  be  inno- 
cent, is  the  most  eager  : 

"  This  woman  (please  your  fatherhoods)  is  a 

whore, 

Of  most  hot  exercise,  more  than  a  partrich, 
Upon  record. 

ist  A  dvocate.  No  more. 
Corvino.  Neighs  like  a  jennet. 
Notary.  Preserve  the  honour  of  the  court. 
C.  I  shall, 


*  Ibid.  iii.  5. 


198 


And  modesty  of  your  most  reverend  ears. 
And  yet  I  hope  that  I  may  say,  these  eyes 
Have  seen  her  glued  unto  that  piece  of  cedar, 
That  fine  well-timber'd  gallant ;  and  that  here 
The  letters  may  be  read,  thorough  the  horn, 
That  make  the  story  perfect.  ... 

$dAdv,  His  grief  hath  made   him  frantic. 
\Celia  swoons. 

C.  Rare  I     Prettily  feign'd  I  againl  "  * 

They  have  Volpone  brought  in,  like  a 
dying  man  ;  manufacture  false  "  testi- 
mony," to  which  Voltore  gives  weight 
with  his  advocate's  tongue,  with  words 
worth  a  sequin  apiece.  They  throw 
Celia  and  Bonario  into  prison,  and 
Volpone  is  saved.  This  public  impos- 
ture is  for  him  only  another  comedy,  a 
pleasant  pastime,  and  a  masterpiece. 

"  Mosca.  To  gull  the  court. 

Volpotie.  And  quite  divert  the  torrent 
Upon  the  innocent.  .  .  . 
M.  You  are  not  taken  with  it  enough,  me- 

thinks. 

V.  O,   more    than  if  I  had  enjoy'd  the 
wench  ?  "  t 

To  conclude,  he  writes  a  will  in  Mos- 
ca's  favor,  has  his  death  reported, 
hides  behind  a  curtain,  and  enjoys  the 
looks  of  the  would-be  heirs.  They 
had  just  saved  him  from  being  thrown 
into  prison,  which  makes  the  fun  all 
the  better  ;  the  wickedness  will  be  all 
the  greater  and  more  exquisite.  "  Tor- 
ture 'em  rarely,"  V\Jnone  says  to  Mos- 
ca. The  latter  spre^-f:^e  wjll  on  the 
table,  and  reads  the  n^i&itofy  alr°  •*  - 
"  Turkey  carpets  nine.  Two  cabinet,, 
one  of  ebony,  the  other  mother-of- 
pearl.  A  perfum'd  box,  made  of  an 
onyx."  The  heirs  are  stupefied  with 
disappointment,  and  Mosca  drives 
them  off  with  insults.  He  says  to  Cor- 
vino  : 

*  Why    should    you    stay    here  ?    with   what 

thought,  what  promise  ? 
Hear  you  ;  do  you  not  know,  I  know  you  an 

ass, 
And  that  you  would  most  fain  have  been  a 

wittol, 

If  fortune  would  have  let  you?  That  you  are 
A  declar'd  cuckold,  on  good  terms?    This 

pearl, 

You  11   say,   was    yours  ?     Right :    this   dia- 
mond ? 
I'll  not  deny't,  but  thank  you.     Much  here 

else  ? 
It  may  be  so.     Why,  think  that  these  good 

works 
May  help  to  hide  your  bad.  [Exit  Corvi- 

no.]  .  .  . 
Corbaccio.    I  am  cozeu'd,  cheated,  by  a 

parasite  slave ; 

iv.  x.  t  Ibid.  v.  i. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


Harlot,  thou  hast  gull'd  me. 

Mosca.  Yes,  sir.  Stop  your  mouth, 

Or  I  shall  draw  the  only  tooth  ia  left. 
Are  not  you  he,  that  filthy  covetous  wretch, 
With  the  three  legs,  that  here,  in  hope  of 

prey, 
Have,    any  time    this    three    years,    snufft 

about, 
With  your  most  grov'ling  nose,  and  woult* 

have  hir'd 

Me  to  the  pois'ning  of  my  patron,  sir  ? 
Are  not  you  he  that  have  to-day  in  court 
Profess'd  the  disinheriting  of  your  son  ? 
Perjur'd  yourself?    Go  home,  and  die,  and 

stink."  * 

Volpone  goes  out  disguised,  comes  to 
each  of  them  in  turn,  and  succeeds  in 
wringing  their  hearts.  But  Mosca, 
who  has  the  will,  acts  with  a  high  hand, 
and  demands  of  Volpone  half  his  for- 
tune. The  dispute  between  the  two 
rascals  discovers  their  impostures, 
and  the  master,  the  servant,  with  the 
three  would-be  heirs,  are  sent  to  the 
galleys,  to  prison,  to  the  pillory — as 
Corvino  says,  to 

"  Have  mine  eyes  beat  out  with  stinking  fish, 
Bruis'd  fruit,  and  rotten  eggs. — 'Tis  well. 

I'm  glad, 
I  shall  not  see  my  shame  yet."  t 

No  more  vengeful  comedy  has  been 
written,  none  more  persistently  athirst 
to  make  vice  suffer,  to  unmask,  triumph 
over,  and  punish  it. 

Where  can  be  the  gayety  of  such  a 
^jfiea'tVt; -?  In  o\  .ricature  and  farce. 
I  ."here  is  a  rough  gayety,  a  sort  of  phys- 
ical, external  laughter  which  suits  this 
combative,  drinking,  blustering  mode. 
It  is  thus  that  this  mood  relaxes  from 
war-waging  and  murderous  satire  ;  the 
pastime  is  appropriate  to  the  manners 
of  the  time,  excellent  to  attract  men 
who  look  upon  hanging  as  a  good 
joke,  and  laugh  to  see  the  Puritan's  ears 
cut.  Put  yourself  for  an  instant  in 
their  place,  and  you  will  think  like  them, 
that  The  Silent  Woman  is  a  master- 
piece. Morose  is  an  old  monomaniac, 
who  has  a  horror  of  noise,  but  loves  t»> 
speak.  He  inhabits  a  street  so  narrow 
that  a  carriage  cannot  enter  it.  He 
drives  off  with  his  stick  the  bear-lead- 
ers and  sword-players,  who  venture  to 
pass  under  his  windows.  He  has  sent 
away  his  servant  whose  shoes  creaked ; 
and  Mute,  the  new  one,  wears  slippers 
"  soled  with  wool,"  and  only  speaks  in 
a  whisper  through  a  tube.  Morose 


*  Ibid. 


t  Ibid.  8. 


CHAP.  III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


199 


ends  by  forbidding  the  whisper,  and 
makes  him  reply  by  signs.  He  is  also 
rich,  an  uncle,  and  he  ill-treats  his 
nephew  Sir  Dauphine  Eugenie,  a  man 
of  wit,  but  who  lacks  money.  We  an- 
ticipate all  the  tortures  which  poor  Mo- 
rose is  to  surfer.  Sir  Dauphine  finds  him 
a  supposed  silent  woman,  the  beautiful 
Epiccene.  Morose,  enchanted  by  her 
brief  replies  and  her  voice,  which  he 
can  hardly  hear,  marries  her  to  play 
his  nephew  a  trick.  It  is  his  nephew 
who  has  played  him  a  trick.  As  soon 
as  she  is  married,  Epicoene  speaks, 
scolds,  argues  as  loud  and  as  long  as  a 
dozen  women  : — "  Why,  did  you  think 
you  had  married  a  statue  ?  or  a  motion 
only  ?  one  of  the  French  puppets,  with 
the  eyes  turn'd  with  a  wire  ?  or  some 
innocent  out  of  the  hospital,  that  would 
stand  with  her  hands  thus,  and  a  plaise 
mouth,  and  look  upon  you?"* 

She  orders  the  servants  to  speak 
louder;  she  opens  the  doors  wide  to 
her  friends.  They  arrive  in  shoals, 
offering  their  noisy  congratulations  to 
Morose.  Five  or  six  women's  tongues 
overwhelm  him  all  at  once  with  com- 
pliments, questions,  advice,  remon- 
strances. A  friend  of  Sir  Dauphine 
comes  with  a  band  of  music,  who  play 
all  together,  suddenly,  with  their  whole 
force.  Morose  says,  "  O,  a  plot,  a  plot, 
a  plot,  a  plot,  upon  me !  This  day  I 
shall  be  their  anvil  to  work  on,  they 
will  grate  me  asunder.  'Tis  worse 
than  the  noise  of  a  saw."  t  A  pro- 
cession of  servants  is  seen  coming,  with 
dishes  in  their  hands  ;  it  is  the  racket 
of  a  tavern  which  Sir  Dauphine  is 
bringing  to  his  uncle.  The  guests  clash 
the  glasses,  shout,  drink  healths  ;  they 
have  with  them  a  drum  and  trumpets 
which  make  great  noise.  Morose  flees 
to  the  top  of  the  house,  puts  "  a  whole 
nest  of  night-caps  "  on  his  heac1  and 
stuffs  up  his  ears.  Captain  Otter  cries, 
"  S  ->und,  Tritons  o'  the  Thames  !  Nunc 
est  bibendum,  nunc  pede  libero"  "  Vil- 
lains murderers,  sons  of  the  earth  and 
traitcrs,"  cries  Morose  from  above, 
"  what  do  you  there  ? "  The  racket 
Increases.  Then  the  captain,  some- 
what "jovial,"  maligns  his  wife,  who 
falls  upon  him  and  gives  him  a  good 
beating.  Blows,  cries,  music,  laughter, 
resound  like  thunder.  It  is  the  poetry 

*  Epiccetie,  iii.  2,  f  Ibid. 


of  v.  proar.  Here  is  a  subject  to  shake 
coarse  nerves,  and  to  make  the  mighty 
chests  of  the  companions  of  Drake  and 
Essex  shake  with  uncontrollable  laugh- 
ter. "  Rogues,  hell-hounds,  Stentors  1 
.  .  .  They  have  rent  my  roof,  walls, 
and  all  my  windows  asunder,  with 
their  brazen  throats  !  "  Morose  casts 
himself  on  his  tormentors  with  his  long 
sword,  breaks  the  instruments,  drives 
away  the  musicians,  disperses  the 
guests  amidst  an  inexpressible  uproar, 
gnashing  his  teeth,  looking  haggard. 
Afterwards  they  pronounce  him  mad, 
and  discuss  his  madness  before  him.* 
The  disease  in  Greek  is  called  ^ai/t'o, 
in  Latin  insania,  furor,  vel  ecstasis 
melancholica  that  is,  egressio,  when  a  man 
ex  melancholico  evadit  fanaticus.  .  But 
he  may  be  but  phreneticus  yet,  mistress  ; 
and  phrenetis  is  only  delirium,  or  so." 
They  talk  of  the  books  which  he  "must 
read  aloud  to  cure  him.  They  add  by 
way  of  consolation,  that  his  wife  talks  in 
her  sleep,  "  and  snores  like  a  porpoise." 
"  O  redeem  me,  fate ;  redeem  me,  fate  ! " 
cries  the  poor  man.f  "  For  how  many 
causes  may  a  man  be  divorc'd,  nephew?" 
Sir  Dauphine  chooses  two  knaves,  and 
disguises  them,  one  as  a  priest,  the 
other  as  a  lawyer,  who  launch  at  his 
head  Latin  terms  of  civil  and  canon 
law,  explain  to  Morose  the  twelve  cases 
of  nullity,  jingle  in  his  ears  one  after 
another  the  most  barbarous  words  in 
their  obscure  vocabulary,  wrangle,  and 
make  between  them  as  much  noise  as 
a  couple  of  bells  in  a  belfry.  Following 
their  advice  he  declares  himself  impo« 
tent.  The  wedding-guests  propose  ta 
toss  him  in  a  blanket ;  others  demand 
an  immediate  inspection.  Fall  after 
fall,  shame  after  shame ;  nothing  serves 
him ;  his  wife  declares  that  she  ccn- 
sents  to  "  take  him  with  all  his  faults. ' 
The  lawyer  proposes  another  legal 
method  ;  Morose  shall  obtain  a  divorce 
by  proving  that  his  wife  is  faithless. 
Two  boasting  knights,  who  are  pres- 
ent, declare  that  they  have  been  her 
lovers.  Morose,  in  raptures,  throws 
himself  at  their  knees,  and  embraces 
them.  Epicoene  weeps,  and  Morose 
seems  to  be  delivered.  Suddenly  the 
lawyer  decides  that  the  plan  is  of  no 
avail,  the  infidelity  having  been  com* 

*  Compare  M.  de  Pourceaugnac  iu  Moli&re. 
t  Epicoene,  iv.  i,  2. 


200 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


.  [BOOK  II 


mitted  before  the  marriage.  "  O,  this 
is  worst  of  all  worst  worsts  that  hell 
could  have  devis'd  !  marry  a  whore, 
and  so  much  noise !  "  There  is  Morose 
then,  declared  impotent  and  a  deceived 
husband,  at  his  own  request,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  whole  world,  and  moreover  mar- 
ried forever.  Sir  Dauphine  comes  in 
like  a  clever  rascal,  and  as  a  succor- 
ing deity.  "  Allow  me  but  five  hun- 
dred during  life,  uncle,"  and  I  free 
you.  Morose  signs  the  deed  of  gift 
with  alacrity  ;  and  his  nephew  shows 
him  that  Epiccene  is  a  boy  in  disguise.* 
Add  to  this  enchanting  farce  the  funny 
parts  of  the  two  accomplished  and  gal- 
lant knights  who,  after  having  boasted 
of  their  bravery,  receive  gratefully,  and 
before  the  ladies,  flips  and  kicks,  f 
Never  was  coarse  physical  laughter 
more  adroitly  produced.  In  this  broad 
coarse  gayety,  this  excess  of  noisy  trans- 
port, you  recognize  the  stout  roysterer, 
the  stalwart  drinker  who  swallowed 
hogsheads  of  Canary,  and  made  the 
windows  of  the  Mermaid  shake  with 
his  bursts  of  humor. 

V. 

Jonson  did  not  go  beyond  this ;  he 
was  not  a  philosopher  like  Moliere, 
able  to  grasp  and  dramatize  the  crisis 
of  human  life,  education,  marriage,  sick- 
ness, the  chief  characters  of  his  country 
and  century,  the  courtier,  the  trades'- 
man,  the  hypocrite,  the  man  of  the 
world.  \  He  remained  on  a  lower  level, 
in  the  comedy  of  plot,§  the  painting  of 
the  grotesque,  ||  the  representation  of 
too  transient  subjects  of  ridicule,!  too 
general  vices.**  If  at  times,  as  in  the 
Alchemist,  he  has  succeeded  by  the  per- 
fection of  plot  and  the  vigor  of  satire, 
he  has  miscarried  more  frequently  by 
the  ponderousness  of  his  work  and  the 
lack  of  comic  lightness.  The  critic  in 
him  mars  the  artist ;  his  literary  calcu- 
lations strip  him  of  spontaneous  in- 

*  Epuoene,  v, 

t  Compare  Polichinelle  in  Le  Malade  im- 
aginaire  ;  Gdronte  in  Les  Fourberies  de  Sea- 
Jin. 

\  Compare  V Ecole  des  Femmes,  Tartuffe, 
Le  Misanthrope,  Le  Bourgeois-gentilhomme, 
L>e  Malade  imaginaire,  Georges  Dandin* 

§  Compare  les  Fourberies  de  Scapin. 

II  Compare  les  Facheux. 

1  Compare  les  Precieuses  Ridicules. 

**  Compare  the  plays  of  Destouches 


vention ;  he  is  too  much  of  a  writer 
and  moralist,  not  enough  of  a  mimic 
and  an  actor.  But  he  is  loftier  from 
another  side,  for  he  is  a  poet ;  almost 
all  writers,  prose-authors,  preachers 
even,  were  so  at  the  time  we  speak  of. 
Fancy  abounded,  as  well  as  the  per- 
ception of  colors  and  forms,  the  need 
and  wont  of  enjoying  through  the  im- 
agination and  the  eyes.  Many  of  Jon- 
son's  pieces,  the  Staple  of  News,  Cyn- 
thia's Revels,  are  fanciful  and  allegorical 
comedies  like  those  of  Aristophanes. 
He  there  dallies  with  the  real,  and 
beyond  the  real,  with  characters  who 
are  but  theatrical  masks,  abstractions 
personified,  buffooneries,  decorations, 
dances,  music,  pretty  laughing  whims 
of  a  picturesque  and  sentimental  im- 
agination. Thus,  in  Cynthia's  Revels^ 
three  children  come  on  "  pleading  pos- 
session of  the  cloke  "  of  black  velvet, 
which  an  actor  usually  wore  when  he 
spoke  the  prologue.  They  draw  lots 
for  it ;  one  of  the  losers,  in  revenge, 
tells  the  audience  beforehand  the  in- 
cidents of  the  piece.  The  others  in- 
terrupt him  at  every  sentence,  put  their 
hands  on  his  mouth,  and  taking  the 
cloak  one  after  the  other,  begin  to 
criticise  the  spectators  and  authors. 
This  child's  play,  these  gestures  and 
loud  voices,  this  little  amusing  dispute, 
divert  the  public  from  their  serious 
thoughts,  and  prepare  them  for  the 
oddities  which  they  are  to  look  upon. 

We  are  in  Greece,  in  the  valley  of 
Gargaphie,  where  Diana*  has  pro- 
claimed "  a  solemn  revels/'  Mercury 
and  Cupid  have  come  down,  and  begin 
by  quarrelling ;  the  latter  says:  "My 
light  feather-heePd  coz,  what  are  you 
any  more  than  my  uncle  Jove's  pander  ? 
a  lacquey  that  runs  on  errands  for  him, 
and  can  whisper  a  light  message  to  a 
loose  wench  with  some  round  volu 
bility  ?  .  .  .  One  that  sweeps  the  gods 
drinking-room  every  morning,  and  sets 
the  cushions  in  order  again,  which  they 
threw  one  at  another's  head  over 
night  ?  "  t 

They  are  good-tempered  gods.  Echo,  ' 
svoke  by  Mercury,  weeps  for  the  "  too 
beauteous  boy  Narcissus :  " 

"  That  trophy  of  self-love,  and  spoil  of  n* 
ture, 


*  By  Diana,  Queen  Elizabeth  is  meant, 
t  Cynthia!  *  Revels>  i.  i. 


CHAP.  II.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


201 


Who,  now  transformed  into  this  drooping 

flower, 
Hangs  the  repentant  head,  back  from  the 

stream.  .  .  . 
Witness  thy  youth's  dear  sweets,  here  spent 

untasted, 
Like    a    fair     taper,    with    his    own    flame 

wasted!   .  .   . 

And  with  thy  water  let  this  curse  remain, 
As  an  inseparate  plague,  that  who  but  taste 
A  drop  thereof,  may,  with  the  instant  touch, 
Grow  doatingly  enamour'd  on  themselves."* 

The  courtiers  and  ladies  drink  thereof, 
and  behold,  a  sort  of  a  review  of  the 
follies  of  the  time,  arranged,  as  in 
Aristophanes,  in  an  improbable  farce, 
a  brilliant  show.  A  silly  spendthrift, 
Asotus,  wishes  to  become  a  man  of  the 
court  and  of  fashionable  manners  ;  he 
takes  for  his  master  Amorphus,  a 
learned  traveller,  expert  in  gallantry, 
who,  to  believe  himself,  is 

"  An  essence  so  sublimated  and  refined  by 
travel  .  .  .  able  ...  to  speak  the  mere  ex- 
traction of  language  ;  one  that  .  .  .  was  your 
first  that  ever  enrich'd  his  country  with  the 
true  laws  of  the  duello ;  whose  optics  have 
drunk  the  spirit  of  beauty  in  some  eight-score 
and  eighteen  princes'  courts,  where  I  have  re- 
sided, and  been  there  fortunate  in  the  amours 
of  three  hundred  forty  and  five  ladies,  all  nobly 
if  not  princely  descended,  ...  in  all  so  happy, 
as  even  admiration  herself  doth  seem  to  fasten 
her  kisses  upon  me."  t 

Asotus  learns  at  this  good  school 
the  language  of  the  court,  fortifies  him- 
self like  other  people  with  quibbles, 
learned  oaths,  and  metaphors ;  he  fires 
off  in  succession  supersubtle  tirades, 
and  duly  imitates  the  grimaces  and 
tortuous  style  of  his  masters.  Then, 
when  he  has  drunk  the  water  of  the 
fountain,  becoming  suddenly  pert  and 
rash,  he  proposes  to  all  comers  a  tour- 
nament of  "  court  compliment."  This 
odd  tournament  is  held  before  the 
ladies  ;  it  comprises  four  jousts,  and  at 
each  the  trumpets  sound.  The  com- 
batants perform  in  succession  "the 
B.\RE  ACCOST;"  "the  BETTER  RE- 
GARD;" "  the  SOLEMN  ADDRESS  ;  " 
and  "  the  PERFECT  CLOSE."  \  In  this 
grave  buffoonery  the  courtiers  are  beat- 
en. The  severe  Crites,  the  moralist  of 
the  play,  copies  their  language,  and 
pierces  them  with  their  own  weapons. 
Already,  with  grand  declamation,  he 
had  rebuked  them  thus : 


*  Cynthia's  Revelst  i.  i. 
t  Ibid.  v.  2. 


t  Ibid. 


"  O  vanity, 

How  are  thy  painted  beauties  doated  on, 
By  light,  and  empty  idiots  I  how  pursu'd 
With  open  and  extended  appetite  ! 
How  they  do  sweat,  and  run  themselves  frorfl 

breath, 

Rais'd  on  their  toes,  to  catch  thy  airy  forms, 
Still   turning  giddy,  till  they  reel  like  drunk- 

ards, 

That  buy  the  merry  madness  of  one  hour, 
With    the     long     irksomeness    of     following 

time  !  "  * 

To  complete  the  overthrow  of  the 
vices,  appear  two  symbo..  tal  masque?, 
representing  the  contiary  virtues.  They 
pass  gravely  before  the  spectators,  in 
splendid  array,  and  the  noble  verses 
exchanged  by  the  goddess  and  her 
companions  raise  the  mind  to  the  lofty 
regions  of  serene  morality,  whither  the 
poet  desires  to  carry  us  : 

"  Queen,  and  huntress,  chaste  and  fair, 
Now  the  sun  is  laid  to  sleep, 
Seated  in  thy  silver  chair, 
State  in  wonted  manner  keep.  .  .  ; 
Lay  thy  bow  of  pearl  apart, 
And  thy  crystal  shining  quiver  ; 
Give  unto  the  flying  hart 
Space  to  breathe,  how  short  soever."  f 

In  the  end,  bidding  the  dancers  to  un- 
mask, Cynthia  shows  that  the  vices 
have  disguised  themselves  as  virtues. 
She  condemns  them  to  make  fit  rep 
aration,  and  to  bathe  themselves  in 
Helicon.  Two  by  two  they  go  off 
singing  a  palinode,  whilst  the  chorus 
sings  the  supplication  "  Good  Mercury 
defend  us/'  J  Is  it  an  opera  or  a  com- 
edy ?  It  is  a  lyrical  comedy  ;  and  it 
we  do  not  discover  in  it  the  airy  light- 
ness of  Aristophanes,  at  least  we  en- 
counter, as  in  the  Birds  and  the  Frogs, 
the  contrasts  and  medleys  of  poetic  in- 
vention, which  through  caricature  and 
ode,  the  real  and  the  impossible,  the 
present  and  the  past,  sent  forth  to  the 
four  quarters  of  the  globe,  simultane- 
ously unites  all  kinds  of  incompatibili- 
ties, and  culls  all  flowers. 

Jonson  went  further  than  this,  and 
entered  the  domain  of  pure  poetry. 
He  wrote  delicate,  voluptuous,  charm- 
ing love  poems,  worthy  of  the  ancient 
idyllic  muse.  §  Above  all,  he  was  the 
great,  the  inexhaustible  inventor  of 
Masques,  a  kind  of  masquerades,  bal- 
lets, poetic  choruses,  in  which  all  the 


*Ibid.\.i. 
\  Ibid,  last  scene. 
§   Celebration    of  Char  is  —  Miscellane&M 
Poems. 

9* 


202 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BooK  II 


magnificence  and  the  imagination  of 
the  English  Renaissance  is  displayed. 
The  Greek  gods,  and  all  the  ancient 
Olympus,  the  allegorical  personages 
whom  the  artists  of  the  time  delineate 
in  their  pictures;  the  antique  heroes 
of  popular  legends ;  all  worlds,  the  ac- 
tual, the  abstract,  the  divine,  the  hu- 
man, the  ancient,  the  modern,  are 
searched  by  his  hands,  brought  on  the 
stage  to  furnish  costumes,  harmonious 
groups,  emblems,  songs,  whatever  can 
excite,  intoxicate  the  artistic  sense. 
The  elite,  moreover,  of  the  kingdom  is 
Ihere  on  the  stage.  They  are  not 
mountebanks  moving  about  in  bor- 
rowed clothes,  clumsily  worn,  for  which 
they  are  still  in  debt  to  the  tailor ;  they 
are  ladies  of  the  court,  great  lords,  the 
queen,  in  all  the  splendor  of  their  rank 
and  pride,  with  real  diamonds,  bent  on 
Displaying  their  riches,  so  that  the 
whole  splendor  of  the  national  life  is 
concentrated  in  the  opera  which  they 
enact,  like  jewels  in  a  casket.  What 
dresses  !  what  profusion  of  splendors  ! 
what  medley  of  strange  characters, 
gypsies,  witches,  gods,  heroes,  pontiffs, 
gnomes,  fantastic  beings  !  How  many 
metamorphoses,  jousts,  dances,  mar- 
riage songs !  What  variety  of  scenery, 
architecture,  floating  isles,  triumphal 
arches,  symbolic  spheres !  Gold  glit- 
ters ;  jewels  flash ;  purple  absorbs  the 
lustre-lights  in  its  costly  folds  ;  streams 
of  light  shine  upon  the  crumpled  silks  ; 
diamond  necklaces,  darting  flame,  clasp 
the  bare  bosoms  of  the  ladies  ;  strings 
of  pearls  are  displayed,  loop  after 
lor»p,  upon  the  silver-sown  brocaded 
dresses  ;  gold  embroidery,  weaving 
whimsical  arabesques,  depicts  upon 
their  dresses  flowers,  fruits,  and  figures, 
setting  picture  within  picture.  The 
steps  of  the  throne  bear  groups  of 
Cupids,  each  with  a  torch  in  his  hand.* 
On  either  side  the  fountains  cast  up 
plumes  of  pearls  ;  musicians,  in  purple 
and  scarkt,  laurel-crowned,  make  har- 
mony in  the  bowers.  The  trains  of 
masques  cross,  commingling  their 
groups  ;  "  the  one  half  in  orange-tawny 
and  silver ,  the  other  in  sea-green  and 
silver.  The  bodies  and  short  skirts 
(were  of)  white  and  gold  to  both." 

Such    pageants    Jonson  wrote  year 
after  year,  almost  to   the   end  of  his 
*  Masque  of  Beauty. 


life,  true  feasts  for  the  e/es,  like  the 
processions  of  Titian.  Even  when  he 
grew  to  be  old,  his  imagination,  like 
that  of  Titian,  remained  abundant  and 
fresh.  Though  forsaken,  lying  gasping 
on  his  bed,  feeling  the  approach  of 
death,  in  his  supreme  bitterness  he  did 
not  lose  his  faculties,  but  wrote  The 
Sad  Shepherd,  the  most  graceful  and  pas- 
toral of  his  pieces.  Consider  that  this 
beautiful  dream  arose  in  a  sick-cham- 
ber, amidst  medicine  bottles,  physic, 
doctors,  with  a  nurse  at  his  side, 
amidst  the  anxieties  of  poverty  and  the 
choking-fits  of  a  dropsy !  He  is  trans- 
ported to  a  green  forest,  in  the  days  of 
Robin  Hood,  amidst  the  gay  chase 
and  the  great  barking  greyhounds. 
There  are  the  malicious  fairies,  who 
like  Oberon  and  Titania,  lead  men  to 
flounder  in  mishaps.  There  are  open- 
souled  lovers,  who  like  Daphne  and 
Chloe,  taste  with  awe  the  painful 
sweetness  of  the  first  kiss.  There 
lived  Earine,  whom  the  stream  has 
"  suck'd  in,"  whom  her  lover,  in  his 
madness,  will  not  cease  to  lament : 

'<  Earine, 

Who  had  her  very  being,  and  her  name 
With    the  first   knots   or  buddings  of    the 

spring, 

Born  with  the  primrose  or  the  violet, 
Or  earliest  roses  blown  :  when  Cupid  smil'd, 
And  Venus  led  the  graces  out  to  dance, 
And  all  the  flowers  and  sweets  in  nature'3 

lap 

Leap'd  out,  and  made  their  solemn  conjura- 
tion 

To  last  but  while  she  liv'd  !"...* 
*'  But  she,  as  chaste  as  was  her  name,  Earine, 
Died  undeflower'd :  and  now  her  sweet  soul 

hovers 
Here  in  the  air  above  us."  t 

Above  the  poor  old  paralytic  artist, 
poetry  still  hovers  like  a  haze  of  1'ght 
Yes,  he  had  cumbered  himse'i  with 
science,  clogged  himself  with  theories, 
constituted  himself  theatrical  critic  and 
social  censor,  filled  his  soul  with  unre- 
lenting indignation,  fostered  a  com- 
bative and  morose  disposition  ;  but  di- 
vine dreams  never  left  him.  He  is  the 
brother  of  Shakspeare. 

VI. 

So  now  at  last  we  are  in  the  pres- 
ence of  one,  whom  we  perceived  before 
us  through  all  the  vistas  or  the  Re 

*  The  Sad  Shepherd,  i.  2.        f  Ibid.  iii.  2. 


CHAE   III.] 


BEN  JONSON. 


203 


naissance,  like  some  vast  oak  to  which 
all  the  forest  ways  converge.  I  will 
treat  of  Shakspeare  by  himself.  In 
order  to  take  him  in  completely,  we 
must  have  a  wide  and  open  space. 
And  yet  how  shall  we  comprehend 
him  ?  how  lay  bare  his  inner  constitu- 
tion ?  Lofty  words,  eulogies,  are  all 
used  in  vain ;  he  needs  no  praise,  but 
comprehension  merely ;  and  he  can 
only  be  comprehended  by  the  aid  of 
science.  As  the  complicated  revolu- 
tions of  the  heavenly  bodies  become 
intelligible  only  by  use  of  a  superior 
calculus,  as  the  delicate  transformations 
of  vegetation  and  life  need  for  their 
explanation  the  intervention  of  the 
most  difficult  chemical  formulas,  so  the 
great  works  of  art  can  be  interpreted 
only  by  the  most  advanced  psychologi- 
cal systems  ;  and  we  need  the  loftiest 
of  all  these  to  attain  to  Shakspeare's 
level — to  the  level  of  his  age  and  his 
work,  of  his  genius  and  of  his  art. 

After  all  practical  experience  and  ac- 
cumulated observations  of  the  soul,  we 
find  as  the  result  that  wisdom  and 
knowledge  are  in  man  only  effects  and 
fortuities.  Man  has  no  permanent  and 
distinct  force  to  secure  truth  to  his  in- 
telligence, and  common  sense  to  his 
conduct.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  nat- 
urally unreasonable  and  deceived. 
The  parts  of  his  inner  mechanism  are 
like  the  wheels  of  clock-work,  which 
go  of  themselves,  blindly,  carried  away 
by  impulse  and  weight,  and  which  yet 
sometimes,  by  virtue  of  a  certain  uni- 
son, end  by  indicating  the  hour.  This 
final  intelligent  motion  is  not  natural, 
but  fortuitous ;  not  spontaneous,  but 
forced ;  not  innate,  but  acquired.  The 
clock  did  not  always  go  regularly ;  on 
the  contrary,  it  had  to  be  regulated 
little  by  little,  with  much  difficulty. 
Its  regularity  is  not  ensured  ;  it  may 
go  wrong  at  any  time.  Its  regularity 
is  not  complete  ;  it  only  approximately 
marks  the  time.  The  mechanical  force 
of  each  piece  is  always  ready  to  drag 
all  the  rest  from  their  proper  action, 
and  to  disarrange  the  whole  agree- 
ment. So  ideas,  once  in  the  mind, 
pull  each  their  own  way  blindly  and 
separately,  and  tneir  imperfect  agree- 
ment threatens  confusion  every  mo- 
ment. Strictly  speaking,  man  is  mad, 
as  the  body  is  ill,  by  nature ;  reason 


and  health  come  to  us  as  a  momentary 
success,  a  lucky  accident.*  If  we  for- 
get this,  it  is  oecause  we  are  now  regu- 
lated, dulled,  deadened,  and  because 
our  internal  motion  has  become  gradu- 
ally, by  friction  and  reparation,  half 
harmonized  with  the  motion  Of  things. 
But  this  is  only  a  semblance ;  and 
the  dangerous  primitive  forces  re- 
main untamed  and  independent  under 
the  order  which  seems  to  restrain 
them.  Let  a  great  danger  arise,  a  revo- 
lution take  place,  they  will  break  out 
and  explode,  almost  as  terribly  as  in 
earlier  times.  For  an  idea  is  not  a 
mere  inner  mark,  employed  to  desig- 
nate one  aspect  of  things,  inert,  al- 
ways ready  to  fall  into  order  with 
other  similar  ones,  so  as  to  make  an 
exact  whole.  However  it  may  be  re- 
duced and  disciplined,  it  still  retains  a 
sensible  tinge  which  shows  its  like- 
ness to  an  hallucination ;  a  degree  of 
individual  persistence  which  shows  its 
likeness  to  a  monomania ;  a  network 
of  singular  affinities  which  shows  its 
likeness  to  the  ravings  of  delirium. 
Being  such,  it  is  beyond  question  the 
rudiment  of  a  nightmare,  a  habit,  an 
absurdity.  Let  it  become  once  devel- 
oped in  its  entirety,  as  its  tendency 
leads  it,t  and  you  will  find  that  it  is 
essentially  an  active  and  complete  im- 
age, a  vision  drawing  along  with  it  a 
train  of  dreams  and  sensations,  which 
increases  of  itself,  suddenly,  by  a  sort 
of  rank  and  absorbing  growth,  and 
which  ends  by  possessing,  shaking,  ex- 
hausting the  whole  man.  After  this, 
another,  perhaps  entirely  opposite,  and 
so  on  successively:  there  is  nothing 
else  in  man,  no  free  and  distinct  power  ; 
he  is  in  himself  but  the  process  of  thtne 
headlong  impulses  and  swarming  im- 
aginations :  civilization  has  mutilated, 
attenuated,  but  not  destroyed  them  ; 
shocks,  collisions,  transports,  some- 
times at  long  intervals  a  sort  of  tran- 
sient partial  equilibrium  :  this  is  his 
real  life,  the  life  of  a  lunatic,  who  now 
and  then  simulates  reason,  but  who  is 
in  reality  "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are 

*  This  idea  may  be  expanded  psychologically : 
external  perception,  memory,  are  real  hallu- 
cinations, etc.  This  is  the  analytical  aspect : 
under  another  aspect  reason  and  health  are  the 
natural  goals. 

t  See  Spinoza  and  Dugald  Stewart:  Coiv- 
ception  in  its  natural  state  is  belief. 


2O4 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


made  on  ;  "  *  and  this  is  man,  as  Shak- 
speare  has  conceived  him.  No  writer, 
not  even  Moliere,  has  penetrated  so 
far  beneath  the  semblance  of  common 
sense  -and  logic  in  which  the  human 
machine  is  enclosed,  in  order  to  disen- 
tangle the  brute  powers  which  consti- 
tute its  substance  and  its  mainspring. 
How  did  Shakspeare  succeed  ?  and 
by  what  extraordinary  instinct  did  he 
divine  the  remote  conclusions,  the 
deepest  insights  of  physiology  and  psy- 
chology ?  He  had  a  complete  imagina- 
tion ;  his  whole  genius  lies  in  that 
complete  imagination.  These  words 
seem  commonplace  and  void  of  mean- 
ing. Let  us  examine  them  closer,  to 
understand  what  they  contain.  When 
we  think  a  thing,  we,  ordinary  men,  we 
only  think  a  part  of  it ;  we  see  one 
side,  some  isolated  mark,  sometimes 
two  or  three  marks  together  ;  for  what 
is  beyond,  our  sight  fails  us ;  the  in- 
finite network  of  its  infinitely-compli- 
cated and  multiplied  properties  escapes 
us ;  we  feel  vaguely  that  there  is  some- 
thing beyond  our  shallow  ken,  and  this 
vague  suspicion  is  the  only  part  of  our 
idea  which  at  all  reveals  to  us  the  great 
beyond.  We  are  like  tyro-naturalists, 
quiet  people  of  limited  understanding, 
who,  wishing  to  represent  an  animal, 
recall  its  name  and  ticket  in  the  mu- 
seum, with  some  indistinct  image  of 
its  hide  and  figure;  but  their  mind 
stops  there.  If  it  so  happens  that  they 
wish  to  complete  their  knowledge,  they 
lead  their  memory,  by  regular  classifi- 
cations, over  the  principal  characters 
of  the  animal,  and  slowly,  discursively, 
piecemeal,  bring  at  last  the  bare  anat- 
omy before  their  eyes.  To  this  their 
idea  is  reduced,  even  when  perfected  ; 
to  this  also  most  frequently  is  our  con- 
ception reduced,  even  when  elaborated. 
What  a  distance  there  is  between  this 
conception  and  the  object,  how  imper- 
fectly and  meanly  the  one  represents 
the  other  to  what  extent  this  muti- 
lates that  how  the  consecutive  idea, 
disjointed  in  little,  regularly  arranged 
and  inert  fragments,  resembles  but 
slightly  the  organized,  living  thing, 
created  simultaneously,  ever  in  action, 
and  ever  transformed,  words  cannot  ex- 
plain. Picture  to  yourself,  instead  of 
this  poor  dry  idea,  propped  up  by 
*  Tempest^  iv.  i. 


a  miserable  mechanical  linkwork  of 
thought,  the  complete  idea,  that  is,  an 
inner  representation,  so  abundant  and 
full,  that  it  exhausts  all  the  properties 
and  relations  of  the  object,  all  its  in- 
ward and  outwa.  d  aspects  ;  that  it  ex- 
hausts them  instantaneously ;  that  it 
conceives  of  the  entire  animal,  its 
color,  the  play  of  the  light  upon  its 
skin,  its  form,  the  quivering  of  its  out- 
stretched limbs,  the  flash  of  its  eyes, 
and  at  the  same  time  its  passion  of  the 
moment,  its  excitement,  its  dash  ;  and 
beyond  this  its  instincts,  their  coi  \pos>- 
tion,  their  causes,  their  history  ;  so  that 
the  hundred  thousand  characteristics 
which  make  up  its  condition  and  its 
nature  find  their  analogues  in  the  im- 
agination which  concentrates  and  re- 
flects them  :  there  you  have  the  artist's 
conception,  the  poet's — Shakspeare's  ; 
so  superior  to  that  of  the  logician,  of 
the  mere  savant  or  man  of  the  world, 
the  only  one  capable  of  penetrating  to 
the  very  essence  of  existences,  of  ex- 
tricating the  inner  from  beneath  the 
outer  man,  of  feeling  through  sym- 
pathy, and  imitating  without  effort,  the 
irregular  oscillation  of  human  imagina- 
tions and  impressions,  of  reproducing 
life  with  its  infinite  fluctuations,  its  ap- 
parent contradictions,  its  concealed 
logic ;  in  short,  to  create  as  nature 
creates.  This  is  what  is  done  by  the 
other  artists  of  this  age  ;  they  have  the 
same  kind  of  mind,  and  the  same  idea 
of  life:  you  will  find  in  Shakspeare 
only  the  same  faculties,  with  a  still 
stronger  impulse  ;  the  same  idea,  with 
a  still  more  prominent  relief. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


I  AM  about  to  describe  an  extrao  • 
dinary  species  of  mind,  perplexing  to 
all  the  French  modes  of  analysis  and 
reasoning,  all-powerful,  excessive,  mas- 
ter of  the  sublime  as  well  as  of  the 
base  ;  the  most  creative  mind  that  ever 
engaged  in  the  exact  copy  of  the  details 
of  actual  existence,  in  the  dazzling 
caprice  of  fancy,  in  the  profound  com 
plications  of  superhuman  passions  ;  a 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


205 


nature  poetical,  immoral,  inspired,  su- 
perior to  reason  by  the  sudden  revela- 
tions of  its  seer's  madness  ;  so  extreme 
in  joy  and  grief,  so  abrupt  of  gait,  so 
agitated  and  impetuous  in  its  trans- 
ports, that  this  great  age  alone  could 
have  cradled  such  a  child. 

I. 

Of  Shakspeare  all  came  from  within 
— I  mean  from  his  soul  and  his  genius ; 
circumstances  and  the  externals  con- 
tributed but  slightly  to  his  develop- 
ment.* He  was  intimately  bound  up 
with  his  age  ;  that  is,  he  knew  by  ex- 
perience the  manners  of  country,  court, 
and  town  ;  he  had  visited  the  heights, 
depths,  the  middle  ranks  of  mankind ; 
nothing  more.  In  all  other  respects, 
his  life  was  commonplace;  its  irregu- 
larities, troubles,  passions,  successes, 
were,  on  the  whole,  such  as  we  meet 
with  everywhere  else.t  His  father,  a 
glover  and  wool-stapler,  in  very  easy 
circumstances,  having  married  a  sort  of 
country  heiress,  had  become  high-bail- 
iff and  chief  alderman  in  his  little  town; 
but  when  Shakspeare  was  nearly  four- 
teen he  was  on  the  verge  of  ruin,  mort- 
gaging his  wife's  property,  obliged  to 
resign  his  municipal  offices,  and  to  re- 
move his  son  from  school  to  assist  him 
in  his  business.  The  young  fellow  ap- 
plied himself  to  it  as  well  as  he  could, 
not  without  some  scrapes  and  frolics  : 
if  we  are  to  believe  tradition,  he  was 
one  of  the  thirsty  souls  of  the  place, 
with  a  mind  to  support  the  reputation 
of  his  little  town  in  its  drinking  powers. 
Once,  they  say,  having  been  beaten  at 
Bideford  in  one  of  these  ale-bouts,  he 
returned  staggering  from  the  fight,  or 
rather  :ould  not  return,  and  passed  the 
night  vvith  his  comrades  under  an  apple- 
tree  b  '  the  roadside.  Without  doubt 
he  had  already  begun  to  write  verses, 
t,i  rove  about  like  a  genuine  poet, 
taking  part  in  the  noisy  rustic  feasts, 
the  gay  allegorical  pastorals,  the  rich 
and  bold  outbreak  of  pagan  and  poeti- 
cal life,  as  it  was  then  to  be  found  in  an 
English  village.  At  all  events,  he  was 
not  a  patte  -n  of  propriety,  and  his 
passions  were  as  precocious  as  they 

*  Halliwell's  Life  of  .Shakspeare. 

t  Born  1564,  died  1616.  He  adapted  plays 
as  early  as  1591.  The  first  play  entirely  from 
nis  pen  appeared  in  1593. — PAYNE  COLLIER. 


were  imprudent.  While  not  yet  nine- 
teen years  old,  he  married  the  daughter 
of  a  substantial  yeoman,  about  eight 
years  older  than  himself — and  not  too 
soon,  as  she  was  about  to  become  a 
mother.*  Other  of  his  outbreaks  were 
no  more  fortunate.  It  seems  that  he 
was  fond  of  poaching,  after  the  manner 
of  the  time,  being  '*  much  given  to  all 
unluckinesse  in  stealing  venison  and 
rabbits,"  says  the  Rev.  Richard  Da- 
vies  ;  t.  "  particularly  from  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy,  who  had  him  oft  whipt  and  some- 
times imprisoned,  and  at  last  made  him 
fly  the  country;  .  .  .  but  his  re- 
venge was  so  great,  that  lie  is  his 
Justice  Clodpate."  Moreover,  about 
this  time  Shakspeare's  father  was  in 
prison,  his  affairs  were  not  prosperous, 
and  he  himself  had  three  children,  fol- 
lowing one  close  upon  the  other ;  he 
must  live,  and  life  was  hardly  possible 
for  him  in  his  native  town.  He  went 
to  London,  and  took  to  the  stage :  took 
the  lowest  parts,  was  a  "  servant  "  in  the 
theatre,  that  is,  an  apprentice,  or  per- 
haps a  supernumerary.  They  even  said 
that  he  had  begun  still  lower,  and  that 
to  earn  his  bread  he  had  held  gentle- 
men's horses  at  the  door  of  the  thea- 
tre. J  At  all  events  he  tasted  misery, 
and  felt,  not  in  imagination,  but  in  fact, 
the  sharp  thorn  of  care,  humiliation, 
disgust,  forced  labor,  public  discredit, 
the  power  of  the  people.  He  was  a 
comedian,  one  of  "  His  Majesty's  poor 
players,"  § — a  sad  trade,  degraded  in 
all  ages  by  the  contrasts  and  the  false- 
hoods which  it  allows :  still  more  de- 
graded then  by  the  brutalities  of  the 
crowd,  who  not  seldom  would  stone  the 
actors,  and  by  the  severities  of  the  mag  - 
istrates,  who  would  sometimes  con- 
demn them  to  lose  their  ears.  He  felt 
it,  and  spoke  of  it  with  bitterness  : 

"  Alas,  'tis  true  I  have  gore  here  and  there 
And  made  myself  a  motky  to  the  view, 

*  Mr.  Halliwell  and  other  commen  .ators  try 
to  prove  that  at  this  time  the  prelimin  iry  troth- 
plight  was  regarded  as  the  real  marriage  ;  that 
this  trothplight  had  taken  place,  and  that  there 
was  therefore  no  irregularity  in  Shakspeare's 
conduct. 

t  Halliwell,  123. 

J  All  these  anecdotes  are  traditions,  and  con- 
sequently more  or  less  doubtful  ;  but  the  other 
facts  are  authentic. 

§  Terms  of  an  extant  document.  He  if 
named  along  with  Burbadge  and  Greene. 


206 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


Gored  mine  own  thoughts,  sold  cheap  what  is 
most  dear."  * 

And  again : 

"  When  in  disgrace  with  fortune  f  and  men's 

eyes, 

I  all  alone  beweep  my  outcast  state, 
And  trouble  deaf  heaven  with  my  bootless 

cries, 

And  look  upon  myself  and  curse  my  fate, 
Wishing  me  like  to  one  more  rich  in  hope, 
Featured  like  him,   like  him  with   friends 

possessed.  .  .  . 

With  what  I  most  enjoy  contented  least ; 
Yet  in  those  thoughts  myself  almost  despis- 
ing." t 

We  shall  find  further  on  the  traces  of 
this  long-enduring  disgust,  in  his  mel- 
ancholy characters,  as  where  he  says  : 

"  For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of 

time, 
The    oppressor's  wrong,   the    proud  man's 

contumely, 

The  pangs  of  despised  love,  the  law's  delay, 
The  insolence  of  office  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes, 
When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make 
With  a  bare  bodkin  ? "  § 

But  the  worst  of  this  undervalued  po- 
sition is,  that  it  eats  into  the  soul.  In 
the  company  of  actors  we  become  ac- 
tors :  it  is  vain  to  wish  to  keep  clean, 
if  you  live  in  a  dirty  place  ;  it  cannot 
be.  No  matter  if  a  man  braces  him- 
self ;  necessity  drives  him  into  a  corner 
and  sullies  him.  The  machinery  of  the 
decorations,  the  tawdriness  and  medley 
of  the  costumes,  the  smell  of  the  tallow 
and  the  candles,  in  contrast  with  the 
parade  of  refinement  and  loftiness,  all 
the  cheats  and  sordidness  of  the  rep- 
resentation, the  bitter  alternative  of 
hissing  or  applause,  the  keeping  of  the 
highest  and  lowest  company,  the  habit 
of  sporting  with  human  passions,  easily 
unhinge  the  soul,  drive  it  down  the 
slope  of  excess,  tempt  it  to  loose  man- 
ners, green-room  adventures,  the  loves 
of  strolling  actresses.  Shakspeare  es- 
caped them  no  more  than  Moliere,  and 
grieved  for  it,  like  Moliere : 

"  O,  for  my  sake  do  you  with  Fortune  chide, 
The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmful  deeds, 

*  Sonnet  \  10. 

t  See  Sonnets  91  and  in;  also  Hamlet,  iii. 
2.  Many  of  Hamlet's  words  would  come  bet- 
ter from  the  mouth  of  an  actor  than  a  prince. 
See  also  the  66th  Sonnet,  "Tired  with  all 
these." 

%  Sonnet  29.  §  Hamlet,  iii.  i. 


That  did  not  better  for  nr*  life  provide 
Than  public  means  whLh  public  manneri 
breeds."  * 

They  used  to  relate  in  London,  how 
his  comrade  Burbadge,  who  played 
Richard  III.,  having  a  rendezvous  with 
the  wife  of  a  citizen,  Shakspeare  went 
before,  was  well  received,  and  was 
pleasantly  occupied,  when  Burbadge 
arrived,  to  whom  he  sent  the  message, 
that  William  the  Conqueror  came  be- 
fore Richard  III.  t  We  may  take  this 
as  an  example  of  the  tricks  and  some- 
what coarse  intrigues  which  are 
planned, and  follow  in  quick  succession, 
on  this  stage.  Outside  the  theatre  he 
lived  with  fashionable  young  nobles, 
Pembroke,  Montgomery,  Southamp- 
ton,J  and  others,  whose  hot  and  licen- 
tious youth  gratified  his  imagination 
and  senses  by  the  example  of  Italian 
pleasures  and  elegancies.  Add  to  this 
the  rapture  and  transport  of  poetical 
nature,  and  this  kind  of  afflux,  this 
boiling  over  of  all  the  powers  and  de- 
sires which  takes  place  in  brains  of 
this  kind,  when  the  world  for  the  first 
time  opens  before  them,  and  you  will 
understand  the  Venus  and  Adonis,  "the 
first  heir  of  his  invention/'  In  fact,  it 
is  a  first  cry,  a  cry  in  which  the  whole 
man  is  displayed.  Never  was  seen  a 
heart  so  quivering  to  the  touch  of 
beauty,  of  beauty  of  every  kind,  so  de- 
lighted with  the  freshness  and  splendor 
of  things,  so  eager  and  so  excited  in 
adoration  and  enjoyment,  so  violently 
and  entirely  carried  to  the  very  essence 
of  voluptuousness.  His  Venus  is 
unique  ;  no  painting  of  Titian's  has  a 
more  brilliant  and  delicious  coloring  ;  § 
no  strumpet-goddess  of  Tintoretto  or 
Giorgione  is  more  soft  and  beautiful : 

"  With  blindfold  fury  she  begins  to  forage, 
Her  face  doth  reek  and  smoke,  her  blood 
doth  boil.  .  .  . 

And  glutton-like  she  feeds,  yet  never  filleth  ; 
Her  lips  are  conquerors,  his  lips  obey, 
•  Paying  what  ransom  the  insulter  willeth  ; 
Whose  vulture  thought  doth  pitch  the  price 
so  high, 


*  Sonnet  in. 

t  Anecdote  written  in  1602  on  the  authority 
of  Tooley  the  actor. 

$  The  Earl  of  Southampton  was  nineteen 
years  old  when  Shakspeare  dedicated  hig 
A  donis  to  him. 

§  See  Titian's  picture,  Loves  of  the  Gods,  at 
Blenheim. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


207 


That  she  will  draw  his  lips*  rich  treasure 
dry."  * 

'   Even  as  an  empty  eagle,  sharp  by  fast, 
Tires  with  her  beak  on  feathers,  flesh  and 

bone, 

Shaking  her  wings,  devouring  all  in  haste, 
TiJl  either  gorge  be  stuff' d  or  prey  be  gone  ; 
Even  so  she  kiss'd  his  brow,  his  cheek,  his 

chin, 
And  where  she  ends  she  doth  anew  begin."  t 

A  1  is  taken  by  storm,  the  senses  first, 
iie  eyes  dazzled  by  carnal  beauty,  but 
ihe  heart  also  from  whence  the  poetry 
Overflows  ;  the  fulness  of  youth  inun- 
dates even  inanimate  things ;  the  coun- 
try looks  charming  amidst  the  rays  of 
the  rising  sun,  the  air,  saturated  with 
brightness,  makes  a  gala-day ; 

1  Lo,  here  the  gentle  lark,  weary  of  rest, 
From  his  moist  cabinet  mounts  up  on  high, 
And  wakes  the  morning,  from  whose  silver 

breast 

The  sun  ariseth  in  his  majesty  ; 
Who  doth  the  world  so  gloriously  behold 
That  cedar-tops  and  hills    seem  burnish'd 

gold."  t 

An  admirable  debauch  of  imagination 
and  rapture,  yet  disquieting  ;  for  such 
a  mood  will  carry  one  a  long  way.  §  No 
fair  and  frail  dame  in  London  was 
without  Adonis  on  her  table.  ||  Perhaps 
Shakspeare  perceived  that  he  had  tran- 
scended the  bounds,  for  the  tone  of  his 
next  poem,  the  Rape  of  Lucrece,  is  quite 
different ;  but  as  he  has  already  a  mind 
liberal  enough  to  embrace  at  the 
same  time,  as  he  did  afterwards  in  his 
dramas,  the  two  extremes  of  things,  he 
continued  none  the  less  to  follow  his 
bent.  The  "sweet  abandonment  of 
love  "  was  the  great  occupation  of  his 
life ;  he  was  tender-hearted,  and  he 
was  a  ijoet :  nothing  more  is  required 
to  be  smitten,  deceived,  to  suffer,  to 
traverse  without  pause  the  circle  of 
illusions  and  troubles,  which  whirls 
and  whirls  round,  and  never  ends. 

He  had  many  loves  of  this  kind, 
amongst  others  one  for  a  sort  of 
Marion  Delorme,1T  a  miserable  deluding 
despotic  passion,  of  which  he  felt  the 

*  Venus  and  Adonis,  I.  548-553. 

t  Ibid.  I.  55-60.  t  Ibid.  I.  853-858. 

§  Compare  the  first  pieces  of  Alfred  de  Mus- 
set,  Conies  d1  Italie  et  d'Espagne. 

||  Crawley,  quoted  by  Ph.  Chasles,  Etudes 
tur  Shakspeare. 

IT  A  famed  French  courtesan  (1613-1650),  the 
heroine  of  a  drama  of  that  name,  by  Victor 
Hugo,  having  for  its  subject-matter :  "  Love 
purifies  every  thing." — TR. 


burden  and  the  shame,  but  from  which 
nevertheless  he  could  not  and  would 
not  free  himself.  Nothing  can  be 
sadder  than  his  confessions,  or  mark 
better  the  madness  of  love,  and  the 
sentiment  of  human  weakness : 

"  When  my  love  swears  that  she  is  made  of 

truth, 
I  do  believe  her,  though  I  know  she  lies."  * 

So  spoke  Alceste  of  Celimene;t  but 
what  a  soiled  Celimene  is  the  creature 
before  whom  Shakspeare  kneels,  with 
as  much  of  scorn  as  of  desire  ! 

"  Those  lips  cf  thine. 

That  have  profaned  their  scarlet  ornaments 
And  seal'd  false  bonds  of  love  as  oft  as  mine, 
Robb'd  others'  beds'  revenues  of  their  rents. 
Be  it  lawful  i  love  thee,  as  thou  lov'st  those 
Whom   thine  eyes  woo    as   mine    importune 
thee."  J 

This  is  plain-speaking  and  deep  shame- 
lessness  of  soul,  such  as  we  find  only 
in  the  stews  ;  and  these  are  the  intoxi- 
cations, the  excesses,  the  delirium  into 
which  the  most  refined  artists  fall,  when 
they  resign  their  own  noble  hand  to 
these  soft,  voluptuous,  and  clinging 
ones.  They  are  higher  than  princes, 
and  they  descend  to  the  lowest  depths 
of  sensual  passion.  Good  and  evil 
then  lose  their  names  ;  all  things  are 
inverted  : 

"  How  sweet  and  lovely  dost  thou  make  the 

shame 

Which,  like  a  canker  in  the  fragrant  rose, 
Doth  spot  the  beauty  of  thy  budding  name ! 
O,  in  what  sweets  dost  thou  thy  sins  enclose  1 
That  tongue  that  tells  the  story  of  thy  days, 
Making  lascivious  comments  on  thy  sport, 
Cannot  dispraise  but  in  a  kind  of  praise  ; 
Naming  thy  name  blesses  an  ill  report."  § 

What  are  proofs,  the  will,  reason,  honor 
itself,  when  the  passion  is  so  absorb- 
ing ?  What  can  be  said  further  to  a 
man  who  answers,  "  I  know  all  that 
you  are  going  to  say,  and  what  does  it 
all  amount  to?"  Great  loves  are  in- 
undations, which  drown  all  repugnar  ce 
and  all  delicacy  of  soul,  all  precon^ 
ceived  opinions  and  all  received  prin- 
ciples. Thenceforth  the  heart  is  dead 
to  all  ordinary  pleasures :  it  can  only 
feel  and  breathe  on  one  side.  Shak- 
speare envies  the  keys  of  the  instru- 
ment over  which  his  mistress'  fingers 

*  Sonnet  138. 

t  Two  characters  in   Moliere's  Misanthrope 
The  scene  referred  to  is  Act  v.  sc.  7.— TR. 
\  Sonnet  142.  §  Ibid.  95. 


208 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


run.  If  he  looks  at  flowers,  it  is  she 
whom  he  pictures  beyond  them  ;  and 
the  extravagant  splendors  of  dazzling 
poetry  spring  up  in  him  repeatedly,  as 
soon  as  he  thinks  of  those  glowing 
black  eyes : 

"  From  you  have  I  been  absent  in  the  spring, 
When  proud-pied  April   dress'd   in   all   his 

trim, 

Hath  put  a  spirit  of  youth  in  every  thing, 
That  heavy  Saturn  laugh'd  and  leap' d  with 

him."  * 

lie  saw  none  of  it : 

*  Nor  did  I  wonder  at  the  lily's  white, 

Nor  praise  the  deep  vermilion  in  the  rose."t 

All  this  sweetness  of  spring  was  but 
her  perfume  and  her  shade  : 

"  The  forward  violet  thus  I  did  chide: 

*  Sweet  thief,  whence  didst  thou    steal    thy 

sweet  that  smells, 
If  not  from  my  love's  breath  ?    The  purple 

pride, 
Which  on  thy  soft  cheek  for  complexion 

dwells 
In  my  love's  veins  thou  hast  too  grossly 

dyed.' 

The  lily  I  condemned  for  thy  hand, 
And  buds  of  marjoram  had  stol'n  thy  hair : 
The  roses  fearfully  on  thorns  did  stand, 
One  blushing  shame,  another  white  despair  : 
A  third,  nor  red  nor  white,  had  stol'n  of  both 
And  to  his  robbery  had  annex'd  thy  breath  ; 
More  flowers  I  noted,  yet  I  none  could  see 
But  sweet  or  colour  it  had  stol'n  from  thee."J 

Passionate  archness,  delicious  affecta- 
tions, worthy  of  Heine  and  the  con- 
temporaries of  Dante,  which  tell  us  of 
long  rapturous  dreams  concentrated  on 
one  object.  Under  a  sway  so  imperi- 
ous and  sustained,  what  sentiment 
could  maintain  its  ground  ?  That  of 
family?  He  was  married  and  had 
children, — a  family  which  he  went  to 
see  "  once  a  year  ;  "  and  it  was  proba- 
bly on  his  return  from  one  of  these  jour- 
neys that  he  used  the  words  above 
quoted.  Conscience  ?  "  Love  is  too 
young  to  know  what  conscience  is." 
Jealousy  and  anger? 

4  For,  thou  betray  ing  me,  I  do  betray 
My  nobler  part  to  my  gross  body's  trea- 
son." § 

Repulses  ? 

"  He  is  contented  thy  poor  drudge  to  be 
To  stand  in  thy  affairs,  fall  by  thy  side."  || 

He  is  no  longer  young  ;  she  loves  an- 
other, a  handsome,  young,  light- haired 


*  Sonnet  98. 
t  Ibid.  99. 


t  Ibid. 
§  Ibid.  151. 


II  Ibid. 


fellow,  his  own  dearest  friend,  whom 
he  has  presented  to  her,  and  whom  she 
wishes  to  seduce : 

"  Two  loves  I  have  of  comfort  and  despair. 
Which  like  two  spirits  do  suggest  me  still  * 
The  better  angel  is  a  man  right  fair, 
The  worser  spirit  a  woman  coiour'd  ill. 
To  win  me  soon  to  hell,  my  female  evil 
Tempteth  my  better  angel  from  my  side."  * 

And  when  she  has  succeeded  in  this,1 
he  dares  not  confess  it  to  himself,  but 
suffers  all,  like  Moliere.  What  w  retch  • 
edness  is  there  in  these  trifles  of  ever)  - 
day  life !  How  man's  thoughts  in- 
stinctively place  by  Shakspeare's  side 
the  great  unhappy  French  poet  (Mol- 
iere), also  a  philosopher  by  nature,  but 
more  of  a  professional  laugher,  a 
mocker  of  old  men  in  love,  a  bitter 
railer  at  deceived  husbands,  who,  af- 
ter having  played  in  one  of  his  most 
approved  comedies,  said  aloud  to  a 
friend,  "  My  dear  fellow,  I  am  in  de- 
spair ;  my  wife  does  not  love  me ! " 
Neither  glory,  nor  work,  nor  invention 
satisfy  these  vehement  souls :  love 
alone  can  gratify  them,  because,  with 
their  senses  and  heart,  it  contents  also 
their  brain  ;  and  all  the  powers  of  man, 
imagination  like  the  rest,  find  in  it  their 
concentration  and  their  employment. 
"  Love  is  my  sin,"  he  said,  as  did  Mus- 
set  and  Heine  ;  and  in  the  Sonnets  we 
find  traces  of  yet  other  passions, 
equally  abandoned ;  one  in  particular, 
seemingly  for  a  great  lady.  The  first 
half  of  his  dramas,  Midsummer  Nighfs 
Dream,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,  preserve  the 
warm  imprint  more  completely;  and 
we  have  only  to  consider  his  latest 
women's  character,  \  to  see  with  what 

*  Sonnet  144 ;  also  the  Passionate  Pil- 
grim, 2. 

t  This  new  interpretation  of  the  Sonnets  is 
due  to  the  ingenious  and  learned  conjectures  oi 
M.  Ph.  Chasles. — For  a  short  history  of  th«  se 
Sonnets,  see  Dyce's  Shakspeare,'\.  pp.  96-102. 
This  learned  editor  says  :  "I  contend  that 
allusions  scattered  thro'ugh  the  whole  series 
are  not  to  be  hastily  referred  to  the  personal 
circumstances  of  Shakspeare." — TR. 

t  Miranda,  Desdemona,  Viola.  The  follow- 
ing are  the  first  words  of  the  Duke  in  Twelfth 
Night:— 

"  If  music  be  the  food  of  love,  plav  on ; 
Give  me  excess  of  it,  that,  surfeiting, 
The  appetite  may  sicken,  and  so  die. 
That  strain  again  !  it  had  a  dying  fall : 
O,  it  came  o'er  my  ear  like  the  sweet  so 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


209 


exquisite  tenderness,  what  full  adora- 
tion, he  loved  them  to  the  end. 

In  this  is  all  his  genius ;  his  was  one 
of  those  delicate  souls  which,  like  a 
perfect  instrument  of  music,  vibrate  of 
themselves  at  the  slightest  touch.  This 
fine  sensibility  was  the  first  thing  ob- 
served in  him.  "  My  darling  Shak- 
speare,"  "  Sweet  Swan  of  Avon : " 
these  words  of  Ben  Jonson  only  con- 
firm what  his  contemporaries  reiterate. 
He  was  affectionate  and  kind,  "civil 
in  demeanour,  and  excellent  in  the  qual- 
itie  he  professes ;  "  *  if  he  had  the  im- 
pulse, he  had  also  the  effusion  of  true 
artists ;  he  was  loved,  men  were  de- 
lighted in  his  company ;  nothing  is 
moie  sweet  or  winning  than  this  charm, 
this  half-feminine  abandonment  in  a 
man.  His  wit  in  conversation  was 
ready,  ingenious,  nimble ;  his  gayety 
brilliant ;  his  imagination  fluent,  and 
so  copious,  that,  as  his  friends  tell  us, 
he  never  erased  what  he  had  written  ; 
— at  least  when  he  wrote  out  a  scene 
for  the  second  time,  it  was  the  idea 
which  he  would  change,  not  the  words, 
by  an  after-glow  of  poetic  thought,  not 
with  a  painful  tinkering  of  the  verse. 
All  these  characteristics  are  combined 
into  a  single  one  :  he  had  a  sympathetic 
genius  ;  I  mean  that  naturally  he  knew 
how  to  forget  himself  and  become 
transfused  into  all  the  objects  which 
he  conceived.  Look  around  you  at 
the  great  artists  of  your  time,  try  to 
approach  them,  to  become  acquainted 
with  them,  to  see  them  as  they  think, 
and  you  will  observe  the  full  force  of 
this  word.  By  an  extraordinary  in- 
stinct, they  put  themselves  at  once  in 
a  position  of  existences;  men,  animals, 
flowers,  plants,  landscapes,  whatever 
the  objects  are,  living  or  not,  they  fee] 
by  intuition  the  forces  and  tendencies 
which  produce  the  visible  external ; 
and  their  soul,  infinitely  complex,  be- 
Stealing  and  giving  odour !  Enough  ;  no 

more : 

'Tis  not  so  sweet  now  as  it  was  before. 
O   spirit   of  love!  how  quick  and  fresh  art 

thou, 

That,  notwithstanding  thy  capacity 
Receiveth  as  the  sea,  nought  enters  there, 
Of  what  validity  and  pitch  soever, 
But  falls  into  abatement  and  low  price, 
Even  in  a  minute :  so  full  of  shapes  is  fancy 
That  it  alone  is  high-fantastical." 

*  H.  Chettle,  in   repudiating  Greene's  sar- 
casm, attributed  to  him. 


comes  by  its  ceaseless  metamorphoses, 
a  sort  of  abstract  of  the  universe.  This 
is  why  they  seem  to  live  more  than 
other  men  ;  they  have  no  need  to  be 
taught,  they  divine.  I  have  seen  such  a 
man,  apropos  of  a  piece  of  armor,  a 
costume,  a  collection  of  furniture,  enter 
into  the  middle  age  more  fully  than 
three  savants  together.  They  recon- 
struct, as  they  build,  naturally,  surely, 
by  an  inspiration  which  is  a  winged 
chain  of  reasoning.  Shakspeare  had 
only  an  imperfect  education,  "small 
Latin  and  less  Greek,"  barely  French 
and  Italian,*  nothing  else  ;  he  had  not 
travelled,  he  had  only  read  the  cur- 
rent literature  of  his  day,  he  had  picked 
up  a  few  law  words  in  the  court  of  his 
little  town :  reckon  up,  if  you  can,  all 
that  he  knew  of  man  and  of  history. 
These  men  see  more  objects  at  a  time ; 
they  grasp  them  more  closely  than 
other  men,  more  quickly  and  thorough- 
ly ;  their  mind  is  full,  and  runs  over. 
They  do  not  rest  in  simple  reasoning ; 
at  every  idea  their  whole  being,  reflec- 
tions, images,  emotions,  are  set  aquiver. 
See  them  at  it ;  they  gesticulate,  mimic 
their  thought,  brim  over  with  compari- 
sons ;  even  in  their  talk  they  are  im- 
aginative and  original,  with  familiarity 
and  boldness  of  speech,  sometimes 
happily,  always  irregularly,  according 
to  the  whims  and  starts  of  the  adven- 
turous impi  ovisation.  The  animation, 
the  brilliancy  of  their  language  is  mar- 
vellous ;  so  are  their  fits,  the  wide 
leaps  with  which  they  couple  widely- 
removed  ideas,  annihilating  distance, 
passing  from  pathos  to  humor,  from 
vehemence  to  gentleness.  This  ex- 
traordinary rapture  is  the  last  thing  to 
quit  them.  If  perchance  ideas  fail,  or 
if  their  melancholy  is  too  violent,  they 
still  speak  and  produce,  even  if  it  be 
nonsense :  they  become  clowns,  though 
at  their  own  expense,  and  to  their  own 
hurt.  I  know  one  of  these  men  who 
will  talk  nonsense  when  he  thinks  he 
is  dying,  or  has  a  mind  to  kill  himself ; 
the  inner  wheel  continues  to  turn,  even 
upon  nothing,  that  wheel  which  man 
must  needs  see  ever  turning,  even 
though  it  tear  him  as  it  turns ;  his  buf- 
foonery is  an  outlet :  you  will  find  him, 

*  Dyce,  Shakspeare,  i.  27 :  "  Of  French 
and  Italian,  I  apprehend,  he  knew  but  little.' ' 
— TR. 


210 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


this  inextinguishable  urchin,  this  iron- 
ical puppet,  at  Ophelia's  tomb,  at  Cle- 
opatra's death-bed,  at  Juliet's  funeral. 
High  or  low,  these  men  must  always 
be  at  some  extreme.  They  feel  their 
good  and  their  ill  too  deeply ;  they  ex- 
patiate too  abundantly  on  each  condi- 
tion of  their  soul,  by  a  sort  of  involun- 
tary novel.  After  the  traducings  and  the 
disgusts  by  which  they  debase  them- 
selves beyond  measure,  they  rise  and 
become  exalted  in  a  marvellous  fashion, 
even  trembling  with  pride  and  joy. 
"Haply,"  says  Shakspeare,  after  one 
of  these  dull  moods  : 

*  Haply  I  think  on  thee,  and  then  my  state, 
Like  to  the  lark  at  break  of  day  arising 
From  sullen  earth,  sings  hymns  at  heaven's 
gate."  * 

Then  all  fades  away,  as  in  a  furnace 
where  a  stronger  flare  than  usual  has 
left  no  substance  fuel  behind  it. 

**  That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  behold 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do 

hang 
Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the 

cold, 
Bare    ruin'd  choirs,  where   late   the    sweet 

birds  sang. 

In  me  thou  see'st  the  twilight  of  such  day 
As  after  sunset  fadeth  in  the  west, 
Which  by  and  by  black  night  doth    take 

away, 
Death's    second  self,  that    seals  up  all  in 

rest."  t  .  .  . 

14  No  longer  mourn  for  me  when  I  am  dead 
Than  you  shall  hear  the  surly  sullen  bell 
Give  warning  to  the  world  that  I  am  fled 
From  this  vile  world,  with  vilest  worms  to 

dwell : 

Nay,  if  you  read  this  line,  remember  not 
The  hand  that  writ  it ;  for  I  love  you  so, 
That  I  in  your  sweet  thoughts  would  be  for- 
got 

If  thinking  on  me  then  should  make  you 
•woe."  $ 

These  sudden  alternatives  of  joy  and 
sadness,  divine  transports  and  grand 
melancholies,  exquisite  tenderness  and 
womanly  depressions,  depict  the  poet, 
extreme  in  emotions,  ceaselessly  trou- 
bled with  grief  or  merriment,  feeling 
the  slightest  shock,  more  strong,  more 
dainty  in  enjoyment  and  suffering  than 
other  men,  capable  of  more  intense 
and  sweeter  dreams,  within  whom  is 
stirred  an  imaginary  world  of  graceful 
or  terrible  beings,  all  impassioned  like 
their  author. 

Such  as  I  have  described  him,  how- 
*  Sonnet  29.         f  Ibid.  73.        J  Ibid.  ji. 


ever,  he  found  his  resting  place.  Early 
at  least  what  regards  outward  appear- 
ances, he  settled  down  to  an  orderly, 
sensible,  almost  humdrum  existence, 
engaged  in  business,  provident  of  the 
future.  He  remained  on  the  stage  for 
at  least  seventeen  years,  though  taking 
secondary  parts ;  *  he  sets  his  wits  at 
the  same  time  to  the  touching  up  of 
plays  with  so  much  activity,  that  Greene 
called  him  "  an  upstart  crow  beautified 
with  our  feathers;  ...  an  absolute 
Johannes  factotum,  in  his  owne  conceyt 
the  onely  shake-scene  in  a  countrey."  1 
At  the  age  of  thirty-three  he  haa 
amassed  money  enough  to  buy  at 
Stratford  a  house  with  two  barns  and 
two  gardens,  and  he  went  on  steadier 
and  steadier  in  the  same  course.  A 
man  attains  only  to  easy  circumstances 
by  his  own  labor ;  if  he  gains  wealth, 
it  is  by  making  others  labor  for  him. 
This  is  why,  to  the  trades  of  actor  and 
author,  Shakspeare  added  those  of 
manager  and  director  of  a  theatre. 
He  acquired  a  share  in  the  Blackfriars 
and  Globe  theatres,  farmed  tithes, 
bought  large  pieces  of  land,  more 
houses,  gave  a  dowry  to  his  daughter 
Susanna,  and  finally  retired  to  his  na- 
tive town  on  his  property,  in  his  own 
house,  like  a  good  landlord,  an  honest 
citizen,  who  manages  his  fortune  fitly, 
and  takes  his  share  of  municipal  work. 
He  had  an  income  of  two  or  three  hun 
dred  pounds,  which  would  be  equiva- 
lent to  about  eight  or  twelve  hundred 
at  the  present  time,  and  according  to 
tradition,  lived  cheerfully  and  on  good 
terms  with  his  neighbors  ;  at  all  events 
it  does  not  seem  that  he  thought  much 
about  his  literary  glory,  for  he  did  not 
even  take  the  trouble  to  collect  and 
publish  his  works.  One  of  his  daugh- 
ters married  a  physician,  the  other  a 
wine  merchant ;  the  last  did  not  even 
know  how  to  sign  her  name.  He  lent 
money,  and  cut  a  good  figure  in  this 
little  world.  Strange  close  ;  one  which 
at  first  sight  resembles  more  that  of  a 
shopkeeper  than  of  a  poet.  Must  we 
attribute  it  to  that  English  instinct 
which  places  happiness  in  the  life  of  a 
country  gentleman  and  a  landlord  with 
a  good  rent-roll,  well  connected,  sur- 

The  part  in  which  he  excelled  was  that  of 
the  ghost  in  Hamlet. 
t  Greene's  A  Groatsworth  of  Wit^  etc. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


211 


rounded  by  comforts,  who  quietly  en- 
joys his  undoubted  respectability,*  his 
domestic  authority,  and  his  county 
standing  ?  Or  rather,  was  Shakspeare, 
like  Voltaire,  a  common-sense  man, 
though  of  an  imaginative  brain,  keep- 
ing a  sound  judgment  under  the  spark- 
ling of  his  genius,  prudent  from  skepti- 
cism, saving  through  a  desire  for  in- 
dependence, and  capable,  after  going 
the  round  of  human  ideas,  of  deciding 
with  Candide,t  that  the  best  thing  one 
can  do  in  this  world  is  "  to  cultivate 
one's  garden?"  I  had  rather  think, 
as  his  full  and  solid  head  suggests,  J 
that  by  the  mere  force  of  his  overflow- 
iig  imagination  he  escaped,  like 
Goethe,  the  perils  of  an  overflowing 
imagination  ;  that  in  depicting  passion, 
he  succeeded,  like  Goethe,  in  deaden- 
ing passion  ;  that  the  fire  did  not  break 
put  in  his  conduct,  because  it  found 
issue  in  his  poetry;  that  his  theatre 
kept  pure  his  life;  and  that,  having 
passed,  by  sympathy,  through  every 
kind  of  folly  and  wretchedness  that  is 
incident  to  human  existence,  he  was 
able  to  settle  down  amidst  them  with 
a  calm  and  melancholic  smile,  listen- 
ing, for  the  sake  of  relaxation,  to  the 
aerial  music  of  the  fancies  in  which  he 
revelled.  §  I  am  willing  to  believe, 
lastly,  that  in  frame  as  in  other  things, 
he  belonged  to  his  great  generation 
and  his  great  age ;  that  with  him,  as 
with  Rabelais,  Titian,  Michel  Angelo, 
and  Rubens,  the  solidity  of  the  mus- 
cles was  a  counterpoise  to  the  sensibil- 
ity of  the  nerves ;  that  in  those  days 
uhe  human  machine,  more  severely 
tried  and  more  firmly  constructed, 
could  withstand  the  storms  of  passion 
and  the  fire  of  inspiration  ;  that  soul 
and  body  were  still  at  equilibrium; 
that  genius  was  then  a  blossom,  and 
not,  as  now,  a  disease.  We  can  but 
make  conjectures  about  all  this  ;  if  we 
would  become  acquainted  more  closely 
with  the  man,  we  must  seek  him  in  his 
works. 

*  "  He  was  a  respectable  man."  "  A  good 
word;  what  does  it  mean?"  "He  kept  a 
gig.''— (From  Thurtell's  trial  for  the  murder 
of  Weare.) 

t  The  model  of  an  optimist,  the  hero  of  one 
of  Voltaire's  tales — TK. 

I  See  his  portraits,  and  in  particular  his 
bust. 

§  Especially  in  his  later  plays :  Tempest, 
Twelfth  Night, 


II. 


Let  us  then  look  for  the  man,  and  it 
his  style.  The  style  explains  the  work; 
whilst  showing  the  principal  features 
of  the  genius,  it  infers  the  rest.  When 
we  have  once  grasped  the  dominant 
faculty,  we  see  the  whole  artist  devel- 
oped like  a  flower. 

Shakspeare  imagines  with  copious- 
ness and  excess  ;  he  scatters  metaphors 
profusely  over  all  he  writes;  every 
instant  abstract  ideas  are  changed  into 
images;  it  is  a  series  of  pah  .tings 
which  is  unfolded  in  his  mind.  He 
does  not  seek  them,  they  come  of  them- 
selves ;  they  crowd  within  him,  covering 
his  arguments ;  they  dim  with  their 
brightness  the  pure  light  of  logic.  He 
does  not  labor  to  explain  or  prove  ; 
picture  on  picture,  image  on  image,  he 
is  for  ever  copying  the  strange  and 
splendid  visions  which  are  engender- 
ed one  after  another,  and  are  heaped 
up  within  him.  Compare  to  our  dull 
writers  this  passage,  which  I  take  at 
hazard  from  a  tranquil  dialogue : 

**  The  single  and  peculiar  life  is  bound, 
With   all   the  strength  and  armour  of  the 

mind, 

To  keep  itself  from  noyance  ;  but  much  more 
That  spirit  upon   whose    weal  depend  and 

rest 

The  lives  of  many.    The  cease  of  majesty 
Dies  not  alone  ;  but,  like  a  gulf,  doth  draw 
What's  near  it  with  it :  it  is  a  massy  wheel, 
Fix'd  on  the  summit  of  the  highest  mount, 
To  whose  huge  spokes  ten  thousand  lesser 

things 
Are  mortised  and  adjoin'd  ;  which,  when  it 

falls, 

Each  small  annexment,  petty  consequence, 
Attends  the  boisterous  ruin.  Never  alone 
Did  the  king  sigh,  but  with  a  general 

groan."  * 

Here  we  have  three  successive  im- 
ages to  express  the  same  thought.  It 
is  a  whole  blossoming  ;  a  bough  grows 
from  the  trunk,  from  that  another, 
which  is  multiplied  into  numerous  fresh 
branches.  Instead  of  a  smooth  road, 
traced  by  a  regular  line  of  dry  and  cun- 
ningly fixed  landmarks,  you  enter  a 
wood,  crowded  with  interwoven  trees 
and  luxuriant  bushes,  which  conceal 
and  prevent  your  progress,  which  de- 
light and  dazzle  your  eyes  by  the  mag- 
nificence of  their  verdure  and  the 
wealth  of  their  bloom.  You  are  aston- 
ished at  first,  modern  mind  that  you 

*  Hamlet,  iii.  3. 


212 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


are,  business  man,  used  to  the  clear 
dissertations  of  classical  poetry;  you 
become  cross  ;  you  think  the  author  is 
amusing  himself,  and  that  through  con- 
ceit and  bad  taste  he  is  misleading  you 
and  himself  in  his  garden  thickets.  By 
no  means  ;  if  he  speaks  thus,  it  is  not 
from  choice,  but  of  necessity  ;  meta- 
phor is  not  his  whim,  but  the  form  of 
his  thought.  In  the  height  of  passion, 
he  imagines  still.  When  Hamlet,  in 
despair,  remembers  his  father's  noble 
form,  he  sees  the  mythological  pictures 
with  which  the  taste  of  the  age  filled 
the  very  streets : 

"  A  station  like  the  herald  Mercury 

New  lighted  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill."  * 

This  charming  vision,  in  the  midst  of 
a  bloody  invective  proves  that  there 
lurks  a  painter  underneath  the  poet. 
Involuntarily  and  out  of  season,  he 
tears  off  the  tragic  mask  which  covered 
his  face ;  and  the  reader  discovers,  be- 
hind the  contracted  features  of  this 
terrible  mask,  a  graceful  and  inspired 
smile  which  he  did  not  expect  to  see. 

Such  an  imagination  must  needs  be 
vehement.  Every  metaphor  is  a  con- 
vulsion. Whosoever  involuntarily  and 
naturally  transforms  a  dry  idea  into  an 
image,  has  his  brain  on  fire  ;  true 
metaphors  are  flaming  apparitions, 
which  are  like  a  picture  in  a  flash  of 
lightning.  Never,  I  think,  in  any  nation 
of  Europe,  or  in  any  age  of  history, 
has  so  grand  a  passion  been  seen. 
Shakspeare's  style  is  a  compound  of 
frenzied  expressions.  No  man  has 
submitted  words  to  such  a  contortion. 
Mingled  contrasts,  tremendous  exag- 
gerations, apostrophes,  exclamations, 
the  whole  fury  of  the  ode,  confusion  of 
ideas,  accumulation  of  images,  the 
horrible  and  the  divine,  jumbled  into 
the  same  line  ;  it  seems  to  my  fancy  as 
though  he  never  writes  a  word  without 
shouting  it.  '  What  have  I  done  ?  '  the 
queen  asks  Hamlet.  He  answers  : 

"  Such  an  act 

That  blurs  the  grace  and  blush  of  modesty, 
tails  virtue  hypocrite,  takes  off  the  rose 
from  the  fair  forehead  of  an  innocent  love, 
And  sets  a  blister  there,  makes  marriage-vows 
As  false  as  dicers'  oaths  :  O,  such  a  deed 
As  from  the  body  of  contraction  plucks 
The  very  soul,  and  sweet  religion  makes 
A  rhapsody  of  words  :  Heaven's  face  doth  glow 


*  Act  iii.  Sc.  4. 


Yea,  this  solidity  and  compound  mass, 
With  tristful  visage,  as  against  the  doom, 
Is  thought-sick  at  the  act."  * 

It  is  the  style  of  phrensy.  Yet  I  have 
not  given  all.  The  metaphors  are  all 
exaggerated,  the  ideas  all  verge  on  the 
absurd.  All  is  transformed  and  dis- 
igured  by  the  whirlwind  of  passion. 
The  contagion  of  the  crime,  which  he 
denounces,  has  marred  all  nature.  He 
no  longer  sees  any  thing  in  the  world 
but  corruption  and  lying.  To  vilify  the 
virtuous  were  little  ;  he  vilifies  virtue 
tierself.  Inanimate  things  a~e  sucked 
into  this  whirlpool  of  grief.  The  sky's 
red  tint  at  sunset,  the  pallid  darkness 
spread  by  night  over  the  landscape, 
become  the  blush  and  the  pallor  of 
shame,  and  the  wretched  man  who 
speaks  and  weeps  sees  the  whole  world 
totter  with  him  in  the  dimness  of  de- 
spair. 

Hamlet,  it  will  be  said,  is  half-mad  ; 
this  explains  the  vehemence  of  his  ex- 
pressions. The  truth  is  that  Hamlet, 
here,  is  Shakspeare.  Be  the  situation 
terrible  or  peaceful,  whether  he  is 
engaged  on  an  invective  or  a  conversa- 
tion, the  style  is  excessive  throughout. 
Shakspeare  never  sees  things  tranquilly. 
All  the  powers  of  his  mind  are  concen- 
trated in  the  present  image  or  idea. 
He  is  buried  and  absorbed  in  it.  With 
such  a  genius,  we  are  on  the  brink  of 
an  abyss  ;  the  eddying  water  dashes  in 
headlong,  swallowing  up  whatever  ob- 
jects it  meets,  and  only  bringing  them 
to  light  transformed  and  mutilated.  We 
pause  stupefied  before  these  convulsive 
metaphors,  which  might  have  been 
written  by  a  fevered  hand  in  a  night's 
delirium,  which  gather  a  pageful  of 
ideas  and  pictures  in  half  a  sentence, 
which  scorch  the  eyes  they  would  en- 
lighten. Words  lose  their  meaning  ; 
constructions  are  put  out  of  joint :  para- 
doxes of  style,  apparently  false  expres- 
sions, which  a  man  might  occasion iliy 
venture  upon  with  diffidence  in  the 
transport  of  his  rapture,  become  the 
ordinary  language.  Shakspeare  Jaz- 
zles,  repels,  terrifies,  disgusts,  oppres- 
ses ;  his  verses  are  a  piercing  and  sub- 
lime song,  pitched  in  too  high  a  key, 
above  the  reach  of  our  organs,  which 
offends  our  ears,  of  which  our  mind 
alone  can  divine  the  justice  and  beauty. 
*  Ibid. 


:HAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


213 


Yet  this  is  little  ;  for  that  singular 
force  of  concentration  is  redoubled  by 
the  suddenness  of  the  dash  which  calls 
it  into  existence.  In  Shakspeare  there 
is  no  preparation,  no  adaptation,  no 
development,  no  care  to  make  himself 
understood.  Like  a  too  fiery  and 
powerful  horse,  he  bounds,  but  cannot 
run.  He  bridges  in  a  couple  of  words 
an  enormous  interval ;  is  at  the  two 
poles  in  a  single  instant.  The  reader 
vainly  looks  for  the  intermediate  track; 
dazed  by  these  prodigious  leaps,  he 
wonders  by  what  miracle  the  poet  has 
entered  upon  a  new  idea  the  very  mo- 
ment when  he  quitted  the  last,  seeing 
perhaps  between  the  two  images  a  long 
scale  of  transitions,  which  we  mount 
with  difficulty  step  by  step,  but  which 
he  has  spanned  in  a  stride.  Shak- 
speare flies,  we  creep.  Hence  comes  a 
style  made  up  of  conceits,  bold  images 
shattered  in  an  instant  by  others  still 
bolder,  barely  indicated  ideas  com- 
pleted by  others  far  removed,  no  visi- 
ble connection,  but  a  visible  incohe- 
rence ;  at  every  step  we  halt,  the  track 
failing ;  and  there,  far  above  us,  lo, 
stands  the  poet,  and  we  find  that  we 
have  ventured  in  his  footsteps,  through 
a  craggy  land,  full  of  precipices,  which 
he  threads,  as  if  it  were  a  straightfor- 
ward road,  but  on  which  our  greatest 
efforts  barely  carry  us  along. 

What  will  you  think,  further,  if  we 
observe  that  these  vehement  expres- 
sions, so  natural  in  their  upwelling, 
instead  of  following  one  after  the  other 
slowly  and  with  effort,  are  hurled  out 
by  hundreds,  with  an  impetuous  ease 
and  abundance,  like  the  bubbling  waves 
from  a  welling  spring,  which  are 
heaped  together,  rise  one  above  an- 
othe  r,  and  find  nowhere  room  enough  to 
spre  id  and  exhaust  themselves  ?  You 
may  find  in  Romeo  and  Juliet  a  score 
of  examples  of  this  inexhaustible  in- 
spiration. The  two  lovers  pile  up  an 
infinite  mass  of  metaphors,  impas- 
sioned exaggerations,  clenches  con- 
torte-1  phrases,  amorous  extravagances. 
Their  language  is  like  the  trill  of  night- 
ingales. Shakspeare's  wits,  Mercutio, 
Beatrice,  Rosalind,  his  clowns,  buffoons, 
sparkle  with  far-fetched  jokes,  which 
rattle  out  like  a  volley  of  musketry. 
There  is  none  of  them  but  provides 
enough  play  01  words  to  stock  a  whole 


theatre.  Lear's  curses,  or  Queen  Mar« 
garet's,  would  suffice  for  all  the  mad- 
men in  an  asylum,  or  all  the  oppressed 
of  the  earth.  The  sonnets  are  a  delir- 
ium of  ideas  and  images,  labored  at 
with  an  obstinacy  enough  to  make  a 
man  giddy.  His  first  poem,  Venus  and 
Adonis,  is  the  sensual  ecstasy  of  a  Cor- 
reggio,  insatiable  and  excited.  This 
exuberant  fecundity  intensifies  qualities 
already  in  excess,  and  multiplies  a 
hundred-fold  the  luxuriance  of  meta- 
phor, the  incoherence  of  style,  and  the 
unbridled  vehemence  of  expression.* 

All  that  I  have  said  may  be  com- 
pressed into  a  few  words.  Objects 
were  taken  into  his  mind  organized  and 
complete ;  they  pass  into  ours  disjoint- 
ed, decomposed,  fragmentarily.  He 
thought  in  the  lump,  we  think  piece 
meal ;  hence  his  style  and  our  style — 
two  languages  not  to  be  reconciled. 
We,  for  our  part,  writers  and  reason- 
ers,  can  note  precisely  by  a  word  each 
isolated  fraction  of  an  idea,  and  repre- 
sent the  due  order  of  its  parts  by  the 
due  order  of  our  expressions.  We  ad- 
vance gradually  ;  we  follow  the  filia- 
tions, refer  continually  to  the  roots,  try 
and  treat  our  words  as  numbers,  our 
sentences  as  equations ;  we  employ  but 
general  terms,  which  every  mind  can 
understand,  and  regular  constructions, 
into  which  any  mind  can  enter  ;  we  at- 
tain justness  and  clearness,  not  life. 
Shakspeare  lets  justness  and  clearness 
look  out  for  themselves,  and  attains 
life.  From  amidst  his  complex  con- 
ception and  his  colored  semi-vision  he 
grasps  a  fragment,  a  quivering  fibre, 
and  shows  it ;  it  is  for  you,  from  this 
fragment,  to  divine  the  rest.  He,  be- 
hind the  word,  has  a  whole  picture,  an 
attitude,  a  long  argument  abridged,  a 
mass  of  swarming  ideas ;  you  know 
them,  these  abbreviative,  condensive 
words  :  these  are  they  which  we  launch 
out  amidst  the  fire  of  invention,  in  a  fit 
of  passion — words  of  slang  or  of  fashion 
which  appeal  to  local  memory  or  indi- 
vidual experience  ;  t  little  desultory 
and  incorrect  phrases,  which,  by  their 

*  This  is  why,  in  the  eyes  of  a  writer  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  Shakspeare's  style  is  the 
most  obscure,  pretentious,  painful,  barbarous, 
and  absurd,  that  could  be  imagined. 

t  Shakspeare's  vocabulary  is  the  most  copious 
of  all.  It  comprises  about  15,000  words  ;  Mil- 
ton's only  8000. 


214 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


irregularity,  express  the  suddenness 
and  the  breaks  of  the  inner  sensation  ; 
trivial  words,  exaggerated  figures.* 
1'here  is  a  gesture  beneath  each,  a 
quick  contraction  of  the  brows,  a  curl 
of  laughing  lips,  a  clown's  trick,  an  un- 
hinging of  the  whole  machine.  None 
of  them  mark  ideas,  all  suggest  images  ; 
each  is  the  extremity  and  issue  of  a 
complete  mimic  action ;  none  is  the 
expression  and  definition  of  a  partial 
and  limited  idea.  This  is  why  Shak- 
speare  is  strange  and  powerful,  obscure 
and  creative,  beyond  all  the  poets  of 
his  or  any  other  age ;  the  most  im- 
moderate of  all  violators  of  language, 
the  most  marvellous  of  all  creators  of 
souls,  the  farthest  removed  from  regu- 
lar logic  and  classical  reason,  the  one 
most  capable  of  exciting  in  us  a  world 
of  forms  and  of  placing  living  beings 
before  us. 

III. 

Let  us  reconstruct  this  world,  so  as 
to  find  in  it  the  imprint  of  its  creator. 
A  poet  does  not  copy  at  random  the 
manners  which  surround  him ;  he 
selects  from  this  vast  material,  and  in- 
voluntarily brings  upon  the  stage  the 
habits  of  the  heart  and  conduct  which 
best  suit  his  talent.  If  he  is  a  logician, 
a  moralist,  an  orator,  as,  for  instance, 
one  of  the  French  great  tragic  poets 
(Racine)  of  the  seventeenth  century,  he 
will  only  represent  noble  manners ';  he 
will  avoid  low  characters;  he  will  have 
a  horror  of  menials  and  the  plebs ;  he 
•will  observe  the  greatest  decorum 
amidst  the  strongest  outbreaks  of  pas- 
sion ;  he  will  reject  as  scandalous  every 
low  or  indecent  word  ;  he  will  give  us 
reason,  loftiness,  good  taste  through- 
out ;  he  will  suppress  the  familiarity, 
childishness,  artlessness,  gay  banter  of 
domestic  life  ;  he  will  blot  out  precise 
details,  special  traits,  and  will  carry 
tragedy  into  a  serene  and  sublime  re- 
gion, where  his  abstract  personages, 
unencumbered  by  time  and  space,  after 
an  exchange  of  eloquent  harangues  and 
able  dissertations,  will  kill  each  other 
becomingly,  and  as  though  they  were 
merely  concluding  a  ceremony.  Shak- 
f  *  See  the  conversation  of  Laertes  and  his 
sister,  and  of  Laertes  and  Polonius,  in  Hamlet. 
The  style  is  foreign  to  the  situation  ;  and  we 
see  here  plainly  the  natural  and  necessary  pro- 
cess of  Shakspeare's  thought. 


[BOOK   II 


speare  does  just  the  contrary,  because 
his  genius  is  the  exact  opposite.  His 
master  faculty  is  an  impassioned  imag- 
ination, freed  from  the  shackles  of 
reason  and  morality.  He  abandons 
himself  to  it,  and  finds  in  man  nothing 
that  he  would  care  to  lop  off.  He  ac- 
cepts nature  and  finds  it  beautiful  in  its 
entirety.  He  paints  it  in  its  littlenesses, 
its  deformities,  its  weaknesses,  its  ex- 
cesses, its  irregularities,  and  in  its 
rages ;  he  exhibits  man  at  his  meals,  in 
bed,  at  play,  drunk,  mad,  sick  ;  he  adds 
that  which  ought  not  to  be  seen  to  that 
which  passes  on  the  stage.  He  does 
not  dream  of  ennobling,  but  of  copying 
human  life,  and  aspires  only  to  make 
his  copy  more  energetic  and  more 
striking  than  the  original. 

Hence  the  morals  of  this  drama  ; 
and  first,  the  want  of  dignity.  Dignity 
arises  from  self-command.  A  man 
selects  the  most  noble  of  his  acts  and 
attitudes,  and  allows  himself  no  other. 
Shakspeare's  characters  select  none, 
but  allow  themselves  all.  His  kings 
are  men,  and  fathers  of  families.  The 
terrible  Leontes  who  is  about  to  order 
the  death  of  his  wife  and  his  friend, 
plays  like  a  child  with  his  son :  ca- 
resses him,  gives  him  all  the  pretty  pet 
names  which  mothers  are  wont  to  em- 
ploy ;  he  dares  be  trivial ;  he  gabbles 
like  a  nurse ;  he  has  her  language  and 
fulfils  her  duties  : 

"  Leontes.  What,  hast  smutch'd  thy  nose  ? 

They  say  it  is  a  copy  out  of  mine.  Come,  cap- 
tain, 

We  must  be  neat  ;  not  neat,  but  cleanly,  cap- 
tain: .  .  . 

Come,  sir  page, 

Look  on  me  with  your  welkin  eye  :  sweet  vil- 


lain! 
Most  dear'st  !  my  collop  , 


Of 


lines 

my  boy's  fa 
renty-threey 


Looking  on  the 


ice,  methoughts  I  did  recoil 


Twenty-three  years,  and  saw  myself  unbreech'd, 
In  my  green  velvet  coat,  my  dagger  muzzled, 
Lest  it  should  bite  its  master.   .  .  . 
How  like,  methought,  I  then  was  to  this  ker» 

nel, 

This  squash,  this  gentleman  !  .  .  .  M>  brother 
Are  you  so  fond  of  your  young  prince  as  we 
Do  seem  to  be  of  ours? 

Polixenes.  If  at  home,  sirf 

He's  all  my  exercise,  my  mirth,  my  mutter, 
Now  my  sworn  friend  and  then  mine  enemy, 
My  parasite,  my  soldier,  statesman,  all : 
He  makes  a  July's  day  short  as  December, 
And  with  his  varying  childness  cures  in  me 
Thoughts  that  would  thick  my  blood."  * 


*  Winter's  Tale.  i.  2. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


2I5 


There  are  a  score  of  such  passages 
in  Shakspeare.  The  great  passions, 
with  him  as  in  nature,  are  preceded  or 
followed  by  trivial  actions,  small-talk, 
commonplace  sentiments.  Strong 
emotions  are  accidents  in  our  life :  to 
drink,  to  eat,  to  talk  of  indifferent 
things,  to  carry  out  mechanically  an 
habitual  duty,  to  dream  of  some  stale 
pleasure  or  some  ordinary  annoyance, 
that  is  in  which  we  employ  all  our 
time.  Shakspeare  paints  us  as  we  are  ; 
his  heroes  bow,  ask  people  for  news, 
speak  of  rain  and  fine  weather,  as  often 
and  as  casually  as  ourselves,  on  the 
very  eve  of  falling  into  the  extremity 
of  misery,  or  of  plunging  into  fatal 
resolutions.  Hamlet  asks  what's 
o'clock,  finds  the  wind  biting,  talks  of 
feasts  and  music  heard  without ;  and 
this  quiet  talk,  so  unconnected  with 
the  action,  so  full  of  slight,  insignificant 
facts,  which  chance  alone  has  raised  up 
and  guided,  lasts  until  the  moment 
when  his  father's  ghost,  rising  in  the 
darkness,  reveals  the  assassination 
which  it  is  his  duty  to  avenge. 

Reason  tells  us  that  our  manners 
should  be  measured;  this  is  why  the 
manners  which  Shakspeare  paints  are 
not  so.  Pure  nature  is  violent,  pas- 
sionate :  it  admits  no  excuses,  suffers 
no  middle  course,  takes  no  count  of 
circumstances,  wills  blindly,  breaks  out 
into  railing,  has  the  irrationality,  ardor, 
anger  of  children.  Shakspeare's  char- 
acters have  hot  blood  and  a  ready 
hand.  They  cannot  restrain  them- 
selves, they  abandon  themselves  at 
once  to  their  grief,  indignation,  love, 
and  plunge  desperately  down  the  steep 
slope,  where  their  passion  urges  them. 
How  many  need  I  quote?  Timon, 
Fostl.umus,  Cressida,  all  the  young 
girls,  all  the  chief  characters  in  the 
great  dramas ;  everywhere  Shakspeare 
paints  the  unreflecting  impetuosity  of 
the  impulse  of  the  moment.  Capulet 
tells  his  daughter  Juliet  that  in  three 
days  she  is  to  marry  Earl  Paris,  and 
bids  her  be  proud  of  it;  she  answers 
that  she  is  not  proud  of  it,  and  yet  she 
thanks  the  earl  for  this  p;oof  of  love. 
Compare  Capulet's  fury  with  the  anger 
of  Orgon,*  and  you  may  measure  the 

*  One  of  Moli  ire's  characters  in  Tartuffe.— 
TR. 


difference  of  the  two  poets  and  the  two 
civilizations : 

"  Capulet.  How  now,  how  now,  chop-logic  t 

What  is  this  ? 
'  Proud,'  and  '  I  thank  you,'  and  '  I  thank  you 

not  ; ' 

And  yet  '  not  proud,'  mistress  minion,  you, 
Thank   me  no  thankings,   nor  proud  me  no 

prouds, 
But  fettle   your  fine   joints  'gainst  Thursday 

next, 

To  go  with  Paris  to  Saint  Peter's  church, 
Or  I  will  drag  thee  on  a  hurdle  thither. 
Out,  you  green-sickness  carrion  1  out,  you  bat « 

gage! 

You  tallow-face ! 
Juliet.  Good  father,  I  beseech  you  on  my 

knees, 

Hear  me  with  patience  but  to  speak  a  word. 
C.  Hang  thee,  young  baggage  I  disobedient 

wretch  ! 

I  tell  thee  what :  get  thee  to  church  o'  Thurs- 
day, 

Or  never  after  look  me  in  the  face  : 
Speak  not,  reply  not,  do  not  answer  me  ; 
My  fingers  itch.  .    .  . 
Lady  C.  You  are  too  hot. 
C.  God's  bread  !  it  makes  me  mad  : 
Day,  night,  hour,  tide,  time,  work,  play, 
Alone,  in  company,  still  my  care  hath  been 
To  have  her  match'd:  and  having  now  pro- 
vided 

A  gentleman  of  noble  parentage, 
Of  fair  demesnes,  youthful,  and  nobly  train'd, 
Stuff'd,  as  they  say,  with  honourable  parts, 
Proportion'd  as  one's  thought   would  wish  a 

man  ; 

And  then  to  have  a  wretched  puling  fool, 
A  whining  mammet,  in  her  fortune's  tender, 
To  answer,  '  /'//  not  ived  ;  I  cannot  love, 
I  am  too  young  ;  I  pray  you,  pardon  me,1 — 
But,  an  you  will  not  wed,  I'll  pardon  you : 
Graze  where  you  will,  you  shall  not  house  with 

me : 

Look  to't,  think  on't,  I  do  not  use  to  jest. 
Thursday  is  near  ;  lay  hand  on  heart,  advise  : 
An  you  be  mine,  I'll  give  you  to  my  friend  ; 
An  you  be  not,  hang,  beg,  starve,  die  in  the 

streets, 
For,  by  my  soul,  I'll  ne'er  acknowledge  thee."* 

This  method  of  exhorting  one's 
child  to  marry  is  peculiar  to  Shnk- 
speare  and  the  sixteenth  century.  Con- 
tradiction to  these  men  was  like  a  red 
rag  to  a  bull;  it  drove  them  mad. 

We  might  be  sure  that  in  thi?  age, 
and  on  this  stage,  decency  was  a  thing 
unknown.  It  is  wearisome,  being  a 
check ;  men  got  rid  of  it,  because  it 
was  wearisome.  It  is  a  gift  of  reason 
and  morality  ;  as  indecency  is  produced 
bynatuie  and  passion.  Shakspeare's 
words  are  too  indecent  to  be  translated. 
His  characters  call  things  by  their 
dirty  names,  and  compel  the  thoughts 
to  particular  images  of  physical  love. 
*  Romeo  and  Juliet^  iii.  5. 


2l6 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


The  talk  of  gentlemen  and  ladies  is  full 
of  coarse  allusions ;  we  should  have  to 
find  out  an  alehouse  of  the  lowest  de- 
scription to  hear  like  words  nowa- 
days.* 

It  would  be  in  an  alehouse  too  that 
we  should  have  to  look  for  the  rude 
jests  and  brutal  kind  of  wit  which 
form  the  staple  conversations.  Kindly 
politeness  is  the  slow  fruit  of  advanced 
reflection ;  it  is  a  sort  of  humanity 
and  kindliness  applied  to  small  acts 
and  everyday  discourse  ;  it  bids  man 
soften  towards  others,  and  forget  him- 
self for  the  sake  of  others;  it  con- 
strains genuine  nature,  which  is  selfish 
and  gross.  This  is  why  it  is  absent 
from  the  manners  of  the  drama  we 
are  considering.  You  will  see  car- 
men, out  of  sportiveness  and  good 
humor,  deal  one  another  hard  blows  ; 
so  it  is  pretty  well  with  the  conversa- 
tion of  the  lords  and  ladies  of  Shak- 
speare  who  are  in  a  sportive  mood  ;  for 
instance,  Beatrice  and  Benedick,  very 
well  bred  folk  as  things  go,t  with  a 
great  reputation  for  wit  and  politeness, 
whose  smart  retorts  create  amusement 
for  the  bystanders.  These  "  skirmishes 
of  wit "  consist  in  telling  one  another 
plainly  :  You  are  a  coward,  a  glutton, 
an  idiot,  a  buffoon,  a  rake,  a  brute  ! 
You  are  a  parrot's  tongue,  a  fool,  a  ... 
(the  word  is  there).  Benedick  says : 

"  I  will  go  ...  to  the  Antipodes  .  .  .  rather 

than  hold  three  words'  conference  with  this 

harpy.    ...    I   cannot   endure   my   Lady 

Tongue.  .  .  . 

Don  Pedro.   You  have  put  him  down,  lady, 

you  have  put  him  down. 
Beatrice.  So  I  would  not  he  should  do  me, 
my  lord,  lest  I  should  prove  the  mother  of 
fools."  i 

We  can  infer  the  tone  they  use  when 
in  anger.  Emilia,  in  Othello,  says  : 

"  He  call'd  her  whore  ;  a  beggar  in  his  drink 
Could  not  have  laid  such  terms  upon  his  cal- 
lat."  § 

They  have  a  vocabulary  of  foul  words 
as  complete  as  that  of  Rabelais,  and 
they  exhaust  it.  They  catch  up  hand- 
fuls  of  mud,  and  hurl  it  at  their  enemy, 

*  Henry  VIII.  ii.  3,  and  many  other  scenes. 

t  Much  A  do  about  Nothing.  See  also  the 
manner  in  which  Henry  V.  in  Shakspeare's 
King  Henry  V.  pays  court  to  Katharine  of 
France  (v.  2). 

%  Much  A  do  about  Nothing,  ii.  i. 

§  Act  iv.  2. 


not     conceiving     themselves     to 
smirched. 

Their  actions  correspond.  They  go 
without  shame  or  pity  to  the  limits  of 
their  passion.  They  kill,  poison,  vio- 
late, burn;  the  stage  is  full  of  abomina- 
tions. Shakspeare  lugs  upon  the  stage 
all  the  atrocious  deeds  of  the  civil 
wars.  These  are  the  ways  of  wolves 
and  hyaenas.  We  must  read  of  Jack 
Cade's  sedition*  to  gain  an  idea  of 
this  madness  and  fury.  We  might 
imagine  we  were  seeing  infuriated 
beasts,  the  murderous  recklessness  of 
a  wolf  in  a  sheepfold,  the  brutality  of 
a  hog  fouling  and  rolling  himself  in 
filth  and  blood.  They  destroy,  kill, 
butcher  each  other;  with  their  feet  in 
the  blood  of  their  victims,  they  call  for 
food  and  drink  ;  they  stick  heads  on 
pikes  and  make  them  kiss  one  another, 
and  they  laugh. 

11  Jack  Cade.  There  shall  be  in  England 
seven  halfpenny  loaves  sold  for  a  penny.  .  .  . 
There  shall  be  no  money;  all  shall  eat  and 
drink  on  my  score,  and  I  will  apparel  them  all 
in  one  livery.  .  .  .  And  here  sitting  upon  Lon 
don-stone,  I  charge  and  command  that,  of  the 
city's  cost,  the  pissing-conduit  run  nothing  but 
claret  wine  this  first  year  of  our  reign.  .  .  . 
Away,  burn  all  the  records  of  the  realm  :  my 
mouth  shall  be  the  parliament  of  England.  .  .  . 
And  henceforth  all  things  shall  be  in  common. 
.  .  .  What  canst  thou  answer  to  my  majesty 
for  giving  up  of  Normandy  unto  Mounsieur 
Basimecu,  the  dauphin  of  France?  .  .  .  The 
proudest  peer  in  the  realm  shall  not  wear  a 
head  on  his  shoulders,  unless  he  pay  me  trib- 
ute ;  there  shall  not  a  maid  be  married,  but  she 
shall  pay  to  me  her  maidenhead  ere  they  have 
it.  (Re-enter  rebels  with  the  heads  of  Lord 
Say  and  his  son-in-law^)  But  is  not  this 
braver?  Let  them  kiss  one  another,  for  they 
loved  well  when  they  were  alive."  t 

Man  must  not  be  let  loose  ;  we  know 
not  what  lusts  and  rage  may  brood 
under  a  sober  guise.  Nature  was  never 
so  hideous,  and  this  hideousness  is  the 
truth. 

Are  these  cannibal  manners  only  met 
with  among  the  scum  ?  Why,  the 
princes  are  worse.  The  Duke  of  Corn- 
wall orders  the  old  Earl  of  Gloucester 
to  be  tied  to  a  chair,  because,  owing  to 
him  King  Lear  has  escaped : 

"  Fellows,  hold  the  chair. 
Upon  these  eyes  of  thine  I'll  set  my  foot. 
{Gloucester  is  held  down  in  the  chair, 
while  Cornwall  plucks  out  one  of  hit 
eyes,  and  sets  his  foot  on  it.~\ 


*  Second  Part  of  Henry  VI.  iv.  6. 
t  Henry  VI.  ad  part,  iv.  2,  6,  7. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


217 


Gloster.  He  that  will  think  to  live  till  he 

be  old, 

Give  me  some  help !  O  cruel :  O  you  gods ! 
Regan.  One  side  will  mock  another  ;   the 

other  too. 

Cornwall.  If  you  see  vengeance, — 
Servant.  Hold  your  hand,  my  lord  : 

I  have  served  you  ever  since  I  was  a  child  ; 
But  better  service  have  I  never  done  you, 
Than  now  to  bid  you  hold. 
Regan.  How  now,  you  dog ! 
Serv.  If  you  did  wear  a  beard  upon  your 

chin, 
IM  shake  it  on  this  quarrel.    What  do  you 

mean  ? 
Corn.  My  villain ! 

[Draws  and  runs  at  him."] 
Serv.    Nay,  then,  come  on,  and  take  the 
chance  of  anger. 

[Draws  ;    they  fight ;    Cornwall    is 
wounded.} 

Regan.  Give  me  thy  sword.    A  peasant 
stand  up  thus. 

{.Snatches  a  sword,  comes  Behind,  and 

stabs  him.} 

Serv.  O,  I  am  slain !    My  lord,  you  have 

one  eye  left 

To  see  some  mischief  on  him.     O !       [Dies.] 
Corn.  Lest  it  see  more,  prevent  it.     Out, 

vi  e  jelly ! 

When .1  is  thy  lustre  now  ? 
Gfaiter.  All  dark  and  comfortless.  Where's 

m / son  ?  .  .  . 
Reg  zn.  Go  thrust  him  out  at  gates,  and  let 

him  smell 
His  way  to  Dover."  * 

Such  are  the  manners  of  that  stage. 
They  are  unbridled,  like  those  of  the 
age,  and  like  the  poet's  imagination. 
To  copy  the  common  actions  of  every- 
day life,  the  puerilities  and  feeblenesses 
to  which  the  greatest  continually  sink, 
the  outbursts  of  passion  which  degrade 
them,  the  indecent,  harsh,  or  foul 
words,  the  atrocious  deeds  in  which 
license  revels,  the  brutality  and  fero- 
city of  primitive  nature,  is  the  work  of 
a  free  and  unencumbered  imagination. 
To  copy  this  hideousness  and  these 
excesses  with  a  selection  of  such  famil- 
iar, significant,  precise  details,  that 
they  reveal  under  every  word  of  every 
oersonage  a  complete  civilization,  is 

•he  work  of  a  concentrated  and  all- 
powerful  imagination.  This  species  of 

nanners  and  this  energy  of  description 
indicate  the  same  faculty,  unique  and 
excessive,  which  the  style  had  already 
indicated. 

IV. 

On  this  common  background  stands 
out  in  striking  relief  a  population  of 

*  Kinf  Leart  iii.  7. 


distinct  living  figures,  illuminated  by 
an  intense  light.  This  creative  power 
is  Shakspeare's  great  gift,  and  it  com- 
municates an  extraordinary  significance 
to  his  words.  Every  phrase  pronounced 
by  one  of  his  characters  enables  us  to 
see,  besides  the  idea  which  it  contains 
and  the  emotion  which  prompted  it* 
the  aggregate  of  the  qualities  and  the 
entire  character  which  produced  it — 
the  mood,  physical  attitude,  bearing, 
look  of  the  man,  all  instantaneously, 
with  a  clearness  and  force  approached 
by  no  one.  The  words  which  strike 
our  ears  are  not  the  thousandth  part  of 
those  we  hear  within  ;  they  are  like 
sparks  thrown  off  here  and  there  ;  the 
eyes  catch  rare  flashes  of  flame;  the 
mind  alone  perceives  the  vast  conflagra- 
tion of  which  they  are  the  signs  and 
the  effect.  He  gives  us  two  dramas  in 
one :  the  first  strange,  convulsive,  cur- 
tailed, visible ;  the  other  consistent, 
immense,  invisible ;  the  one  covers  the 
other  so  well,  that  as  a  rule  we  do  not 
realize  that  we  are  perusing  words  : 
we  hear  the  roll  of  those  terrible  voices, 
we  see  contracted  features,  glowing 
eyes,  pallid  faces ;  we  see  the  agitation, 
the  furious  resolutions  which  mount  to 
the  brain  with  the  feverish  blood,  and 
descend  to  the  sharp-strung  nerves. 
This  property  possessed  by  every 
phrase  to  exhibit  a  world  of  sentiments 
and  forms,  comes  from  the  fact  that  the 
phrase  is  actually  caused  by  a  world  of 
emotions  and  images.  Shakspeare, 
when  he  wrote,  felt  all  that  we  feel,  and 
much  besides.  He  had  the  prodigious 
faculty  of  seeing  in  a  twinkling  of  the 
eye  a  complete  character,  body,  mind, 
past  and  present,  in  every  detail  and 
every  depth  of  his  being,  with  the 
exact  attitude  and  the  expression  of 
face,  which  the  situation  demanded. 
A  word  here  and  there  of  Hamlet  or 
Othello  would  need  for  its  explanation 
three  pages  of  commentaries  ;  each  of 
the  half-understood  thoughts,  which  the 
commentator  may  have  discovered,  has 
left  its  trac£  in  the  turn  of  the  phrase, 
in  the  nature  of  the  metaphor,  in  the 
order  of  the  words  ;  nowadays,  in  pur- 
suing these  traces,  we  divine  the 
thoughts.  These  innumerable  traces 
have  been  impressed  in  a  second, 
within  the  compass  of  a  line.  In  the 
next  line  there  are  as  many,  impressed 

10 


2l8 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


just  as  quickly,  and  in  the  same  com- 
pass. You  can  gauge  the  concentra- 
tion and  the  velocity  of  the  imagination 
which  creates  thus. 

These  characters  are  all  of  the  same 
family.  Good  or  bad,  gross  or  delicate, 
witty  or  stupid,  Shakspeare  gives 
them  all  the  same  kind  of  spirit  which 
is  his  own.  He  has  made  of  them 
imaginative  people,  void  of  will  and 
reason,  impassioned  machines,  vehe- 
mently jostled  one  against  another,  who 
were  outwardly  whatever  is  most  nat- 
ural and  most  abandoned  in  human 
nature.  Let  us  act  the  play  to  our- 
selves, and  see  in  all  its  stages  this 
clanship  of  figures,  this  prominence  of 
portraits. 

Lowest  of  all  are  the  stupid  folk, 
babbling  or  brutish.  Imagination  al- 
ready exists  there,  where  reason  is  not 
yet  born;  it  exists  also  there  where 
reason  is  dead.  The  idiot  and  the 
brute  blindly  follow  the  phantoms 
which  exist  in  their  benumbed  or  me- 
chanical brains.  No  poet  has  under- 
stood this  mechanism  like  Shakspeare. 
His  Caliban,  for  instance,  a  deformed 
savage,  fed  on  roots,  growls  like  a  beast 
under  the  hand  of  Prospero,  who  has 
subduod  him.  He  howls  continually 
against  his  master,  though  he  knows 
that  every  curse  will  be  paid  back  with 
"  cramps  and  aches."  He  is  a  chained 
wolf,  trembling  and  fierce,  who  tries 
to  bite  when  approached,  and  who 
crouches  when  he  sees  the  lash  raised. 
He  has  a  foul  sensuality,  a  loud  base 
laugh,  the  gluttony  of  degraded  human- 
ity. He  wished'  to  violate  Miranda 
in  her  sleep.  He  cries  for  his  food, 
and  gorges  himself  when  he  gets  it. 
A  sailor  who  had  landed  in  the  island, 
Stephano,  gives  him  wine;  he  kisses 
his  feet,  and  takes  him  for  a  god ; 
he  asKS  if  he  has  not  dropped  from 
heaven,  and  adores  him.  We  find  in 
him  rebellious  and  baffled  passions, 
which  are  eager  to  rise  again  and  to 
be  satiated.  Stephano  had  beaten  his 
comrade.  Caliban  cries,  ,"  Beat  him 
enough  :  after  a  little  time  I'll  beat  him 
too."  He  prays  Stephano  to  come 
with  him  and  murder  Prospero  in  his 
sleep  ;  he  thirsts  to  lead  him  there, 
dances  through  joy  and  sees  his  master 
already  with  his  "weasand"  cut,  and 
his  brains  scattered  on  the  earth  : 


*'  Prithee,   my    king,  be  quiet,     See'st  thou 

here, 
This  is  the  mouth  o'  the  cell :  no  noise,  and 

enter. 
Do  that  good  mischief  which  may  make  this 

island 

Thine  own  for  ever,  and  I,  thy  Caliban, 
For  aye  thy  foot-licker."  * 

Others,  like  Ajax  and  Cloten,  are  more 
like  men,  and  yet  it  is  pure  mood  that 
Shakspeare  depicts  in  them,  as  in  Cal- 
iban. The  clogging  corporeal  machine, 
the  mass  of  muscles,  the  thick  blood 
sluggishly  moving  along  in  the  veins  of 
these  fighting  men,  oppress  the  intelli- 
gence, and  leave  no  life  but  for  animal 
passions.  Ajax  uses  his  fists,  and  de- 
vours meat ;  that  is  his  existence  ;  if  he 
is  jealous  of  Achilles,  it  is  pretty  much 
as  a  bull  is  jealous  of  his  fellow.  He 
permits  himself  to  be  restrained  and 
led  by  Ulysses,  without  looking  before 
him  :  the  grossest  flattery  decoys  him. 
The  Greeks  have  urged  him  to  accept 
Hector's  challenge.  Behold  him  puff- 
ed up  with  pride,  scorning  to  answer 
anyone,  not  knowing  what  he  says  or 
does.  Thersites  cries,  "  Good-morrow, 
Ajax  ; "  and  he  replies,  "  Thanks,  Aga- 
memnon." He  has  no  further  thought 
than  to  contemplate  his  enormous 
frame,  and  roll  majestically  his  big 
stupid  eyes.  When  the  day  of  the 
fight  has  come,  he  strikes  at  Hector  as 
on  an  anvil.  After  a  good  while  they 
are  separated.  "  I  am  not  warm  yet," 
says  Ajax,  "  let  us  fight  again."!  Cloten 
is  less  massive  than  this  phlegmatic  ox ; 
but  he  is  just  as  idiotic,  just  as  vain- 
glorious, just  as  coarse.  The  beautiful 
Imogen,  urged  by  his  insults  and  his 
scullion  manners,  tells  him  that  his 
whole  body  is  not  worth  as  much  as 
Posthumus'  meanest  garment.  Ho  is 
stung  to  the  quick,  repeats  the  word 
several  times  ;  he  cannot  shake  off  the 
idea,  and  runs  at  it  again  and  again 
with  his  head  down,  like  an  angry 
ram  : 

"  Cloten.  '  His  garment  ?  '  Now,  the  devil— 
Imogetu  To   Dorothy  my  woman  hie  thee 
presently — 

C.  *  His  garment  ? '  .  .  .  You  have  abused 
me  :  *  His  meanest  garment !  '  .  .  .  I'll  be  re- 
venged :  '  His  meanest  garment ! '  Well."  J 


*  Tlie  Tempest,  iv.  r. 

t  See  Troilus  and  Cressida,  ii.  3,  the  jest- 
ing manner  in  which  ttie  generals  drive  on  tliia 
fierce  brute. 

J  Cymbelinty  ii.  3. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


219 


He  gets  some  of  Posthumus'  garments, 
and  goes  to  Milford  Haven,  expecting 
to  meet  Imogen  there.  On  his  way 
he  mutters  thus : 

"  With  that  suit  upon  my  back,  will  I  ravish 
her :  first  kill  him,  and  in  her  eyes  ;  there  shall 
ehe  see  my  valour,  which  will  then  be  a  torment 
to  her  contempt.  He  on  the  ground,  my  speech 
of  insultment  ended  on  his  dead  body,  and  when 
my  lust  has  dined, — which,  as  I  say,  to  vex  her 
I  will  execute  in  the  clothes  that  she  so  praised, 
— to  the  court  I'll  knock  her  back,  foot  her 
home  again."  * 

Others  again,  are  but  babblers :  for  ex- 
ample, Polonius,  the  grave  brainless 
counsellor ;  a  great  baby,  not  yet  out 
of  his  "  swathing  clouts ; "  a  solemn 
booby,  who  rains  on  men  a  shower  of 
counsels,  compliments,  and  maxims  ;  a 
sort  of  court  speaking-trumpet,  useful 
in  grand  ceremonies,  with  the  air  of  a 
thinker,  but  fit  only  to  spout  words. 
But  the  most  complete  of  all  these 
characters  is  that  of  the  nurse  in  Ro- 
meo and  Juliet,  a  gossip,  loose  in  her 
talk,  a  regular  kitchen  oracle,  smelling  of 
the  stew-pan  and  old  boots,  foolish,  im- 
pudent, immoral,  but  otherwise  a  good 
creature,  and  affectionate  to  her  nurse- 
child.  Mark  this  disjointed  and  never- 
ending  gossip's  babble : 

"  Nurse.  'Faith  I  can  tell  her  age  unto  an 

hour. 

Lady  Capulet.  She's  not  fourteen.  .  .  . 
Nurse,  Come  Lammas-eve  at  night  shall 
she  be  fourteen. 

Susan    and    she  —  God    rest    all    Christian 
souls! — 

Were  of  an  age :  well,  Susan  is  with  God  ; 

She  was  too  good  for  me  ;  but,  as  I  said, 

On  Lammas-eve  at  night  shall  she  be  four- 
teen ; 

That  shall  she,  marry  ;  I  remember  it  well. 

'Tis  since  the  earthauake  now  eleven  years  ; 

And  she  was  wean  d, — I  never  shall  forget 
it,— 

Of  all  the  days  of  the  year,  upon  that  day : 

For  I  had  then  laid  wormwood  to  my  dug, 

Sitting  in  the  sun  under  the  dove-house  wall ; 

My  lord  and  you  were  then  at  Mantua  : — 

Nay,  I  do  bear  a  brain  :— but,  as  I  said, 

When  it  did  taste  the  wormwood  on  the  nip- 
ple 

Of  my  dug  and  felt  it  bitter,  pretty  fool, 

To  see  it  tetchy  and  fall  out  with  the  dug ! 

Shake,  quoth  the  dove-house:  'twas  no  need, 
I  trow, 

To  bid  me  trudge  : 

And  since  that  time  it  is  eleven  years  ; 

For  then  she  could  stand  alone  ;'  nay,  by  the 
rood, 

She  could  have  run  and  waddled  all  about ; 

For    even    the  day  before,  she    broke   her 
brow."  | 


*  Cymbeline,  iii.  5.     t  Romeo  and  Juliet)  i.  3. 


Then  she  tells  an  indecent  anecdote, 
which  she  begins  over  again  four  times. 
She  is  silenced  :  what  then  ?  She  has 
her  anecdote  in  her  head,  and  cannot 
cease  repeating  it  and  laughing  to  her- 
self. Endless  repetitions  are  the 
mind's  first  step.  The  vulgar  do  not 
pursue  the  straight  line  of  reasoning 
and  of  the  story ;  they  repeat  their  steps, 
as  it  were  merely  marking  time  :  struck 
with  an  image,  they  keep  it  for  an  hour 
before  their  eyes,  and  are  never  tired  of 
it.  If  they  do  advance,  they  turn  asi  de 
to  a  hundred  subordinate  ideas  before 
they  get  at  the  phrase  required.  They 
allow  themselves  to  be  diverted  by  all 
the  thoughts  which  come  acioss  them. 
This  is  what  the  nurse  does  ;  and  when 
she  brings  Juliet  news  of  her  lover,  she 
torments  and  wearies  her,  less  from  a 
wish  to  tease  than  from  a  habit  of  wan- 
dering from  the  point : 

"  Nurse.    Jesu,  what  haste  ?    can  you  not 

stay  awhile  ? 
Do  you  not  see  that  I  am  out  of  breath  ? 

Juliet.  How  art  thou  out  of  breath,  when 

thou  hast  breath 

To  say  to  me  that  thou  art  out  of  breath  ? 
Is  thy  news  good,  or  bad  ?  answer  to  that ; 
Say  either,  and  I'll  stay  the  circumstance: 
Let  me  be  satisfied  :  is't  good  or  bad  ? 

N.  Well,  you  have  made  a  simple  choice  ; 
you  know  not  how  to  choose  a  man  :  Romeo  ! 
no,  not  he  :  though  his  face  be  better  than  any 
man's,  yet  his  leg  excels  all  men's  ;  and  for  a 
hand  and  a  foot,  and  a  body,  though  they  be 
not  to  be  talked  on,  yet  they  are  past  compare  : 
he  is  not  the  flower  of  courtesy,  but,  I'll  war- 
rant him,  as  gentle  as  a  lamb.  Go  thy  ways, 
wench  ;  serve  God.  What,  have  you  dined  at 
home  ? 

J.  No,  no:  but  all  this  did  I  know  before. 

hat  says  he  of  our  marriage  ?  what  of  that  ? 

N.  Lord,  how  my  head  aches !  what  a  head 

have  I  ! 

It  beats  as  it  would  fall  in  twenty  pieces. 
My  back  o'   t'other  side, — O,   my  back,  my 

back ! 

Beshrew  your  heart  for  sending  me  about, 
To  catch  my  death  with  jaunting  up  and  down  ! 

J.  I'  faith,   I   am  sorry  that  thou   art  not 

well. 

Sweet,  sweet,  sweet  nurse,  tell  me,  what  ssys 
my  love  ? 

N.  Your  love  says,  like  an  honest  gentle- 
man, and  a  courteous,  and  a  kind,  and  a  hand- 
some,  and,  I  warrant,  a  virtuous, — Where  is 
your  mother^  "  * 

It  is  never-ending.  Her  gabble  fs 
worse  when  she  comes  to  announce  to 
Juliet  the  death  of  her  cousin  and  the 
banishment  of  Romeo.  It  is  the  shrill 
cry  and  chatter  of  an  overgrown  asth 

*  Ibid.  ii.  5. 


Whal 


220 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


matic  magpie.  She  laments,  confuses 
the  names,  spins  roundabout  sentences, 
ends  by  asking  for  aqua-vita.  She 
curses  Romeo,  then  brings  him  to  Ju- 
liet's chamber.  Next  day  Juliet  is 
ordered  to  marry  Earl  Paris  ;  Juliet 
throws  herself  into  her  nurse's  arms, 
praying  for  comfort,  advice,  assistance. 
The  other  finds  the  true  remedy  :  Mar- 
ry Paris, 

"  O,  he's  a  lovely  gentleman ! 
Romeo's  a  dishclout  to  him :  an  eagle,  madam, 
Hath  not  so  green,  so  quick,  so  fair  an  eye 
As  Paris  hath.     Beshrew  my  very  heart, 
I  think  you  are  happy  in  this  second  match, 
For  it  excels  your  first."  * 

This  cool  immorality,  these  weather- 
cock arguments,  this  fashion  of  esti- 
mating love  like  a  fishwoman,  com- 
pletes the  portrait. 

V. 

The  mechanical  imagination  pro- 
duces Shakspeare's  fool-characters:  a 
quick  venturesome  dazzling,  unquiet 
imagination,  produces  his  men  of  wit. 
Of  wit  there  are  many  kinds.  One, 
altogether  French,  which  is  but  reason, 
a  foe  to  paradox,  scorner  of  folly,  a 
sort  of  incisive  common  sense,  having 
no  occupation  but  to  render  truth  amus- 
ing and  evident,  the  most  effective 
weapon  with  an  intelligent  and  vain 
people :  such  was  the  wit  of  Voltaire 
and  the  drawing-rooms.  The  other, 
that  of  improvisatores  and  artists,  is  a 
mere  inventive  rapture,  paradoxical, 
unshackled,  exuberant,  a  sort  of  self- 
entertainment,  a  phantasmagoria  of 
images,  flashes  of  wit,  strange  ideas, 
dazing  and  intoxicating,  like  the  move- 
ment and  illumination  in  a  ball-room. 
Such  is  the  wit  of  Mercutio,  of  the 
clowns,  of  Beatrice,  Rosalind,  and  Ben- 
edick. They  laugh,  not  from  a  sense 
of  the  ridiculous,  but  from  the  desire 
to  laugh.  You  must  look  elsewhere  for 
the  campaigns  which  aggressive  reason 
makes  against  human  folly.  Here 
folly  is  in  its  full  bloom.  Our  folk 
think  of  amusement,  and  nothing  more. 
They  are  good-humored  ;  they  let  their 
wit  prance  gayly  over  the  possible  and 
the  impossible.  They  play  upon  words, 
contort  their  sense,  draw  absurd  and 
laughable  inferences,  send  them  back 

*  Romeo  and  Juliet  iii.  5. 


to  one  another,  and  without  intermis- 
sion, as  if  with  shuttlecocks,  and  vie 
with  each  other  in  singularity  and  in- 
vention. They  dress  all  their  ideas  in 
strange  or  sparkling  metaphors.  The 
taste  of  the  time  was  for  masquerades  ; 
their  conversation  is  a  masquerade  of 
ideas.  They  say  nothing  in  a  simple 
style ;  they  only  seek  to  heap  t(  >gether 
subtle  things,  far-fetched,  difficult  to 
invent  and  to  understand  ;  all  their  ex- 
pressions are  over-refined,  unexpected, 
extraordinary ;  they  strain  their  thought, 
and  change  it  into  a  caricature.  "  Alas, 
poor  Romeo !  "  says  Mercutio,  "  he  is 
already  dead;  stabbed  with  a  white 
wench's  black  eye  ;  shot  through  the  ear 
with  a  love-song,  the  very  pin  of  his  heart 
cleft  with  the  blind  bow-boy's  butt- 
shaft."  *  Benedick  relates  a  conversa- 
tion he  has  just  held  with  his  mistress. 
"  O,  she  misused  me  past  the  endurance 
of  a  block !  an  oak,  but  with  one  green 
leaf  on  it  would  have  answered  her ;  my 
very  visor  began  to  assume  life,  and  scold 
with  her."  t  These  gay  and  perpetual 
extravagances  show  the  bearing  of  the 
speakers.  They  do  not  remain  quietly 
seated  in  their  chairs,  like  the  Mar- 
quesses in  the  Misanthrope  ;  they  whirl 
round,  leap,  paint  their  faces,  gesticu- 
late boldly  their  ideas ;  their  wit-rock- 
ets end  with  a  song.  Young  folk,  sol- 
diers and  artists,  they  let  off  their  fire- 
works of  phrases,  and  gambol  round 
about.  "  There  was  a  star  danced, 
and  under  that  was  I  born."J  This 
expression  of  Beatrice's  aptly  describes 
the  kind  of  poetical,  sparkling,  unrea- 
soning, charming  wit,  more  akin  to 
music  than  to  literature,  a  sort  of  dream, 
which  is  spoken  out  aloud,  and  whilst 
wide  awake,  not  unlike  that  described 
by  Mercutio : 

"  O,  then,  I  see  Queen  Mab  hath  been  with 

you. 

She  is  the  fairies'  midwife  ;  and  she  comes 
In  shape  no  bigger  than  an  agate-stone 
On  the  fore-finger  of  an  alderman, 
Drawn  with  a  team  of  little  atomies 
Athwart  men's  noses  as  they  lie  asleep  ; 
Her  waggon-spokes  made  of  long  spinners' 

legs, 

The  cover  of  the  wings  of  grasshoppers, 
The  traces  of  the  smallest  spider's  web, 
The  collars  of  the  moonshine's  watery  beara% 
Her  whip  of  cricket's  bone,  the  lash  of  film, 

*  Ibid.  ii.  4. 

t  Mitch  Ado  about  Nothing,  ii.  x 

$  Ibid. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


221 


Her  waggoner  a  small  grey-coated  gnat, 
Not  half  so  big  as  a  round  little  worm 
Prick' d  from  the  lazy  finger  of  a  maid  J 
Her  chariot  is  an  empty  hazel-nut, 
Made  by  the  joiner  squirrel  or  old  grub, 
Time  out  o'  mind  the  fairies'  coachmakers. 
And  in  this  state  she  gallops  night  by  night 
Through  lovers'  brains,  and  then  they  dream 

of  love  ; 
O'er  courtiers'  knees,  that  dream  on  court'sies 

straight, 
O'er  lawyers'  fingers,  who  straight  dream  on 

fees, 
O'e;    ladies'   lips,  who    straight   on    kisses 

dream.  .  .  . 

Sometime  she  gallops  o'er  a  courtier's  nose, 
And  then  dreams  he  of  smelling  out  a  suit ; 
And  sometime  comes  she  with  a  tithe-pig's 

tail 

Tickling  a  parson's  nose  as  a'  lies  asleep, 
Then  dreams  he  of  another  benefice : 
Sometime  she  driveth  o'er  a  soldier's  neck, 
And    then    dreams    he    of    cutting    foreign 

throats, 

Of  breaches,  ambuscadoes,  Spanish  blades, 
Of  healths  five-fathom  deep  ;  and  then  anon 
Drums  in  his  ear,  at  which  he  starts  and 

wakes, 
And  being  thus  frighted  swears  a  prayer  or 

two 

And  sleeps  again.    This  is  that  very  Mab 
That  plats  the  manes  of  horses  in  the  night, 
And  bakes  the  elf-locks  in  foul  sluttish  hairs, 
Which    once    untangled    much     misfortune 

bodes.  .  .  . 
This  is  she  "  *  ... 

Romeo  interrupts  him,  or  he  would 
never  end.  Let  the  reader  compare 
with  the  dialogue  of  the  French  theatre 
this  little  poem, 

"  Child  of  an  idle  brain, 
Begot  of  nothing  but  vain  fantasy,"  f 

introduced  without  incongruity  in  the 
midst  of  a  conversation  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  he  will  understand 
the  difference  between  the  wit  which 
devotes  itself  to  reasoning,  or  to  record 
a  subject  for  laughter,  and  that  imag- 
ination which  is  self-amused  with  its 
own  act. 

Falstaff  has  the  passions  of  an  ani- 
mal, and  the  imagination  of  a  man  of 
wit.  There  is  no  character  which  bet- 
ter exemplifies  the  fire  and  immorality 
of  Shakspeare.  Falstaff  is  a  great  sup- 
porter of  disreputable  places,  swearer, 
gamester,  idler,"  wine-bibber,  as  low  as 
he  well  can  be.  He  has  a  big  belly, 
bloodshot  eyes,  bloated  face,  shaking 
legs  ;  he  spends  his  life  with  his  elbows 
among  the  tavern-jugs,  or  asleep  on 
the  ground  behind  the  arras  ;  he  only 
wakes  to  curse,  lie,  brag,  and  steal. 

*  Romeo  and  Juliet^  i.  4.  t  Ibid. 


He  is  as  big  a  swindler  as  Panurge, 
who  hal  sixty-three  ways  of  making 
money,  "  of  which  the  honestest  was 
by  sly  theft."  And  what  is  worse,  he 
is  an  old  man,  a  knight,  a  courtier,  and 
well  educated.  Must  he  not  be  odious 
and  repulsive?  By  no  means;  we 
cannot  help  liking  him.  At  bottom, 
like  his  brother  Panurge,  he  is  "the 
best  fellow  in  the  world."  He  has  no 
malice  in  his  composition ;  no  other 
wish  than  to  laugh  and  be  amused. 
When  insulted,  he  bawls  out  loudei 
than  his  attackers,  and  pays  them  back 
with  interest  in  coarse  words  and  in- 
sults ;  but  he  owes  them  no  grudge  for 
it.  The  next  minute  he  is  sitting  down 
with  them  in  a  low  tavern,  drinking 
their  health  like  a  brother  and  com- 
rade. If  he  has  vices,  he  exposes  them 
so  frankly  that  we  are  obliged  to  for- 
give him  them.  He  seems  to  say  to 
us,  "  Well,  so  I  am,  what  then  ?  I  like 
drinking  :  isn't  the  wine  good  ?  I  take 
to  my  heels  when  hard  hitting  begins  ; 
don't  blows  hurt  ?  I  get  into  debt,  and 
do  fools  out  of  their  money;  isn't  it 
nice  to  have  money  in  your  pocket  ? 
I  brag ;  isn't  it  natural  to  want  to  be 
well  thought  of  ?  " — "  Dost  thou  hear, 
Hal  ?  thou  knowest,  in  the  state  of  in- 
nocency,  Adam  fell ;  and  what  should 
poor  Jack  Falstaff  do  in  the  days  of 
villany  ?  Thou  seest  I  have  more 
flesh  than  another  man,  and  therefore 
more  frailty."  *  Falstaff  is  so  frankly 
immoral,  that  he  ceases  to  be  so.  Con- 
science ends  at  a  certain  point ;  nature 
assumes  its  place,  and  man  rushes 
upon  what  he  desires,  without  more 
thought  of  being  just  or  unjust  than 
an  animal  in  the  neighboring  wood. 
Falstaff,  engaged  in  recruiting,  has  sold 
exemptions  to  all  the  rich  people,  and 
only  enrolled  starved  and  half-naked 
wretches.  There's  but  a  shirt  and  a 
half  in  all  his  company :  that  does  not 
trouble  him.  Bah  :  "  they'll  find  linen 
enough  on  every  hedge."  The  prince 
who  has  seen  them,  says,  "  I  did  never 
see  such  pitiful  rascals."  "Tut,  tut," 
answers  Falstaff,  "good  enough  to 
toss ;  food  for  powder  ;  they'll  fill  a 
pit  as  well  as  better ;  tush,  man,  mor- 
tal men,  mortal  men."  t  His  second 
:xcuse  is  his  unfailing  spirit.  If  ever 

*  First  Part  of  King  Henry  IV.,  iii.  3. 
t  Ibid.  iv.  2. 


222 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK   II. 


fhere  was  a  man  who  could  jabber,  it  is 
he.  Insults  and  oaths,  curses,  joba- 
tions, protests,  flow  from  him  as  from 
an  open  barrel.  lie  is  never  at  a  loss  ; 
he  devises  a  shift  for  every  difficulty. 
Lies  sprout  out  of  him,  fructify,  in- 
crease, beget  one  another,  like  mush- 
rooms on  a  rich  and  rotten  bed  of  earth. 
He  lies  still  more  from  his  imagination 
and  nature  than  from  interest  and  ne- 
cessity. It  is  evident  from  the  manner 
in  which  he  strains  his  fictions.  He 
says  he  has  fought  alone  against  two 
men.  The  next  moment  it  is  four. 
Presently  we  have  seven,  then  eleven, 
then  fourteen.  He  is  stopped  in  time, 
or  he  would  soon  be  talking  of  a  whole 
army.  When  unmasked,  he  does  not 
lose  his  temper,  and  is  the  first  to  laugh 
at  his  boastings.  "  Gallants,  lads,  boys, 
hearts  of  gold.  .  .  .  What,  shall  we  be 
merry  ?  shall  we  have  a  play  extem- 
pore ?  "  *  He  does  the  scolding  part  of 
King  Henry  with  so  much  truth,  that  we 
might  take  him  for  a  king,  or  an  actor. 
This  big  pot-bellied  fellow,  a  coward, 
a  cynic,  a  brawler,  a  drunkard,  a  lewd 
rascal,  a  pothouse  poet,  is  one  of  Shak- 
speare's  favorites.  The  reason  is,  that 
his  morals  are  those  of  pure  nature, 
and  Shakspeare's  mind  is  congenial 
with  his  own. 

VI. 

Nature  is  shameless  and  gross  amidst 
this  mass  of  flesh,  heavy  with  wine 
and  fatness.  It  is  delicate  in  the  deli- 
cate body  of  women,  but  as  unreason- 
ing and  impassioned  in  Desdemona  as 
in  Falstaff.  Shakspeare's  women  are 
charming  children,  who  feel  in  excess 
and  love  passionately.  They  have  un- 
constrained manners,  little  rages,  nice 
words  of  friendship,  a  coquettish  re- 
belliousness, a  graceful  volubility  which 
recall  the  warbling  and  the  prettiness  of 
birds.  The  heroines  of  the  French  stage 
are  almost  men  ;  these  are  women  and 
in  every  sense  of  the  word.  More  im- 
prudent than  Desdemona  a  woman 
could  not  be.  She  is  moved  with  pity 
for  Cassio,  and  asks  a  favor  for  him 
passionately,  recklessly,  be  the  thing 
just  or  no,  dangerous  or  no.  She  knows 
nothing  of  man's  laws,  and  does  not 

*  First  Part  of  King  Henry  IV.t  ii.  4. 


think  of  them.  All  that  she  sees  is, 
that  Cassio  is  unhappy  : — 

"  Be  thou  assured,  good  Cassio  .  .  .  My  lord 
shall  never  rest ; 

I'll  watch  him,  tame  and  talk  him  out  of  pa- 
tience ; 

His  bed  shall  seem  a  school,  his  board  a 
shrift  ; 

I'll  intermingle  everything  he  does 

With  Cassio's  suit."  * 

She  asks  her  favor  : 

"  Othello.  Not  now,  sweet  Desdemona  ;  some 
other  time. 

Desdemona-  But  shall' t  be  shortly  ? 

O.  The  sooner,  sweet,  for  you. 

Des.  Shall' t  be  to-night  at  supper? 

O.   No,  not  to-night. 

Des.  To-morrow  dinner,  then  ? 

O.  I  shall  not  dine  at  home  ; 
I  meet  the  captains  at  the  citadel. 

Des.  Why,  then,  to-morrow  night ;  or  Tues- 
day morn  ; 
On  Tuesday  noon,  or  night  J  on  Wednesday 

morn  ; 

I  prithee,  name  the  time,  but  let  it  not 
Exceed  three  days  :  in  faith,  he's  penitent."  t 

She  is  somewhat  astonished  to  see  her- 
self refused  :  she  scolds  Othello.  He 
yields :  who  would  not  yield  seeing  a 
reproach  in  those  lovely  sulking  eyes  ? 
O,  says  she,  with  a  pretty  pout : 

"  This  is  not  a  boon  ; 

'Tis  as  I  should  en  treat  you  wear  your  gloves, 
Or  feed  on  nourishing  dishes,  or  keep  you 

warm, 

Or  sue  to  you  to  do  peculiar  profit 
To  your  own  person."  t 

A  moment  after,  when  he  prays  her  to 
leave  him  alone  for  a  while,  mark  the 
innocent  gayety,  the  ready  curtsy,  the 
playful  child's  tone : 

"  Shall  I  deny  you  ?  no  :  farewell,  my  lord.. . . 
Emilia,  come :  Be  as  your  fancies  teach  you  ; 
Whate'er  you  be,  I  am  obedient."  § 

This  vivacity,  this  petulance,  does  not 
prevent  shrinking  modesty  and  silent 
timidity :  on  the  contrary,  they  spring 
from  a  common  cause,  extreme  sensi- 
bility. She  who  feels  much  and  quickly 
has  more  reserve  and  more  passion 
than  others  ;  she  breaks  out  or  is  silent ; 
she  says  nothing  or  every  thing.  Such 
is  this  Imogen 

"  So  tender  of  rebukes  that  words  are  strokes, 
And  strokes  death  to  her."  |j 

Such  is  Virgilia,  the  sweet  wife  of 
Coriolanus ;  her  heart  is  not  a  Roman 
one  ;  she  is  terrified  at  her  husband's 

*  Othello,  iii.  3.  t  Ibid. 

%  Ibid.  §  Ibid.  1]  Cymbeline>  iii.  5- 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


223 


victories :  when  Volumnia  describes 
him  stamping  on  the  field  of  battle,  and 
wiping  his  bloody  brow  with  his  hand, 
she  grows  pale : 

*  His  bloody  brow!   O  Jupiter,  no  blood!   .  .  . 
Heavens  bless  my  lord  from  fell  Aufidius  !"* 

She  wishes  to  forget  all  that  she  knows 
of  these  dangers  ;  she  dare  not  think  of 
them  When  asked  if  Coriolanus  does 
not  generally  return  wounded,  she 
cries,  "  O,  no,  no,  no."  She  avoids 
this  cruel  picture,  and  yet  nurses  a 
secret  pang  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart. 
She  will  not  leave  the  house  :  "  I'll  not 
over  the  threshold  till  my  lord  return."  \ 
She  does  not  smile,  will  hardly  admit 
a  visitor ;  she  would  blame  herself,  as 
for  a  lack  of  tenderness,  for  a  mo- 
ment's forgetf ulness  or  gayety.  When 
he  does  return,  she  can  only  blush  and 
weep.  This  exalted  sensibility  must 
needs  end  in  love.  All  Shakspeare's 
women  love  without  measure,  and 
nearly  all  at  first  sight.  At  the  first 
look  Juliet  casts  on  Romeo,  she  says 
to  the  nurse  : 

"  Go,  ask  his  name  :  if  he  be  married, 
My  grave  is  like  to  be  my  wedding  bed."  $ 

It  is  the  revelation  of  their  destiny. 
As  Shakspeare  has  made  them,  they 
cannot  but  love,  and  they  must  love 
till  death.  But  this  first  look  is  an 
ecstasy :  and  this  sudden  approach  of 
love  is  a  transport.  Miranda  seeing 
Fernando,  fancies  that  she  sees  "a 
thing  divine."  She  halts  motionless, 
in  the  amazement  of  this  sudden  vision, 
at  the  sound  of  these  heavenly  har- 
monies which  rise  from  the  depths  of 
her  heart.  She  weeps,  on  seeing  him 
drag  the  heavy  logs ;  with  her  slender 
white  hands  she  would  do  the  work 
whilst  he  reposed.  Her  compassion  and 
tenderness  carry  her  away ;  she  is  no 
longer  mistress  of  her  words,  she  says 
what  she  would  not,  what  her  father  has 
forbidden  her  to  disclose,  what  an  in- 
stant before  she  would  never  have  con- 
fessed. The  too  full  heart  overflows 
unwittingly,  happy,  and  ashamed  at  the 
current  of  joy  and  new  sensations  with 
which  an  unknown  feeling  has  flooded 
her: 


*  Cor;o!anus,  \.  3. 

}  Romeo  and  Juliet,  i.  5. 


t  Ibid. 


*'  Miranda.  I  am  a  fool  to  weep  at  what  I  am 
glad  of.  ... 

Fernando.  Wherefore  weep  you  ? 

M.  At  mine  unworthiness  that  dare  not  offer 
What  I  desire  to  give,  and  much  less  take 
What  I  shall  die  to  want.  .  .  . 
I  am  your  wife,  if  you  will  marry  me  ; 
If  not",  I'll  die  your  maid."  * 

This  irresistible  invasion  of  love 
transforms  the  whole  character.  The 
shrinking  and  tender  Desdemona,  sud- 
denly, in  full  senate,  before  her  father, 
renounces  her  father  ;  dreams  not  for 
an  instant  of  asking  his  pardon,  or  con- 
soling him.  She  will  leave  for  Cyprus 
with  Othello,  through  the  enemy's  fleet 
and  the  tempest.  Every  thing  vanishes 
before  the  one  and  adored  image  which 
has  taken  entire  and  absolute  posses- 
sion of  her  whole  heart.  So,  extreme 
evils,  bloody  resolves,  are  only  the 
natural  sequence  of  such  love.  Ophelia 
becomes  mad,  Juliet  commits  suicide  ; 
no  one  but  looks  upon  such  madness 
and  death  as  necessary.  You  will  not 
then  discover  virtue  in  these  souls,  for 
by  virtue  is  implied  a  determinate  desire 
to  do  good,  and  a  rational  observance 
of  duty.  They  are  only  pure  through 
delicacy  or  love.  They  recoil  from  vice 
as  a  gross  thing,  not  as  an  immoral 
thing.  What  they  feel  is  not  respect 
for  the  marriage  vow,  but  adoration  of 
their  husband.  "O  sweetest,  fairest 
lily !  "  So  Cymbeline  speaks  of  one 
of  these  frail  and  lovely  flowers  which 
cannot  be  torn  from  the  tree  to  which 
they  have  grown,  whose  least  impurity 
would  tarnish  their  whiteness.  When 
Imogen  learns  that  her  husband  means 
to  kill  her  as  being  faithless,  she  does 
not  revolt  at  the  outrage ;  she  has  no 
pride,  but  only  love.  "  False  to  his 
bed  !  "  She  faints  at  the  thought  that 
she  is  no  longer  loved.  When  Cor- 
delia hears  her  father,  an  irritable  old 
man,  already  almost  insane,  ask  her 
how  she  loves  him,  she  cannot  make 
up  her  mind  to  say  aloud  the  flattering 

:rotestations  which  her  sisters  have 
een  lavishing.  She  is  ashamed  to 
display  her  tenderness  before  the 
world,  and  to  buy  a  dowry  by  it.  He 
disinherits  her,  and  drives  her  away ; 
she  holds  her  tongue.  And  when  she 
afterwards  finds  him  abandoned  and 
mad,  she  goes  on  her  knees  before 
him,  with  such  a  touching  emotion,  she 
*  The  Tempest,  iii.  i. 


224 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


weeps  over  that  dear  insulted  head 
with  so  gentle  a  pity,  that  you  might 
fancy  it  was  the  tender  voice  of  a  de- 
solate but  delighted  mother,  kissing 
the  pale  lips  of  her  child  : 

"  O  you  kind  gods, 

Cure  this  great  breach  in  his  abused  nature  I 
The  untuned  and  jarring  senses,  O,  wind  up 
Of  this  child-changed  father !  .  .  . 
O  my  dear  father !   Restoration  hang 
Thy  medicine  on  my  lips  ;  and  let  this  kiss 
Repair  those  violent  harms  that  my  two  sisters 
Have  in  thy  reverence  made!  .  .  .  Was  this  a 

face 

To  be  opposed  against  the  warring  winds  ? 
.  .  .  Mine  enemy's  dog, 
Tlu  ugh  he  had  bit  me,  should  have  stood  that 

night 

\ gainst  my  fire.  .  .  • 
How  does  my  royal  lord?   How  fares  your 

majesty  ? "  * 

If,  in  short,  Shakspeare  comes  across 
a  heroic  character,  worthy  of  Cor- 
neille,  a  Roman,  such  as  the  mother  of 
Coriolanus,  he  will  explain  by  passion, 
what  Corneille  would  have  explained 
by  heroism.  He  will  depict  it  violent 
and  thirsting  for  the  violent  feelings 
of  glory.  She  will  not  be  able  to  re- 
frain herself  She  will  break  out  into 
accounts  of  triumph  when  she  sees  her 
son  crowned  ;  into  imprecations  of  ven- 
geance when  she  sees  him  banished. 
She  will  descend  into  the  vulgarities 
of  pride  and  anger ;  she  will  abandon 
herself  to  mad  effusions  of  joy,  to 
dreams  of  an  ambitious  fancy,!  and 
will  prove  once  more  that  the  impas- 
sioned imagination  of  Shakspeare  has 
left  its  trace  in  all  the  creatures  whom 
it  has  called  forth. 

VII. 

Nothing  is  easier  to  such  a  poet 
than  to  create  perfect  villains.  Through- 

*  King  Lear,  iv.  7. 

T       O  ye' re  well  met :  the  hoarded  plague  o' 

the  gods 

Requite  your  love  ( 
If  that  I  could  for  weeping,  you  should 

hear — 
Nay,  and  you  shall  hear  some.  .  .  . 

I'll  tell  thee  what ;  yet  go  : 
Nay  but  thou  shall  stay  too :  I  would  my 

son 

Were  in  Arabia,  and  thy  tribe  before  him, 
His  good  sword  in  his  hand." — Coriola- 
nus, iv.  2. 

See  again,  Coriolanus,  i.  3,  the  frank  and  aban- 
doned triumph  of  a  woman  of  the  people  ;  "  I 
sprang  not  more  in  joy  at  first  hearing  he  was 
a  man-child  than  now  in  first  seeing  he  had 
proved  himself  a  man." 


out  he  is  handling  the  unruly  passions 
which  make  their  character,  and  he 
never  hits  upon  the  moral  law  which 
restrains  them  ;  but  at  the  same  time, 
and  by  the  same  faculty,  he  changes 
the  inanimate  masks,  which  the  con- 
ventions of  the  stage  mould  on  an 
identical  pattern,  into  living  and  illu 
sory  figures.  How  shall  a  demon  be 
made  to  look  as  real  as  a  man  ?  lago 
is  a  soldier  of  fortune  who  has  roved 
the  world  from  Syria  to  England,  who, 
nursed  in  the  lowest  ranks,  having  had 
close  acquaintance  with  the  horrors  of 
the  wars  of  the  sixteenth  century,  had 
drawn  thence  the  maxims  of  a  Turk 
and  the  philosophy  of  a  butcher  ;  prin- 
ciples he  has  none  left.  "  O  my  repu- 
tation, my  reputation  ! "  cries  the  dis- 
honored Cassio.  "  As  I  am  an  honest 
man,"  says  lago,  "  I  thought  you  had 
received  some  bodily  wound  ;  there  is 
more  sense  in  that  than  in  reputa- 
tion." *  As  for  woman's  virtue,  he 
looks  upon  it  like  a  man  who  has  kept 
company  with  slave-dealers.  He  esti- 
mates Desdemona's  love  as  he  would 
estimate  a  mare's  :  that  sort  of  thing 
lasts  so  long — then  .  .  .  And  then 
he  airs  an  experimental  theory  with 
precise  details  and  nasty  expressions 
like  a  stud  doctor.  "  It  cannot  be  that 
Desdemona  should  long  continue  her 
love  to  the  Moor,  nor  he  his  to  her.  .  . . 
These  Moors  are  changeable  in  their 
wills  ;  .  .  .  the  food  that  to  him  now 
is  as  luscious  as  locusts,  shall  be  to  him 
shortly  as  bitter  as  coloquintida.  She 
must  change  for  youth  :  when  she  is 
sated  with  his  body,  she  will  find  the 
error  of  her  choice."  t  Desdemona 
on  the  shore,  trying  to  forget  her  cares, 
begs  him  to  sing  the  praises  of  her 
sex.  For  every  portrait  he  finds  the 
most  insulting  insinuations.  She  in- 
sists, and  bids  him  take  the  case  of  a 
deserving  woman.  "  Indeed  "  he  re- 
plies, "  She  was  a  wight,  if  ever  such, 
wight  were,  ...  to  suckle  fools 
and  chronicle  small  beer."  \  He  also 
says,  when  Desdemona  asks  him  what 
he  would  write  in  praise  of  her :  "  O 
gentle  lady  do  not  put  me  to't ;  for  I 
am  nothing,  if  not  critical."  §  This  is 
the  key  to  his  character.  He  despises 
man  ;  to  him  Desdemona  is  a  littlo 


*  Othello,  ii.  3. 
t  Ibid.  ii.  i. 


t  Ibid.  i.  3. 
§  Ibid. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


225 


wanton  wench,  Cassio  an  elegant  word 
shaper,  Othello  a  mad  bull,  Roderigo 
an  ass  to  be  basted,  thumped,  mai 
to  go.  He  diverts  himself  by  setting 
these  passions  at  issue ;  he  laughs  a 
it  as  at  a  play.  When  Othello,  swoon 
ing,  shakes  in  his  convulsions,  he  re- 
joices at  this  capital  result :  "  Work 
on,  my  medicine,  work !  Thus  credu 
lous  fools  are  caught."  *  You  would 
take  him  for  one  of  the  poisoners  of 
the  time,  studying  the  effect  of  a  new 
potion  on  a  dying  dog.  He  only  speaks 
in  sarcasms :  he  has  them  ready  for 
every  one,  even  for  those  whom  he 
does  not  know.  When  he  wakes  Bra- 
bantio  to  inform  him  of  the  elopement 
of  his  daughter,  he  tells  him  the  mat- 
ter in  coarse  terms,  sharpening  the 
sting  of  the  bitter  pleasantry,  like  a 
conscientious  executioner,  rubbing  his 
hands  when  he  hears  the  culprit  groan 
under  the  knife.  "  Thou  art  a  villain  ! " 
cries  Brabantio.  "You  are — a  sena- 
tor I  "  answers  lago.  But  the  feature 
which  really  completes  him,  and  makes 
him  take  rank  with  Mephistopheles,  is 
the  atrocious  truth  and  the  cogent  rea- 
soning by  which  he  likens  his  crime  to 
virtue. t  Cassio,  under  his  advice,  goes 
to  see  Desdemona,  to  obtain  her  inter- 
cession for  him  ;  this  visit  is  to  be  the 
ruin  of  Desdemona  and  Cassio.  lago, 
left  alone,  hums  for  an  instant  quietly, 
then  cries : 

"And  what's  he  then  that  says  I  play  the  vil- 
lain ? 

When  this  advice  is  free  I  give  and  honest, 
Probal  to  thinking  and  indeed  the  course 
To  win  the  Moor  again."  t 

To  all  these  features  must  be  added  a 
diabolical  energy,§  an  inexhaustible 
inventiveness  in  images,  caricatures, 
obscenity,  the  manners  of  a  guard- 
room, the  brutal  bearing  and  tastes  of 
a  trooper,  habits  of  dissimulation,  cool- 
ness, hatred,  and  patience,  contracted 
amid  the  perils  and  devices  of  a  mili- 
tary life,  and  the  continuous  miseries 
of  long  degradation  and  frustrated 
hope ;  you  will  understand  how  Shak- 

*  Othello,  iv.  i. 

f  See  the  like  cynicism  and  scepticism  in 
Richard  III.  Both  begin  by  slandering  human 
nature,  and  both  are  misanthropical  of  malzce 
prepense. 

\  Othello,  ii.  3. 

§  See  his  conversation  with  Brabantio,  then 
with  Roderigo,  Act  i. 


speare  could  transform  abstract  treach- 
ery into  a  concrete  form,  and  how 
lago's  atrocious  vengeance  is  only  the 
natural  consequence  of  his  character 
life  and  training. 

VIII. 

How  much  more  visible  is  this  im- 
passioned   and   unfettered  genius    of 
Shakspeare   in    the    great    characters 
which  sustain   the  whole  weight  of  the 
drama !      The    startling    imagination, 
the  furious   velocity  of  the   manifold 
and  exuberant  ideas,  passion  let  loose, 
rushing  upon  death  and   crime,  hallu- 
cinations, madness,  all  the  ravages  of 
delirium  bursting  through  will  and  rea- 
son :  such  are  the  forces  and  ravings 
which  engender  them.     Shall  I  speak 
of  dazzling  Cleopatra,  who  holds  An- 
tony in  the  whirlwind  of  her   devices 
and  caprices,  who  fascinates  and  kills, 
who  scatters   to  the  winds  the  lives  of 
men   as  a   handful  of  desert  dust,  the 
fatal    Eastern    sorceress    who    sports 
with  love   and  death,  impetuous,  irre- 
sistible, child  of  air  and  fire,  whose  life 
"s   but  a  tempest,  whose  thought,  ever 
barbed  and  broken,  is  like  the  crack- 
"ing  of  a  lightning  flash  ?     Of  Othello, 
who,  beset   by  the   graphic  picture  of 
physical  adultery,  cries   at  every  word 
of  lago  like  a  man  on  the  rack,  who,  his 
nerves  hardened  by  twenty  years  of  war 
and  shipwreck,  grows  mad  and  swoons 
"or  grief,  and  whose  soul,  poisoned  by 
ealousy,  is  distracted  and  disorganized 
n   convulsions   and  in  stupor  ?     Or  of 
old  King  Lear,  violent  and  weak,  whose 
lalf-unseated   reason  is  gradually  top- 
ped over  under  the  shocks  of  incredi- 
ble treacheries,  who  presents  the  fright- 
ul  spectacle  of  madness,  first  increas- 
ing, then  complete,  of  curses,  bowlings, 
superhuman   sorrows,   into  which  the 
transport   of  the   first   access   of  fu-y 
carries  him,  and   then   of  peaceful   in- 
coherence,   chattering  imbecility,  into 
which   the   shattered  man  subsides  ;  a 
marvellous  creation,  the  supreme  effort 
of  pure  imagination,  a  disease  of  reason, 
which  reason  could  never    have  con- 
ceived ?  *     Amid  so  many  portraitures 
let  us  choose  two  or  three  to  indicate 

*  See  again,  in  Timon,  and  Hotspur  more 
particularly,  perfect  examples  of  vehement  and 
unreasoning  imagination. 
10* 


226 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[TOOK  II. 


the  depth  and  nature  of  them  all.  The 
critic  is  lost  in  Shakspeare,  as  in  an 
immense  town;  he  will  describe  a 
couple  of  monuments,  and  entreat  the 
reader  to  imagine  the  city. 

Plutarch's  Coriolanus  is  an  austere, 
coldly  haughty  patrician,  a  general  of 
the  army.  In  Shakspeare's  hands  he 
becomes  a  coarse  soldier,  a  man  of  the 
people  as  to  his  language  and  manners, 
an  athlete  of  war,  with  a  voice  like  a 
trumpet;  whose  eyes  by  contradiction 
are  rilled  with  a  rush  of  blood  and  anger, 
proud  and  terrible  in  mood,  a  lion's 
soul  in  the  body  of  a  bull.  The  phi- 
losopher Plutarch  told  of  him  a  lofty 
philosophic  action,  saying  that  he  had 
been  at  pains  to  save  his  landlord  in  the 
sack  of  Corioli.  Shakspeare's  Corio- 
lanus has  indeed  the  same  disposition, 
for  he  is  really  a  good  fellow ;  but 
when  Lartius  asks  him  the  name  of  this 
poor  Volscian,  in  order  to  secure  his 
liberty,  he  yawns  out  : 

"  By  Jupiter !  forgot. 
I  am  weary  ;  yea,  my  memory  is  tired. 
Have  we  no  wine  here  ?  "  * 

He  is  hot,he  has  been  fighting,he  must 
drink  ;  he  leaves  his  Volscian  in  chains, 
and  thinks  no  more  of  him.  He  fights 
like  a  porter,  with  shouts  and  insults, 
and  the  cries  from  that  deep  chest 
are  heard  above  the  din  of  the  battle 
like  the  sounds  from  a  brazen  trumpet. 
He  has  scaled  the  walls  of  Corioli,  he 
has  butchered  till  he  is  gorged  with 
slaughter.  Instantly  he  turns  to  the 
army  of  Cominius,  and  arrives  red  with 
blood,  "  as  he  were  flay'd."  "  Come  I 
too  late  ?  "  Cominius  begins  to  com- 
pliment him.  "  Come  I  too  late  ?"  he 
repeats.  The  battle  is  not  yet  finished  : 
he  embraces  Cominius : 

"  O !  let  me  clip  ye 

In  arms  as  sound  as  when  I  woo'd,  in  heart 
As  ntirry  as  when  our  nuptial  day  was  done."t 

For  the  battle  is  a  real  holiday  to  him. 
Such  senses,  such  a  strong  frame,  need 
the  outcry,  the  din  of  battle,  the  excite- 
ment of  death  and  wounds.  This 
haughty  and  indomitable  heart  needs 
the  joy  of  victory  and  destruction. 
Mark  the  display  of  his  patrician  arro- 
gance and  his  soldier's  bearing,  when 
he  is  offered  the  tenth  of  the  spoils  : 


*  CoriolattuSy  i.  9. 


t  Ibid.  i.  6. 


"  I  thank  you,  general  ; 
But  cannot  make  my  heart  consent  to  take 
A  bribe  to  pay  my  sword."  * 

The  soldiers  cry,  Marcius !  Marcius! 
and  the  trumpets  sound.  He  gets  into 
a  passion  :  rates  the  brawlers  : 

"  No  more,  I  say!     For    that    I    have    not 

wash'd 
My  nose  that  bled,   or  foil'd  some  debib 

wretch, — 

.  .  .  You  shout  me  forth 
In  acclamations  hyperbolical  ; 
As  if  I  loved  my  little  should  be  dieted 
In  praises  sauced  with  lies."  t 

They  are  reduced  to  loading  him  with 
honors  :  Cominius  gives  him  a  war- 
horse  ;  decrees  him  the  cognomen  of 
Coriolanus  :  the  people  shout  Caius 
Marcius  Coriolanus  !  He  replies  : 

"  I  will  go  wash  ; 

And  when  my  face  is  fair,  you  shall  perceive 
Whether  I  blush  or  no  :  howbeit,  I  thank  you. 
I  mean  to  stride  your  steed."  J 

This  loud  voice,  loud  laughter,  blunt 
acknowledgment,  of  a  man  who  can  act 
and  shout  better  than  speak,  foretell 
the  mode  in  which  he  will  treat  the 
plebeians.  He  loads  them  with  insults 
he  cannot  find  abuse  enough  for  the 
cobblers,  tailors,  envious  cowards, 
down  on  their  knees  for  a  coin.  "  To 
beg  of  Hob  and  Dick  ! "  "  Bid  them 
wash  their  faces  and  keep  their  teeth 
clean."  But  he  must  beg,  if  he  would 
be  consul  ;  his  friends  constrain  him. 
It  is  then  that  the  passionate  soul, 
incapable  of  self-restraint,  such  as 
Shakspeare  knew  how  to  paint,  breaks 
forth  without  hindrance.  He  is  there 
in  his  candidate's  gown,  gnashing  his 
teeth,  and  getting  up  his  lesson  in  this 
style  : 

"  What  must  I  say  ? 

'  I  pray,  sir' — Plague  upon't !  I  cannot  bring 
My  tongue  to  such  a  pace : — '  Look,  s:  r,  mt 

wounds ! 

I  got  them  in  my  country's  service,  when 
Some  certain  of  your  brethren  roar'd  and  ran 
From  the  noise  of  our  own  drums.'  "  § 

The  tribunes  have  no  difficulty  in  stop- 
ping the  election  of  a  candidate  who 
begs  in  this  fashion.  They  taunt  him 
in  full  senate,  reproach  him  with  his 
speech  about  the  corn.  He  repeats  it-, 
with  aggravations.  Once  roused,  nei 
ther  danger  nor  prayer  restrains  him  : 


*  Ibid.  i.  9. 
\  Ibid. 


t  Ibid. 

§  Ibid.  ii.  3. 


SHAKSPEARE. 


227 


"  His  heart's  his  mouth  : 
And,  being  angry,  'does  forget  that  ever 
He  heard  the  name  of  death."  * 

He  rails  against  the  people,  the  tri- 
bunes, ediles,  flatterers  of  the  plebs. 
"  Come,  enough,"  says  his  friend  Me- 
nenius.  "  Enough,  with  over-meas- 
ure," says  Brutus  the  tribune.  He  re- 
torts : 

"  No,  take  more  : 
What  may   be    sworn    by,   both  divine    and 

human, 
Seal  what  I  end  withal !  ...  At  once  pluck 

out 

The  multitudinous  tongue  ;  let  them  not  lick 
The  sweet  which  is  their  poison."  t 

The  tribune  cries,  Treason  !  and  bids 
seize  him.  He  cries  : 

"  Hence,  old  goat !  .  .  . 
Hence,   rotten  thing !    or  I   shall  shake  thy 

bones 
Out  of  thy  garments !  "  t 

He  strikes  him,  drives  the  mob  off  :  he 
fancies  himself  amongst  Volscians. 
"  On  fair  ground  I  could  beat  forty  of 
them  !  "  And  when  his  friends  hurry 
him  off,  he  threatens  still,  and 

"  Speak(s)  o'  the  people, 
As  if  you  (he)  were  a  god  to  punish,  not 
A  man  of  their  infirmity-"  § 

Yet  he  bends  before  his  mother,  for  he 
has  recognized  in  her  a  soul  as  lofty 
and  a  courage  as  intractable  as  his 
own.  He  has  submitted  from  his  in- 
fancy to  the  ascendency  of  this  pride 
which  he  admires.  Volumnia  reminds 
him :  "  My  praises  made  thee  first  a 
soldier. "  Without  power  over  himself, 
continually  tost  on  the  fire  of  his  too 
hot  blood,  he  has  always  been  the  arm, 
she  the  thought.  He  obeys  from  in- 
voluntary respect,  like  a  soldier  before 
his  general,  but  with  what  effort  1 

"  Coriolanus.  The  smiles  of  knaves 
Tent  in  my  cheeks,  and  schoolboys'  tears  take 

up 

The  glances  of  my  sight !  a  beggar's  tongue 
Make  motion  through  my  lips,  and  my  arm'd 

knees 

Whi   >oVd  but  in  my  stirrup,  bend  like  his 
That  nath  received  an  alms !— I  will  not  do't.  . 
Volumnia.  .  .  .  Do  as  thpu  list. 

Thy  /aliantness  was  mine,  thou  suck'dst  it  from 

me, 

But  owe  thy  pride  thyself. 
Cor.  Pray,  be  content : 
Mother,  I  am  going  to  the  market-place  ; 
Ch.de    rne    no  more.     I'll  mountebank  their 

loves, 


*  Coriolanus.  iii.  i. 
t  Ibid. 


t  Ibid. 
§  Ibid. 


Cog  their  hearts  from  them  and  come  home  be- 
loved 
Of  all  the  trades  in  Rome.'  * 

He  goes,  and  his  friends  speak  for  him 
Except  a  few  bitter  asides,  he  appears 
to  be  submissive.  Then  the  tribunes 
pronounce  the  accusation,  and  summon 
him  to  answer  as  a  traitor  : 

'*  Cor.  How !  traitor ! 
Men.  Nay,  temperately :  your  promise. 
Cor-  The  fires  i'  the  lowest  heL  fold-in  the 

people  ! 

Call  me  their  traitor!     Thou  injurious  tri- 
bune ! 
Within    thine    eyes     sat    twenty    thousand 

deaths, 

In  thy  hands  clutch' J  as  many  millions,  in 
Thy  lying  tongue  both  numbers,  I  would  sayf 
'  Thou  liest,'  unto  thee  with  a  voice  as  free 
As  I  do  pray  the  gods."  t 

His  friends  surround  him,  entreat  him  : 
he  will  not  listen  ;  he  foams  at  the 
mouth,  he  is  like  a  wounded  lion  : 

"  Let  them    pronounce    the    steep    Tarpeian 

death, 

Vagabond  exile,  flaying,  pent  to  linger 
But  with  a  grain  a  day,  I  would  not  buy 
Their  mercy  at  the  price  of  one  fair  word."  | 

The  people  vote  exile,  supporting  by 
their  shouts  the  sentence  of  the  tribune : 

"  Cor.  You  common  cry  of  curs!  whose  breath 

I  hate 

As  reek  o'  the  rotten  fens,  whose  love  I  prize 
As  the  dead  carcasses  of  unburied  men 
That  do  corrupt  my  air,  I  banish  you.  .  .  .  De- 
spising, 

For  you,  the  city,  thus  I  turn  my  back  : 
There  is  a  world  elsewhere."  § 

Judge  of  his  hatred  by  these  raging 
words.  It  goes  on  increasing  whilst 
waiting  for  vengeance.  We  find  him 
next  with  the  Volscian  army  before 
Rome.  His  friends  kneel  before  him, 
he  lets  them  kneel.  Old  Menenius, 
who  had  loved  him  as  a  son,  only 
comes  now  to  be  driven  away.  "  Wife, 
mother,  child,  I  know  not."||  He 
knows  not  himself.  For  this  strength 
of  hating  in  a  noble  heart  is  the  same 
as  the  force  of  loving.  He  has  trans- 
ports of  tenderness  as  of  rage,  and  can 
contain  himself  no  more  in  joy  than  in 
grief.  He  runs,  spite  of  his  resolution, 
to  his  wife's  arms ;  he  bends  his  knee 
before  his  mother.  He  had  summoned 
the  Volscian  chiefs  to  make  them  wit- 
nesses of  his  refusals  ;  and  before  them, 
he  grants  all,  and  weeps.  On  his 
return  to  Corioli,  an  insulting  word 

*  Ibid.  iii.  2.  t  Ibid.,  iii.  3. 

*  Ibid.  §  Ibid.  U  Ibid.  v.  a. 


228 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


from  Aufidius  maddens  him,  and  drives 
him  upon  the  daggers  of  the  Volscians. 
Vices  and  virtues,  glory  and  misery, 
greatness  and  feebleness,  the  unbridled 
passion  which  composes  his  nature, 
endowed  him  with  all. 

If  the  life  of  Coriolanus  is  the  history 
of  a  mood,  that  of  Macbeth  is  the  his- 
tory of  a  monomania.  The  witches' 
prophecy  has  sunk  into  his  mind  at 
once,  like  a  fixed  idea.  Gradually  this 
idea  corrupts  the  rest,  and  transforms 
the  whole  man.  He  is  haunted  by  it ; 
he  forgets  the  thanes  who  surround 
him  and  "  who  stay  upon  his  leisure  ; " 
he  already  sees  in  the  future  an  indis- 
tinct chaos  of  images  of  blood  : 

..."  Why  do  I  yield  to  that  suggestion 

Whose  horrid  image  doth  im5x  my  hair 

And    make    my  seated    heart    knock    at    my 

ribs?  .  .  . 

My  thought,  whose  murder  yet  is  but  fantas- 
tical, 

Shakes  so  my  single  state  of  man  that  function 
Is  smother' d  in  surmise,  and  nothing  is 
But  what  is  not."  * 

This  is  the  language  of  hallucination. 
Macbeth's  hallucination  becomes  com- 
plete when  his  wife  has  persuaded  him 
to  assassinate  the  king.  He  sees  in 
the  air  a  blood-stained  dagger,  "  in  form 
as  palpable,  as  this  which  now  I  draw." 
His  whole  brain  is  filled  with  grand  and 
terrible  phantoms,  which  the  mind  of 
a  common  murderer  could  never  have 
conceived  :  the  poetry  of  which  indi- 
cates a  generous  heart,  enslaved  to  an 
idea  of  fate,  and  capable  of  remorse  : 

..."  Now  o'er  the  one  half  world 
Nature  seems  dead,  and  wicked  dreams  abuse 
The  curtain'd  sleep  ;  witchcraft  celebrates 
Pale  Hecate's  offerings,  and  wither'd  murder, 
Alaruni'dby  his  sentinel,  the  wolf, 
Whose  howl's  his  watch,  thus  with  his  stealthy 

pace, 
WiJi  Tarquin's  ravishing  strides,  towards  his 

design 

Moves  like  a  ghost.  ...  \_A  bellrings^\ 

I  go,  and  it  is  done  ;  the  bell  invites  me. 
Hear  it  not,  Duncan  ;  for  it  is  a  knell 
That  summons  thee  to  heaven  or  to  hell."  t 

He  has  done  the  deed,  and  returns 
tottering,  haggard,  like  a  drunken  man. 
He  is  horrified  at  his  bloody  hands, 
'*  these  hangman's  hands."  Nothing 
now  can  cleanse  them.  The  whole 
ocean  might  sweep  over  them,  but  they 
would  keep  the  hue  of  murder.  "  What 
hands  are  here  ?  ha,  they  pluck  out 
*  Macbeth,  i.  3.  t  Ibid.,  ii.  i. 


mine  eyes ! "  He  is  disturbed  by  a 
word  which  the  sleeping  chamberlains 
uttered  : 

"  One  cried,  '  God  bless  us!  '  and  *  Amen  '  the 

other ; 
As  they  had  seen  me  wit  h  these  hangman's 

hands. 

Listening  their  fear,  I  could  not  say  '  Amen,' 
When  they  did  say,  '  God  bless  us !  '  .  .  . 
But  wherefore   could  not  I  pronounce  *A- 

men !  ' 

I  had  most  need  of  blessing,  and  '  Amen ' 
Stuck  in  my  throat."  * 

Then  comes  a  strange  dream  ;  a  fright 
ful  vision  of  the  punishment  that  awaits 
him  descends  upon  him. 

Above  the  beating  of  his  heart,  the 
tingling  of  the  blood  which  seethes  in 
his  brain,  he  had  heard  them  cry : 

"  '  Sleep  no  more ! 
Macbeth   does  murder  sleep,'  the  innocent 

sleep, 
Sleep  that  knits  up  the  ravell'd  sleavs  of 

care, 
The  death  of  each  day's  life,  sore  labo.ir's 

bath, 
Balm  of  hurt  minds,  great  nature's  second 

course, 
Chief  nourisher  in  life's  feast."  t 

And  the  voice,  like  an  angel's  trumpet, 
calls  him  by  all  his  titles  : 

"  '  Glamis  hath  murder'd  sleep,  and  therefore 

Cawdor 

Shall  sleep  no  more  ;  Macbeth  shall  sleep 
no  more! '  "  J 

This  idea,  incessantly  repeated,  beats 
in  his  brain,  with  monotonous  and 
quick  strokes,  like  the  tongue  of  a 
bell.  Insanity  begins  ;  all  the  force  of 
his  mind  is  occupied  by  keeping  before 
him,  in  spite  of  himself,  the  image  of 
the  man  whom  he  has  murdered  in  his 
sleep : 

"  To  know  my  deed,  'twere  best  not  know  my- 
self. [Knock.} 
Wake  Duncan  with  thy  knocking!     I  would 

thou  couldst!  "  § 

Thenceforth,  in  the  rare  intervals  in 
which  the  fever  of  his  mind  is  assuaged, 
he  is  like  a  man  worn  out  by  a  long 
malady.  It  is  the  sad  prostration  of 
maniacs  worn  out  by  their  fits  of  rage: 

"  Had  I  but  died  an  hour  before  this  chance, 
I  had  lived  a  blessed  time  ;  for,  from  this  hi 

stant 

There's  nothing  serious  in  mortality : 
All  is  but  toys  :  renown  and  grace  is  dead  ; 
The  wine  of  life  is  drawn,  and  the  mere  lees 
Is  left  this  vault  to  brag  of."  II 


*  Ibid.  ii.  2.  t  Ibid. 

I  Ibid.  §  Ibid.  ii.  3.  II  Ibid 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


229 


When  rest  has  restored  some  force  to 
the  human  machine,  the  fixed  idea 
shakes  him  again,  and  drives  him  on- 
ward, like  a  pitiless  horseman,  who  has 
left  his  panting  horse  only  for  a  mo- 
ment, to  leap  again  into  the  saddle, 
and  spur  him  over  precipices.  The 
more  he  has  done,  the  more  he  must 
do: 

"  I  am  in  blood 

Stepp'd  in  so  far  that,  should  I  wade  no  more, 
Returning  were  as  tedious  as  go  o'er."  *  ... 

He  kills  in  order  to  preserve  the  fruit 
of  his  murders.  The  fatal  circlet  of 
gold  attracts  him  like  a  magic  jewel  ; 
and  he  beats  down,  from  a  sort  of 
blind  instinct,  the  heads  which  he  sees 
between  the  crown  and  him  : 

"  But  let  the  frame  of  things  disjoint,  both  the 

worlds  suffer, 

Ere  we  will  eat  our  meal  in  fear  and  sleep 
In  the  affliction  of  these  terrible  dreams 
That  shake   us  nightly :  better  be  with  the 

dead, 
Whom  we,  to  gain  our  peace,  have  sent  to 

peace, 

Than  on  the  torture  of  the  mind  to  lie 
In  restless  ecstasy.     Duncan  is  in  his  grave  ; 
After  life's  fitful  fever  he  sleeps  well  ; 
Treason  has  done  his  worst :  nor  steel,  nor 

poison, 

Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing, 
Can  touch  him  further."  t 

Macbeth  has  ordered  Banquo  to  be 
murdered,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
feast  he  is  informed  of  the  success  of 
his  plan.  He  smiles,  and  proposes 
Banquo's  health.  Unexpectedly,  con- 
science-smitten, he  sees  the  ghost  of 
the  murdered  man  ;  for  this  phantom, 
which  Shakspeare  summons,  is  not  a 
mere  stage-trick :  we  feel  that  here 
the  supernatural  is  unnecessary,  and 
that  Macbeth  would  create  it,  even  if 
hell  would  not  send  it.  With  mus- 
cles twitching,  dilated  eyes,  his  mouth 
half  open  with  deadly  terror,  he  sees  it 
shake  its  bloody  head,  and  cries  with 
that  hoarse  voice  which  is  only  to  be 
heard  in  maniacs'  cells  : 

•'  Prithee,  see  there !     Behold !  look  !  lo  !  how 

say  yot:? 
Why,  what  care  I  ?   If  thou  canst  nod,  speak 

too. 

If  charnel-houses  and  our  graves  must  send 
Those  that  we  bury  back,  our  monuments 
Shall  be  the  maws  of  kites,  .  .  . 
Blood  hath  been  shed  ere  now,  i'  the  olden 

time,  .  .  . 


*  Macbeth  iii.  4. 


1  Ibid  iii.  2. 


Ay,  and  since  too,  murders  have  been  per 

form'd 

Too  terrible  for  the  ear :  the  times  have  been, 
That,  when  the  brains  were  out,  the  man 

would  die, 

And  there  an  end  ;  but  now  they  rise  again, 
With  twenty  mortal  murders  on  their  crowns, 
And  push  us  from  our  stools  :  .      . 
Avaunt!  and  quit  my  sight  I    lei.  the  earth 

hide  thee ! 

Thy  bones  are  marrowless,  thyblcod  is  cold  ; 
Thou  hast  no  speculation  in  those  eyes 
Which  thou  dost  glare  with  I "  * 

His  body  trembling  like  that  of  an 
epileptic,  his  teeth  clenched,  foaming 
at  the  mouth,  he  sinks  on  the  ground, 
his  limbs  writhe,  shaken  with  convul- 
sive quiverings,  whilst  a  dull  sob  swells 
his  panting  breast,  and  dies  in  his  swol- 
len i-hroat.  What  joy  can  remain  for  a 
man  beset  by  such  visions  ?  The  wide 
dark  country,  which  he  surveys  from  his 
towering  castle,  is  but  a  field  of  death, 
haunted  by  ominous  apparitions  ;  Scot- 
land, which  he  is  depopulating,  a  ceme- 
tery, 

"Where  ...  the  dead  man's  knell 
Is  there  scarce  ask'd  for  who  ;  and  good 

men's  lives 

Expire  before  the  flowers  in  their  caps, 
Dying  or  ere  they  sicken."  t 

His  soul  is  "full  of  scorpions."  He 
has  "  supp'd  full  with  horrors,"  and 
the  loathsome  odor  of  blood  has  dis- 
gusted him  with  all  else.  He  goes 
stumbling  over  the  corpses  which  he 
has  heaped  up,  with  the  mechanical 
and  desperate  smile  of  a  maniac-mur- 
derer. Thenceforth  death,  life,  all  is 
one  to  him  ;  the  habit  of  murder  has 
placed  him  out  of  the  pale  of  human- 
ity. They  tell  him  that  his  wife  is 
dead  : 

"  Macbeth.    She  should  have  died  hereaf- 
ter ; 

There  would  have  been  a  time  for  such  a  word. 
To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow, 
Creeps  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day 
To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time, 
And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death.     Out,  out,  brief  can 

die! 

Life's  but  a  walking  shadow  ;  a  poor  playei 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage 
And  then  is  heard  no  more  :  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing."  % 

There  remains  for  him  the  hardening 
of  the  heart  in  crime,  the  fixed  belief 
in  destiny.  Hunted  down  by  his 

*  Ibid.  iii.  4.  t  Ibid.  iv.  3. 

t  Ibid.  v.  5. 


230 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  FT 


enemies,  "  bear-like,  tied  to  a  stake," 
he  fights,  troubled  only  by  the  predic- 
tion of  the  witches,  sure  of  being  in- 
vulnerable so  long  as  the  man  whom 
they  have  described,  does  not  appear. 
Henceforth  his  thoughts  dwell  in  a 
supernatural  world,  and  to  the  last  he 
walks  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  dream, 
which  has  possessed  him,  from  the 
first. 

The  history  of  Hamlet,  like  that  of 
Macbeth,  is  a  story  of  moral  poisoning. 
Hamlet  has  a  delicate  soul,  an  impas- 
sioned imagination,  like  that  of  Shak- 
speare.  He  has  lived  hitherto,  occu- 
pied in  noble  studies,  skilful  in  mental 
and  bodily  exercises,  with  a  taste  for 
art,  loved  by  the  noblest  father,  enam- 
ored of  the  purest  and  most  charm- 
ing girl,  confiding,  generous,  not  yet 
having  perceived,  from  the  height  of 
the  throne  to  which  he  was  born,  aught 
but  the  beauty,  happiness,  grandeur 
of  nature  and  humanity.*  On  this 
soul,  which  character  and  training 
make  more  sensitive  than  others,  mis- 
fortune suddenly  falls,  extreme,  over- 
whelming, of  the  very  kind  to  destroy 
all  faith  and  every  motive  for  action  : 
with  or^  glance  he  has  seen  all  the 
vileness  of  humanity  ;  and  this  insight 
is  given  him  in  his  mother.  His  mind 
is  yet  intact;  but  judge  from  the  vio- 
lence of  his  style,  the  crudity  of  his 
exact  details,  the  terrible  tension  of  the 
whole  nervous  machine,  whether  he 
has  not  already  one  foot  on  the  verge 
of  madness  : 
"  O  that  this  too,  top  solid  flesh  would  melt, 

Thaw  and  resolve  itself  into  a  dew ! 

Or  that  the  Everlasting  had  not  fix'd 

His  canon  'gainst  self-slaughter!     O  God! 
God! 

How  weary,  stale,  flat  and  unprofitable, 

Seem  to  me  all  the  uses  of  this  world  ! 

Fie  on't!  ah  fie!  'tis  an  unweeded  garden, 

That  grows  to  seed  ;  things  rank  and  gross  in 
nature 

Possess  it  merely.    That  it  should  come  to 
this! 

But  two  months  dead  :  nay,  not  so  much,  not 
two: 

So  excellent  a  king,  ...  so  loving  to  my 
mother 

That  he  might  not  let  e'en  the  winds  of 
heaven 

Visit  her  face  too  roughly.      Heaven  and 
earth ! 

.  .  .  And  yet,  within  a  month, — 

Let  me  not  think  on't — Frailty,  thy  name  is 
woman  ! — 


»  Goethe    Wilhelm  Meistei 


A  little  month,  Oi  ere  those  shoes  w«  re  old 
With  which  she  follow'd  mv  poor  fathei'i 

body,  .  .  . 

Ere  yet  the  salt  of  most  un/ighteous  tears 
Had  left  the  flushing  in  her  galled  eyes, 
She    married.      O,   most  wicked   speed,  U 

post 

With  such  dexterity  to  incestuous  sheets  I 
It  is  not  nor  it  cannot  come  to  good ! 
But  break,  my  heart  J    for  I  must  hold  my 

tongue ! "  * 

Here  already  are  contortions  of 
thought,  a  beginning  of  hallucinati  m, 
the  symptoms  of  what  is  to  come  after. 
In  the  middle  of  conversation  the  im« 
age  of  his  father  rises  befcre  his  mind. 
He  thinks  he  sees  him.  How  then 
will  it  be  when  the  "  canonized  bones 
have  burst  their  cerements,"  "  the 
sepulchre  hath  oped  his  ponderous  and 
marble  jaws,"  and  when  the  ghost 
comes  in  the  night,  upon  a  high  "  plat- 
form "  of  land  to  tell  him  of  the  tor- 
tures of  his  prison  of  fire,  and  of  the 
fratricide,  who  has  driven  him  thith- 
er ?  Hamlet  grows  faint,  but  grief 
strengthens  him,  and  he  has  a  desire 
for  living : 

"  Hold,  hold,  my  heart ; 
And  you  my  sinews,  grow  not  instant  old, 
But  bear  me  stiffly  up !     Remember  thee ! 
Ay,  thou  poor  ghost,  while  memory  holds  a 

seat 

In  this  distracted  globe. — Remember  thee? 
Yea,  from  the  table  of  my  memory 
I'll  wipe  away  all  trivial  fond  records, 
All  saws  of  books,  all  forms,  all  pressures 

past,  .  .  . 

And  thy  commandment  all  alone  shall  live. . . . 
O  -villain,  villain,  smiling,  damned  villain  1 
My  tables, — meet  it  is  I  set  it  down, 
That  one  may  smile,  and  smile,  and  be  a  vil- 
lain ; 

At  least  I'm  sure  it  may  be  so  in  Denmark: 
So,  uncle,  there  you  are."  t  [writing.] 

This  convulsive  outburst,  this  fe- 
vered writing  hand,  this  frenzy  of  in- 
tentness,  prelude  the  approach  of  a 
kind  of  monomania.  When  his 
friends  come  up,  he  treats  them  with 
the  speeches  of  a  child  or  an  idiot 
He  is  no  longer  master  of  his  words  , 
hollow  phrases  whirl  in  his  biain,  and 
fall  from  his  mouth  as  in  a  dream. 
They  call  him ;  he  answers  by  imita- 
ting the  cry  of  a  sportsman  whistling  to 
his  falcon  :  "  Hillo,  ho,  ho,  boy  !  come, 
bird,  come."  Whilst  he  is  in  the  ac 
of  swearing  them  to  secrecy,  the 
ghost  below  repeats  "  Swear."  '  Ham« 


*  Hamlet,  i.  2. 


t  Ibid.  i.  5. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE.  . 


231 


let  cries,   with   a  nervous    excitement 

and  a  fitful  gayety  : 

"  Ah  ha,  boy!  say'st  thou  so  ?  art  thou  there, 

truepenny  ? 

Come  on — you  hear  this  fellow  in  the  cellar- 
age,— 

Consent  to  swear.  .  .  . 
Ghost  (beneath}.     Swear. 
Hamlet.    Hie  et  ubique  f  then  we'll  shift 

our  ground. 
Come  hither,  gentlemen,  .  .  .  Swear  by  my 

sword. 

Ghost  (beneatti).    Swear. 
Ham.  Well  said,  old  mole  I  canst  work  i' 

the  earth  so  fast  ? 
A  worthy  pioner !  "  * 

Understand  that  as  he  says  this  his 
teeth  chatter,  "  pale  as  his  shirt,  his 
knees  knocking  each  other."  Intense 
anguish  ends  with  a  kind  of  laughter, 
which  is  nothing  else  than  a  spasm. 
Thenceforth  Hamlet  speaks  as  though 
he  had  a  continuous  nervous  attack. 
His  madness  is  feigned,  I  admit ;  but 
his  mind,  as  a  door  whose  hinges  are 
twisted,  swings  and  bangs  with  every 
wind  with  a  mad  haste  and  with  a  dis- 
cordant noise.  He  has  no  need  to 
search  for  the  strange  ideas,  apparent 
incoherencies,  exaggerations,  the  del- 
uge of  sarcasms  which  he  accumulates. 
He  finds  them  within  him ;  he  does 
himself  no  violence,  he  simply  gives 
himself  up  to  himself.  When  he  has 
the  piece  played  which  is  to  unmask  his 
uncle,  he  raises  himself,  lounges  on 
the  floor,  lays  his  head  in  Ophelia's 
lap ;  he  addresses  the  actors,  and 
comments  on  the  piece  to  the  specta- 
tors ;  his  nerves  are  strung,  his  excited 
thought  is  like  a  surging  and  crackling 
flame,  and  cannot  find  fuel  enough  in 
the  multitude  of  objects  surrounding 
it,  upon  all  of  which  it  seizes.  When 
the  king  rises  unmasked  and  troubled, 
Hamlet  sings,  and  says,  "  Would  not 
this,  sir,  and  a  forest  of  feathers — if 
the  rest  of  my  fortunes  turn  Turk  with 
me — with  two  Provincial  roses  on  my 
razed  shoes,  get  me  a  fellowship  in  a 
cry  of  players,  sir  ! "  t  And  he  laughs 
terribly,  for  he  is  resolved  on  murder. 
It  is  clear  that  this  state  is  a  disease, 
and  that  the  man  will  not  survive  it. 

In  a  soul  so  ardent  of  thought,  and 
so  mighty  of  feeling,  what  is  left  but 
disgust  and  despair  ?  We  tinge  all 
nature  with  the  color  of  our  thoughts  ; 
we  shape  the  world  according  to  our 

*  Hamlet,  i.  5.  t  Ibid.  iii.  2. 


own  ideas ;  when  our  soul  is  sick,  we 
see  nothing  bat  sickness  in  the  uni- 
verse : 

"  This  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  to  me 
a  sterile  promontory,  this  most  excellent  can- 
opy, the  air,  look  you,  this  brave  o'erhanging 
firmament,  this  majestical  roof  fretted  with 
golden  fire,  why,  it  appears  no  other  thing  to 
me  than  a  foul  and  pestilent  congregation  of 
vapours.  What  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man  !  how 
noble  in  reason!  how  infinite  in  faculty!  in 
form  and  moving  how  express  and  admirable  ! 
in  action  how  like  an  angel !  in  apprehension 
how  like  a  god !  the  beauty  of  the  world  !  the 
paragon  of  animals !  And  yet,  to  me,  what  is 
this  quintessence  of  dust?  man  delights  not 
me  :  no,  nor  woman  neither."  * 

Henceforth  his  thought  sullies  what- 
ever it  touches.  He  rails  bitterly  be- 
fore Ophelia  against  marriage  and  love. 
Beauty  !  Innocence  !  Beauty  is  but  a 
means  of  prostituting  innocence  :  "  Get 
thee  to  a  nunnery  :  why  wouldst  thou 
be  a  breeder  of  sinners  ?  .  .  .  What 
should  such  fellows  as  I  do  crawling 
between  earth  and  heaven ?  We  are 
arrant  knaves,  all ;  believe  none  of 
us."t 

When  he  has  killed  Polonius  by 
accident,  he  hardly  repents  ii ;  it  is  one 
fool  less.  He  jeers  lugubriously : 

"  King.  Now  Hamlet,  where' s  Polonius? 

Hamlet.  At  supper. 

K.  At  supper  !  where  ? 

H.  Not  where  he  eats,  but  where  he  is 
eaten  :  a  certain  convocation  of  politic  worms 
are  e'en  at  him."  $ 

And  he  repeats  in  five  or  six  fashions 
these  grave-digger  jests.  His  thoughts 
already  inhabit  a  churchyard ;  to  this 
hopeless  philosophy  a  genuine  man  is 
a  corpse.  Public  functions,  honors, 
passions,  pleasures,  projects,  science, 
all  this  is  but  a  borrowed  mask,  which 
death  removes,  so  that  people  may  see 
what  we  are,  an  evil -smelling  and  grin- 
ning skull.  It  is  this  sight  he  goes  to 
see  by  Ophelia's  grave.  He  counts 
the  skulls  which  the  grave-digger  turns 
up  ;  this  was  a  lawyer's,  that  a  cour- 
tier's. What  bows,  intrigues,  preten- 
sions, arrogance !  And  here  now  is  a 
clown  knocking  it  about  with  his  spade, 
and  playing  "  at  loggats  with  'em." 
Caesar  and  Alexander  have  turned  to 
clay  and  make  the  earth  fat ;  the  mas- 
ters of  the  world  have  served  to  "  patch 
a  wall."  "  Now  get  you  to  my  lady's 

*  Ibid.  ii.  2.  t  Ibid.  iii.  i. 

t  Ibid.  iv.  3. 


232 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


chamber,  and  tell  her,  let  her  paint  an 
:nch  thick,  to  this  favor  she  must 
come ;  make  her  laugh  at  that."  * 
When  a  man  has  come  to  this,  there  is 
nothing  left  but  to  die. 

This  heated  imagination,  which  ex- 
plains Hamlet's  nervous  disease  and 
his  moral  poisoning,  explains  also  his 
conduct.  If  he  hesitates  to  kill  his 
uncle,  it  is  not  from  horror  of  blood  or 
from  our  modern  scruples.  He  belongs 
to  the  sixteenth  century.  On  board 
ship  he  wrote  the  order  to  behead 
Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  and  to 
do  so  without  giving  them  "shriving- 
time."  He  killed  Polonius,  he  caused 
Ophelia's  death,  and  has  no  great  re- 
morse for  it.  If  for  once  he  spared 
his  uncle,  it  was  because  he  found  him 
praying,  and  was  afraid  of  sending  him 
to  heaven.  He  thought  he  was  kill- 
ing him,  when  he  killed  Polonius. 
What  his  imagination  robs  him  of,  is  the 
coolness  and  strength  to  go  quietly  and 
with  premeditation  to  plunge  a  sword 
into  a  breast.  He  can  only  do  the 
thing  on  a  sudden  suggestion ;  he 
must  have  a  moment  of  enthusiasm  ; 
he  must  think  the  king  is  behind  the 
arras,  or  else,  seeing  that  he  himself  is 
poisoned,  he  must  find  his  victim  under 
his  foil's  point.  He  is  not  master  of 
his  acts  ;  opportunity  dictates  them ; 
he  cannot  plan  a  murder,  but  must  im- 
provise it.  A  too  lively  imagination 
exhausts  the  will,  by  the  strength  of 
images  which  it  heaps  up,  and  by  the 
fury  of  intentness  which  absorbs  it. 
You  recognize  in  him  a  poet's  soul, 
made  not  to  act,  but  to  dream,  which 
is  lost  in  contemplating  the  phantoms 
of  its  creation,  which  sees  the  imaginary 
world  too  clearly  to  play  a  part  in  the 
real  world ;  an  artist  whom  evil  chance 
has  made  a  prince,  whom  worse  chance 
has  made  an  avenger  of  crime,  and 
who,  destined  by  nature  for  genius,  is 
condemned  by  fortune  to  madness  and 
unhappiness.  Hamlet  is  Shakspeare, 
and,  at  the  close  of  this  gallery  of  por- 
traits which  have  all  some  features  of 
his  own,  Shakspeare  has  painted  him- 
self in  the  most  striking  of  all. 

If  Racine  or  Corneille  had  framed  a 

psychology,  they  would  have  said,  with 

Descartes  :  Man  is  an  incorporeal  soul, 

served  by  organs,  endowed  with  reason 

»  Hamlett  v.  i. 


and  will,  dwelling  in  palaces  or  porti- 
cos, made  for  conversation  and  society, 
whose  harmonious  and  ideal  action  is 
developed  by  discourse  and  replies,  in 
a  world  constructed  by  logic  beyond 
the  realms  of  time  and  place. 

If  Shakspeare  had  framed  a  psychol 
ogy,  he  would  have  said,  with  Esqui 
rol :  *  Man  is  a  nervous  machine,  gov- 
erned by  a  mood,  disposed  to  halluci- 
nations, carried  away  by  unbridled  pas- 
sions, essentially  unreasoning,  a  mix- 
ture of  animal  and  poet,  having  instead 
of  mind  rapture,  instead  of  virtue  sen- 
sibility, imagination  for  prompter  and 
guide,  and  led  at  random,  by  the  most 
determinate  and  complex  circumstan- 
ces, to  sorrow,  crime,  madness,  and 
death. 

IX. 

Could  such  a  poet  always  confine 
himself  to  the  imitation  of  nature  ? 
Will  this  poetical  world  which  is  going 
on  in  his  brain,  never  break  loose  from 
the  laws  of  the  world  of  reality  ?  Is  he 
not  powerful  enough  to  follow  his  own 
laws  ?  He  is  ;  and  the  poetry  of  Shak- 
speare naturally  finds  an  outlet  in  the 
fantastical.  This  is  the  highest  grade 
of  unreasoning  and  creative  imagina- 
tion. Despising  ordinary  logic,  it 
creates  another ;  it  unites  facts  and 
ideas  in  a  new  order,  apparently  absurd, 
in  reality  regular  ;  it  lays  open  the  land 
of  dreams,  and  its  dreams  seem  to  us 
the  truth. 

When  we  enter  upon  Shakspeare's 
comedies,  and  even  his  half-dramas,t  it 
is  as  though  we  met  him  on  the  thres- 
hold, like  an  actor  to  whom  the  pro- 
logue is  committed  to  prevent  misun- 
derstanding on  the  part  of  the  public, 
and  to  tell  them:  "Do  not  take  too 
seriously  what  you  are*  about  to  hear  : 
I  am  amusing  myself.  My  brain,  being 
full  of  fancies,  desired  to  array  them, 
and  here  they  are.  Palaces,  distant 
landscapes,  transparent  clouds  which 
blot  in  the  morning  the  horizon  with 
their  gray  mists,  the  red  and  glorious 
flames  into  which  the  evening  sun  de- 

*  A  French  physician  (1772-1844),  celebrated 
for  his  endeavors  to  improve  the  treatment  of 
the  insane. — TR. 

t  Twelfth  Night,  As  you  Like  it,  Tempest, 
Winters  Tale,  etc.,  Cymbeline,  Merchant  oj 
Venice ',  etc. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


233 


scends,  white  cloisters  in  endless  vista 
through  the  ambient  air,  grottos,  cot- 
tages, the  fantastic  pageant  of  all  hu- 
man passions,  the  irregular  sport  of 
unlooked-for  adventures, — this  is  the 
medley  of  forms,  colors,  sentiments, 
waich  I  let  become  entangled  and  con- 
fused in  my  presence,  a  many-tinted 
skein  of  glistening  silks,  a  slender 
arabesque,  whose  sinuous  curves,  cross- 
ing and  mingled,  bewilder  the  mind  by 
the  whimsical  variety  of  their  infinite 
complications.  Don't  regard  it  as  a 
picture.  Don't  look  for  a  precise  com- 
position, a  sole  and  increasing  interest, 
the  skilful  management  of  a  well-order- 
ed and  congruous  plot.  I  have  tales  and 
novels  before  me  which  I  am  cutting 
up  into  scenes.  Never  mind  the  fini*, 
I  am  amusing  myself  on  the  road.  It 
is  not  the  end  of  the  journey  which 
pleases  me,  but  the  journey  itself.  Is 
there  any  need  in  going  so  straight  and 
quick?  Do  you  only  care  to  know 
whether  the  poor  merchant  of  Venice 
will  escape  Shylock's  knife  ?  Here  are 
two  happy  lovers,  seated  under  the 
palace  walls  on  a  calm  night ;  wouldn't 
you  like  to  listen  to  the  peaceful  rev- 
erie which  rises  like  a  perfume  from 
the  bottom  of  their  hearts  ? 

"  How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this 

bank ! 

Here  will  we  sit  and  let  the  sounds  of  music 
Creep  in  our  ears :    soft  stillness  and  the 

night 

Become  the  touches  of  sweet  harmony. 
Sit,  Jessica.     Look  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold  : 
There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  be- 
hold'st, 

But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubims  ; 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls  ; 
But  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it. 

[Enter  musicians, 

Come,  ho  !  and  wake  Diana  with  a  hymn  : 
With  sweetest  touches  pierce  your  mistress' 

ear, 
And  draw  her  home  with  music. 

Jessica.    I  am  never  merry  when  I  hear 
sweet  music."  * 

"  Have  I  not  the  right,  when  I  see 
the  big  laughing  face  of  a  clownish 
servant,  to  stop  near  him,  see  him 
gesticulate,  frolic,  gossip,  go  through 
his  hundred  pranks  and  his  hundred 
grimaces,  and  treat  myself  to  the  com- 
edy of  his  spirit  and  gayety?  Two 

*  Merchant  qf  Venice^  v.  i. 


fine  gentlemen  pass  by.  I  hear  the 
rolling  fire  of  their  metaphors,  and  I 
follow  their  skirmish  of  wit.  Here  in 
a  corner  is  the  artless  arch  face  of  a 
young  wench.  Do  you  forbid  me  to 
linger  by  her,  to  watch  her  smiles,  her 
sudden  blushes,  the  childish  pout  of 
her  rosy  lips,  the  coqictry  of  her  pretty 
motions  ?  You  are  in  a  gi  eat  hurry  if 
the  prattle  of  this  fresh  and  musical 
voice  can't  stop  you.  Is  it  no  pleasure 
to  view  this  succession  of  sentiments 
and  faces  ?  Is  your  fancy  so  dull,  that 
you  must  have  the  mighty  mechanism 
of  a  geometrical  plot  to  shake  it  ?  My 
sixteenth  century  playgoers  were  easier 
to  move.  A  sunbeam  that  had  lost  its 
way  on  an  old  wall,  a  foolish  song 
thrown  into  the  middle  of  a  drama, 
occupied  their  mind  as  well  as  the 
blackest  of  catastrophes.  After  the 
horrible  scene  in  which  Shylock  bran- 
dished his  butcher's  knife  before  An- 
tonio's bare  breast,  they  saw  just  as 
willingly  the  petty  household  wrangle, 
and  the  amusing  bit  of  raillery  which 
ends  the  piece.  Like  soft  moving 
water,  their  soul  rose  and  sank  in  an 
instant  to  the  level  of  the  poet's 
emotion,  and  their  sentiments  readily 
flowed  in  the  bed  he  had  prepared  for 
them.  They  let  him  stray  here  and 
there  on  his  journey,  and  did  not  for- 
bid him  to  make  two  voyages  at  once. 
They  allowed  several  plots  in  one.  If 
but  the  slightest  thread  united  them  it 
was  sufficient.  Lorenzo  eloped  with 
Jes'sica,  Shylock  was  frustrated  in  his 
revenge,  Portia's  suitors  failed  in  the 
test  imposed  upon  them  ;  Portia,  dis- 
guised as  a  doctor  of  laws,  took  from 
her  husband  the  ring  which  he  had 
promised  never  to  part  with ;  these 
three  or  four  comedies,  disunited,  min- 
gled, were  shuffled  and  unfolded  to- 
gether, like  an  unknotted  skein  in  which 
threads  of  a  hundred  colors  are  en- 
twined. Together  with  diversity,  my 
spectators  allowed  improbability.  Com- 
edy is  a  slight  winged  creature,  which 
flutters  from  dream  to  dream,  whose 
wings  you  would  break  if  you  held  it 
captive  in  the  narrow  prison  of  common 
sense.  Do  not  press  its  fictions  too 
hard;  do  not  probe  their  contents. 
Let  them  float  before  your  eyes  like  a 
charming  swift  dream.  Let  the  fleet- 
ing apparition  plunge  back  into  the 


234 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


bright  misty  land  from  whence  it  came. 
For  an  instant  it  deluded  you;  let  it 
suffice.  It  is  sweet  to  leave  the  world 
of  realities  behind  you  ;  the  mind  rests 
amidst  impossibilities.  We  are  happy 
when  delivered  from  the  rough  chains 
of  logic,  to  wander  amongst  strange 
adventures,  to  live  in  sheer  romance, 
and  know  that  we  are  living  there,  I 
do  not  try  to  deceive  you,  and  make 
you  believe  in  the  world  where  I  take 
you,  A  man  must  disbelieve  it  in 
order  to  enjoy  it.  We  must  give  our- 
selves up  to  illusion,  and  feel  that  we 
are  giving  ourselves  up  to  it.  We 
must  smile  as  we  listen.  We  smile  in 
The  Winter's  7#/<?,  when  Hermione  de- 
scends from  her  pedestal,  and  when 
Leontes  discovers  his  wife  in  the 
statue,  having  believed  her  to  be  dead. 
We  smile  in  Cymbeline,  when  we  see 
the  lone  cavern  in  which  the  young 
princes  have  lived  like  savage  hunters. 
Improbability  deprives  emotions  of 
their  sting.  The  events  interest  or 
touch  us  without  making  us  suffer.  At 
the  very  moment  when  sympathy  is 
too  intense,  we  remind  ourselves  that 
it  is  all  a  fancy.  They  become  like 
distant  objects,  whose  distance  softens 
their  outline,  and  wraps  them  in  a 
luminous  veil  of  blue  air.  Your  true 
comedy  is  an  opera.  We  listen  to 
sentiments  without  thinking  too  much 
of  plot.  We  follow  the  tender  or  gay 
melodies  without  reflecting  that  they 
interrupt  the  action.  We  dream  else- 
where on  hearing  music ;  here  I  bid 
you  dream  on  hearing  verse." 

Then  the  speaker  of  the  prologue 
retires,  and  the  actors  come  on. 

As  you  Like  it  is  a  caprice.*  Action 
there  is  none ;  interest  barely  ;  likeli- 
hood still  less.  And  the  whole  is  charm- 
ing. Two  cousins,  princes'  daughters, 
come  to  a  forest  with  a  court  clown, 
Celia  disguised  as  a  shepherdess,  Rosa- 
lind as  a  boy.  They  find  here  the  old 
duke,  Rosalind's  father,  who,  driven 
out  of  his  duchy,  lives  with  his  friends 
like  a  philosopher  and  a  hunter.  They 
find  amorous  shepherds,  who  with 
songs  and  prayers  pursue  intractable 

*  In  English,  a  word  is  wanting  to  express 
the  French  fantaisie  used  by  M.  Taine,  in 
describing  this  scene :  what  in  music  is  called  a 
capriccio.  Tennyson  calls  the  Princess  a 
medley,  but  it  is  ambiguous. — TR. 


shepherdesses.  They  discover  or  they 
meet  with  lovers  who  become  their 
husbands.  Suddenly  it  is  announced 
that  the  wicked  Duke  Frederick,  who 
had  usurped  the  crown,  has  just  retired 
to  a  cloister,  and  restored  the  throne  to 
the  old  exiled  duke.  Every  one  gets 
married,  every  one  dances,  every  thing 
ends  with  a  "  rustic  revelry."  Where 
is  the  pleasantness  of  these  puerilities  } 
First,  the  fact  of  its  being  puerile  ;  the 
absence  of  the  serious  is  refreshing. 
There  are  no  events,  and  there  is  nc 
plot.  We  gently  follow  the  easy  cur- 
rent of  graceful  or  melancholy  emo- 
tions, which  takes  us  away  and  moves 
us  about  without  wearying.  The  place 
adds  to  the  illusion  and  charm.  It  is 
an  autumn  forest,  in  which  the  sultry 
rays  permeate  the  blushing  oak  leaves, 
or  the  half-stript  ashes  tremble  and 
smile  to  the  feeble  breath  of  evening. 
The  lovers  wander  by  brooks  that 
"brawl  "  under  antique  roots.  As  you 
listen  to  them,  you  see  the  slim  birches, 
whose  cloak  of  lace  grows  glossy  under 
the  slant  rays  of  the  sun  that  gilds 
them,  and  the  thoughts  wander  down 
the  mossy  vistas  in  which  their  foot- 
steps are  not  heard.  What  better 
place  could  be  chosen  for  the  comedy 
of  sentiment  and  the  play  of  heart- 
fancies  1  Is  not  this  a  fit  spot  in  which 
to  listen  to  love-talk  ?  '  Some  one  has 
seen  Orlando,  Rosalind's  lover,  in  this 
glade  ;  she  hears  it  and  blushes.  "  Alas 
the  day !  .  .  .  What  did  he,  when 
thou  sawest  him  ?  What  said  he  ? 
How  looked  he  ?  Wherein  went  he  ? 
What  makes  he  here  ?  Did  he  ask  for 
me  ?  Where  remains  he  ?  How  parted 
he  with  thee  ?  and  when  shalt  thou  see 
him  again  ?  "  Then,  with  a  lower  voice, 
somewhat  hesitating  :  "  Looks  he  as 
freshly  as  he  did  the  day  he  wrestled  ?  " 
She  is  not  yet  exhausted  :  "  Do  you 
not  know  I  am  a  woman?  When  I 
think,  I  must  speak.  Sweet,  say  on."  * 
One  question  follows  another,  she 
closes  the  mouth  of  her  friend,  who  is 
ready  to  answer.  At  every  word  she 
jests,  but  agitated,  blushing,  with  a 
forced  gayety  ;  her  bosom  heaves,  and 
her  heart  beats.  Nevertheless  she  is 
calmer  when  Orlando  comes ;  bandies 
words  with  him;  sheltered  under  her 
disguise,  she  makes  him  confess  that 
*  As  you  Like  it,  iii.  a. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


235 


he  loves  Rosalind.  Then  she  plagues 
him,  like  the  frolic,  the  wag,  the  co- 
quette she  is.  "  Why,  how  now,  Or- 
lando, where  have  you  been  all  this 
while  ?  You  a  lover  ?  "  Orlando  re- 
peats that  he  loves  Rosalind,  and  she 
pleases  herself  by  making  him  repeat 
it  more  than  once.  She  sparkles  with 
wit,  jests,  mischievous  pranks ;  pretty 
fits  of  anger,  feigned  sulks,  bursts  of 
laughter,  deafening  babble,  engaging 
caprices.  "  Come,  woo  me,  woo  me  ; 
for  now  I  am  in  a  holiday  humor,  and 
like  enough  to  consent.  What  would 
you  say  to  me  now,  an  I  were  your  very 
very  Rosalind  ?  "  And  every  now  and 
then  she  repeats  with  an  arch  smile, 
"  And  I  am  your  Rosalind ;  am  I  not 
your  Rosalind  ?  "  *  Orlando  protests 
that  he  would  die.  Die  !  Who  ever 
thought  of  dying  for  love  !  Leander  ? 
He  took  one  bath  too  many  in  the 
Hellespont;  so  poets  have  said  he  died 
for  love.  Troilus?  A  Greek  broke 
his  head  with  a  club;  so  poets  have 
said  he  died  for  love.  Come,  come, 
Rosalind  will  be  softer.  And  then  she 
plays  at  marriage  with  him,  and  makes 
Celia  pronounce  the  solemn  words. 
She  irritates  and  torments  her  pretend- 
ed husband;  tells  him  all  the  whims 
she  means  to  indulge  in,  all  the  pranks 
she  will  play,  all  the  teasing  he  will 
have  to  endure.  The  retorts  come  one 
after  another  like  fire-works.  At  every 
phrase  we  follow  the  looks  of  these 
sparkling  eyes,  the  curves  of  this  laugh- 
ing mouth,  the  quick  movements  of  this 
supple  figure.  It  is  a  bird's  petulance 
and  volubility.  "  O  coz,  coz,  coz,  my 
pretty  little  coz,  that  thou  didst  know 
how  many  fathom  deep  I  am  in  love." 
Then  she  provokes  her  cousin  Celia, 
sports  with  her  hair,  calls  her  by  every 
woman's  name.  Antitheses  without 
end,  words  all  a-jumble,  quibbles,  pret- 
ty exaggerations,  word-racket ;  as  you 
listen,  you  fancy  it  is  the  warbling  of  a 
nightingale.  The  trill  of  repeated 
metaphors,  the  melodious  roll  of  the 
poetical  gamut,  the  summer-warbling 
rustling  under  the  foliage,  change  the 
piece  into  a  veritable  opera.  The  three 
lovers  end  by  chanting  a  sort  of  trio. 
The  first  throws  out  a  fancy,  the  others 
take  it  up.  P'our  times  this  strophe  is 
renewed ;  and  the  symmetry  of  ideas, 
*  As  you  Like  it,  iv.  x. 


added  to  the  jingle  of  the  rhymes, 
makes  of  a  dialogue  a  con:erto  of 
love: 

"  Pke&e.  Good    shepherd,    tell    this    youth 
what  'tis  to  love. 

Silvius.  It  is  to  be  all  made  of  sighs  and 

tears  ; 
And  so  am  I  for  Phebe. 

P.  And  I  for  Ganymede. 

Orlando.  And  I  for  Rosalind. 

Rosalind.  And  I  for  no  woman.  .  .  • 

S.  It  is  to  be  all  made  of  fantasy, 
All  made  of  passion,  and  all  made  of  wishes, 
All  adoration,  duty,  and  observance, 
All  humbleness,  all  patience  and  impatience, 
All  purity,  all  trial ,  all  observance  ; 
And  so  I  am  for  Phebe. 

P.  And  so  am  I  for  Ganymede. 

O.  And  so  am  I  for  Rosalind. 

R.  And  so  am  I  for  no  woman."  * 

The  necessity  of  singing  is  so  urger.t, 
that  a  minute  later  songs  break  out  of 
themselves.  The  prose  and  the  con- 
versation end  in  lyric  poetry.  We 
pass  straight  on  into  these  odes.  We 
do  not  find  ourselves  in  a  new  country. 
We  feel  the  emotion  and  foolish  gayety 
as  if  it  were  a  holiday.  We  see  the 
graceful  couple  whom  the  song  of  the 
two  pages  brings  before  us,  passing  in 
the  misty  light  "o'er  the  green  corn- 
field," amid  the  hum  of  sportive  in- 
sects, on  the  finest  day  of  the  flowering 
spring-time.  Unlikelihood  grows  nat- 
ural, and  we  are  not  astonished  when 
we  see  Hymen  leading  the  two  brides 
by  the  hand  to  give  them  to  their  hus- 
bands. 

Whilst  the  young  folks  sing,  the  old 
folk  talk.  Their  life  also  is  a  novel, 
but  a  sad  one.  Shakspeare's  delicate 
soul,  bruised  by  the  shocks  of  social 
life,  took  refuge  in  contemplations  of 
solitary  life.  To  forget  the  strife  and 
annoyances  of  the  world,  he  must  bury 
himself  in  a  wide  silent  forest,  and 

"  Under  the  shade  of  melancholy  boughs, 
Loose   and  neglect    the   creeping   hours    of 
time."  t 

We  look  at  the  bright  images  which 
the  sun  carves  on  the  white  beech- 
boles,  the  shade  of  trembling  leaves 
flickering  on  the  thick  moss,  the  long 
waves  of  the  summit  of  the  trees  ;  then 
the  sharp  sting  of  care  is  blunted ;  we 
surfer  no  more,  simply  remembering 
that  we  suffered  once  ;  we  feel  nothing 
but  a  gentle  misanthropy,  and  being  re^ 
newed,  we  are  the  better  for  it.  The  old 

*  Ibid.  v.  2.  t  Ibid.  ii.  7. 


236 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK   II. 


duke  is  happy  in  his  exile.  Solitude 
has  given  him  rest,  delivered  him  from 
flattery,  reconciled  him  to  nature.  He 
pilies  the  stags  which  he  is  obliged  to 
hunt  for  food : 

•'  Come,  shall  we  go  and  kill  us  venison  ? 
And  yet  it  irks  me  the  poor  dappled  fools, 
Being  native  burghers  of  this  desert  city, 
Should  in  their  own  confines  with  forked 

heads 
Have  their  round  haunches  gored."  * 

Nothing  sweeter  than  this  mixture  of 
tender  compassion,  dreamy  philosophy, 
delicate  sadness,  poetical  complaints, 
and  rustic  songs.  One  of  the  lords 
sings  : 

"  Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind, 
Thou  art  not  so  unkind 

As  man's  ingratitude ; 
Thy  tooth  is  not  so  keen, 
Because  thou  art  not  seen, 

Although  thy  breath  be  rude. 
Heigh-ho !    sing,    heigh-ho  1    unto  the  green 

holly : 

Most  friendship  is  feigning,  most  loving  mere 
folly : 

Then  heigh-ho,  the  holly ! 
This  life  is  most  jolly."  t 

Amongst  these  lords  is  found  a  soul  that 
suffers  more,  Jacques  the  melancholy, 
one  of  Shakspeare's  best-loved  char- 
acters, a  transparent  mask  behind 
which  we  perceive  the  face  of  the 
poet.  He  is  sad  because  he  is  ten- 
der ;  he  feels  the  contact  of  things  too 
keenly,  and  what  leaves  others  indiffer- 
ent, makes  him  weep.J  He  does  not 
scold,  he  is  sad  ;  he  does  not  reason, 
he  is  moved ;  he  has  not  the  combative 
spirit  of  a  reforming  moralist  ;  his  soul 
is  sick  and  weary  of  life.  Impassioned 
imagination  leads  quickly  to  disgust. 
Like  opium,  it  excites  and  shatters. 
It  leads  man  to  the  loftiest  philosophy, 
then  lets  him  down  to  the  whims  of  a 
child.  Jacques  leaves  other  men  ab- 
ruptly, and  goes  to  the  quiet  nooks  to 
be  alone.  He  loves  his  sadness,  and 
would  not  exchange  it  for  joy.  Meet- 
ing Orlando,  he  says : 

"  Rosalind  is  your  love's  name? 
Orlando.  Yes,  just. 
Jacques.  I  do  not  like  her  name."  § 

He  has  the  fancies  of  a  nervous  woman. 

*  As  you  Like  it,  ii.  i.  t  Ibid.  ii.  7. 

t  Compare  Jacques  with  the  Alceste  of 
Moliere.  It  is  the  contrast  between  a  mis- 
anthrope through  reasoning  and  one  through 
'tr.  agination. 

§  As  you  Like  it,  iii.  2. 


He  is  scandalized  because  Orlando 
writes  sonnets  on  the  forest  trees.  He 
is  eccentric,  and  finds  subjects  of  grief 
and  gayety,  where  others  would  see 
nothing  of  the  sort : 

"  A  fool,  a  fool !  I  met  a  fooJ  i'  the  forest, 
A  motley  fool ;  A  miserable  world ! 
As  I  do  live  by  food,  I  met  a  fool ; 
Who  laid  him  down  and  bask'd  him  in  tha 

sun, 

And  rail'd  on  Lady  Fortune  in  good  terms, 
In  good  set  terms  and  yet  a  motley  fool.  .  . 

Jacques  hearing  him  moralize  in  such 
a  manner  begins  to  laugh  "  sans  inter- 
mission "  that  a  fool  could  be  so  medi« 
tative : 

O  noble  fool ;   A  worthy  fool  I    Motley's  the 
only  wear.  .  .   . 

0  that  I  were  a  fool ! 

1  am  ambitious  for  a  motley  coat."  * 

The  next  minute  he  returns  to  his  mel- 
ancholy dissertations,  bright  pictures 
whose  vivacity  explains  his  character, 
and  betrays  Shakspeare,  hiding  under 
his  name : 

"  All  the  world's  a  stage, 
And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players : 
They  have  their  exits  and  their  entrances  ; 
And  one  man  in  his  time  plays  many  parts, 
His  acts  being  seven  ages.     At  first  the  infant) 
Mewling  and  puking  in  the  nurse's  arms. 
And  then  the  whining  shoolboy,with  his  satchel. 
And  shining  morning  face,  creeping  like  snail 
Unwillingly  to  school.     And  then  the  lover, 
Sighing  like  furnace,  with  a  woeful  ballad 
Made  to  his  mistress'  eyebrow.    Then  a  soldier, 
Full  of  strange  oaths  and  bearded  like  the  pard, 
Jealous  in  honour,  sudden  and  quick  in  quarrel, 
Seeking  the  bubble  reputation 
Even  in  the   cannon's  mouth.     And  then  the 

justice, 

In  fair  round  belly  with  good  capon  lined, 
With  eyes  severe  and  beard  of  formal  cut, 
Full  of  wise  saws  and  modern  instances  ; 
And  so  he  plays  his  part.     The  sixth  age  shifts 
Into  the  lean  and  slipper'd  pantaloon, 
With  spectacles  on  nose  and  pouch  on  side, 
His  youthful  hose,  well  saved,  a  world  too  wide 
For  his  shrunk  shank  ;  and  his  big  manly  voice, 
Turning  again  toward  childish  treble,  pipes 
And  whistles  in  his  sound.     Last  scene  of  all, 
That  ends  this  strange  eventful  history, 
Is  second  childishness  and  mere  oblivion, 
Sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans  eveij 

thing."  f 

As  you  Like  it  is  a  half  dream.  Mid" 
stimmer  Night's  Dream  is  a  complete 
one. 

The  scene,  buried  in  the  far-off  mist 
of  fabulous  antiquity,  carries  us  back 
to  Theseus,  Duke  of  Athens,  who  is 
preparing  his  palace  for  his  marriage 


>  Ibid.    ii.  7. 


t  Ibid. 


CHAP    IV.] 


SHAKSPEARE. 


237 


with  the  beautiful  queen  of  the  Ama- 
zons. The  style,  loaded  with  contort- 
ed images,  fills  the  mind  with  strange 


and  splendid  visions,  and  the  airy  elf- 
world  divert  the  comedy  into  the  fai 
land  from  whence  it  sprung. 


Love  is  still  the  theme  :  of  all  senti- 
ments, is  it  not  the  greatest  fancy-weav- 
er ?  But  love  is  not  heard  here  in  the 
charming  prattle  of  Rosalind  ;  it  is  glar- 
ing, like  the  season  of  the  year.  It  does 
not  brim  over  in  slight  conversations,  in 
supple  and  skipping  prose  ;  it  breaks 
forth  into  big  rhyming  odes,  dressed  in 
magnificent  metaphors,  sustained  by 
impassioned  accents,  such  as  a  warm 
night,  odorous  and  star-spangled,  in- 
spires in  a  poet  and  a  lover.  Lysander 
and  Hermia  agree  to  meet. 

"  Lysander.  To-morrow  night  when   Phoebe 

doth  behold 

Her  silver  visage  in  the  watery  glass, 
Decking  with  liquid  pearl  the  bladed  grass, 
A  time  that  lovers'  flights  doth  still  conceal, 
Through   Athens'   gates   have  we   devised  to 

steal. 
Hermia.  And  in  the  wood,  where  often  you 

andT 

Upon  faint  primrose-beds  were  wont  to  lie.  .  . 
There  my  Lysander  and  myself  shall  meet."  * 

They  get  lost,  and  fall  asleep,  wearied, 
under  the  trees.  Puck  squeezes  in  the 
youth's  eyes  the  juice  of  a  magic  flow- 
er and  changes  his  heart.  Presently, 
when  he  awakes,  he  will  become  en- 
amored of  the  first  woman  he  sees. 
Meanwhile  Demetrius,  Hermia's  re- 
jected lover,  wanders  with  Helena, 
whom  he  rejects,  in  the  solitary  wood. 
The  magic  flower  changes  him  in  turn  : 
he  now  loves  Helena.  The  lovers  flee 
and  pursue  one  another,  beneath  the 
lofty  trees,  in  the  calm  night.  We 
smile  at  their  transports,  their  com- 
plaints, their  ecstasies,  and  yet  we  join 
;n  them.  This  passion  is  a  dream,  and 
pet  it  moves  us.  It  is  like  those  airy 
webs  which  we  find  at  morning  on  the 
srest  of  the  hedgerows  where  the  dew 
has  spread  them,  and  whose  weft  spar- 
kles like  a  jewel-casket.  Nothing  can 
be  more  fragile,  and  nothing  more 
graceful.  The  poet  sports  with  emo- 
tions ;  he  mingles,  confuses,  redoubles, 
interweaves  them;  he  twines  and  un- 
twines these  loves  like  the  mazes  of  a 
dance,  and  we  see  the  noble  and  ten- 
der figures  pass  by  the  verdant  bushes, 

*  Midsummer  Nighf  s  Dreamt  i.  i. 


beneath  the  radiant  eyes  of  the  stars, 
now  wet  with  tears,  now  bright  with 
rapture.  They  have  the  abandonment 
of  true  love,  not  the  grossnes-s  of  sen- 
sual love.  Nothing  causes  us  to  fall 
from  the  ideal  world  in  which  Shak- 
speare  conducts  us.  Dazzled  by  beau- 
ty, they  adore  it,  and  the  spectacle  of 
their  happiness,  their  emotion,  and 
their  tenderness,  is  a  kind  of  enchant- 
ment. 

Above  these  two  couples  flutters  and 
hums  the  swarm  of  elves  and  fairies. 
They  also  love.  Titania,  their  queen, 
has  a  young  boy  for  her  favorite,  son 
of  an  Indian  king,  of  whom  Oberon, 
her  husband,  wishes  to  deprive  her. 
They  quarrel,  so  that  the  elves  creep 
for  fear  into  the  acorn  cups,  in  the 
golden  primroses.  Oberon,  by  way  of 
vengeance,  touches  Titania's  sleeping 
eyes  with  the  magic  flower,  and  thus  on 
waking  the  nimblest  and  most  charming 
of  the  fairies  finds  herself  enamored  of 
a  stupid  blockhead  with  an  ass's  head. 
She  kneels  before  him :  she  sets  on  his 
"  hairy  temples  a  coronet  of  fresh  and 
fragrant  flowers  : " 

"  And  that  same  dew,  which  sometime  on  the 

buds 
Was  wont  to  swell  like  round  and  orient 

pearls, 

Stood  now  within  the  pretty  floweret's  eyes, 
Like  tears  that  did  their  own  disgrace  be- 
wail." * 

She  calls  round  her  all  her  fairy  atten- 
dants ; 

"  Be  kind  and  courteous  to  this  gentleman  ; 
Hop  in  his  walks,  and  gambol  in  his  eyes  ; 
Feed  him  with  apricocks  and  dewberries, 
With  purple  grapes,   green    figs,   and  mul- 
berries ; 

The  honey-bags  steal  from  the  humble-bees, 
And  for  night-tapers  crop  their  waxen  thighs 
And  light  them  at  the  fiery  glow-worm's  eyes, 
To  have  my  love  to  bed  and  to  arise  ; 
And  pluck  the  wings  from  painted  butterflies 
To  fan  the  moonbeams  from  his  sleeping 

eyes.  .  .  . 
Come,   wait  upon  him ;    lead    him  to    my 

bower. 
The  moon,  methinks,  looks  with  a  watery 

eye ; 
And  when    she  weeps,  weeps    every    little 

flower, 

Lamenting  some  enforced  chastity. 
Tie  up  my  love's  tongue,  bring  him  silent- 
ly." t 

It  was  necessary,  for  her  love  brayed 
horribly,  and  to  all  the  offers  of  Titania, 

*  Ibid.  iv.  i.  1  Ibid.  iii.  i. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


replied  with  a  petition  for  hay.  What 
can  be  sadder  and  sweeter  than  this 
irony  of  Shakspeare  ?  What  raillery 
against  love,  and  what  tenderness  for 
love !  The  sentiment  is  divine  :  its 
object  unworthy.  The  heart  is  rav- 
ished, the  eyes  blind.  It  is  a  golden 
butterfly,  fluttering  in  the  mud  ;  and 
Shakspeare,  whilst  painting  its  misery, 
r reserves  all  its  beauty: 

Come,  sit  thee  down  upon  this  flowery  bed, 

While  I  thy  amiable  cheeks  do  coy, 

And  stick  musk-roses  in   thy  sleek  smooth 

head, 

And  kiss  thy  fair  large  ears,  my  gentle  joy.    . 
Sleep  thou,  and  I  will  wind  thee  in  my  arms. 
So  doth  the  woodbine  the  svyeet  honeysuckle 
Gently  en  twist ;  the  female  ivy  so 
Enrings  the  barky  fingers  of  the  elm. 
O,  how  I  love  thee  !  how  I  dote  on  thee  !  "  * 

At  the  return  of  morning,  when 

"  The  eastern  gate,  all  fiery  red, 
Opening  on  Neptune  with  fair  blessed  beams, 
Turns  into  yellow  gold  his  salt  green  streams,"  t 

the  enchantment  ceases,  Titania  awakes 
on  her  couch  of  wild  thyme  and  droop- 
ing violets.  She  drives  the  monster 
away  ;  her  recollections  of  the  night 
are  effaced  in  a  vague  twilight : 

"  These  things  seem  small  and  undistinguish- 

able, 
Like  far-off  mountains  turned  into  clouds."  $ 

And  the  fairies 

"  Go  seek  some  dew  drops  here 
And  hang  a  pearl  in  every  cowslip's  ear."  § 

Such  is  Shakspeare's  fantasy,  a  slight 
tissue  of  bold  inventions,  of  ardent 
passions,  melancholy  mockery,  dazzling 
poetry,  such  as  one  of  Titania's  elves 
would  have  made.  Nothing  could  be 
more  like  the  poet's  mind  than  these 
nimble  genii,  children  of  air  and  flame, 
whose  flights  "  compass  the  globe  "  in 
a  second,  who  glide  over  the  foam  of 
the  waves  and  skip  between  the  atoms 
of  the  winds.  Ariel  flies,  an  invisible 
songster,  around  shipwrecked  men  to 
console  them,  discovers  the  thoughts  of 
traitors,  pursues  the  savage  beast  Cali- 
ban, spreads  gorgeous  visions  before 
lovers,  and  does  all  in  a  lightning- 
flash: 

"  Where  the  bee  sucks,  there  suck  I : 
In  a  cowslip's  bell  I  lie.  .  .  . 


*  Midsummer  Nigh? s  Dream,  iv.  i. 
t  Ibid.  iii.  2.  \  Ibid.  iv.  i. 

§  Ibid.  ii.  i. 


Merrily,  merrily  shall  I  live  now 

Under  the  blossom  that  hangs  on  the  boughu 

I  drink  the  air  before  me,  and  return 

Or  ere  your  pulse  twice  beat."  * 

Shakspeare  glides  over  things  on  as 
swift  a  wing,  by  leaps  as  sudden,  with 
a  touch  as  delicate. 

What  a  soul  1  what  extent  of  action, 
and  what  sovereignty  of  an  unique 
faculty !  what  diverse  creations,  and 
what  persistence  of  the  same  impress  1 
There  they  all  are  united,  and  all 
marked  by  the  same  sign,  void  of  wi._ 
and  reason,  governed  by  mood,  imag- 
ination, or  pure  passion,  destitute  of 
the  faculties  contrary  to  those  of  the 
poet,  dominated  by  the  corporeal  type 
which  his  painter's  eyes  have  con- 
ceived, endowed  by  the  habits  of  mind 
and  by  the  vehement  sensibility  which 
he  fincls  in  himself.!  Go  through  the 
groups,  and  you  will  only  discover  in 
them  divers  forms  and  divers  states  of 
the  same  power.  Here,  a  herd  of 
brutes,  dotards,  and  gossips,  made  up 
of  a  mechanical  imagination ;  further 
on,  a  company  of  men  of  wit,  animated 
by  a  gay  and  foolish  imagination ;  then, 
a  charming  swarm  of  women  whom 
their  delicate  imagination  raises  so 
high,  and  their  self- forgetting  love  car- 
ries so  far ;  elsewhere  a  band  of  vil- 
lains, hardened  by  unbridled  passions, 
inspired  by  artistic  rapture  ;  in  the  cen- 
tre a  mournful  train  of  grand  charac- 
ters, whose  excited  brain  is  filled  with 
sad  or  criminal  visions,  and  whom  an 
inner  destiny  urges  to  murder,  madness, 
or  death.  Ascend  one  stage,  and  con- 
template the  whole  scene :  the  aggre- 
gate bears  the  same  mark  as  the  de- 
tails. The  drama  reproduces  promis- 
cuously uglinesses,  basenesses,  horrors, 
unclean  details,  profligate  and  ferocious 
manners,  the  whole  reality  of  life  just 
as  it  is,  when  it  is  unrestrained  by  deco- 
rum, common  sense,  reason,  and  duty. 
Comedy,  led  through  a  phantasmagoria 
of  pictures,  gets  lost  in  the  likely  and 
the  unlikely,  with  no  other  connection 
but  the  caprice  of  an  amused  imagin- 
ation, wantonly  disjointed  and  roman- 
tic, an  opera  without  music,  a  concerto 
of  melancholy  and  tender  sentiments, 
which  bears  the  mind  into  the  super- 

*  Tempest,  v.  i. 

t  There  is  the  same  law  in  the  organic  and  i» 
the  moral  world.  It  is  what  Geoffrey  Saint 
Hilaire  calls  unity  of  composition. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


239 


natural  world,  and  brings  before  our 
eyes  on  its  fairy-wings  the  genius  which 
has  created  it.  Look  now.  Do  you 
not  see  the  poet  behind  the  crowd  of 
his  creations  ?  They  have  heralded  his 
approach.  They  have  all  shown  some- 
what of  him.  Ready,  impetuous,  im- 
passioned, delicate,  his  genius  is  pure 
imagination,  touched  more  vividly  and 
by  slighter  things  than  ours.  Hence 
his  style,  blooming  with  exuberant 
mages,  loaded  with  exaggerated  meta- 
phors, whose  strangeness  is  like  inco- 
herence, whose  wealth  is  superabun- 
dant, the  work  of  a  mind,  which,  at  the 
./east  incitement,  produces  too  much 
and  takes  too  wide  leaps.  Hence  this 
involuntary  psychology,  and  this  terri- 
ble penetration,  which  instantaneously 
perceiving  all  the  effects  of  a  situation, 
and  all  the  details  of  a  character,  con- 
centrates them  in  every  response,  and 
gives  to  a  figure  a  relief  and  a  coloring 
which  create  illusion.  Hence  our  emo- 
tion and  tenderness.  We  say  to  him, 
as  Desdemona  to  Othello :  "  I  love  thee 
for  the  battles,  sieges,  fortunes  thou 
hast  passed,  and  for  the  distressful 
stroke  that  thy  youth  suffered." 


CHAPTER  V. 


Christian 


I. 

"  I  WOULD  have  my  reader  fully  under- 
stand," says  Luther  in  the  preface  to 
his  complete  works,  "  that  I  nave  been 
a  monk  and  a  bigoted  Papist,  so  intoxi- 
cated, or  rather  so  swallowed  up  in 
papistical  doctrines,  that  I  was  quite 
nady,  if  I  had  been  able,  to  kill  or  pro- 
cure the  death  of  those  who  should 
have  rejected  obedience  to  the  Pope 
by  so  much  as  a  syllable.  I  was  not 
all  cold  or  all  ice  in  the  Pope's  defence, 
like  E  ;kius  and  his  like,  who  veritably 
seemed  to  me  to  constitute  themselves 
his  defenders  rather  for  their  belly's 
sake  than  because  they  looked  at  the 
matter  seriously.  More,  to  this  day 
they  seem  to  mock  at  him,  like  Epicu- 
reans. I  for  my  part  proceeded  frank- 


ly, like  a  man  who  has  horribly  feared 
the  day  of  judgment,  and  who  yet 
hoped  to  be  saved  with  a  shaking  of  all 
his  bones."  Again,  when  he  saw  Rome 
for  the  first  time,  he  prostrated  himself, 
saying,  "  I  salute  thee,  holy  Rome  .  .  . 
bathed  in  the  blood  of  so  many  mar- 


tyrs." Imagine,  if  you  may,  the  effect 
which  the  shameless  paganism  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance  had  upon  such  a 


rnind,  so  loyal,  so  Christian.  The 
beauty  of  art,  the  charm  of  a  refined 
and  sensuous  existence,  had  taken  no 
hold  upon  him  ;  he  judged  morals,  and 
he  judged  them  with  his  conscience 
only.  He  regarded  this  southern  civili- 
zation with  the  eyes  of  a  man  of  the 
north,  and  understood  its  vices  only, 
like  Ascham,  who  said  he  had  seen  in 
Venice  "  more  libertie  to  sinne  in  ix 
dayes  than  ever  I  heard  tell  of  in  our 
noble  Citie  of  London  inixyeare."* 
Like  Arnold  and  C  banning  in  the 
present  day,  like  all  the  men  of  Ger- 
manic t  race  and  education,  he  was 
horrified  at  this  voluptuous  life,  now 
reckless  and  now  licentious,  but  always 
void  of  moral  principles,  given  up  to 
passions,  enlivened  by  irony,  caring 
only  for  the  present,  destitute  of  belief 
in  the  infinite,  with  no  other  worship 
than  that  of  visible  beauty,  no  other 
object  than  the  search  after  pleasure, 
no  other  religion  than  the  terrors  of 
imagination  and  the  idolatry  of  the 
eyes. 

<4  1  would  not,"  said  Luther  after- 
wards, "  for  a  hundred  thousand  florins 
have  gone  without  seeing  Rome  ;  1 
should  always  have  doubted  whether  1 
was  not  doing  injustice  to  the  Pope. 
The  crimes  of  Rome  are  incredible  ;  no 
one  will  credit  so  great  a  perversity 
who  has  not  the  witness  of  his  eyes, 
ears,  personal  knowledge.  .  .  .  There 
reigned  all  the  villanies  and  infamies, 
all  the  atrocious  crimes,  in  particular 
blind,  greed,  contempt  of  God,  perju- 
ries, sodomy.  .  .  .  We  Germans  swill 
liquor  enough  to  split  us,  whilst  the 
Italians  are  sober.  But  they  are  the 
most  impious  of  men  ;  they  make  a 
mock  of  true  religion,  they  scorn  the 
rest  of  us  Christians,  because  we  be 

*  Roger  Ascham,  The  Scholemaster  (1570), 
ed.  Arber,  1870,  first  book,  p.  83. 

t  See,  in  Corinne,  Lord  Nevil's  judgment 
on  the  Italians. 


240 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


lieve  every  thing  in  Scripture.  .  . 
There  is  a  saying  in  Italy  which  they 
make  use  of  when  they  go  to  church : 
'  Come  and  let  us  conform  to  the  pop- 
ular error.'  *  If  we  were  obliged,'  they 
say  again,  '  to  believe  in  every  word  of 
God,  we  should  be  the  most  wretched 
of  men,  and  we  should  never  be  able  to 
have  a  moment's  cheerfulness ;  we 
must  put  a  good  face  on  it,  and  not  be- 
lieve every  thing.'  This  is  what  Leo 
X .  did,  who,  hearing  a  discussion  as  to 
the  immortality  or  mortality  of  the 
soul,  took  the  latter  side.  '  For,'  said 
he,  '  it  would  be  terrible  to  believe  in 
a  future  state.  Conscience  is  an  evil 
beast,  who  arms  man  against  himself.' 
.  .  .  The  Italians  are  either  epicure- 
ans or  superstitious.  The  people  fear 
Sit.  Anthony  and  St.  Sebastian  more 
than  Christ,  because  of  the  plagues 
they  send.  This  is  why,  when  they 
want  to  prevent  the  Italians  from  com- 
mitting a  nuisance  anywhere,  they 
Eaint  up  St.  Anthony  with  his  fiery 
ince.  Thus  do  they  live  in  extreme 
superstition,  ignorant  of  God's  word, 
not  believing  the  resurrection  of  the 
flesh,  nor  life  everlasting,  and  fearing 
only  temporal  evils.  Their  blasphemy 
also  is  frightful,  .  .  .  and  the  cruelty 
of  their  revenge  is  atrocious.  When 
they  cannot  get  rid  of  their  enemies 
in  any  other  way,  they  lay  ambush  for 
them  in  the  churches,  so  that  one  man 
cleft  his  enemy's  head  before  the  al- 
tar. .  .  .  There  are  often  murders 
at  funerals  on  account  of  inheritances. 
.  .  .  They  celebrate  the  Carnival  with  ex- 
treme impropriety  and  folly  for  several 
weeks,  and  they  have  made  a  custom  of 
various  sins  and  extravagances  at  it, 
for  they  are  men  without  conscience, 
who  live  in  open  sin,  and  make  light  of 
the  marriage  tie.  .  .  .  We  Germans, 
and  other  simple  nations,  are  like  a  bare 
clout ;  but  the  Italians  are  painted 
and  speckled  with  all  sorts  of  false 
opinions,  and  disposed  still  to  embrace 
many  worse.  .  .  .  Their  fasts  are  more 
splendid  than  our  most  sumptuous 
feasts.  They  dress  extravagantly; 
where  we  spend  a  florin  on  our  clothes, 
they  put  down  ten  florins  to  have  a  silk 
coat.  .  .  .  When  they  (the  Italians) 
are  chaste,  it  is  sodomy  with  them. 
There  is  no  society  amongst  them. 
No  one  trusts  another  ;  they  do  not 


come  together  freely,  like  us  Germans ; 
they  do  not  allow  strangers  to  speak 
publicly  with  their  wives:  compared 
with  the  Germans,  they  are  altogether 
men  of  the  cloister."  These  hard 
words  are  weak  compared  with  the 
facts.*  Treasons,  assassinations,  tor- 
tures, open  debauchery,  the  practice  of 
poisoning,  the  worst  and  most  shameless 
outrages,  are  unblushingly  and  publicly 
tolerated  in  the  open  light  of  heaven. 
In  1490,  the  Pope's  vicar  having  forbid- 
den clerics  and  laics  to  keep  concubines, 
the  Pope  revoked  the  decree,  "  saying 
that  that  was  not  forbidden,  because  the 
life  of  priests  and  ecclesiastics  was  such 
that  hardly  one  was  to  be  found  who  did 
not  keep  a  concubine,  or  at  least  who 
had  not  a  courtesan."  Caesar  Borgia 
at  the  capture  of  Capua  "  chose  forty 
of  the  most  beautiful  women,  whom  he 
kept  for  himself;  and  a  pretty  large 
number  of  captives  were  sold  at  a  low 
price  at  Rome."  Under  Alexander 
VI.,  "  all  ecclesiastics,  from  the  great- 
est to  the  least,  have  concubines  in  the 
place  of  wives,  and  that  publicly.  If 
God  hinder  it  not,"  adds  the  historian, 
"  this  corruption  will  pass  to  the  monks 
and  religious  orders,  although,  to  con- 
fess the  truth,  almost  all  the  monaste- 
ries of  the  town  have  become  bawd- 
houses,  without  anyone  to  speak 
against  it."  With  respect  to  Alexan- 
der VI.,  who  loved  his  daughter 
Lucretia,  the  reader  may  find  in  Bur- 
chard  the  description  of  the  marvellous 
orgies  in  which  he  joined  with  Lucretia 
and  Caesar,  and  the  enumeration  of  the 
prizes  which  he  distributed.  Let  the 
reader  also  read  for  himself  the  story 
of  the  bestiality  of  Pietro  Luigi  Farnese, 
the  Pope's  son,  how  the  young  and 
upright  Bishop  of  Fano  died  from  his 
outrage,  and  how  the  Pope,  speaking 
of  this  crime  as  "a  youthful  levity," 
gave  him  in  this  secret  bull  "  the  fullest 
absolution  from  all  the  penalties  which 
he  might  have  incurred  by  human  in- 
continence, in  whatever  shape  or  with 
whatever  cause."  As  to  civil  security, 
Bentivoglio  caused  all  the  Marescotti 
to  be  put  to  death ;  Hippolyte  d'Este 

*  See  Corpus  historicortim  medii  cevi,  G. 
Eccard,  vol.  ii.  ;  Joh.  Buichardi,  high  cham- 
berlain to  Alexander  VI.,  DJarium,  p.  2134. 
Guicciardini,  Del?  istoria  cT  Italia,  p.  211,  ed. 
Pantheon  Litteraire. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRTSTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


241 


had  his  brother's  eyes  put  out  in  his 
presence;  Caesar  Borgia  killed  his 
brother;  murder  is  consonant  with 
their  public  manners,  and  excites  no 
wonder.  A  fisherman  was  asked  why 
he  had  not  informed  the  governor  of 
the  town  that  he  had  seen  a  body 
thrown  into  the  water  ;  "  he  replied 
that  he  had  seen  about  a  hundred 
bodies  thrown  into  the  water  during 
his  lifetime  in  the  same  place,  and  that 
no  one  had  ever  troubled  himself  about 
it.''  "  In  our  town,"  says  an  old  his- 
torian, "much  murder  and  pillage  was 
done  by  day  and  night,  and  hardly  a 
day  passed  but  some  one  was  killed." 
Caesar  Borgia  one  day  killed  Peroso 
the  Pope's  favorite,  between  his  arms 
and  under  his  cloak,  so  that  the  blood 
spurted  up  to  the  Pope's  face.  He 
caused  his  sister's  husband  to  be  stab- 
bed and  then  strangled  in  open  day,  on 
the  steps  of  the  palace  ;  count,  if  you 
can,  his  assassinations.  Certainly  he  and 
his  father,  by  their  character,  morals, 
complete,  open  and  systematic  wicked- 
ness, have  presented  to  Europe  the  two 
most  successful  images  of  the  devil.  To 
sum  up  in  a  word,  it  was  on  the  model 
of  this  society,  and  for  this  society,  that 
Machiavelli  wrote  his  Prince.  The 
complete  development  of  all  the  facul- 
ties and  all  the  lusts  of  man,  the  com- 
plete destruction  of  all  the  restraints 
and  all  the  shame  of  man,  are  the  two 
distir.guishing  marks  of  this  grand  and 
perverse  culture.  To  make  man  a 
strong  being,  endowed  with  genius, 
audacity,  presence  of  mind,  astute  poli- 
cy, dissimulation,  patience,  and  to  turn 
all  this  power  to  the  acquisition  of 
every  kind  of  pleasure,  pleasures  of  the 
body,  of  luxury,  arts,  literature,  author- 
ity ;  that  is,  to  form  and  to  set  free  an 
admirable  and  formidable  animal,  very 
lustful  and  well  armed, — such  was  his 
object ;  and  the  effect,  after  a  hundred 
year?,  is  visible.  They  tore  one  an- 
othei  to  pieces  like  beautiful  lions  and 
supei  b  panthers.  In  this  society,  which 
was  turned  into  an  arena,  amid  so 
many  hatreds,  and  when  exhaustion  was 
setting  in,  the  foreigner  appeared  :  all 
bent  beneath  his  lash ;  they  were 
caged,  and  thus  they  pine  away,  in  dull 
pleasures,  with  low 'vices,  bowing  their 
backs.*  Despotism,  the  Inquisition, 
*  See,  in  Casanova's  Memoires,  the  picture 


the  Cicisbei,  dense  ignorance,  and  open 
knavery,  the  shamelessness  and  the 
smartness  of  harlequins  and  rascals, 
misery  and  vermin, — such  is  the  issue 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  Like  the 
old  civilizations  of  Greece  and  Rome,* 
like  the  modern  civilizations  of  Prov- 
ence and  Spain,  like  all  southern  civil- 
izations, it  bears  in  its  bosom  an  irre- 
mediable vice,  a  bad  and  false  concep- 
tion of  man.  The  Germans  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  like  the  Germans  of 
the  fourth  century,  have  rightly  judged 
it ;  with  their  simple  common  sense, 
with  their  fundamental  honesty,  they 
have  put  their  fingers  on  the  secret 
plague-spot.  A  society  cannot  be 
founded  only  on  the  pursuit  of  pleas- 
ure and  power ;  a  society  can  only  be 
founded  on  the  respect  for  liberty  ajid 
justice.  In  order  that  the  great  human 
renovation  which  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury raised  the  whole  of  Europe  might 
be  perfected  and  endure,  it  was  neces- 
sary that,  meeting  with  another  race,  it 
should  develop  another  culture,  and 
that  from  a  more  wholesome  concep- 
tion of  existence  it  might  educe  a  bet- 
ter form  of  civilization. 

II. 

Thus,  side  by  side  with  the  Renais- 
sance, was  born  the  Reformation.  It 
also  was  in  fact  a  new  birth,  one  in 
harmony  with  the  genius  of  the  Ger- 
manic peoples.  The  distinction  be- 
tween this  genius  and  others  is  its  mor- 
al principles.  Grosser  and  heavier 
more  given  to  gluttony  and  drunken- 
ness,! these  nations  are  at  the  same 

of  this  degradation.  See  also  the  Mrmoires  of 
Scipione  Rossi,  on  the  convents  of  Tuscany  at 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

*  From  Homer  to  Constantine,  the  ancient 
city  was  an  association  of  freemen,  whose  aim 
was  the  conquest  and  destruction  of  other  free- 
men. 

t  Memoires  de  la  Margrave  de  Baireut,' 
See  also  Misson,  Voyage  en  llalie,  1700. 
Compare  the  manners  of  the  students  at  the 
present  day.  "  The  Germans  are,  as  you  know, 
wonderful  drinkers :  no  people  in  the  world 
are  more  flattering,  more  civil,  more  officious  ; 
but  yet  they  have  terrible,  customs  in  the  mat- 
ter of  drinking.  With  them  every  thing  is 
done  drinking :  they  drink  in  doing  every 
thing.  There  was  not  time  during  a  visit  to 
say  three  words,  before  you  were  astonished  to 
see  the  collation  arrive,  or  at  least  a  few  jugs 
of  wine,  accompanied  by  a  plate  of  crusts  ol 
bread,  dished  up  with  pepper  and  salt  ;  a  fatal 
preparation  for  bad  drinkers.  Then  you  must 
II 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


time  more  under  the  influence  of  con- 
science, firmer  in  the  observance  of 
their  word,  more  disposed  to  self-de- 
nial and  sacrifice.  Such  their  climate 
has  made  them  ;  and  such  they  have 
continued,  from  Tacitus  to  Luther, 
from  Knox  to  Gustavus  Adolphus  and 
Kant  In  the  course  of  time,  and  be- 
neath the  incessant  action  of  the  ages, 
the  phlegmatic  body,  fed  on  coarse 
food  and  strong  drink,  had  become 
rusty,  the  nerves  less  excitable,  the 
muscles  less  strung,  the  desires  less 
seconded  by  action,  the  life  more  dull 
and  slow,  the  soul  more  hardened  and 
indifferent  to  the  shocks  of  the  body : 
mud,  rain,  snow,  a  profusion  of  un- 
pleasing  and  gloomy  sights,  the  want 
of  lively  and  delicate  excitements  of 
the. senses,  keep  man  in  a  militant  atti- 
tude. Heroes  in  the  barbarous  ages, 
workers  to-day,  they  endure  weariness 
now  as  they  courted  wounds  then; 
now,  as  then,  nobility  of  soul  appeals 
to  them  ;  thrown  back  upon  the  enjoy- 
ments of  the  soul,  they  find  in  these  a 
world,  the  world  of  moral  beauty.  For 
them  the  ideal  is  displaced ;  it  is  no 
longer  amidst  forms,  made  up  of  force 
and  joy,  but  it  is  transferred  to  senti- 
ments, made  up  of  truth,  uprightness, 
attachment  to  duty,  observance  of  or- 
der. What  matters  it  if  the  storm 
rages  and  if  it  snows,  if  the  wind  blus- 
ters in  the  black  pine-forests  or  on  the 
wan  sea-surges  where  the  sea-gulls 
scream,  if  a  man,  stiff  and  blue  with 
cold,  shutting  himself  up  in  his  cottage, 
have  but  a  dish  of  sourkrout  or  a  piece 
of  salt  beef,  under  his  smoky  light  and 
beside  his  fire  of  turf ;  another  king- 
dom opens  to  reward  him,  the  king- 
dom of  inward  contentment :  his  'wife 
loves  him  and  is  faithful ;  his  children 
round  his  health  spell  out  the  old  fam- 
ily Bible ;  he  is  the  master  in  his 
hcme,  the  protector,  the  benefactor, 

secome  acquainted  with  the  laws  which  are 
afterwards  observed,  sacred  and  inviolable 
laws.  You  must  never  drink  without  drinking 
to  some  one's  health  ;  also,  after  drinking,  you 
must  offer  the  wine  to  him  whose  health  you 
have  drunk.  You  must  never  refuse  the  glass 
which  is  offered  to  you,  and  you  must  naturally 
drain  it  tc  its  last  drop.  Reflect  a  little,  I  be- 
seech you,  on  these  customs,  and  see  how  it  is 
possible  to  cease  drinking  ;  accordingly,  they 
never  cease.  In  Germany  it  is  a  perpetual 
•drinking-bout ;  to  drink  in  Germany  is  to  drink 
*orever." 


by   c 

self;  and  if  so  be  that  he  needs  assist- 
ance, he  knows  that  at  the  first  appeal 
he  will  see  his  neighbors  stand  faith- 
fully and  bravely  by  his  side.  The 
reader  need  only  compare  the  por- 
traits of  the  time,  those  of  Italy  and 
Germany;  he  will  comprehend  at  a 
glance  the  two  races  and  the  two  civ- 
ilizations, the  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation  :  on  one  side  a  half-naked 
condottiere  in  Roman  costume,  a  car- 
dinal in  his  robes,  amply  draped,  in 
a  rich  arm-chair,  carved  and  adorn- 
ed with  heads  of  lions,  foliage,  dancing 
fauns,  he  himself  full  of  irony,  and  vo- 
luptuous, with  the  shrewd  and  dan- 
gerous look  of  a  politician  and  man  of 
the  world,  craftily  poised  and  on  his 
guard  ;  on  the  other  side,  some  honest 
doctor,  a  theologian,  a  simple  man,  with 
badly  combed  locks,  stiff  as  a  post,  in 
his  simple  gown  of  coarse  black  serge, 
with  big  books  of  dogma  ponderously 
clasped,  a  conscientious  worker,  an  ex- 
emplary father  of  a  family.  See  now 
the  great  artist  of  the  age,  a  laborious 
and  conscientious  workman,  a  follower 
of  Luther's,  a  true  Northman — Albert 
Uurer.*  He  also,  like  Raphael  and 
Titian,  has  his  ideal  of  man,  an  inex- 
haustible ideal,  whence  spring  by  hun- 
dreds living  figures  and  the  representa- 
tions of  manners,  but  how  national  and 
original !  He  cares  not  for  expansive 
and  happy  beauty  :  to  him  nude  bodies 
are  but  bodies  undressed:  narrow  shoul- 
ders, prominent  stomachs,  thin  legs,  feet 
weighed  down  by  shoes, his  neighbor  the 
carpenter's,  or  his  gossip  the  sausage- 
seller's.  The  heads  stand  out  in  his 
etchings,  remorselessly  scraped  an:l 
scooped  away,  savage  or  commonplace, 
often  wrinkled  by  the  fatigues  of  trade, 
generally  sad,  anxious,  and  patient, 
harshly  and  wretchedly  transformed  by 
the  necessities  of  realistic  life.  Where 
is  the  vista  out  of  this  minute  copy  ot 
ugly  truth  ?  To  what  land  will  the 
lofty  and  melancholy  imagination  be 
take  itself  ?  The  land  of  dreams, 
strange  dreams  swarming  with  deep 
thoughts,  sad  contemplation  of  human 
destiny,  a  vague  notion  of  the  great 
enigma,  groping  reflection,  which  in  the 
dimness  of  the  rough  wood-cuts,  amidst 

*  See  his  letters,  and  the  sympathy  expressed 
for  Luther. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


243 


obscure  emblems  and  fantastic  figures, 
tries  to  seize  upon  truth  and  justice. 
There  was  no  need  to  search  so  far  ; 
Durer  had  grasped  them  at  the  first 
effort.  If  there  is  any  decency  in  the 
world,  it  is  in  the  Madonnas  which  are 
constantly  springing  to  life  under  his 
pencil.  He  did  not  begin,  like  Raphael, 
by  making  them  nude  ;  the  most  licen- 
tious hand  would  not  venture  to  dis- 
turb one  stiff  fold  of  their  robes  ;  with 
an  infant  in  their  arms,  they  think  but 
of  him,  and  will  never  think  of  anybody 
else  but  him  ;  not  only  are  they  inno- 
cent, but  they  are  virtuous.  The  good 
German  housewife,  forever  shut  up, 
voluntarily  and  naturally,  within  her 
domestic  duties  and  contentment, 
breathes  out  in  all  the  fundamental 
sincerity,  the  seriousness,  the  unassaila- 
ble loyalty  of  their  attitudes  and  looks. 
He  has  done  more  ;  with  this  peaceful 
virtue  he  has  painted  a  militant  virtue. 
There  at  last  is  the  genuine  Christ,  the 
man  crucified,  lean  and  fleshless  through 
his  agony,  whose  blood  trickles  minute 
by  minute,  in  rarer  drops,  as  the  fee- 
bler and  feebler  pulsations  give  warn- 
ing of  the  last  throe  of  a  dying  life. 
\Ve  do  not  find  here,  as  in  the  Italian 
masters,  a  sight  to  charm  the  eyes, 
a  mere  flow  of  drapery,  a  disposition 
of  groups.  The  heart,  the  very  heart 
is  wounded  by  this  sight  :  it  is  the 
just  man  oppressed  who  is  dying  be- 
cause the  world  hates  justice.  The 
mighty,  the  men  of  the  age,  are  there, 
indifferent,  full  of  irony  :  a  plumed 
knight,  a  big-bellied  burgomaster,  who 
with  hands  folded  behind  his  back, 
looks  on,  kills  an  hour.  But  the  rest 
weep  ;  above  the  fainting  women,  an- 
gels full  of  anguish  catch  in  their  ves- 
sels the  holy  blood  as  it  trickles  down, 
and  the  stars  of  heaven  veil  their 
face  not  to  behold  so  tremendous  an 
outrage.  Other  outrages  will  also  be 
represented  ;  tortures  manifold,  and 
the  true  martyrs  beside  the  true  Christ, 
resigned,  silent,  with  the  sweet  expres- 
sion of  the  earliest  believers.  They  are 
bound  to  an  old  tree,  and  the  execu- 
tioner tears  them  with  his  iron  pointed 
lash.  A  bishop  with  clasped  hands  is 
praying,  lying  down,  whilst  an  auger  is 
being  screwed  into  his  eye.  Above 
amid  the  interlacing  trees  and  gnarled 
roots,  a  band  of  men  and  women,  climb 


under  the  lash  the  breast  of  a  hill,  and 
they  are  hurled  from  the  crest  at  the 
lance's  point  into  the  abyss  ;  here  ana 
there  roll  heads,  lifeless  bodies ;  and 
by  the  side  of  those  who  are  being 
decapitated,  the  swollen  corpses,  im- 
paled, await  the  croaking  ravens.  All 
these  sufferings  must  be  undergone  for 
the  confession  of  faith  and  the  establish- 
ment of  justice.  But  above  there  is  a 
guardian,  an  avenger,  an  all-powerful 
Judge,  whose  day  shall  come.  This 
day  has  come,  and  the  piercing  rays  of 
the  last  sun  already  flash,  like  a  hand- 
ful of  darts,  across  the  darkness  of  the 
age.  High  up  in  the  heavens  appears 
the  angel  in  his  shining  robe,  leading  the 
ungovernable  horsemen,  the  flashing 
swords,  the  inevitable  arrows  of  the 
avengers,  who  are  to  trample  upon  and 
punish  the  earth  ;  mankind  falls  down 
beneath  their  charge,  and  already  the 
jaw  of  the  infernal  monster  grinds  the 
head  of  the  wicked  prelates.  This  is 
the  popular  poem  of  conscience,  and 
from  the  days  of  the  apostles,  man  has 
not  had  a  more  sublime  and  complete 
conception.* 

For  conscience,  like  other  things,  has 
its  poem  ;  by  a  natural  invasion  the 
all-powerful  idea  of  justice  overflows 
from  the  soul,  covers  heaven,  and 
enthrones  there  a  new  deity.  A  formi- 
dable deity,  who  is  scarcely  like  the 
calm  intelligence  which  serves  philoso- 
phers to  explain  the  order  of  things  ; 
nor  to  that  tolerant  deity,  a  kind  of 
constitutional  king,  whom  Voltahe  dis- 
covered at  the  end  of  a  chain  of  argu- 
ment, whom  Beranger  sings  of  as  of  a 
comrade,  and  whom  he  salutes  "  sans 
lui  demander  rien."  It  is  the  just 
Judge,  sinless  and  stern,  who  demands 
of  man  a  strict  account  of  his  visible 
actions  and  of  all  his  invisible  feeling's, 
who  tolerates  no  forgetfulness,  no  de- 
jection, no  failing,  before  whom  every 
approach  to  weakness  or  error  is  an 
outrage  and  a  treason.  What  is  our 
justice  before  this  strict  justice  ?  Peo- 
ple lived  in  peace  in  the  times  of  igno- 
rance ;  at  most,  when  they  felt  them- 
selves guilty,  they  went  for  absolution 
to  a  priest ;  all  was  ended  by  their 
buying  a  big  indulgence  ;  there  was  a 

*  See  a  collection  of  Albert  Durer's  wood 
carvings.  Remark  the  resemblance  of  his 
Apocalypse  to  Luther's  Table  Talk. 


244 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II, 


tariff,  as  there  still  is  ;  Tetzel  the 
Dominican  declares  that  all  sins  are 
blotted  out  "  as  soon  as  the  money 
chinks  in  the  box."  Whatever  be  the 
crime,  there  is  a  quittance  ;  even  "  si 
Dei  matrem  violavisset"  he  might  go 
home  clean  and  sure  of  heaven.  Un- 
fortunately the  vendors  of  pardons  did 
not  know  that  all  was  changed,  and 
that  the  intellect  was  become  manly,  no 
longer  gabbling  words  mechanically 
like  a  catechism,  but  probing  them 
anxiously  like  a  truth.  In  the  univer- 
sal Renaissance,  and  in  the  mighty 
growth  of  all  human  ideas,  the  German 
idea  of  duty  blooms  like  the  rest.  Now 
when  we  speak  of  justice,  it  is  no  longer 
a  lifeless  phrase  which  we  repeat,  but 
a  living  idea  which  we  produce  ;  man 
sees  the  object  which  it  represents,  and 
feels  the  emotion  which  summons  it 
up  ;  he  no  longer  receives,  but  he 
creates  it ;  it  is  his  work  and  his  tyrant ; 
he  makes  it,  and  submits  to  it.  "  These 
words  Justus  and  justitia  Dei"  says 
Luther,  "  were  a  thunder  to  my  con- 
science. I  shuddered  to  hear  them  ;  I 
told  myself,  if  God  is  just,  He  will 
punish  me."*  For  as  soon  as  the  con- 
science discovers  again  the  idea  of  the 
perfect  model,!  the  smallest  failings 
appeared  to  be  crimes,  and  man,  con- 
demned by  his  own  scruples,  fell  pros- 

*  Calvin,  the  logician  of  the  Reformation, 
well  explains  the  dependence  of  all  the  Pro- 
testant ideas  in  his  Institutes  of  the  Christian 
Religion,  i.  (i.)  The  idea  of  the  perfect  God, 
the  stern  Judge.  (2.)  The  alarm  of  conscience. 
(3.)  The  impotence  and  corruption  of  nature. 
(4.)  The  advent  of  free  grace.  (5.)  The  rejec- 
tion of  rites  and  serempnies. 

t  "  In  the  measure  in  which  pride  is  rooted 
wnhin  us,  it  always  appears  to  us  as  though  we 
wc.'ie  just  and  whole,  good  and  holy  ;  unless  we 
are  convinced  by  manifest  arguments  of  our  in- 
justice, uncleanness,  foily,  and  impurity.  For 
we  are  not  convinced  of  it  if  we  turn  our  eyes 
to  our  own  persons  merely,  and  if  we  do  not 
think  also  of  God,  who  is  the  only  rule  by 
which  we  must  shape  and  regulate  this  judg- 
ment. .  .  .  And  then  that  which  had  a  fair  ap- 
pearance of  virtue  will  be  found  to  be  nothing 
but  Wt.-akness- 

"  This  is  the  source  of  that  horror  and  won- 
der by  which  the  Scriptures  tell  us  the  saints 
were  afflicted  and  cast  down,  when  and  as  often 
as  they  felt  the  presence  of  God.  For  we  see 
tho.;e  who  were  as  it  might  be  far  from  God, 
and  who  were  confident  and  went  about  with 
head  erect,  as  soon  as  He  displayed  His  glory 
to  them,  thty  were  shaken  and  terrified,  so 
much  so  that  they  were  overwhelmed,  nay 
swallowed  up  in  the  horror  of  death,  and  that 
»hey  fainted  away."— Calvin's  Institutes,  i. 


science  believes  that  the  terrible  day  is 
at  hand.     "  The    end  of  the  woild  is 


trate,  and,  "  as  it  were,  swallowed  up  " 
with  horror.  "  I,  who  lived  the  life  ot 
a  spotless  monk,"  says  Luther,  "  yet 
felt  within  me  the  troubled  conscience 
of  a  sinner,  without  managing  to  assure 
myself  as  to  the  satisfaction  which  I 
owed  to  God  .  .  .  Then  I  said  to  my- 
self :  Am  I  then  the  only  one  who 
ought  to  be  sad  in  my  spirit  ?  .  .  .  Oh, 
what  horrible  spectres  and  figures  I 
used  to  see !  "  Thus  alarmed,  con- 
"  " ;  day  is 
•oild  is 

near  .  .  .  Our  children  will  see  it ;  per- 
chance we  ourselves."  Once  in  this 
mood  he  had  terrible  dreams  for  six 
months  at  a  time.  Like  the  Christians 
of  the  Apocalypse  he  fixes  the  moment 
when  the  world  will  be  destroyed :  it 
will  come  at  Easter,  or  at  the  conver- 
sion of  Saint  Paul.  One  theologian, 
his  friend,  thought  of  giving  all  his 
goods  to  the  poor ;  "  but  would  they 
receive  it  ?  "  he  said.  "  To-morrow 
nigh,  we  shall  be  seated  in  heaven." 
Under  such  anguish  the  body  gives 
way.  For  fourteen  days  Luther  was  in 
such  a  condition,  that  he  could  neither 
drink,  eat,  nor  sleep.  "  Day  and  night," 
his  eyes  fixed  on  a  text  of  Saint  Paul, 
he  saw  the  Judge,  and  His  inevitable 
hand.  '  Such  is  the  tragedy  which  is 
enacted  in  all  Protestant  souls — the 
eternal  tragedy  of  conscience ;  and  its 
issue  is  a  new  religion. 

For  nature  alone  and  unassisted  can- 
not rise  from  this  abyss.  "  By  itself  it 
is  so  corrupted,  that  it  does  not  feel 
the  desire  for  heavenly  things.  .  .  . 
There  is  in  it  before  God  nothing  b  it 
lust."  Good  intentions  cannot  spring 
from  it.  "  For,  terrified  by  the  vision 
of  his  sin,  man  could  not  resolve  to  do 
good,  troubled  and  anxious  as  he  is ; 
on  the  contrary,  dejected  and  crushed 
by  the  weight  of  his  sin  he  falls  into 
despair  and  hatred  of  God,  as  it  was 
with  Cain,  Saul,  Judas ; "  so  that, 
abandoned  to  himself,  he  can  find 
nothing  within  him  but  the  rage  and 
the  dejection  of  a  despairing  wretch  or 
a  devil.  In  vain  he  might  try  to  re- 
deem himself  by  good  works  :  our 
good  deeds  are  not  pure ;  even  though 
pure,  they  do  not  wipe  out  the  stain  of 
previous  sins,  and  moreover  they  do 
not  take  away  the  original  corruption 
of  the  heart ;  they  are  only  boughs 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


245 


and  blossoms,  the  inherited  poison  is 
in  the  sap.  Man  must  descend  to  the 
heart,  underneath  literal  obedience  and 
legal  rule  ;  from  the  kingdom  of  law  he 
must  penetrate  into  that  of  grace  ;  from 
forced  righteousness  to  spontaneous 
^generosity;  beneath  his  original  nature 
which  led  him  to  selfishness  and  earthly 
things,  a  second  nature  must  be  devel- 
oped, leading  him  to  sacrifice  and 
heavenly  things.  Neither  my  works, 
nor  my  justice,  nor  the  works  or  justice 
of  any  creature  or  of  all  creatures, 
could  work  in  me  this  wonderful  change. 
One  alone  can  do  it,  the  pure  God,  the 
Just  Victim,  the  Saviour, the  Redeemer, 
Jesus,  my  Christ,  by  imputing  to  me 
llis  justice,  by  pouring  upon  me  His 
merits,  by  drowning  my  sin  under  His 
sacrifice.  The  world  is  a  "  mass  of  per- 
dition,"* predestined  to  hell.  Lord 
Jesus,  draw  me  back,  select  me  from 
this  mass.  I  have  no  claim  to  it ;  there 
is  nothing  in  me  that  is  not  abominable  ; 
this  very  prayer  is  inspired  and  formed 
within  me  by  Thee.  But  I  weep,  and 
my  breast  heaves,  and  my  heart  is 
broken.  Lord,  let  me  feel  myself  re- 
deemed, pardoned,  Thy  elect  one,  Thy 
faithful  one  ;  give  me  grace,  and  give 
me  faith  !  "  Then,"  says  Luther,  "  I  felt 
myself  born  anew,  and  it  seemed  that  I 
was  entering  the  open  gates  of  heaven." 
What  remains  to  be  done  after  this 
renovation  of  the  heart  ?  Nothing  ; 
all  religion  is  in  that :  the  rest  must  be 
reduced  or  suppressed  ;  it  is  a  personal 
affair,  an  inward  dialogue  between  God 
and  man,  where  there  are  only  two 
things  at  work, — the  very  word  of  God 
as  it  is  transmitted  by  Scripture,  and 
the  emotions  of  the  heart  of  man,  as 
the  word  of  God  excites  and  maintains 
them.f  Let  us  do  away  with  the  rites 

*  Saint  Augustine. 

t  Melanctbon,  preface  to  Luther's  Works : 
"  It  is  clear  that  the  works  of  Thomas,  Scotus, 
and  the  like,  are  utterly  silent  about  the  ele- 
ment of  justification  by  faith,  and  contain  many 
errors  concerning  the  most  important  questions 
relating  to  the  church.  It  is  clear  that  the 
discourses  of  the  monks  in  their  churches  al- 
most throughout  the  world  were  either  fables 
about  purgatory  and  the  saints  or  else  some 
kind  of  dogma  of  law  or  discipline,  without  a 
word  of  the  gospel  concerning  Christ,  or  else 
were  vain  trifles  about  distinctions  in  the  mat- 
ter of  food,  about  feasts,  and  other  human  tra- 
ditions. .  .  .  The  gospel  is  pure,  incorruptible, 
and  not  diluted  with  Gentile  opinions."  See 
also  Fox,  Acts  and  Monuments^  8  vols.,  ed. 
Tjwiisend,  1843,  ii.  42. 


that  appeal  to  the  senses,  -wherewith 
men  wished  to  replace  this  intercourse 
between  the  invisible  soul  and  the  visi- 
ble judge,  —  mortifications,  fasts,  cor- 
poreal penance,  Lent,  vows  of  chastity 
and  poverty,  rosaries,  indulgences;  rites 
serve  only  to  smother  living  piety  un- 
derneath mechanical  works.  Away 
with  the  mediators  by  which  men  have 
attempted  to  impede  the  diiect  inter- 
course between  God  and  man,  namely, 
saints,  the  Virgin,  the  Pope,  the  priest ; 
whosoever  adores  or  obeys  them  is  an 
idolater.  Neither  saints  nor  Virgin  can 
convert  or  save  us  ;  God  alone  by  His 
Christ  can  convert  and  save.  Neither 
Pope  nor  priest  can  fix  our  faith  or  for- 
give our  sins  ;  God  alone  instructs  us  by 
His  word,  and  absolves  us  by  His  par- 
don. No  more  pilgrimages  or  relics ;  no 
more  traditions  or  auricular  confessions. 
A  new  church  appears,  and  therewith 
a  new  worship ;  ministers  of  religion 
change  their  tone,  the  worship  of  God 
its  form;  the  authority  of  the  clergy 
is  diminished,  and  the  pomp  of  ser- 
vices is  reduced  :  they  are  reduced  and 
diminished  the  more,  because  the  prim- 
itive idea  of  the  new  theology  is  more 
absorbing  ;  so  much  so,  that  in  certain 
sects  they  have  disappeared  altogether. 
The  priest  descends  from  the  lofty  posi- 
tion in  which  the  right  of  forgiving  sins 
and  of  regulating  faith  had  raised  him 
over  the  heads  of  the  laity  ;  he  returns 
to  civil  society,  marries  like  the  rest, 
aims  to  be  once  more  an  equal,  is 
merely  a  more  learned  and  pious  man 
than  others,  chosen  by  themselves  and 
their  adviser.  The  church  becomes 
a  temple,  void  of  images,  decorations, 
ceremonies  sometimes  altogether  bare  ; 
a  simple  meeting-house,  where,  between 
whitewashed  walls,  from  a  plain  pulpit, 
a  man  in  a  black  gown  speaks  without 
gesticulations,  reads  a  passage  from 
the  Bible,  begins  a  hymn,  which  tht 
congregation  takes  up.  There  is  an- 
other place  of  prayer,  as  little  adorned 
and  not  less  venerated,  the  domestic 
hearth,  where  every  night  the  father  of 
the  family,  before  his  servants  and  his 
children,  prays  aloud  and  reads  the 
Scriptures.  An  austere  and  free  relig- 
ion, purged  from  sensualism  and  obe- 
dience, inward  and  personal,  which, 
set  on  foot  by  the  awakening  of  the 
conscience,  could  only  be  established 


246 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK   II 


among  races  in  which  each  man  found 
within  his  nature  the  conviction  that 
he  alone  is  responsible  for  his  actions, 
and  always  bound  to  the  observance  of 
his  duty. 

III. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  Refor- 
mation entered  England  by  a  side  door ; 
but  it  is  enough  that  it  came  in,  what- 
ever the  manner  :  for  great  revolutions 
are  not  introduced  by  court  intrigues 
and  official  cleverness,  but  by  social  con- 
ditions and  popular  instincts.  When 
five  millions  of  men  are  converted,  it  is 
because  five  millions  of  men  wish  to 
be  converted.  Let  us  therefore  leave 
<»n  one  side  the  intrigues  in  high  places, 
the  scruples  and  passions  of  Henry 
VI II.,*  the  pliability  and  plausibility 
of  Cranmer,  the  vacillations  and  base- 
nesses of  Parliament,  the  oscillation 
and  tardiness  of  the  Reformation,  be- 
gun, then  arrested,  then  pushed  forward, 
then  suddenly,  violently  pushed  back, 
then  spread  over  the  whole  nation,  and 
hedged  in  by  a  legal  establishment, 
built  up  from  discordant  materials,  but 
yet  solid  and  durable.  Every  great 
change  has  its  root  in  the  soul,  and  we 
have  only  to  look  close  into  this  deep 
soil  to  discover  the  national  inclinations 
and  the  secular  irritations  from  which 
Protestantism  has  issued. 

A  hundred  and  fifty  years  before,  it 
had  been  on  the  point  of  bursting  forth  ; 
Wycliff  had  appeared,  the  Lollards 
had  sprung  up,  the  Bible  had  been 
translated;  the  Commons  had  pro- 
posed the  confiscation  of  all  ecclesiasti- 
cal property  ;  then  under  the  pressure 
of  the  Church,  royalty  and  aristocracy 
combined,  the  growing  Reformation 
being  crushed,  disappeared  under- 
ground, only  to  reappear  at  distant  in- 
tervals by  the  sufferings  of  its  martyrs. 
The  bishops  had  received  the  right  of 
imprisoning  without  trial  laymen  sus- 
pected of  heresy;  they  had  burned 
Lord  Cobham  alive  ;  the  kings  chose 
their  ministers  from  the  episcopal 
bench ;  settled  in  authority  and  pomp, 
they  had  made  the  nobility  and  people 
bend  under  <he  secular  sword  which 

*  See  Froude,  History  of  England,  i.-vi. 
The  conduct  of  Henry  VIII.  is  there  presented 
Vi  a  new  light. 


had  been  entrusted  to  them,  and  in 
their  hands  the  stern  network  of  law, 
which  from  the  Conquest  had  com- 
pressed the  nation  in  its  iron  meshes, 
had  become  still  more  stringent  and 
more  offensive.  Venial  acts  had  been 
construed  into  crimes,  and  the  judicial 
repression,  extended  to  sins  as  well  as 
to  crimes,  had  changed  the  police  into 
an  inquisition.  "  *  Offences  against 
chastity,'  *  heresy,'  or  *  matter  sounding 
thereunto,'  'witchcraft,' '  drunkenness,' 
'  scandal/  '  defamation,'  '  impatient 
words,'  'broken  promises,'  'untruth,' 
'  absence  from  church,'  '  speaking  evil 
of  saints,'  'nonpayment  of  offerings,' 
'  complaints  against  the  constitutions 
of  the  courts  themselves ; '  "  *  all  these 
transgressions,  imputed  or  suspected, 
brought  folk  before  the  ecclesiastical  tri- 
bunals,  at  enormous  expense,  with  long 
delays,  from  great  distances,  under  a 
captious  procedure,  resulting  in  heavy 
fines,  strict  imprisonments,  humiliating 
abjurations,  public  penances,  and  the 
menace,  often  fulfilled,  of  torture  and 
the  stake.  Judge  from  a  single  fact ; 
the  Earl  of  Surrey,  a  relative  of  the 
king,  was  accused  before  one  of  these 
tribunals  of  having  neglected  a  fast. 
Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  minute  and 
incessant  oppressiveness  of  such  a 
code ;  how  far  the  whole  of  human 
life,  visible  actions  and  invisible 
thoughts,  was  surrounded  and  held 
down  by  it ;  how  by  enforced  accusa- 
tions it  penetrated  to  every  hearth  and 
into  every  conscience  ;  with  what 
shamelessness  it  was  transformed  into 
a  vehicle  for  extortions ;  what  secret 
anger  it  excited  in  these  townsfolk, 
these  peasants,  obliged  sometimes  to 
travel  sixty  miles  and  back  to  leave  in 
one  or  other  of  the  numberless  talons 
of  the  law  t  a  part  of'  their  savings, 
sometimes  their  whole  substance  and 
that  of  their  children.  A  man  begins 
to  think  when  he  is  thus  down-tro  Iden  ; 
he  asks  himself  quietly  if  it  is  really  by 
divine  dispensation  that  mitred  thieves 
thus  practice  tyranny  and  pillage  ;  he 
looks  more  closely  into  their  lives  ;  he 
wants  to  know  if  they  themselves  prac« 
tise  the  regularity  which  they  impose 

*  Froude,  i.  191.  Petition  of  Commons 
This  public  and  authentic  protest  shows  up  al 
the  details  of  clerical  organization  and  oppres- 
sion, f  Froude,  i.  26  ;  ii.  192. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


247 


on  others  ;  and  on  a  sudden  he  learns 
strange  things.  Cardinal  Wolsey 
writes  to  the  Pope,  that  "  both  the 
secular  and  regular  priests  were  in  the 
habit  of  committing  atrocious  crimes, 
for  which,  if  not  in  orders,  they  would 
have  been  promptly  executed ;  *  and 
the  laity  were  scandalized  to  see  such 
persons  not  only  not  degraded,  but  es- 
caping with  complete  impunity."  A 
priest  convicted  of  incest  with  the 
prioress  of  Kil bourn  was  simply  con- 
demned to  carry  a  cross  in  a  proces- 
sion, and  to  pay  three  shillings  and 
fourpence  ;  at  which  rate,  I  fancy,  he 
would  renew  the  practice.  In  the  pre- 
ceding reign  (Henry  VII )  the  gentle- 
men and  farmers  of  Carnarvonshire 
had  laid  a  complaint  accusing  the 
clergy  of  systematically  seducing  their 
wives  and'  daughters.  There  were 
brothels  in  London  for  the  especial 
use  of  priests.  As  to  the  abuse  of  the 
confessional,  read  in  the  original  the 
familiarities  to  which  it  opened  the 
door.f  The  bishops  gave  livings  to 
their  children  whilst  they  were  still 
young.  The  holy  Father  Prior  of  Mai- 
den Bradley  hath  but  six  children,  and 
but  one  daughter  married  yet  of  the 
goods  of  the  monastery  ;  trusting  short- 
ly to  marry  the  rest.  In  the  convents 
the  monks  used  to  drink  after  supper 
till  ten  or  twelve  next  morning,  and 
came  to  matins  drunk.  They  played 
cards  or  dice.  Some  came  to  service 
in  the  afternoons,  and  only  then  for 
fear  of  corporal  punishments.  The 
royal  "  visitors  "  found  concubines  in 
the  secret  apartments  of  the  abbots. 
At  the  nunnery  of  Sion,  the  confessors 
seduced  the  nuns  and  absolved  them 
at  the  same  time.  There  were  con- 
vents, Burnet  tells  us,  where  all  the  re- 
cluses were  found  pregnant.  About 
"  two-thirds "  of  the  English  monks 
ived  in  such  sort,  that  "when  their 
enormities  were  first  read  in  the  Par- 
liament House,  there  was  nothing  but 
4  down  with  them  ! '  "  J  What  a  spec- 
tacle for  a  nation  in  whom  reason  and 
conscience  were  awakening !  Long 
before  the  great  outburst,  public  wrath 

*  In  May  1528.     Froude,  i.  194. 

t  Hale,  Criminal  Causes.  Suppression  of 
the  Monasteries,  Camden  Soc.  Publications. 
Froude,  i.  194-201. 

t  Latimer  s  .Sermons. 


muttered  ominously,  and  was  accumu- 
lating for  a  revolt ;  priests  were  yelled 
at  in  the  streets  or  "  thrown  into  the 
kennel ;  "  women  would  not  "  receive 
the  sacrament  from  hands  which  they 
thought  polluted."*  When  the  ap- 
paritor of  the  ecclesiastical  courts 
came  to  serve  a  process,  he  was  driven 
away  with  insults.  "  Go  thy  way  thou 
stynkyng  knave,  ye  are  but  knaves  and 
brybours  everych  one  of  you."  A 
mercer  broke  an  apparitor's  head  with 
his  yard.  "  A  waiter  at  the  sign  of  the 
Cock"  said  "that  the  sight  of  a  priest 
did  make  him  sick,  and  that  he  would 
go  sixty  miles  to  indict  a  priest." 
Bishop  Fitz-James  wrote  to  Wolsey, 
that  the  juries  in  London  were  "so 
maliciously  set  in  favorem  h<zretic<z 
pravitatis,  that  they  will  cast  and  con- 
demn any  clerk,  though  he  were  as  in- 
nocent as  Abel."  t  Wolsey  himself 
spoke  to  the  Pope  of  the  '*  dangerous 
spirit  *'  which  was  spread  abroad  among 
the  people,  and  planned  a  Reformation. 
WThen  Henry  VIII.  laid  the  axe  to  the 
tree,  and  slowly,  with  mistrust,  struck 
a  blow,  then  a  second  lopping  off  the 
branches,  there  were  a  thousand,  nay, 
a  hundred  thousand  hearts  which  ap- 
proved of  it,  and  would  themselves 
have  struck  the  trunk. 

Consider  the  internal  state  of  a  dio- 
cese, that  of  Lincoln  for  instance,  f  at 
this  period,  about  1521,  and  judge  by 
this  example  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  ecclesiastical  machinery  works 
throughout  the  whole  of  England,  mul- 
tiplying martyrs,  hatreds,  and  conver- 
sions. Bishop  Longland  summons  the 
relatives  of  the  accused,  brothers, 
women  and  children,  and  administers 
the  oath ;  as  they  have  already  been 
prosecuted  and  have  abjured,  they 
must  make  oath,  or  they  are  relapsed, 
and  the  fagots  await  them.  Then  they 
denounce  their  kinsman  and  them- 
selves. One  has  taught  the  other  in 
English  the  Epistle  of  Saint  James. 
This  man,  having  forgotten  several 
words  of  the  Pater  and  Credo  in  Latin, 
can  only  repeat  them  in  English.  A 
woman  turned  her  face  from  the  cross 

*  They  called  them  lihor$ynpresUs"  "hor* 
son,"  or  "  ivhorson  knaves'  Hale,  p.  991 
quoted  by  Froude,  i.  199. 

t  Proude,  i.  101  (1514). 

J  Fox,  Acts  and  Monuments^  iv.  221. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


which  was  carried  about  on  Easter 
morning.  Several  at  church,  especial- 
ly at  the  moment  of  the  elevation, 
would  not  say  their  prayers,  and  re- 
mained seated  "  dumb  as  beasts." 
Three  men,  including  a  carpenter, 
passed  a  night  together  reading  a  book 
of  the  Scriptures.  A  pregnant  woman 
went  to  mass  not  fasting.  A  brazier 
denied  the  Real  Presence.  A  brick- 
maker  kept  the  Apocalypse  in  his 
possession.  A  thresher  said,  as  he 
pointed  to  Vis  work,  that  he  was  going 
to  make  God  come  out  of  his  straw. 
Others  spoke  lightly  of  pilgrimage,  or 
of  the  Pope,  or  of  relics,  or  of  con- 
iession.  And  then  fifty  of  them  were 
condemned  the  same  year  to  abjure,  to 
promise  to  denounce  each  other,  and  to 
do  penance  all  their  lives,  on  pain  of 
being  burnt,  as  relapsed  heretics.  They 
were  shut  up  in  different  "mon- 
asteries ;  "  there  they  were  to  be  main- 
tained by  alms,  and  to  work  for  their 
support;  they  were  to  appear  with  a 
fagot  on  their  shoulders  at  market,  and 
in  the  procession  on  Sunday.  Then  in 
a  general  procession,  then  at  the 
punishment  of  a  heretic;  "they  were 
to  fast  on  bread  and  ale  only  every  Fri- 
day during  their  life,  and  every  even  of 
Corpus  Christy  on  bread  and  water, 
and  carry  a  visible  mark  on  their 
cheek."  Beyond  that,  six  were  burnt 
alive,  and  the  children  of  one,  John 
Scrivener,  were  obliged  themselves  to 
set  fire  to  their  father's  wood  pile.  Do 
you  think  that  a  man,  burnt  or  shut  up, 
was  altogether  done  with?  He  is 
silenced,  I  admit,  or  he  is  hidden  ;  but 
long  memories  and  bitter  resentments 
endure  under  a  forced  silence.  People 
saw*  their  companion,  relation,  brother, 
bound  by  an  iron  chain,  with  clasped 
hands,  praying  amid  the  smoke,  whilst 
the  flame  blackened  his  skin  and  de- 
stroyed his  liesh.  Such  sights  are  not 
forgotten ;  the  last  words  uttered  on 
the  fagot,  the  last  appeals  to  God  and 
Christ,  remain  in  their  hearts  all-power- 
ful and  ineffaceable.  They  carry  them 
about  with  them,  and  silently  ponder 
over  them  in  the  fields,  at  their  labor, 

*  See,  passim,  the  prints  of  Fox.  All  the 
details  which  follow  are  from  biographies.  See 
those  of  Cromwell,  by  Carlyle,  of  Fox  the 
Quaker,  of  Bunyan,  and  the  trials  reported  at 
length  by  Fox. 


when  they  think  themselves  alone  ;  and 
then,  darkly,  passionately,  their  brains 
work.  P'or,  beyond  this  universal  sym- 
pathy which  gathers  mankind  about  the 
oppressed,  there  is  the  working  of  the 
religious  sentiment.  The  crisis  of  con- 
science has  begun  which  is  natural  to 
this  race  ;  they  meditate  on  their  sal- 
vation, they  are  alarmed  at  their  con- 
dition :  terrified  at  the  judgments  of 
God,  they  ask  themselves  whether,  liv- 
ing under  imposed  obedience  and  cere- 
monies, they  do  not  become  culpable, 
and  merit  damnation.  Can  this  term 
be  stifled  by  prisons  and  torture  ?  Fear 
against  fear,  the  only  question  is,  which 
is  the  strongest !  They  will  soon  know 
it :  for  the  peculiarity  of  these  inward 
anxieties  is  that  they  grow  beneath  con- 
straint and  oppression ;  as  a  welling 
spring  which  we  vainly  try  to  stamp 
out  under  stones,  they  bubble  and  leap 
up  and  swell,  until  their  surplus  over- 
flows, disjointing  or  bursting  asunder 
the  regular  masonry  under  which  men 
endeavored  to  bury  them.  In  the  soli- 
tude of  the  fields,  or  during  the  long 
winter  nights,  men  dream  :  soon  they 
fear,  and  become  gloomy.  On  Sunday 
at  church,  obliged  to  cross  themselves, 
to  kneel  before  the  cross,  to  receive  the 
host,  they  shudder,  and  think  it  a  mor- 
tal sin.  They  cease,  to  talk  to  their 
friends,  remain  for  hours  with  bowed 
heads,  sorrowful ;  at  night  their  wives 
hear  them  sigh ;  unable  to  sleep  they 
rise  from  their  beds.  Picture  such  a 
wan  face,  full  of  anguish,  nourishing 
under  its  sternness  and  calmness  a 
secret  ardor  :  it  is  still  to  be  found  in 
England  in  the  poor  shabby  dissenter, 
who,  Bible  in  hand,  stands  up  suddenly 
to  preach  at  a  street  corner ;  in  those 
long-faced  men  who,  after  the  service, 
not  having  had  enough  of  prayers,  sint 
a  hymn  in  the  street.  The  sombie 
imagination  has  started,  like  a  woman 
in  labor,  and  its  conception  swells  day 
by  day,  tearing  him  who  contains  it 
Through  the  long  muddy  winter,  the 
howling  of  the  wind  sighing  among  the 
ill-fitting  rafters,  the  melancholy  of  the 
sky,  continually  flooded  with  rain  or 
covered  with  clouds,  add  to  the  gloom 
of  the  lugubrious  dream.  Thenceforth 
man  has  made  up  his  mind ;  he  will  be 
saved  at  all  costs.  At  the  peril  of  his 
life,  he  obtains  one  of  the  books  which 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


249 


teach  the  way  of  salvation.  Wycliff's 
Wicket  Gate,  '7 he  Obedience  of  a  Chris- 
tian, or  sometimes  Luther's  Revelation 
of  Antichrist,  but  above  all  some  por- 
tion of  the  word  of  God,  which  Tyndale 
had  just  translated.  One  man  hid  his 
books  in  a  hollow  tree  ;  another  learned 
by  heart  an  epistle  or  a  gospel,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  ponder  it  to  himself  even  in 
the  presence  of  his  accusers.  When 
sure  of  his  neighbor,  he  speaks  with 
him  in  private  ;  and  peasant  talking  to 
peasant,  laborer  to  laborer — you  know 
what  the  effect  will  be.  It  was  the 
yeomen's  sons,  as  Latimer  said,  who 
more  than  all  others  maintained  the 
faith  of  Christ  in  England  ;  *  and  it 
was  with  the  yeomen's  sons  that  Crom- 
well afterwards  reaped  his  Puritan  vic- 
tories. When  such  words  are  whispered 
through  a  nation,  all  official  voices 
clamor  in  vain  :  the  nation  has  found 
its  poem,  it  stops  its  ears  to  the  trouble- 
some would-be  distractors,  and  present- 
ly sings  it  out  with  a  full  voice  and 
from  a  full  heart. 

But  the  contagion  had  even  reached 
the  men  in  office,  and  Henry  VIII.  at 
last  permitted  the  English  Bible  to  be 
published,  t  England  had  her  book. 
Every  one,  says  Strype,  who  could  buy 
this  book  either  read  it  assiduously,  or 
had  it  read  to  him  by  others,  and  many 
well  advanced  in  years  learned  to  read 
with  the  same  object.  On  Sunday 
the  poor  folk  gathered  at  the  bottom 
of  the  churches  to  hear  it  read.  Mai- 
don,  a  young  man,  afterwards  related 
that  he  had  clubbed  his  savings  with 
an  apprentice  to  buy  a  New  Testa- 
ment, and  that  for  fear  of  his  father, 
they  had  hidden  it  in  their  straw  mat- 
tress. In  vain  the  king  in  his  proc- 
lamation had  ordered  people  not  to 
rest  too  much  upon  their  own  sense, 
Ideas,  or  opinions ;  not  to  reason 
publicly  about  it  in  the  public  taverns 
and  alehouses,  but  to  have  recourse  to 
learned  and  authorized  men  ;  the  seed 
sprouted,  and  they  chose  rather  to  take 
God's  word  in  the  matter  than  men's. 
Maldon  declared  to  his  mother  that  he 
would  not  kneel  to  the  crucifix  any 

*  Froude,  ii.  33  :  "The  bishops  said  in  1529, 
'  In  the  crime  of  heresy  thanked  be  God,  there 
hath  no  notable  person  fallen  in  our  time.'  " 

t  In  1536.  Strype's  Memorials,  appendix. 
Froude,  iii.  ch.  12. 


longer,  and  his  father  in  a  rage  bea* 
him  severely,  and  was  ready  to  hang 
him.  The  preface  itself  invited  men  tc 
independent  study,  saying  that  "  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  has  studied  long 
to  keep  the  Bible  from  the  people,  and 
specially  from  princes,  lest  they  should 
find  out  his  tricks  and  his  falsehoods  ; 
.  .  .  knowing  well  enough,  that  if  the 
clear  sun  of  God's  word  came  over  the 
heat  of  the  day,  it  would  drive  away 
the  foul  mist  of  his  devilish  doctrines."* 
Even  on  the  admission,  then,  of  official 
voices,  they  had  there  the  pure  ana  the 
whole  truth,  not  merely  speculative  but 
moral  truth,  without  which  we  cannot 
live  worthily  or  be  saved.  Tyndale, 
the  translator,  says  : 

"  The  right  waye  (yea  and  the  onely  waye)to 
understand  the  Scripture  unto  salvation,  is  that 
we  ernestlye  and  above  all  thynge  serche  for 
the  profession  of  our  baptisme  or  covenauntes 
made  betwene  God  and  us.  As  for  an  example. 
Christe  sayth,  Mat.  v.,  Happy  are  the  mercy- 
full,  for  they  shall  obtayne  mercye.  Lo,  here 
God  hath  made  a  covenaunt  wyth  us,  to  be 
mercy  full  unto  us,  yf  we  wyll  be  mercyfuil  one 
to  another." 

What  an  expression !  and  with  what 
ardor  men  pricked  by  the  ceaseless 
reproaches  of  a  scrupulous  conscience, 
and  the  presentiment  of  the  dark  fu- 
ture, will  devote  on  these  pages  the 
whole  attention  of  eyes  and  heart ! 

I  have  before  me  one  of  these  great 
old  folios,!  in  black  letter,  in  which 
the  pages,  worn  by  horny  fingers  have 
been  patched  together,  in  which  an  old 
engraving  figures  forth  to  the  poor  folk 
the  deeds  and  menaces  of  the  God  of 
Israel,  in  which  the  preface  and  table 
of  contents  point  out  to  simple  people 
the  moral  which  is  to  be  drawn  from 
each  tragic  history,  and  the  application 
which  is  to  be  made  of  each  venerable 
precept.  Hence  have  sprung  much  of 
the  English  language,  and  half  of  the 
English  manners;  to  this  day  the  coun- 
try is  biblical ;  J  it  was  these  big  books 
which  had  transformed  Shakspeare's 
England.  To  understand  this  great 
change,  try  to  picture  these  yeomen 
these  shopkeepers,  who  in  the  evening 
placed  this  Bible  on  their  table,  and 
bareheaded,  with  veneration,  heard  or 

*  Coverdale.     Froude,  iii.  81. 
t  1549.     Tyndale's  translation, 
t  An  expression  of  Stendhal's ;  it  was  hia 
general  impression. 

II* 


25° 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


read  one  of  its  chapters.  Think  that 
they  have  no  other  books,  that  theirs 
was  a  virgin  mind,  that  every  impres- 
sion would  make  a  furrow,  that  the 
monotony  of  mechanical  existence  ren- 
dered them  entirely  open  to  new  emo- 
tions, that  they  opened  this  book  not 
for  amusement,  but  to  discover  in  it 
their  doom  of  life  and  death ;  in  brief, 
that  the  sombre  and  impassioned  im- 
agination of  the  race  raised  them  to 
the  level  of  the  grandeurs  and  terrors 
ivliich  were  to  pass  before  their  eyes. 
Tyndale,  the  translator,  wrote  with 
such  sentiments,  condemned,  hunted, 
in  concealment,  his  mind  full  of  the 
idea  of  a  speedy  death,  and  of  the  great 
God  for  whom  at  last  he  mounted  the 
funeral  pyre ;  and  the  spectators  who 
had  seen  the  remorse  of  Macbeth  *  and 
the  murders  of  Shakspeare  can  listen 
to  the  despair  of  David,  and  the  mas- 
sacres accumulated  in  the  books  of 
Judges  and  Kings.  The  short  Hebrew 
verse-style  took  hold  upon  them  by  its 
uncultivated  austerity.  They  have  no 
need,  like  the  French,  to  have  the 
ideas  developed,  explained  in  fine  clear 
language,  to  be  modified  and  connect- 
ed.! The  serious  and  pulsating  tone 
shakes  them  at  once  ;  they  understand 
it  with  the  imagination  and  the  heart ; 
they  are  not,  like  Frenchmen,  enslaved 
to  logical  regularity  ;  and  the  old  text, 
so  free,  so  lofty  and  terrible,  can  re- 
tain in  their  language  its  wildness  and 
its  majesty.  More  than  any  people  in 
Europe,  by  their  inner  concentration 
and  rigidity,  they  realize  the  Semitic 
conception  of  the  solitary  and  almighty 
God ;  a  strange  conception,  which  we, 
with  all  our  critical  methods,  have 
hardly  reconstructed  within  ourselves 
at  the  present  day.  For  the  Jew,  for 
the  powerful  minds  who  wrote  the 
Pentateuch,}  for  the  prophets  and  au- 
thors of  the  Psalms,  life  as  we  con- 
ceive it,  was  secluded  from  living 
things,  plants,  animals,  firmament,  sen- 
sible objects,  to  be  carried  and  concen- 

*  The  time  of  which  M.  Taine  speaks,  and 
the  translation  of  Tyndale  precede  by  at  least 
lifty  years  the  appearance  of  Macbeth  (1606). 
Shakspeare's  audience  read  the  present  author- 
ized translation. — TR. 

t  See  Lemaistre  de  Sacy's  French  translation 
of  the  Bible,  so  slightly  biblical. 

t  See  Ewald,  Geschuhte  des  l'olks  Israel, 
his  apostrophe  to  the  third  writer  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, Erhabener  Geist^  etc. 


trated  entirely  in  the  one  Being  of 
whom  they  are  the  work  and  the  pup- 
pets. Earth  is  the  footstool  of  this  great 
God,  heaven  is  His  garment.  He  is  in 
the  world,  amongst  His  creatures,  as 
an  Orients  /  king  in  his  tent,  amidst  his 
arms  and  his  carpets.  If  you  enter 
this  tent,  all  vanishes  before  the  ab- 
sorbing idea  of  the  master;  you  see 
but  him;  nothing  has  an  individual 
and  independent  existence  :  these  arms 
are  but  made  for  his  hands,  these  car- 
pets for  his  foot;  you  imagine  them 
only  as  spread  for  him  and  trodden  by 
him.  The  awe-inspiring  face  and  the 
menacing  voice  of  the  irresistible  lord 
appear  behind  his  instruments.  And 
in  a  similar  manner,  for  the  Jew,  na- 
ture and  men  are  nothing  of  them- 
selves; they  are  for  the  service  of 
God;  they  have  no  ether  reason  for 
existence ;  no  other  use ;  they  vanish 
before  the  vast  and  solitary  Being  who 
extended  and  set  high  as  a  mountain 
before  human  thought,  occupies  and 
covers  in  Himself  the  whole  horizon. 
Vainly  we  attempt,  we  seed  of  the 
Aryan  race,  to  represent  to  ourselves 
this  devouring  God ;  we  always  leave 
some  beauty,  some  interest,  some  part 
of  free  existence  to  nature ;  we  but 
half  attain  to  the  Creator,  with  diffi- 
culty, after  a  chain  of  reasoning,  like 
Voltaire  and  Kant;  more  readily  we 
make  Him  into  an  architect ;  we  nat- 
urally believe  in  natural  laws;  we 
know  that  the  order  of  the  world  is 
fixed  ;  we  do  not  crush  things  and  their 
relations  under  the  burden  of  an  ar- 
bitrary sovereignty  ;  we  do  not  grasp 
the  sublime  sentiment  of  Job,  who  sees 
the  world  trembling  and  swallowed  up 
at  the  touch  of  the  strong  hand  ;  we 
cannot  endure  the  intense  emotion  or 
repeat  the  marvellous  accent  of  the 
psalms,  in  which,  amid  the  silon^e  of 
beings  reduced  to  atoms,  nothirg  re« 
mains  but  the  heart  of  man  speaking 
to  the  eternal  Lord.  These  English- 
men, in  the  anguish  of  a  troubled  con- 
science, and  the  oblivion  of  sensible 
nature,  renew  it  in  part.  If  the  strong 
and  harsh  cheer  of  the  Arab,  which 
breaks  forth  like  the  blast  of  a  trum- 
pet at  the  sight  of  the  rising  sun  and 
of  the  bare  solitudes,*  if  the  mental 

*  See  Ps.  civ.  in  Luther's  admirable  transla* 
tion  and  in  the  English  translation. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


trances,  the  short  visions  of  a  lumin- 
ous and  grand  landscape,  if  the  Semitic 
coloring  are  wanting,  at  least  the  seri- 
ousness and  simplicity  have  remained ; 
and  the  Hebraic  God  brought  into  the 
modern  conscience,  is  no  less  a  sover- 
eign in  this  narrow  precinct  than  in  the 
deserts  and  mountains  from  which  He 
sprang.  His  image  is  reduced,  but 
His  authority  is  entire  ;  if  He  is  less 
poetical,  He  is  more  moral.  Men  read 
with  awe  and  trembling  the  history  of 
His  Works,  the  tables  of  His  Law,  the 
archives  of  His  vengeance,  the  proc- 
lamation of  His  promises  and  menaces ; 
they  are  filled  with  them.  Never  has 
a  people  been  seen  so  deeply  imbued 
by  a  foreign  book,  has  let  it  penetrate 
so  far  into  its  manners  and  writings, 
its  imagination  and  language.  Thence- 
forth they  have  found  their  King,  and 
will  follow  Him;  no  word,  lay  or 
ecclesiastic,  shall  prevail  over  His 
word ;  they  have  submitted  their  con- 
duct to  Him,  they  will  give  body  and 
life  for  Him  ;  and  if  need  be,  a  day 
will  come  when,  out  of  fidelity  to  Him, 
they  will  overthrow  the  State. 

It  is  not  enough  to  hear  this  King, 
they  must  answer  Him  ;  and  religion 
is  not  complete  until  the  prayer  of  the 
people  is  added  to  the  revelation  of 
God.  In  1548,  at  last,  England  re- 
ceived her  prayer-book  *  from  the 
hands  of  Cranmer,  Peter  Martyr,  Ber- 
nard Ochin,  Melanchthon ;  the  chief 
and  most  ardent  reformers  of  Europe 
were  invited  to  compose  a  body  of  doc- 
trines conformable  to  Scripture,  and 
to  express  a  body  of  sentiments  con- 
formable to  the  true  Christian  faith. 
This  prayer-book  is  an  admirable  book, 
in  \\hich  the  full  spirit  of  the  Reforma- 
tion breathes  out,  where,  beside  the 
moving  tenderness  of  the  gospel,  and 
the  manly  accents  of  the  Bible,  throb 
the  profound  emotion,  the  grave  elo- 
quence, the  noble-mindedness,  the  re- 
strained enthusiasm  of  the  heroic  and 
poetic  souls  who  had  re-discovered 
Christianity,  and  had  passed  near  the 
fire  of  martyrdom. 

"  Almighty  and  most  merciful  Father ;  We 
have  erred,  and  strayed  from  Thy  ways  like 

*  The  first  Primer  of  note  was  in  1545 ; 
Froude,  v-  141.  The  Prayer-book  underwent 
several  changes  in  1552,  others  under  Elizabeth, 
and  a  few,  lastly,  at  the  Restoration. 


lost  sheep.  We  have  followed  too  much  the 
devices  and  desires  of  our  own  hearts.  We 
have  offended  against  Thy  holy  laws.  We 
have  left  undone  those  things  which  we  ought 
to  have  done  ;  And  we  have  done  those  things 
which  we  ought  not  to  have  i  :ne  ;  And  there 
is  no  health  in  us.  But  Thou,  O  Lord,  have 
mercy  upon  us,  miserable  offenders.  Spare 
Thou  them,  O  God.  which  confess  their  faults. 
Restore  Thou  them  that  are  penitent  :  Accord- 
ing to  Thy  promises  declared  unto  mankind  in 
Christ  Jesu  our  Lord.  And  grant,  O  most 
merciful  Father,  for  His  sake ;  That  we  may 
hereafter  live  a  godly,  righteous,  and  sober 
life." 

"  Almirbty  and  everlasting  God,  who  hates t 
nothing  that  Thou  hast  made,  and  dost  forgive 
the  sins  of  all  them  that  are  penitent ;  Create 
and  make  in  us  new  and  contrite  hearts,  that 
we  worthily  lamenting  oui  sins,  and  acknowledg- 
ing our  wretchedness,  may  obtain  of  Thee,  the 
God  of  all  mercy,  perfect  remission  and  forgive- 
ness." 

The  same  idea  of  sin,  repentance 
and  moral  renovation  continually  re- 
curs ;  the  master-thought  is  always  that 
of  the  heart  humbled  before  invisible 
justice,  and  only  imploring  His  grace 
in  order  to  obtain  His  relief.  Such  a 
state  of  mind  ennobles  man,  and  intro- 
duces a  sort  of  impassioned  gravity  in 
all  the  important  actions  of  his  life. 
Listen  to  the  liturgy  of  the  deathbed, 
of  baptism,  of  marriage  ;  the  latter  first : 

"  Wilt  thou  have  this  woman  to  be  thy  wed- 
ded wife,  to  live  together  after  God's  ordinance, 
in  the  holy  state  of  Matrimony?  Wilt  thou 
love  her,  comfort  her,  honour,  and  keep  her  in 
sickness  and  in  health  ;  and,  forsaking  all  other, 
keep  thee  only  unto  her,  so  long  as  ye  both 
shall  live  ? " 

These  are  genuine,  honest,  and  con- 
scientious words.  No  mystic  languor, 
here  or  elsewhere.  This  religion  is  not 
made  for  women  who  dream,  yearn, 
and  sigh,  but  for  men  who  examine 
themselves,  act  and  have  confidence, 
confidence  in  some  one  more  just  than 
themselves.  When  a  man  is  sick,  and 
his  flesh  is  weak,  the  priest  comes  to 
him,  and  says : 

"  Dearly  beloved,  know  this,  that  Almighty 
God  is  the  Lord  of  life  and  death,  and  of  all 
things  to  them  pertaining,  as  youth,  strength, 
health,  age,  weakness,  and  sickness.  Where- 
fore, whatsoever  your  sickness  is,  know  you 
certainly,  that  it  is  God's  visitation.  And  for 
what  cause  soever  this  sickness  is  sent  unto 
you  ;  whether  it  be  to  try  your  patience  for  the 
example  of  others,  ...  or  else  it  be  sent  unto 
y<>u  to  correct  and  amend  in  you  whatsoever 
doth  offend  the  eyes  of  your  heavenly  Father; 
know  you  certainly,  that  if  you  truly  repent  you 
of  your  sins,  and  bear  your  sickness  patiently, 
trusting  iu  God's  mercy,  .  .  .  submitting  your- 


252 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


self  wholly  unto  His  will,  it  shall  turn  to  your 
profit,  and  help  you  forward  in  the  right  way 
that  leadeth  unto  everlasting  life." 

A  great  mysterious  sentiment,  a  sort 
of  sublime  epic,  void  of  images,  shows 
darkly  amid  these  probings  of  the  con- 
science ;  I  mean  a  glimpse  of  the  divine 
government  and  of  the  invisible  world, 
the  only  existences,  the  only  realities, 
in  spite  of  bodily  appearances  and  of 
the  brute  chance,  which  seems  to  jum- 
ble all  things  together.  Man  sees  this 
beyond  at  distant  intervals,  and  raises 
himself  out  of  his  mire,  as  though  he 
had  suddenly  breathed  a  pure  and 
strengthening'  atmosphere.  Such  are 
the  effects  of  public  prayer  restored  to 
the  people;  for  this  had  been  taken 
from  the  Latin  and  rendered  into  the 
vulgar  tongue  :  there  is  a  revolution  in 
this  very  word.  Doubtless  routine, 
here  as  with  the  ancient  missal,  will 
gradually  do  its  sad  work  ;  by  repeat- 
ing the  same  words,  man  will  often  do 
nothing  but  repeat  words  ;  his  lips  will 
move  whilst  his  heart  remains  inert. 
But  in  great  anguish,  in  the  confused 
agitations  of  a  restless  and  hollow 
mind,  at  the  funerals  of  his  relatives, 
the  strong  words  of  the  book  will  find 
him  in  a  mood  to  feel ;  for  they  are  liv- 
ing,* and  do  not  stay  in  the  ears  like 
those  of  a  dead  language  ;  they  enter 
the  soul ;  and  as  soon  as  the  soul  is 
stirred  and  worked  upon,  they  take  root 
there.  If  you  go  and  hear  these  words 
in  England  itself,  and  if  you  listen  to 
the  deep  and  pulsating  accent  with 
which  they  are  pronounced,  you  will 
see  that  they  constitute  there  a  national 
poem,  always  understood  and  always 
efficacious.  On  Sunday,  when  all  busi- 
ness and  pleasure  is  suspended,  be- 
tween the  bare  walls  of  the  village 
church,  where  no  image,  no  ex-voto,  no 
accessory  worship  distracts  the  eyes, 

*  "  To  make  use  of  words  in  a  foreign  lan- 
guage, merely  with  a  sentiment  of  devotion,  the 
mind  taking  no  fruit,  could  be  neither  pleasing 
to  God,  nor  beneficial  to  man.  The  party  that 
understood  not  the  pith  or  effectualness  of  the 
talk  tl  at  he  made  with  God,  might  be  as  a  harp 
or  pipi,  having  a  sound,  but  not  understanding 
the  noise  that  itself  had  made  ;  a  Christian  man 
was  more  than  an  instrument ;  and  he  had 
therefore  provided  a  determinate  form  of  sup- 
plication in  the  English  tongue,  that  his  sub- 
jects might  be  able  to  pray  like  reasonable  beings 
in  their  own  language." — Letter  of  Henry 
VIII.  to  Cranmer.  Froude,  iv.  486. 


the  seats  are  full ;  the  powerful  He- 
braic verses  knock  like  the  strokes  oi 
a  battering-ram  at  the  door  of  every 
soul ;  then  the  liturgy  unfolds  its  im- 
posing supplications ;  and  at  intervals 
the  song  of  the  congregation,  combined 
with  the  organ,  sustains  the  people's  de- 
votion. There  is  nothing  graver  and 
more  simple  than  this  singing  by  the 
people  ;  no  scales,  no  elaborate  melody  ; 
it  is  not  calculated  for  the  gratification 
of  the  ear,  and  yet  it  is  free  from  the 
sickly  sadness,  from  the  gloomy  monot- 
ony which  the  middle  age  has  left  in  the 
chanting  in  Roman  Catholic  churches; 
neither  monkish  nor  pagan,  it  rolls  like 
a  manly  yet  sweet  melody,  neither  con- 
trasting with  nor  obscuring  the  words 
which  accompany  it ;  these  words  are 
psalms  translated  into  verse,  yet  lofty  ; 
diluted,  but  not  embellished.  Every 
thing  harmonizes— place,  music,  text, 
ceremony — -to  place  every  man,  person- 
ally and  without  a  mediator,  in  pres- 
ence of  a  just  God,  and  to  form  a  moral 
poetry  which  shall  sustain  and  develop 
the  moral  sense.* 

*  Bishop  John  Fisher's  Funeral  Oration  of 
the  Countess  of  Richmond  (ed.  1711)  shows  to 
what  practices  this  religion  succeeded.  The 
Countess  was  the  mother  of  Henry  VII.,  and 
translated  the  Myrroure  of  Golde,  and  The 
Forthe  Boke  of  the  P"olloiuinge  Jesus 
Chryst  :— 

"  As  for  fastynge,  for  age,  and  feebleness,  al- 
beit she  were  not  bound  yet  those  days  that 
by  the  Church  were  appointed,  she  kept  them 
diligently  and  seriously,  and  in  especial  the  holy 
Lent,  throughout  that  she  restrained  her  appe- 
tite till  one  meal  of  fish  on  the  day  ;  besides  her 
other  peculiar  fasts  of  devotion,  as  St.  Anthony, 
St.  Mary  Magdalene,  St.  Catherine,  with  other; 
and  throughout  all  .the  year  the  Friday  and 
Saturday  she  full  truly  observed.  As  to  hard 
clothes  wearing,  she  had  her  shirts  and  girdles 
of  hair,  which,  when  she  was  in  health,  every 
week  she  failed  not  certain  days  to  wear,  some- 
time the  one,  sometime  the  other,  that  fall  often 
her  skin,  as  I  heard  say,  was  pierced  therewith. 

"  In  prayer,  every  day  at  her  uprising,  which 
commonly  was  not  long  after  five  of  the  clock, 
she  began  certain  devotions,  and  so  after  theni, 
with  one  of  her  gentlewomen,  the  matins  of  oui 
Lady  ;  which  kept  her  to  then,  she  came  into 
her  closet,  where  then  with  her  chaplain  she 
said  also  matins  of  the  day  ;  and  after  that, 
daily  heard  four  or  five  masses  upon  her  knees  j 
so  continuing  in  her  prayers  and  devotions  untc 
the  hour  of  dinner,  which  of  the  eating  day  was 
ten  of  the  clocks,  and  upon  the  fasting  day 
eleven.  After  dinner  full  truly  she  would  gc 
her  stations  to  three  altars  daily  ;  daily  her 
dirges  and  commendations  she  would  say,  and 
her  even  songs  before  supper,  both  of  the  day 
and  of  our  Lady,  beside  many  other  prayers  anc 
psalters  of  David  throughout  the  year  ;  and  a 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


One  detail  is  still  needed  to  complete 
this  manly  religion — human  reason. 
The  minister  ascends  the  pulpit  and 
speaks :  he  speaks  coldly,  I  admit, 
with  literary  comments  and  over-long 
demonstrations  ;  but  solidly,  seriously, 
like  a  man  who  desires  to  convince,  and 
that  by  honest  means,  who  addresses 
only  the  reason,  and  discourses  only  of 
justice.  With  Latimer  and  his  con- 
temporaries, preaching,  like  religion, 
changes  its  object  and  character ;  like 
religion,  it  becomes  popular  and  moral, 
and  appropriate  to  those  who  hear  it, 
to  recall  them  to  their  duties.  Few 
men  have  deserved  better  of  their  fel- 
lows, in  life  and  word,  than  he.  He 
was  a  genuine  Englishman,  conscien- 
tious, courageous,  a  man  of  common 
sense  and  practical,  sprung  from  the 
laboring  and  independent  class,  the 
very  heart  and  sinews  of  the  nation. 
His  father,  a  brave  yeoman,  had  a  farm 
of  about  four  pounds  a  year,  on  which 
he  employed  half  a  dozen  men,  with 
thirty  cows  which  his  wife  milked,  a 
good  soldier  of  the  king,  keeping  equip- 
ment for  himself  and  his  horse  so  as  to 
join  the  army  if  need  were,  training  his 
son  to  use  the  bow,  making  him  buckle 
on  his  breastplate,  and  finding  a  few 
nobles  at  the  bottom  of  his  purse 
wherewith  to  send  him  to  school,  and 
thence  to  the  university.*  Little  Lati- 
mer studied  eagerly,  took  his  degrees, 
and  continued  long  a  good  Catholic, 
or,  as  he  says,  "  in  darckense  and  in  the 
shadow  of  death."  At  about  thirty,  hav- 

night  before  she  went  to  bed,  she  failed  not  to 
resort  unto  her  chapel,  and  there  a  large  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  to  occupy  her  devotions.  No 
marvel,  though  all  this  long  time  her  kneeling 
\yas  to  her  painful,  and  so  painful  that  many 
times  it  caused  in  her  back  pain  and  disease. 
And  yet  nevertheless,  daily,  when  she  was  in 
health,  she  failed  not  to  say  the  crown  of  our 
lady,  which,  after  the  manner  of  Rome,  con- 
taineth  sixty  and  three  aves,  and  at  every  ave, 
to  make  a  kneeling.  As  for  meditation,  she 
had  divers  books  in  French,  wherewith  she 
would  occupy  herself  when  she  was  weary  of 
prayer.  Wherefore  divers  she  did  translate  out 
of  the  French  into  English.  Her  marvellous 
weeping  they  can  bear  witness  of,  which  here 
before  have  heardher  confession,  which  be  divers 
and  many,  and  at  many  seasons  in  the  year, 
lightly  every  third  day.  Can  also  record  the 
same  those  that  were  present  at  any  time  when 
she  wa:>  houshylde,  which  was  full  nigh  a 
dozen  times  every  year,  what  floods  of  tears 
there  issued  forth  of  her  eyes !  " 

*  See  Antci  p.  Si,  note  i. 


ing  often  heard  Bilney  the  martyr,  and 
having,  moreover,  studied  the  world  and 
thought  for  himself,  he,  as  he  tells  us, 
"  began  from  that  time  forward  to  sinei* 
the  word  of  God,  and  to  forsooke  the 
Schoole  Doctours,  and  such  fooleries  ; " 
presently  to  preach,  and  forthwith  to 
pass  for  a  seditious  man,  very  trouble- 
some to  those  men  in  authority  who 
did  not  act  with  justice.  For  this  was 
in  the  first  place  the  salient  feature  of 
his  eloquence  :  he  spoke  to  people  of 
their  duties,  in  exact  terms.  One  day, 
when  he  preached  before  the  university, 
the  Bishop  of  Ely  came,  curious  to  hear 
him.  Immediately  he  changed  his  sub- 
ject, and  drew  the  portrait  of  a  perfect 
prelate,  a  portrait  which  did  not  tally 
well  with  the  bishop's  character ;  and 
he  was  denounced  for  the  act.  When 
he  was  made  chaplain  of  Henry  VIIL, 
awe-inspiring  as  the  king  was,  little  as 
he  was  himself,  he  dared  to  write  to 
him  freely  to  bid  him  stop  the  persecu- 
tion which  was  set  on  foot,  and  to  pre- 
vent the  interdiction  of  the  Bible  ;  ver- 
ily he  risked  his  life.  He  had  done  it 
before,  he  did  it  again ;  like  Tyndale, 
Knox,  all  the  leaders  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, he  lived  in  almost  ceasless  expec- 
tation of  death,  and  in  contemplation  of 
the  stake.  Sick,  liable  to  racking  head- 
aches, stomach  aches,  pleurisy,  stone, 
he  wrought  a  vast  work,  travelling, 
writing,  preaching,  delivering  at  the 
age  of  sixty-seven  two  sermons  every 
Sunday,  and  generally  rising  at  two  in 
the  morning,  winter  and  summer,  to 
study.  Nothing  can  be  simpler  or 
more  effective  than  his  eloquence ;  and 
the  reason  is,  that  he  never  speaks  for 
the  sake  of  speaking,  but  of  doing 
work.  His  sermons,  amongst  others 
those  which  he  preached  before  the 
young  king  Edward  VI.,  are  not,  like 
those  of  Massillon  before  the  youthful 
Louis  XV.,  hung  in  the  air,  in  the 
calm  region  of  philosophical  amplifi- 
cations: Latimer  wishes  to  correct, 
and  he  attacks  actual  vices,  vices  which 
he  has  seen,  which  every  one  can  point 
at  with  the  finger ;  he  too  points  them 
out,  calls  things  by  their  name,  and 
people  too,  giving  facts  and  details, 
bravely ;  and  sparing  nobody,  sets  him- 
self without  hesitation  to  denounce  and 
reform  iniquity.  Universal  as  his  nu>. 
rality  is,  ancient  as  is  his  text,  he  ap. 


'54 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IT. 


plies  it  to  his  contemporaries,  to  hi 
audience,  at  times  to  the  judges  wl 
are  there  "  in  velvet  cotes/'  who  wil 
not  hear  the  poor,  who  give  but  a  dog' 
hearing  to  such  a  woman  in  a  twelve 
month,  and  who  leave  another  poo 
woman  in  the  Fleet,  refusing  to  accep 
bail;*  at  times  to  the  king's  officers 
whose  thefts  he  enumerates,  whom  he 
sets  between  hell  and  restitution,  anc 
of  whom  he  obtains,  nay  extorts,  poun 
for  pound,  the  stolen  money. t  From 
abstract  iniquity  he  proceeds  always  t< 
special  abuse ;  for  it  is  abuse  which 
cries  out  and  demands,  notadiscourser 
but  a  champion.  With  him  theolog) 
holds  but  a  secondary  place  ;  before 
all,  practice  :  the  true  offence  agains 
God  in  his  eyes  is  a  bad  action ;  the 
true  service,  the  suppression  of  bac 
deeds.  And  see  by  what  paths  he 
reaches  this.  No  grand  words,  no 
show  of  style,  no  exhibition  of  dialectics 
He  relates  his  life,  the  lives  of  others 
giving  dates,  numbers,  places ;  he 
abounds  in  anecdotes,  little  obviou: 
circumstances,  fit  to  enter  the  imag- 
ination and  arouse  the  recollections  oj 
each  hearer.  He  is  familiar,  at  times 
humorous,  and  always  so  precise,  so 
impressed  with  real  events  and  particu- 
larities of  English  life,  that  we  might 
glean  from  his  sermons  an  almost  com- 
plete description  of  the  manners  of  his 
age  and  country.  To  reprove  the  great, 
who  appropriate  common  lands  by  their 
enclosures,  he  details  the  needs  of  the 
peasant,  without  the  least  care  for  con- 
ventional proprieties ;  he  is  not  work- 
ing now  for  conventionalities,  but  to 
produce  convictions : — 

"  A  plough  land  must  have  sheep ;  yea, 
they  must  have  sheep  to  dung  their  ground  for 
bearing  of  corn  ;  for  if  they  have  no  sheep  to 
help  to  fat  the  ground,  they  shall  have  but  bare 
corn  and  thin.  They  must  have  swine  for  their 
tood,  to  make  their  veneriesor  bacon  of:  their 
bacon  is  their  venison,  for  they  shall  now  have 
knngWHt  ttium,  if  they  get  any  other  venison  ; 
so  that  bacon  is  their  necessary  meat  to  feed  on, 
which  they  may  not  lack.  They  must  have 
other  cattle :  as  horses  to  draw  their  plough, 
and  for  carriage  of  things  to  the  markets  ;  and 
kine  for  their  milk  and  cheese,  which  they  must 
live  upon  and  pay  their  rents.  These  cattle 


*  Latimer's  Seven  Sermons  before  Edward 
VI.,  ed.  Edward  Arber,  1869.  Second  sermon, 
pp.  73  and  74. 

t  Latimer's  Sermons.  Fifth  sermon,  ed. 
Arber,  p.  147. 


must  have  pasture,  which  pasture  if  they  lack 
the  rest  must  needs  fail  them  :  and  pasture  thej 
cannot  have,  if  the  land  be  taken  in,  and  en- 
closed from  them."  * 

Another  time,  to  put  his  hearers  on 
their  guard  against  hasty  judgments,  he 
relates  that,  having  entered  the  gaol  at 
Cambridge  to  exhort  the  prisoners,  he 
found  a  woman  accused  of  having 
killed  her  child,  who  would  make  no 
confession : — 

"  Which  denying  gave  us  occasion  to  search 
for  the  matter,  and  so  we  did.  And  at  the 
length  we  found  that  her  husband  loved  her 
not ;  and  therefore  he  sought  means  to  make 
her  out  of  the  way.  The  matter  was  thus: 
'  a  child  of  hers  had  been  sick  by  the  space  of  i 
year,  and  so  decayed  as  it  were  in  a  consump* 
tion.  At  the  length  it  died  in  harvest-time. 

She  went  to  her  neighbours  and  other  friends 
to  desire  their  help,  to  prepare  the  child  to  the 
burial :  but  there  was  nobody  at  home  ;  every 
man  was  in  the  field.    The  woman,  in  an  heavi- 
ness and  trouble  of  spirit,  went,  and  being  her- 
self  alone,  prepared   the  child  to   the  burial 
Her  husband  coming  home,  not  having  great 
love  towards  her,  accused  her  of  the  murder  ; 
and   so  she  was  taken  and  brought  to  Cam- 
bridge.    But  as  far   forth    as    I   could    learn 
through  earnest  inquisition,  I  thought  in  my 
conscience  the  woman  was  not  guilty,  all  the 
circumstances  well    considered.     Immediately 
after  this  I  was  called  to  preach  before  the 
king,  which  was  my  first  sermon  that  I  made 
before  his  majesty,  and  it  was  done  at  Wind- 
sor ;  when  his  majesty,  after  the  sermon  was 
done,  did  most  familiarly  talk  with  me  in  the 
gallery.     Now,  when  I  saw  my  time,  I  kneeled 
down  before  his   majesty,  opening  the   whole 
matter  ;  and  afterwards  most  humbly  desired 
his   majesty   to   pardon   that   woman.     For  I 
thought  in  my  conscience  she  was  not  guilty  ; 
else    I   would  not  for  all  die  world  sue  for  a 
murderer.     The   king   most  graciously  heard 
my  humble  request,  insomuch  that  I  had  a  par- 
don ready  for  her  at  my  return  homeward.     In 
;he  mean  season  that  same  woman  was  deliv- 
ered  of  a  child  in   the    tower  at  Cambridge, 
whose  godfather   I   was,  and  Mistress   Cheke 
was  godmother.     But  all  that  time   I  hid  my 
jardon,  and  told  her  nothing  of  it,  only  exhort- 
ng  her  to  confess  the  truth.     At  the  length  the 
ime  came  when  she  looked  to  suffer :    I  came, 
as  I  was  wont  to  do,  to  instruct  her  ;  she  made 
great  moan  to  me,  and  most  earnestly  required 
ne  that  I  would  find  the  means  that  she  might 
)e  purified  before  her  suffering  ;  for  she  thought 
he  should  have  been  damned,  if  she  should  suf« 
er  without  purification.  ...  So  we  travailed 
with  this  woman  till  we  brought  her  to  a  good 
rade  ;  and  at  the  length  shewed  her  the  king's 
pardon,  and  let  her  go.' 

"  This  tale  I  told  you  by  this  occasion,  that 
hough  some  \vomen  be  very  unnatural,  and 
orget  their  children,  yet  when  we  hear  any- 


*  Latimer's  Sermons,  ed.  Corrie,  1844,  2  vols 
ast  Sermon  preached  before  Edward  VI. 
249. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


255 


body  so  report,  we  should  not  be  too  hasty  in 
oelieving  the  tale,  but  rather  suspend  our  judg- 
ments till  we  know  the  truth."  * 

When  a  man  preaches  thus,  he  is 
believed ;  we  are  sure  that  he  is  not 
reciting  a  lesson  ;  we  feel  that  he  has 
seen,  that  he  draws  his  moral  not  from 
books,  but  from  facts  ;  that  his  coun- 
sels come  from  the  solid  basis  whence 
every  thing  ought  to  come, — I  mean 
from  manifold  and  personal  experience. 
Many  a  time  have  I  listened  to  popular 
orators,  who  address  the  pocket,  and 
prove  their  talent  by  the  money  they 
have  collected ;  it  is  thus  that  they 
hold  forth,  with  circumstantial,  recent, 
proximate  examples,  with  conversa- 
tional turns  of  speech,  setting  aside 
great  arguments  and  fine  language. 
Imagine  the  ascendency  of  the  Scrip- 
tures enlarged  upon  in  such  words  ;  to 
what  strata  of  the  people  it  could  de- 
scend, what  a  hold  it  had  upon  sailors, 
workmen,  servants  !  Consider,  again, 
how  the  authority  of  these  words  is 
doubled  by  the  courage,  independence, 
integrity,  unassailable  and  recognized 
virtue  of  him  who  utters  them.  He 
spoke  the  truth  to  the  king,  unmasked 
robbers,  incurred  all  kind  of  hate,  re- 
signed his  see  rather  than  sign  any 
thing  against  his  conscience ;  and  at 
eighty  years,  under  Mary,  refusing  to 
recant,  after  two  years  of  prison  and 
waiting — and  what  waiting !  he  was  led 
to  the  stake.  His  companion,  Ridley, 
slept  the  night  before  as  calmly,  we 
are  told,  as  ever  he  did  in  his  life ;  and 
when  ready  to  be  chained  to  the  post, 
said  aloud,  "  O  heavenly  Father,  I  give 
Thee  most  hearty  thanks,  for  that 
Thou  hast  called  me  to  be  a  professor 
of  Thee,  even  unto  death."  Latimer  in 
his  turn,  when  they  brought  the  lighted 
faggots,  cried,  "Be  of  good  comfort, 
Master  Ridley,  and  play  the  man  :  we 
shall  this  day  light  such  a  candle  by 
God's  grace,  in  England,  as  I  trust 
shall  never  be  put  out."  He  then 
bathed  his  hands  in  the  flames,  and 
resigning  his  soul  to  God,  he  expired 

He  had  judged  rightly :  it  is  by  this 
supreme  trial  that  a  creed  proves  its 
strength  and  gains  its  adherents ;  tor- 
tures are  a  sort  of  propaganda  as  well 
as  a  testimony,  and  make  converts 

*  Latimer's  Sermons,  ed.  Corrie,  First  Ser- 
mon on  the  Lord's  Prayer%  i.  335. 


whilst  they  make  martyrs.  All  the 
writings  of  the  time,  and  all  the  com- 
mentaries which  may  be  added  to  them, 
are  weak  compared  to  the  actions 
which,  one  after  the  other,  shone  forth 
at  that  time  from  learned  and  unlearn 
ed,  down  to  the  most  simple  and  igno 
rant.  In  three  years,  under  Mary,  near- 
ly three  hundred  persons,  men,  women, 
old  and  young,  some  all  but  children, 
allowed  themselves  to  be  burned  alive 
rather  than  to  abjure.  The  all-power- 
ful idea  of  God,  and  of  the  faith  due 
to  Him,  made  them  resist  all  the  pro- 
tests of  nature,  and  all  the  trembling  of 
the  flesh.  "  No  one  will  be  crowned,'1 
said  one  of  them,  "but  they  who  fight 
like  men;  and  he  who  endures  to  the 
end  shall  be  saved."  Doctor  Rogers 
was  burned  first,  in  presence  of  his  wife 
and  ten  children,  one  at  the  breast.  Pie 
had  not  been  told  beforehand,  and  was 
sleeping  soundly.  The  wife  of  the  keeper 
of  Newgate  woke  him,  and  told  him 
that  he  must  burn  that  day.  "Then/* 
said  he,"  I  need  not  truss  my  points." 
In  the  midst  of  the  flames  he  did  not 
seem  to  suffer.  "  His  children  stood 
by  consoling  him,  in  such  a  way  that  he 
looked  as  if  they  were  conducting  him 
to  a  merry  marriage."  *  A  young  man 
of  nineteen,  William  Hunter,  appren- 
ticed to  a  silk-weaver,  was  exhorted  by 
his  parents  to  persevere  to  the  end  : — 

"  In  the  mean  time  William's  father  and 
mother  came  to  him,  and  desired  heartily  of 
God  that  he  might  continue  to  the  end  in  that 
good  way  which  he  had  begun  :  and  his  mother 
said  to  him,  that  she  was  glad  that  ever  she  was 
so  happy  to  bear  such  a  child,  which  could  find 
in  his  heart  to  lose  his  life  for  Christ's  name's 
sake. 

"  Then  William  said  to  his  mother, '  For  my 
Jittle  pain  which  I  shall  suffer,  which  is  but  a 
short  braid,  Christ  hath  promised  me,  mother 
(said  he),  a  crown  of  joy:  may  you  not  be  glad 
of  that,  mother?'  With  that  his  mother 
:neeled  down  on  her  knees,  saying,  '  I  pray 
~»od  strengthen  thee,  my  son,  to  the  end  ;  yea, 
I  think  thee  as  well-bestowed  as  any  child  that 
ever  I  bare.'  .  .  . 

"  Then  William  Hunter  plucked  up  his 
gown,  and  stepped  over  the  parlour  groundsel, 
and  went  forward  cheerfully  ;  the  sheriff's  ser- 
vant taking  him  by  one  arm,  and  I  his  brother 
by  another.  And  thus  going  in  the  way,  he  met 


•  Noailles,  the  French  (and  Catholic)  Am- 


being  eleven  in  number,  and  ten  able  to  go, 
and  one  sucking  on  her  breast,  met  him  by  the 
way  as  he  went  towards  Smithfield." — TK. 


256 


with  his  father  according  to  his  dream,  and  he 
spake  to  his  son  weeping,  and  saying,  '  God  be 
with  thee,  son  William  ; '  and  William  said, 
'  God  be  with  you,  good  father,  and  be  of  good 
comfort ;  for  I  hope  we  shall  meet  again,  when 
we  shall  be  merry.'  His  father  said,  '  I  hope 
so,  William  ; '  and  so  departed.  So  William 
went  to  the  place  where  the  stake  stood,  even 
according  to  his  dream,  where  ail  things  were 
very  unready.  Then  William  took  a  wet  broom- 
faggot,  and  kneeled  down  thereon,  and  read  the 
fifty-first  Psalm,  till  he  came  to  these  words, 
'  The  sacrifice  of  God  is  a  contrite  spirit ;  a  con- 
trite and  a  broken  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not 
Despise.'  .  .  . 

"  Then  said  the  sheriff,  '  Here  is  a  letter 
from  the  queen.  If  thou  wilt  recant  thou  shalt 
live  ;  if  not,  thou  shalt  be  burned.'  '  No,' 
quoth  William,  '  I  will  not  recant,  God  willing.' 
Then  William  rose  and  went  to  the  stake,  and 
stood  upright  to  it.  Then  came  one  Richard 
Pond »,  a  bailiff,  and  made  fast  the  chain  about 
William. 

"  Then  said  master  Brown,  '  Here  is  not 
wood  enough  to  burn  a  leg  of  him.'  Then  said 
William,  '  Good  people !  pray  for  me  ;  and 
make  speed  and  despatch  quickly :  and  pray 
for  me  while  you  see  me  alive,  good  people ! 
and  I  will  pray  for  you  likewise.'  'Now?' 
quoth  master  Brown,  '  pray  for  thee  !  I  will 
pray  no  more  for  thee,  than  I  will  pray  for  a 
dog.'  .  .  . 

Then  was  there  a  gentleman  which  said, 
*  I  pray  God  have  mercy  upon  his  soul.'  The 
people  said,  *  Amen,  Amen.' 

"  Immediately  fire  was  made.  Then  William 
cast  his  psalter  right  into  his  brother's  hand, 
who  said,  '  William !  think  on  the  holy  pas- 
sion of  Christ,  and  be  not  afraid  of  death.'  And 
William  answered,  '  I  am  not  afraid.'  Then 
lift  he  up  his  hands  to  heaven,  and  said,  '  Lord, 
Lord,  Lord,  receive  rry  spirit;'  and,  casting 
down  his  head  again  into  the  smothering  smoke, 
he  yielded  up  his  life  for  the  truth,  sealing  it 
with  his  blood  to  the  praise  of  God."  * 

When  a  passion  is  able  thus  to  sub- 
due the  natural  affections,  it  is  able 
also  to  subdue  bodily  pain;  all  the 
ferocity  of.  the  time  labored  in  vain 
against  inward  convictions.  Thomas 
Tomkins,  a  weaver  of  Shoreditch,  being 
asked  by  Bonner  if  he  could  stand  the 
fire  well,  bade  him  try  it.  "  Bonner 
took  Tomkins  by  the  fingers,  and  held 
his  hand  directly  over  the  flame,"  to 
terrify  him.  But  "  he  never  shrank, 
till  the  veins  shrank  and  the  sinews 
burst,  and  the  water  (blood)  did  spirt 
\r  Mr.  Harpsfield's  face."  t  "  In  the 
Isle  of  Guernsey,  a  woman  with  child 
being  ordered  to  the  fire,  was  delivered 
in  the  flames  and  the  infant  being  taken 
from  her,  was  ordered  by  the  magis- 
trates to  be  thrown  back  into  the  fire."  J 

*  Fox,  History  of  tlie  Acts,  etc.,  vi.  727. 
t  Ibid.  719. 

t  Nea!,  History  of  th*  Puritans,  ed.  Toul- 
mm,  5  vols.,  1793,  i.  96. 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


ptooK  IL 


Bishop  Hooper  was  burned  thres 
times  over  in  a  small  fire  of  green  wood. 
There  was  too  little  wood,  and  the 
wind  turned  aside  the  smoke.  He  cried 
out,  "  For  God's  love,  good  people,  let 
me  have  more  fire."  His  legs  and 
thighs  were  roasted ;  one  of  his  hands 
fell  off  before  he  expired ;  he  endured 
thus  three-quarters  of  an  hour  ;  before 
him  in  a  box  was  his  pardon,  on  condi- 
tion that  he  would  retract.  Against 
long  sufferings  in  mephitic  prisons, 
against  every  thing  which  might  un* 
nerve  or  seduce,  these  men  were  in- 
vincible :  five  died  of  hunger  at  Canter* 
bury;  they  were  in  irons  night  and 
day,  with  no  covering  but  their  clothes, 
on  rotten  straw ;  yet  there  was  an  un- 
derstanding amongst  them,  that  the 
"  cross  of  persecution  "  was  a  blessing 
from  God,  "  an  inestimable  jewel,  a 
sovereign  antidote,  well-approved,  to 
cure  love  of  self  and  earthly  affection.'* 
Before  such  examples  the  people  were 
shaken.  A  woman  wrote  to  Bishop 
Bonner,  that  there  was  not  a  child  but 
called  him  Bonner  the  hangman,  and 
knew  on  his  fingers,  as  well  as  he  knew 
his  pater,  the  exact  number  of  those  he 
had  burned  at  the  stake,  or  suffered 
to  die  of  hunger  in  prison  these  nine 
months.  "  You  have  lost  the  hearts  of 
twenty  thousand  persons  who  were  in- 
veterate Papists  a  year  ago."  The 
spectators  encouraged  the  martyrs,  and 
cried  out  to  them  that  their  cause  was 
just.  The  Catholic  envoy  Renard 
wrote  to  Charles  V.  that  it  was  said 
that  several  had  desired  to  take  their 
place  at  the  stake,  by  the  side  of  those 
who  were  being  burned.  In  vain  the 
queen  had  forbidden,  on  pain  of  death, 
all  marks  of  approbation.  "  We  know 
that  they  are  men  of  God,"  cried  one  of 
the  spectators ;  "  that  is  why  we  can- 
not help  saying,  God  strengthen  them." 
And  all  the  people  answered,  "  Amen, 
Amen."  What  wonder  if,  at  the  com- 
ing of  Elizabeth.  England  cast  in  her 
lot  with  Protestantism  ?  The  threats 
of  the  Armada  urged  her  on  still  fur- 
ther; and  the  Reformation  became  na- 
tional under  the  pressure  of  foreign 
hostility,  as  it  had  become  popular 
through  the  triumph  of  its  martyrs. 

IV. 

Two  distinct  branches    receive  the 


CHAP.   V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


257 


common  sap, — one  above,  the  other 
beneath:  one  respected,  flourishing, 
shooting  forth  in  the  open  air  ;  the  other 
despised,  half  buried  in  the  ground, 
trodden  under  foot  by  those  who  would 
crush  it :  both  living,  the  Anglican  as 
well  as  the  Puritan,  the  one  in  spite  of 
the  effort  made  to  destroy  it,  the  other 
in  spite  of  the  care  taken  to  develop 
it. 

The  court  has  its  religion,  like  the 
country — a  sincere  and  winning  religion. 
Amid  the  Pagan  poetry  which  up  to 
the  Revolution  always  had  the  ear  of 
the  world,  we  find  gradually  piercing 
through  and  rising  higher  a  grave  and 
grand  idea  which  sent  its  roots  to  the 
depth  of  the  public  mind.  Many  poets, 
Drayton,  Davies,  Cowley,  Giles  Fletch- 
er, Quarles,  Crashaw,  wrote  sacred 
histories,  pious  or  moral  verses,  noble 
stanzas  on  death  and  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  on  the  frailty  of  things 
human,  and  on  the  supreme  providence 
in  which  alone  man  finds  the  support 
of  his  weakness  and  the  consolation  of 
his  sufferings.  In  the  greatest  prose 
writers,  Bacon,  Burton,  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  Raleigh,  we  see  spring  up  the 
fruits  of  veneration,  thoughts  about  the 
obscure  beyond ;  in  short,  faith  and 
prayer.  Several  prayers  written  by 
Bacon  are  amongst  the  finest  known  ; 
and  the  courtier  Raleigh,  whilst  writing 
of  the  fall  of  empires,  and  how  the 
barbarous  nations  had  destroyed  this 
grand  and  magnificent  Roman  Empire, 
ended  his  book  with  the  ideas  and 
tone  of  a  Bossuet.*  Picture  Saint 
Paul's  in  London,  and  the  fashionable 
people  who  used  to  meet  there  ;  the 
gentlemen  who  noisily  made  the  row- 
els of  their  spurs  resound  on  entering, 
looked  around  and  carried  on  conver- 
sation during  service,  who  swore  by 
God's  eyes,  God's  eyelids,  who  amongst 
the  vaults  and  chapels  showed  off 
their  beribboned  shoes,  their  chains, 
scarves,  satin  doublets,  velvet  cloaks, 
their  braggadocio  manners  and  stage 

*  "  O  eloquent,  just,  and  mightie  Death ! 
whom  none  could  advise,  thou  hast  persuaded  ; 
what  none  hath  dared,  thou  hast  done  ;  and 
whom  all  the  world  hath  flattered,  thou  only 
hast  cast  out  of  the  world  and  despised  ;  thou 
hast  drawne  together  all  the  farre  stretched 
gieatnesse,  all  the  pride,  crueltie,  and  ambition 
of  man,  and  covered  it  all  ever  vith  these  two 
narrow  words,  Hie jacet" 


attitudes.  All  this  was  very  free 
very  loose,  very  far  from  our  mod 
ern  decency.  But  pass  over  youthful 
bluster;  take  man  in  his  great  mo- 
ments, in  prison,  in  danger,  or  indeed 
when  old  age  arrives,  when  he  has 
come  to  judge  of  life ;  take  him,  above 
ail,  in  the  country,  on  his  estate,  far 
from  any  town,  in  the  church  of  the 
village  where  he  is  lord ;  or  again, 
when  he  is  alone  in  the  evening,  at  his 
table,  listening  to  the  prayer  offered 
up  by  his  chaplain,  having  no  books 
but  some  big  folio  of  dramas,  well  dog's- 
eared  by  his  pages,  and  his  prayer-book 
and  Bible ;  you  may  then  understand 
how  the  new  religion  tightens  its  hold 
on  these  imaginative  and  serious  minds. 
It  does  not  shock  them  by  a  narrow 
rigor ;  it  does  not  fetter  the  flight  of 
their  mind  ;  it  does  not  attempt  to  extin- 
guish the  buoyant  flame  of  their  fancy  ; 
it  does  not  proscribe  the  beautiful :  it 
preserves  more  than  any  reformed 
church  the  noble  pomp  of  the  ancient 
worship,  and  rolls  under  the  domes  of 
its  cathedrals  the  rich  modulations,  the 
majestic  harmonies  of  its  grave,  organ- 
led  music.  It  is  its  characteristic  not  to 
be  in  opposition  to  the  world,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  to  draw  it  nearer  to  itself, 
by  bringing  itself  nearer  to  it.  By  its 
secular  condition  as  well  as  by  its  ex- 
ternal worship,  it  is  embraced  by  and 
it  embraces  it :  its  head  is  the  Queen, 
it  is  a  part  of  the  Constitution,  it  sends 
its  dignitaries  to  the  House  of  Lords ; 
it  suffers  its  priests  to  marry ;  its  bene- 
fices are  in  the  nomination  of  great 
families ;  its  chief  members  are  the 
younger  sons  of  these  same  families  • 
by  all  these  channels  it  imbibes  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  In  its  hands,  there- 
fore, reformation  cannot  become  hostile 
to  science,  to  poetry,  to  the  liberal 
ideas  of  the  Renaissance.  Nay,  in  the 
nobles  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I.,  as  in 
the  cavaliers  of  Charles  I.,  it  tolerates 
artistic  tastes,  philosophical  curiosity, 
the  ways  of  the  world,  and  the  senti- 
ment of  the  beautiful.  The  alliance  is 
so  strong,  that,  under  Cromwell,  the 
ecclesiastics  in  a  mass  were  dismissed 
for  their  king's  sake,  and  the  cavaliers 
died  wholesale  for  the  Church.  The 
two  societies  mutually  touch  and  are 
confounded  together.  If  several  poeta 
are  pious,  several  ecclesiastics  arc 


258 


poetical, — Bishop  Hall,  Bishop  Corbet, 
Wither  a  rector,  and  the  preacher 
Donne.  If  several  laymen  rise  to  re- 
ligious contemplations,  several  theo- 
logians, Hooker,  John  Hales,  Taylor, 
Chillingworth,  set  philosophy  and  rea- 
son by  the  side  of  dogma.  Accord- 
ingly we  find  a  new  literature  arising, 
lofty  and  original,  eloquent  and  mod- 
crate,  armed  at  the  same  time  against 
the  Puritans,  who  sacrifice  freedom  of 
intellect  to  the  tyranny  of  the  text,  and 
against  the  Catholics,  who  sacrifice 
independence  of  criticism  to  the  tyr- 
anny of  tradition ;  opposed  equally  to 
the  servility  of  literal  interpretation, 
and  the  servility  of  a  prescribed  inter- 
pretation. Opposed  to  the  first  appears 
the  learned  and  excellent  Hooker,  one 
of  the  gentlest  and  most  conciliatory  of 
men,  the  most  solid  and  persuasive  of 
logicians,  a  comprehensive  mind,  who 
in  every  question  ascends  to  the  prin- 
ciples,* introduces  into  controversy 
general  conceptions,  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature  ;  t  beyond  this, 

*  Hooker's  Works,  ed.  Keble,  1836,  3  vols., 
The  Ecclesiastical  Polity. 

t  Ibid.  i.  book  i.  249,  258,  312  : — 

"  That  which  doth  assign  unto  each  thing 
the  kind,  that  which  doth  moderate  the  force 
and  power,  that  which  doth  appoint  the  form 
and  measure  of  working,  the  same  we  term  a 
Law.  .  .  . 

"  Now  if  nature  should  intermit  her  course, 
and  leave  altogether,  though  it  were  but  for 
awhile,  the  observation  of  her  own  laws ;  if 
those  principal  and  mother  elements  of  the 
world,  whereof  all  things  in  this  lower  world 
are  made,  should  lose  the  qualities  which  now 
they  have  ;  if  the  frame  of  that  heavenly  arch 
erected  over  our  heads  should  loosen  and  dis- 
solve itself  ;  if  celestial  spheres  should  forget 
their  wonted  motions,  ...  if  the  prince  of  the 
lights  of  heaven,  which  now  as  a  giant  doth 
run  his  unwearied  course,  should  as  it  were 
through  a  languishing  faintness,  begin  to  stand 
and  to  rest  himself :  .  .  .  what' would  become 
of  man  himself,  whom  these  things  now  do  all 
serve  ?  See  we  not  plainly  that  obedience  of 
Creatures  unto  the  law  of  nature  is  the  stay  of 
the  whole  world  ?  .  .  . 

"  Between  men  and  beasts  there  is  no  pos- 
sibility of  sociable  communion  because  the 
well-spring  of  that  communion  is  a  natural  de- 
light which  man  hath  to  transfuse  from  him- 
t  elf  into  others,  and  to  receive  from  others  into 
himself,  especially  those  things  wherein  the  ex- 
cellency of  his  kind  doth  most  consist.  The 
chiefest  instrument  of  human  communion  there- 
fore is  speech,  because  thereby  we  impart  mu- 
tually one  to  another  the  conceits  of  our  rea- 
sonable understanding.  And  for  that  cause, 
seeing  .beasts  are  not  hereof  capable,  foras- 
much as  with  them  we  can  use  no  such  confer- 
ence, they  being  in  degree,  although  above 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


a  methodical  writer,  correct  and  always 
ample,  worthy  of  being  regarded  not 
only  as  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church,  but  as  one  of  the  foun- 
ders of  English  prose.  With  a  sus- 
tained gravity  and  simplicity,  he  shows 
the  Puritans  that  the  laws  of  nature, 
reason,  and  society,  like  the  law  of 
Scripture,  are  of  divine  institution, 
that  all  are  equally  worthy  of  respect 
and  obedience,  that  we  must  not  sac- 
rifice the  inner  word,  by  which  God 
reaches  our  intellect,  to  the  outer  word, 
by  which  God  reaches  our  senses  ;  that 
thus  the  civil  constitution  of  the 
Church,  and  the  visible  ordinance  of 
ceremonies,  may  be  conformable  to  the 
will  of  God,  even  when  they  are  not 
justified  by  a  clear  text  of  Scripture  ; 
and  that  the  authority  of  the  magis- 
trates ,as  well  as  the  reason  of  man 
does  not  exceed  its  rights  in  establish- 
ing certain  uniformities  and  disciplines 
on  which  Scripture  is  silent,  in  order 
that  reason  may  decide  : — 

"  For  if  the  natural  strength  of  man's  wit 
may  by  experience  and  study  attain  unto  such 
ripeness  in  the  knowledge  of  things  human, 
that  men  in  this  respect  may  presume  to  build 
somewhat  upon  their  judgment ;  what  reason 
have  we  to  think  but  that  even  in  matters  di- 
vine, the  like  wits  furnished  with  necessary 
helps,  exercised  in  Scripture  with  like  dih- 

S;nce,  and  assisted  with  the  grace  of  Almighty 
od,  may  grow  unto  so  much  perfection  of 
knowledge,  that  men  shall  have  just  cause, 
when  any  thing  pertinent  unto  faith  and  relig- 
ion is  doubted  of,  the  more  willingly  to  in- 
cline their  minds  towards  that  which  the  sen- 
tence of  so  grave,  wise,  and  learned  in  that 
faculty  shall  judge  most  sound."  * 

This  "  natural  light  "  therefore  must 
not  be  despised,  but  rather  used  so  as 
to  augment  the  other,  as  we  put  torch 
to  torch ;  above  all,  employed  that  we 
may  live  in  harmony  with  each  other.! 

other  creatures  on  earth  to  whom  nature  hath 
denied  sense,  yet  lower  than  to  be  sociable 
companions  of  man  to  whom  nature  hath  given 
reason  ;  it  is  of  Adam  said,  that  amongst  the 
beasts  'he  found  not  for  himself  any  meet 
companion.'  Civil  society  doth  more  content 
the  nature  of  man  than  any  private  kind  of  sol- 
itary living,  because  in  society  this  good  of 
mutual  participation  is  so  much  larger  than 
otherwise.  Herewith  notwithstanding  we  are 
not  satisfied,  but  we  covet  (if  it  might  be)  to 
have  a  kind  of  society  and  fellowship  even  with 
all  mankind." 

*  Ecc.  Pol.  i.  book  5i.  ch.  vii.  4,  p.  405. 

t  See  the  Dialogues  of  Galileo.  The  same 
idea  which  is  persecuted  by  the  church  at 
Rome  is  at  the  same  time  defended  by  tha 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


259 


"  Far  more  comfort  it  were  for  us  (so  small 
is  the  joy  we  take  in  these  strifes)  to  labour 
under  the  same  yoke,  as  men  that  look  for  the 
same  eternal  reward  of  their  labours,  to  be  con- 
joined with  you  in  bands  of  indissoluble  love 
and  amity,  to  live  as  if  our  persons  being 
many,  pur  souls  were  but  one,  rather  than  in 
such  dismembered  sort  to  spend  our  few  and 
wretched  days  in  a  tedious  prosecuting  of 
wearisome  contentions." 

In  fact,  the  conclusions  of  the  great- 
est theologians  are  for  such  harmony  : 
abandoning  an  oppressive  practice 
they  grasp  a  liberal  spirit.  If  by  its 
political  structure  the  English  Church 
is  persecuting,  by  its  doctrinal  struc- 
ture it  is  tolerant ;  it  needs  the  reason 
of  the  laity  too  much  to  refuse  it  lib- 
erty ;  it  lives  in  a  world  too  cultivated 
and  thoughtful  to  proscribe  thought 
and  culture  John  Hales,  its  most 
eminent  doctor,  declared  several  times 
that  he  would  renounce  the  Church  of 
England  to-morrow  if  she  insisted  on 
the  doctrine  that  other  Christians 
would  be  damned  ;  and  that  men  be- 
lieve other  people  to  be  damned  only 
when  they  desire  them  to  be  so.*  It 
was  he  again,  a  theologian,  a  preben- 
dary, who  advises  men  to  trust  to 
themselves  alone  in  religious  matters; 
to  leave  nothing  to  authority,  or  an- 
tiquity, or  the  majority  ;  to  use  their 
own  reason  in  believing,  as  they  use 
"their  own  legs  in  walking;"  to  act 
and  be  men  in  mind  as  well  as  in  the 
rest ;  and  to  regard  as  cowardly  and 
impious  the  borrowing  of  doctrine  and 
sloth  of  thought.  So  Chillingworth,  a 
notably  militant  and  loyal  mind,  the 
most  exact,  the  most  penetrating,  and 
the  most  convincing  of  controversial- 
ists, first  Protestant,  then  Catholic, 
then  Protestant  again  and  forever,  has 
the  courage  to  say  that  these  great 
changes,  wrought  in  himself,  and  by 
himself,  through  study  and  research, 
are,  of  all  his  actions,  those  which  sat- 
isfy him  most.  He  maintains  that 
renson  alone  applied  to  Scripture 
oufht  to  persuade  men  ;  that  authority 
has  no  claim  in  it ;  that  nothing  is 
more  against  religion  than  to  force  re- 
ligk  n  ;  that  the  great  principle  of  the 
Reformation  is  liberty  of  conscience  ; 
and  that  if  the  doctrines  of  the  differ- 

cluirch   in    England.      See   also  Ecc.   Pol.   i. 
book  iii.  461-481. 

*  Clarendon.  See  the  same  doctrines  in 
Jeremy  Taylor,  Liberty  of  Prophesy  ing,  1647. 


ent  Protestant  sects  are  not  absolutely 
true,  at  least  they  are  free  from  all  im- 
piety and  from  all  error  damnable  in 
itself,  or  destructive  of  salvation 
Thus  is  developed  a  new  school  oi 
polemics,  a  theology,  a  solid  and  ra- 
tional apologetics,  rigorous  in  its  ar- 
guments, capable  of  expansion,  con- 
firmed by  science,  and  which,  authoriz- 
ing independence  of  personal  judgment 
at  the  same  time  with  the  intervention 
of  the  natural  reason,  leaves  religion 
within  reach  of  the  world  and  the  es- 
tablishments of  the  past  struggling 
with  the  future. 

A  writer  of  genius  appears  amongst 
these,  a  prose-poet,  gifted  with  an  imag- 
ination like  Spenser  and  Shakspeare, 
— Jeremy  Taylor,  who,  from  the  bent 
of  his  mind  as  well  as  from  circum- 
stances, was  destined  to  present  the  al- 
liance of  the  Renaissance  with  the  Ref- 
ormation, and  to  carry  into  the  pulpit 
the  ornate  style  of  the  court.  A 
preacher  at  St.  Paul's,  appreciated 
and  admired  by  men  of  fashion  for  his 
youthful  and  fresh  beauty  and  his 
graceful  bearing,  as  also  for  his  splen- 
did diction;  patronized  and  promoted 
by  Archbishop  Laud,  he  wrote  for  the 
king  a  defence  of  episcopacy  ;  became 
chaplain  to  the  king's  army;  was 
taken,  ruined,  twice  imprisoned  by  the 
Parliamentarians ;  married  a  natural 
daughter  of  Charles  I.  ;  then,  after 
the  Restoration,  was  loaded  with  hon- 
ors ;  became  a  bishop,  member  of  the 
Privy  Council,  and  vice-chancellor  of 
the  university  of  Dublin.  In  every 
passage  of  his  life,  fortunate  or  other- 
wise, private  or  public,  we  see  that  he 
is  an  Anglican,  a  royalist,  imbued  with 
the  spirit  of  the  cavaliers  and  courtiers, 
not  with  their  vices.  On  the  contrary, 
there  was  never  a  better  or  more  up- 
right man,  more  zealous  in  his  duties, 
more  tolerant  by  principle;  so  that, 
preserving  a  Christian  gravity  and 
purity,  he  received  from  the  Renais- 
sance only  its  rich  imagination,  its 
classical  erudition,  and  its  liberal 
spirit.  But  he  had  these  gifts  entire, 
as  they  existed  in  the  most  brilliant 
and  original  of  the  men  of  the  world, 
in  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Lord  Bacon,  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  with  the  graces,, 
splendors,  refinements  which  are  char- 
acteristic of  these  sensitive  and  crea« 


260 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


tive  geniuses,  and  yet  with  the  redun- 
dancies, singularities,  incongruities  in- 
wvitable  in  an  age  when  excess  of  spirit 
prevented  the  soundness  of  taste. 
Like  all  these  writers,  like  Montaigne, 
he  was  imbued  with  classic  antiquity ; 
in  the  pulpit  he  quotes  Greek  and  Lat- 
in anecdotes,  passages  from  Seneca, 
verses  of  Lucretius  and  Euripides,  and 
this  side  by  side  with  texts  from  the 
Bible,  from  the  Gospels,  and  the  Fa- 
thers. Cant  was  not  yet  in  vogue  ;  the 
two  great  sources  of  teaching,  Chris- 
tian and  Pagan,  ran  side  by  side  ;  they 
were  collected  in  the  same  vessel,  with- 
out imagining  that  the  wisdom  of  rea- 
son and  nature  could  mar  the  wisdom 
of  faith  and  revelation.  Fancy  these 
strange  sermons,  in  which  the  two  eru- 
ditions, Hellenic  and  Evangelic,  flow 
together  with  their  texts,  and  each  text 
in  its  own  language  ;  in  which,  to  prove 
that  fathers  are  often  unfortunate  in 
their  children,  the  author  brings  for- 
ward one  after  the  other,  Chabrias, 
Germanicus,  Marcus  Aurelius,  Hor- 
tensius,  Quintus  Fabius  Maximus, 
Scipio  Africanus,  Moses,  and  Samuel ; 
where,  in  the  form  of  comparisons  and 
illustrations  is  heaped  up  the  spoil  of 
histories,  and  authorities  on  botany, 
astronomy,  zoology,  which  the  cyclo- 
paedias and  scientific  fancies  at  that 
time  poured  into  the  brain.  Taylor 
will  relate  to  you  the  history  of  the 
bears  of  Pannonia,  which,  when  wound- 
ed, will  press  the  iron  deeper  home ; 
or  of  the  apples  of  Sodom,  which  are 
beautiful  to  the  gaze,  but  full  within 
of  rottenness  and  worms  ;  and  many 
others  of  the  same  kind.  For  it  was  a 
characteristic  of  men  of  this  age  and 
school,  not  to  possess  a  mind  swept, 
levelled,  regulated,  laid  out  in  straight 
paths,  like  the  seventeenth  century 
writers  in  France,  and  like  the  gardens 
at  Versailles,  but  full,  and  crowded 
with  circumstantial  facts,  complete 
dramatic  scenes,  little  colored  pictures, 
pellmell  and  badly  dusted ;  so  that, 
lost  in  confusion  and  dust,  the  modern 
spectator  cries  out  at  their  pedantry 
and  coarseness.  Metaphors  swarm 
one  above  the  other,  jumbled,  block- 
ing each  other's  path,  as  in  Shak- 
speare.  We  think  to  follow  one,  and  a 
second  begins,  then  a  third  cutting  into 
the  second,  and  so  on,  flower  after 


flower,  firework  after  firework,  so  that 
the  brightness  becomes  misty  with 
sparks,  and  the  sight  ends  in  a  haze. 
On  the  other  hand,  and  just  by  virtue 
of  this  same  turn  of  mind,  Taylor 
imagines  objects,  not  vaguely  and  fee- 
bly, by  some  indistinct  general  concep- 
tion, but  precisely,  entire,  as  they  are, 
with  their  visible  color,  their  proper 
form,  the  multitude  of  true  and  partic- 
ular details  which  distinguish  them  in 
their  species.  He  is  not  acquainted 
with  them  by  hearsay  ;  he  has  seen 
them.  Better,  he  sees  them  now  and 
makes  them  to  be  seen.  Read  the  fol- 
lowing extract,  and  say  if  it  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  copied  from  a  hos- 
pital, or  from  a  field  of  battle  : — 

*'  And  what  can  we  complain  of  the  weak- 
ness of  our  strengths,  or  the  pressures  of  dis- 
eases, when  we  see  a  poor  soldier  stand  in  a 
breach  almost  starved  with  cold  and  hunger, 
and  his  cold  apt  to  be  relieved  only  by  the 
heats  of  anger,  a  fever,-  or  a  fired  musket,  and 
his  hunger  slacked  by  a  greater  pain  and  a 
huge  fear  ?  This  man  shall  stand  in  his  arms 
and  wounds,  patiens  luminis  atque  soils,  pale 
and  faint,  weary  and  watchful  ;  and  at  night 
shall  have  a  bullet  pulled  out  of  his  flesh,  and 
shivers  from  his  bones,  and  endure  his  mouth 
to  be  sewed  up  from  a  violent  rent  to  its  own 
dimensions ;  and  all  this  for  a  man  whom  he 
never  saw,  or,  if  he  did,  was  not  noted  by  him  ; 
but  one  that  shall  condemn  him  to  the  gallows 
if  he  runs  away  from  all  this  misery."  * 

This  is  the  advantage  of  a  full  imag- 
ination over  ordinary  reason.  It  pro- 
duces in  a  lump  twenty  or  thirty  ideas, 
and  as  many  images,  exhausting  the 
subject  which  the  other  only  outlines 
and  sketches.  There  are  a  thousand 
circumstances  and  shades  in  every 
event;  and  they  are  all  grasped  in 
living  words  like  these  : — 

"  For  so  have  I  seen  the  little  purls  of  a 
spring  sweat  through  the  bottom  of  a  bank,  and 
intenerate  the  stubborn  pavement,  till  it  hath 
made  it  fit  for  the  impression  of  a  child's  foot ; 
and  it  was  despised,  like  the  descending  pearls 
of  a  misty  morning,  till  it  had  opened  its,  way 
and  made  a  stream  large  enough  to  carry  away 
the  ruins  of  the  undermined  strand,  and  to  in- 
vade the  neighbouring  gardens  ;  but  then  the 
despised  drops  were  grown  into  an  artificial 
river,  and  an  intolerable  mischief.  So  arc  the 
first  entrances  of  sin,  stopped  with  the  anti* 
dotes  of  a  hearty  prayer,  and  checked  into 
sobriety  by  the  eye  of  a  reverend  man,  or  the 
counsels  of  a  single  sermon  ;  but  when  such 
beginnings  are  neglected,  and  our  religion  harh 
not  in  it  so  much  philosophy  as  to  think  any 


*  Jeremy  Taylor's  Works?  ed.   Eden,   1840, 
10  vols.,  Holy  Dying,  ch.   iii.  sec.  4,  §  3.  p 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


261 


thing  evil  as  long  as  we  can  endure  it,  they 
grow  up  to  ulcers  and  pestilential  evils  ;  they 
destroy  the  soul  by  their  abode,  who  at  their 
first  entry  might  have  been  killed  with  the 
pressure  of  a  little  finger."  * 

All  extremes  meet  in  that  imagina- 
tion. The  cavaliers  who  heard  him, 
found,  as  in  Ford,  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  the  crude  copy  of  the  most 
coarse  and  unclean  truth,  and  the 
light  music  of  the  most  graceful  and 
airy  fancies ;  the  smell  and  horrors  of 
a  dissecting  room,t  and  all  on  a  sudden 
the  freshness  and  cheerfulness  of  smil- 
ing dawn  ;  the  hateful  detail  of  lepro- 
sy, its  white  spots,  its  inner  rotten- 
ness ;  and  then  this  lovely  picture  of  a 
lark,  rising  amid  the  early  perfumes  of 
the  fields  :— 

"  For  so  have  I  seen  a  lark  rising  from  his 
bed  of  grass,  and  soaring  upwards,  singing  as 
he  rises,  and  hopes  to  get  to  heaven,  and  climb 
above  the  clouds  ;  but  the  poor  bird  was  beaten 
back  with  the  loud  sighings  of  an  eastern  wind, 
and  his  motion  made  irregular  and  inconstant, 
descending  more  at  every  breath  of  the  tem- 
pest, than  it  could  recover  by  the  vibration  and 
frequent  weighing  of  his  wings,  till  the  little 
creature  was  forced  to  sit  down  and  pant,  and 
stay  till  the  storm  was  over  ;  and  then  it  made 
a  prosperous  flight,  and  did  rise  and  sing,  as  if 
it  had  learned  music  and  motion  from  an  angel, 
as  he  passed  sometimes  through  the  air,  about 
his  ministries  here  below.  So  is  the  prayer  of 
a  good  man."  $ 

And  he  continues  with  the  charm, 
.sometimes  with  the  very  words,  of 
Shakspeare.  In  the  preacher,  as  well 
as  in  the  poet,  as  well  as  in  all  the 
cavaliers  and  all  the  artists  of  the  time, 
the  imagination  is  so  full,  that  it  reaches 
the  real,  even  to  its  filth,  and  the  ideal 
as  far  as  its  heaven. 

How  could  true  religious  sentiment 
thus  accommodate  itself  to  such  a  frank 
ai.d  worldly  gait  ?  This,  however,  is 
what  it  has  done  ;  and  more — the  lat- 
ter has  generated  the  former.  With 
Tailor,  as  well  as  with  the  others,  bold 
poetry  leads  to  profound  faith.  If  this 
alliance  astonishes  us  to-day,  it  is  be- 
cause in  this  respect  people  have 
grown  pedantic.  We  take  a  formal 
man  for  a  religious  man.  We  are  con- 
tent to  see  him  stiff  in  his  black  coat, 

*  Sermon  xvi.,  Of  Growth  in  Sin. 

t  "  We  have  already  opened  up  this  dung- 
hill covered  with  snow,  which  was  indeed  on 
the  outside  white  as  the  spots  of  leprosy." 

t  Golden  Grove  Sertntns :  V.  "  The  Return 
of  Prayers." 


choked  in  a  white  neckerchief,  with  a 
prayer-book  in  his  hand.  We  confound 
piety  with  decency,  propriety,  perina« 
nent  and  perfect  regularity.  We  pro- 
scribe to  a  man  of  faith  all  candid 
speech,  all  bold  gesture,  all  fire  and 
dash  in  word  or  act ;  we  are  shocked 
by  Luther's  rude  words,  the  bursts  of 
laughter  which  shook  his  mighty 
paunch,  his  rages  like  a  working-man, 
his  plain  and  free  speaking,  the  auda- 
cious familiarity  with  which  he  treats 
Christ  and  the  Deity.*  We  do  not 
perceive  that  these  freedoms  and  this 
recklessness  are  precisely  signs  of  en- 
tire belief,  that  warm  and  immoderate 
conviction  is  too  sure  of  itself  to  be 
tied  down  to  an  irreproachable  style, 
that  impulsive  religion  consists  not  of 
punctilios  but  of  emotions.  It  is  a 
poem,  the  greatest  of  all,  a  poem  be- 
lieved in  ;  this  is  why  these  men  found 
it  at  the  end  of  their  poesy :  the  way 
of  looking  at  the  world,  adopted  by 
Shakspeare  and  all  the  tragic  poets 
led  to  it;  another  step,  and  Jacques, 
Hamlet,  would  be  there.  That  vast 
obscurity,  that  black  unexplored  ocean, 
"  the  unknown  country,"  which  they 
saw  on  the  verge  of  our  sad  life,  who 
knows  whether  it  is  not  bounded  by 
another  shore  ?  The  troubled  notion 
of  the  shadowy  beyond  is  national, 
and  this  is  why  the  national  renais- 
sance at  this  time  became  Christian. 
When  Taylor  speaks  of  death  he  only 
takes  up  and  works  out  a  thought 
which  Shakspeare  had  already  sketch- 
ed:— 

"  All  the  succession  of  time,  all  the  changes 
in  nature,  all  the  varieties  of  light  and  dark- 
ness, the  thousand  thousands  of  accidents  in 
the  world,  and  every  contingency  to  every 
man,  and  to  every  creature,  doth  preach  our 
funeral  sermon,  and  calls  us  to  look  and  see 
how  the  old  sexton  Time  throws  up  the  earth, 
and  digs  a  grave  where  we  must  lav  our  sins  or 
our  sorrows,  and  sow  our  bodies,  till  they  rise 
again  in  a  fair  or  in  an  intolerable  eternity." 

For  beside  this  final  death,  which 
swallows  us  whole,  there  are  partial 
deaths  which  devour  us  piecemeal  : — 

*  Luther's  Table  Talk,  ed.  Hazlitt,  No.  187, 
p.  30  :  When  Jesus  Christ  was  born,  he  doubt- 
less cried  and  wept  like  other  children,  and  his 
mother  tended  him  as  other  mothers  tend  their 
children.  As  he  grew  up  he  was  submissive  to 
his  parents,  and  waited  on  them,  and  carried 
his  supposed  father's  dinner  to  him  ;  and  when 
he  came  back,  Mary  no  doubt  often  said. 
"  My  dear  little  Jesus,  where  hast  thou  been  ? 


262 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


"  Every  revolution  which  the  sun  makes 
about  the  world,  divides  between  life  and 
death  ;  and  death  possesses  both  those  por- 
tions by  the  next  morrow  ;  and  we  are  dead  to 
ail  those  months  which  we  have  already  lived, 
and  we  shall  never  live  them  over  again  :  and 
still  God  makes  little  periods  of  our  age.  First 
we  change  our  world,  when  we  come  from  the 
womb  to  feel  the  warmth  of  the  sun.  Then  we 
sleep  and  enter  into  the  image  of  death,  in 
which  state  we  are  unconcerned  in  all  the 
changes  of  the  world :  and  if  our  mothers  or 
our  nurses  die,  or  a  wild  boar  destroy  our  vine- 
yards, or  our  king  be  sick,  we  regard  it  not, 
but  during  that  state  are  as  disinterest  as  if  our 
eyes  were  closed  with  the  clay  that  weeps  in 
the  bowels  of  the  earth..  At  the  end  of  seven 
years  our  teeth  fall  and  die  before  us,  repre- 
senting a  formal  prologue  to  the  tragedy  ;  and 
still  every  seven  years  it  is  odds  but  we  shall 
finish  the  last  scene:  and  when  nature,  or 
chance,  or  vice,  takes  our  body  in  pieces, 
weakening  some  parts  and  loosing  others,  we 
taste  the  grave  and  the  solemnities  of  our  own 
funerals,  first  in  those  parts  that  ministered  to 
vice,  and  next  in  them  that  served  for  orna- 
ment, and  in  a  short  time  even  they  that  served 
for  necessity  become  useless,  and  entangled 
like  the  wheels  of  a  broken  clock.  Baldness  is 
but  a  dressing  to  our  funerals,  the  proper  orna- 
ment of  mourning,  and  of  a  person  entered 
very  far  into  the  regions  and  possession  of 
death  :  and  we  have  many  more  of  the  same 
signification  ;  gray  hairs,  rotten  teeth,  dim 
eyes,  trembling  joints,  short  breath,  stiff  limbs, 
wrinkled  skin,  short  memory,  decayed  appetite. 
Every  day's  necessity  calls  for  a  reparation  of 
that  portion  which  death  fed  on  all  night,  when 
we  lay  in  his  lap  and  slept  in  his  outer  cham- 
bers. The  very  spirits  of  a  man  prey  upon  the 
daily  portion  of  bread  and  flesh,  and  every 
meal  is  a  rescue  from  one  death,  and  lays  up 
for  another  ;  and  while  we  think  a  thought,  we 
die  ;  and  the  clock  strikes,  and  reckons  on  our 
portion  of  eternity :  we  form  our  words  with 
the  breath  of  our  nostrils,  we  have  the  less  to 
live  upon  for  every  word  we  speak."  * 

Beyond  all  these  destructions  other 
destructions  are  at  work ;  chance 
mows  us  down  as  well  as  nature,  and 
we  are  the  prey  of  accident  as  well  as 
of  necessity  t — 

"  Thus  nature  calls  us  to  meditate  of  death 
by  those  things  which  are  the  instruments  of 
acting  it :  and  God  by  all  the  variety  of  His 
providence  makes  us  see  death  every  where,  in 
all  variety  of  circumstances,  and  dressed  up  for 
all  the  fancies,  and  the  expectation  of  every 
single  person. t  .  .  .  And  how  many  teeming 
mothers  have  rejoiced  over  their  swelling 
wombs,  and  pleased  themselves  in  becoming 
the  channels  of  blessing  to  a  family,  and  the 
midwife  hath  quickly  bound  their  heads  and 
feet  and  carried  them  forth  to  burial  ?  J  .  .  . 
You  can  go  no  whither  but  you  tread  upon  a 
dead  man's  bones."  § 

*  Holy  Dying,  ed.  Eden,  ch.  i.  sec.  i.  p.  267. 
1/^.267.  \Ibid.  268. 

§  Ibid.  269. 


Thus  these  powerful  words  roll  on, 
sublime  as  an  organ  motett ;  this  uni- 
versal crushing  out  of  human  vanities 
has  the  funeral  grandeur  of  a  tragedy  ; 
piety  in  this  instance  proceeds  from 
eloquence,  and  genius  leads  to  faith. 
All  the  powers  and  all  the  tenderness 
of  the  soul  are  moved.  It  is  not  a  cold 
rigorist  who  speaks  ;  it  is  a  man,  a 
moved  man,  with  senses  and  a  heart, 
who  has  become  a  Christian  not  by 
mortification,  but  by  the  development 
of  his  whole  being  : 

"  Reckon  but  from  the  sprightfulness  oi 
youth,  and  the  fair  cheeks  and  full  eyes  of 
childhood,  from  the  vigorousness  and  strong 
flexture  of  the  joints  of  five  and  twenty,  to  the 
hollowness  and  dead  paleness,  to  the  loath- 
someness and  horror  of  a  three  days'  burial, 
and  we  shall  perceive  the  distance  to  be  very 
great  and  very  strange.  But  so  have  I  seen  a 
rose  newly  springing  from  the  clefts  of  its  hood, 
and  at  first  it  was  fair  as  the  morning,  and  full 
with  the  dew  of  heaven  as  a  lamb's  fleece  ;  but 
when  a  ruder  breath  had  forced  open  its  virgin 
modesty,  and  dismantled  its  too  youthful  and 
unripe  retirements,  it  beean  to  put  on  dark- 
ness, and  to  decline  to  softness  and  the  symp- 
toms of  a  sickly  age  ;  it  bowed  the  head,  and 
broke  its  stalk,  and  at  night  haying  lost  some 
of  its  leaves  and  all  its  beauty,  it  fell  into  the 
portion  of  weeds  and  outworn  faces.  The  same 
is  the  portion  of  every  man  and  every  woman, 
the  heritage  of  worms  and  serpents,  rottenness 
and  cold  dishonour,  and  our  beauty  so  changed, 
that  our  acquaintance  quickly  knew  us  not  ; 
and  that  change  mingled  with  so  much  horror, 
or  else  meets  so  with  our  fears  and  weak  dis- 
coursings,  that  they  who  six  hours  ago  tended 
upon  us  either  with  charitable  or  ambitious 
services,  cannot  without  some  regret  stay  in 
the  room  alone  where  the  body  lies  stripped  of 
its  life  and  honour.  I  have  read  of  a  fair  young 
German  gentleman  who  living  often  refused  to 
be  pictured,  but  put  off  the  importunity  of  his 
friends'  desire  by  giving  way  that  after  a  few 
days'  burial  they  might  send  a  painter  to  his 
vault,  and  if  they  saw  cause  for  it  draw  the  im- 
age of  his  death  unto  the  life :  they  did  so,  and 
found  his  face  half  eaten,  and  his  midriff  and 
backbone  full  of  serpents;  and  so  he  stands 
pictured  among  his  armed  ancestors.  So  does 
the  fairest  beauty  change,  and  it  will  be  as  bad 
with  you  as  me  ;  and  then  what  servants  shall 
we  have  to  wait  upon  us  in  the  grave  ?  what 
friends  to  visit  us  ?  what  officious  people  to 
cleanse  away  the  moist  and  unwholesome  cloud 
reflected  upon  our  faces  from  the  sides  of  the 
weeping  vaults,  which  are  the  longest  weepers 
for  our  funeral."  * 

Brought  hither,  like  Hamlet  to  the 
burying-ground,  amid  the  skulls  which 
he  recognizes,  and  under  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  death  which  he  touches, 
man  needs  but  a  slight  effort  to  see  a 

*  Ibid.  ch.  i.  sec.  ii.  p.  270. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


263 


new  world  arise  in  his  heart.  He  seeks 
the  remedy  of  his  sadness  in  the  idea 
of  eternal  justice,  and  implores  it  with 
a  breadth  of  words  which  makes  the 
prayer  a  hymn  in  prose,  as  beautiful 
as  a  work  of  art  : — 

"  Eternal  God,  Almighty  Father  of  men  and 
angels,  by  whose  care  and  providence  I  am 
preserved  and  blessed,  comforted  and  assisted, 
I  humbly  beg  of  Thee  to  pardon  the  sins  and 
follies  of  this  day,  the  weakness  of  my  services, 
and  the  strengths  of  my  passions,  the  rashness 
of  my  words,  and  the  vanity  and  evil  of  my  ac- 
ti<  ns.  O  just  and  dear  God,  how  long  shall  I 
confess  my  sins,  and  pray  against  them,  and 
vet  fall  under  them  ?  O  let  it  be  so  no  more  ; 
let  me  never  return  to  the  follies  of  which  I  am 
ashamed,  which  bring  sorrow  and  death,  and 
Thy  displeasure,  worse  than  death.  Give  me 
a  command  over  my  inclinations  and  a  perfect 
hatred  of  sin,  and  a  love  to  Thee  above  all  the 
desires  of  this  world.  Be  pleased  to  bless  and 
preserve  me  this  night  from  all  sin  and  all  vio- 
lence of  chance,  and  the  malice  of  the  spirits  of 
darkness :  watch  over  me  in  my  sleep  ;  and 
whether  I  sleep  or  wake,  let  me  be  Thy  ser- 
vant. Be  Thou  first  and  last  in  all  my  thoughts, 
and  the  guide  and  continual  assistance  of  all 
my  actions.  Preserve  my  body,  pardon  the 
sin  of  my  soul,  and  sanctify  my  spirit.  Let  me 
always  live  holily  and  soberly ;  and  when  I  die 
receive  my  soul  into  Thy  hands."  * 

V. 

This  was,  however,  but  an  imperfect 
Reformation,  and  the  official  religion 
was  too  closely  bound  up  with  the 
world  to  undertake  to  cleanse  it  thor- 
oughly :  if  it  repressed  the  excesses 
of  vice,  it  did  not  attack  its  source ; 
and  the  paganism  of  the  Renaissance, 
following  its  bent,  already  under  James 
I.  issued  in  the  corruption,  orgie,  dis- 
gusting, and  drunken  habits,  provok- 
ing and  gross  sensuality,!  which  sub- 
sequently under  the  Restoration  stank 
like  a  sewer  in  the  sun.  But  under- 
neath the  established  Protestantism 
was  propagated  the  forbidden  Protes- 
tanti  3m  :  the  yeomen  were  settling  their 
faith  like  the  gentlemen,  and  already 
the  Puritans  made  headway  under  the 
Anglicans. 

*  The  Golden  Grove. 

t  See  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Thierry 
and  Theodoret  the  characters  of  Bawder, 
Protalyce,  and  Brunhalt.  In  The  Custom  of 
the  Country,  by  the  same  authors,  several 
scenes  represent  the  inside  of  an  infamous 
house, — a  frequent  thing,  by  the  way,  in  the 
dramas  of  that  time  ;  but  here  the  b  >arders  in 
-the  house  are  men.  See  also  the  r  Rule  a 
Wife  and  have  a  Wife. 


No  culture  here,  no  philosophy,  no 
sentiment  of  harmonious  and  pagan 
beauty.  Conscience  alone  spoke,  and 
its  restlessness  had  become  a  terror, 
The  sons  of  the  shopkeeper,  of  the 
farmer,  who  read  the  Bible  in  the  barn 
or  the  counting-house,  amid  the  barrels 
or  the  wool-bags,  did  not  take  matters 
as  a  handsome  cavalier  bred  up  in  the 
old  mythology,  and  refined  by  an  elegant 
Italian  education.  They  took  them 
tragically,  sternly  examined  themselves, 
pricked  their  hearts  with  their  scruples, 
filled  their  imaginations  with  the  ven- 
geance of  God  and  the  terrors  of  the 
Bible.  A  gloomy  epic,  terrible  and 
grand  as  the  Edda,  was  fermenting  in 
their  melancholy  imaginations.  They 
steeped  themselves  in  texts  of  Saint 
Paul,  in  the  thundering  menaces  of  the 
prophets  ;  they  burdened  their  minds 
with  the  pitiless  doctrines  of  Calvin  ; 
they  admitted  that  the  majority  of  men 
were  predestined  to  eternal  damna- 
tion:* many  believed  that  this  multi- 
tude were  criminal  before  their  birth  ; 
that  God  willed,  foresaw,  provided  for 
their  ruin ;  that  He  designed  their  pun- 
ishment from  all  eternity  ;  that  He  crea- 
ted them  simply  to  give  them  up  to  itf 
Nothing  but  grace  can  save  the  wretch- 
ed creature,  free  grace,  God's  sheer 
favor,  which  He  only  grants  to  a  few, 
and  which  He  distributes  not  according 
to  the  struggles  and  works  of  men,  but 
according  to  the  arbitrary  choice  of 
His  single  and  absolute  will.  We  are 
"  children  of  wrath,"  plague-stricken, 
and  condemned  from  our  birth  ;  and 
wherever  we  look  in  all  the  expanse  of 
heaven,  we  find  but  thunderbolts  flash- 
ing to  destroy  us.  Fancy,  if  you  can, 
the  effects  of  such  an  idea  on  solitary 
and  morose  minds,  such  as  this  race 
and  climate  generates.  Several  per 
sons  thought  themselves  damned,  and 
went  groaning  about  the  streets ;  others 
hardly  ever  slept.  They  were  beside 
themselves,  always  imagining  that  they 
felt  the  hand  of  God  or  the  claw  of  the 
devil  upon  them.  An  extraordinary 
power,  immense  means  of  action,  were 
suddenly  opened  up  in  the  soul,  and 
there  was  no  barrier  in  the  moral  life, 


*  Calvin,  quoted  by  Haag,  ii.  216,  Histoirt 
des  Dogmes  Chretiens. 

t  These  were  the  Supralapsarians. 


264 


and  no  establishment  in  civil  society 
which  their  efforts  could  not  upset. 

Forthwith  private  life  was  trans- 
formed. How  could  ordinary  senti- 
ments, natural  and  every-day  notions 
of  happiness  and  pleasure,  subsist  be- 
£ore  such  a  conception  ?  Suppose  men 
condemned  to  death,  not  ordinary 
death,  but  the  rack,  torture,  an  infinite- 
ly horrible  and  infinitely  extended  tor- 
ment, waiting  for  their  sentence,  and 
yet  knowing  that  they  had  one  chance  in 
a  thousand,  in  a  hundred  thousand,  of 
pardon  ;  could  they  still  go  on  amusing 
themselves,  taking  an  interest  in  the 
business  or  pleasure  of  the  time  ?  The 
azure  heaven  shines  not  for  them,  the 
sun  warms  them  not,  the  beauty  and 
sweetness  of  things  have  no  attraction 
for  them;  they  have  lost  the  wont  of 
laughter ;  they  fasten  inwardly,  pale  and 
silent,  on  their  anguish  and  their  ex- 
pectation ;  they  have  but  one  thought : 
"  Will  the  judge  pardon  me  ?  "  They 
anxiously  probe  the  involuntary  mo- 
tions of  their  heart,  which  alone  can 
reply,  and  the  inner  revelation,  which 
alone  can  render  them  certain  of  par- 
don or  ruin.  They  think  that  any  other 
condition  of  mind  is  unholy,  that  reck- 
lessness and  joy  are  monstrous,  that 
every  worldly  recreation  or  preoccupa- 
tion is  an  act  of  paganism,  and  that  the 
true  mark  of  a  Christian  is  trepidation 
at  the  very  idea  of  salvation.  Thence- 
forth rigor  and  rigidity  mark  their  man- 
ners. The  Puritan  condemns  the  stage, 
the  assemblies,  the  world's  pomps  and 
gatherings,  the  court's  gallantry  and 
elegance,  the  poetical  and  symbolical 
festivals  of  the  country,  the  May-poles 
days,  the  merry  feasts,  bell-ringings,  all 
the  outlets  by  which  sensuous  or  in- 
stinctive nature  endeavored  to  relieve 
itself.  He  gives  them  up,  abandons 
recreations  and  ornaments,  crops  his 
hair  closely,  wears  a  simple  sombre- 
hued  coat,  speaks  through  his  nose, 
walks  stiffly,  with  his  eyes  turned  up- 
wards, absorbed,  indifferent  to  visible 
things.  The  external  and  natural  man 
is  abolished  ;  only  the  inner  and  spirit- 
ual man  survives  ;  there  remains  of  the 
soul  only  the  ideas  of  God  and  con- 
science,— a  conscience  alarmed  and  dis- 
eased, but  strict  in  every  duty,  attentive 
to  the  least  requirements,  disdaining  the 
caution  of  worldly  morality,  inexhausti- 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


ble  in  patience,  courage,  sacrifice,  en- 
throning  chastity  on  the  domestic 
hearth,  truth  before  the  tribunals,  hones- 
ty in  the  counting-house,  labor  in  the 
workshop,  everywhere  a  fixed  determi- 
nation to  bear  all  and  do  all  rather  than 
fail  in  the  least  injunction  of  moral  jus- 
tice and  Bible-law.  The  stoical  energy, 
the  fundamental  honesty  of  the  race, 
were  aroused  at  the  appeal  of  an  enthusi- 
astic imagination  ;  and  these  unbending 
characteristics  were  displayed  in  their 
entirety  in  conjunction  with  abnegation 
and  virtue. 

Another  step,  and  this  great  move- 
ment passed  from  within  to  without, 
from  individual  manners  to  public  insti- 
tutions. Observe  these  people  in  their 
reading  of  the  Bible,  they  apply  to  them- 
selves the  commands  imposed  on  the 
Jews,  and  the  prologues  urge  them  to  it. 
At  the  beginning  of  their  Bibles  the 
translator*  places  a  table  of  the  princi- 
pal words  in  the  Scripture,  each  with  its 
definition  and  texts  to  support  it.  They 
read  and  weigh  these  words  :  "  Abomi- 
nation before  God  are  Idoles,  Images. 
Before  whom  the  people  do  bow  them 
selfes."  Is  this  precept  observed  ?  No 
doubt  the  images  are  taken  away,  but 
the  queen  has  still  a  crucifix  in  her 
chapel,  and  is  it  not  a  remnant  of  idol- 
atry to  kneel  down  when  taking  the 
sacrament  ?  "  Abrogation,  that  is  to 
abolyshe,  or  to  make  of  none  effecte  : 
And  so  the  lawe  of  the  comrnande- 
mentes  whiche  was  in  the  decrees  and 
ceremonies,  is  abolished.  The  sacrifi- 
ces, festes,  meates,  and  al  outwarde  cer- 
emonies are  abrogated,  and  all  the  order 
of  priesthode  is  abrogated."  Is  this 
so,  and  how  does  it  happen  that  the 
bishops  still  take  upon  themselves  the 
right  of  prescribing  faith,  worship,  and 
of  tyrannizing  over  Christian  conscien- 
ces? And  have  they  not  preserved 
in  the  organ-music,  in  the  surplice  of 
the  priests,  in  the  sign  of  the  cross,  in 
a  hundred  other  practices,  all  these 
visible  rites  which  God  has  declared 
rofane  ?  "  Abuses.  The  abuses  that 
e  in  the  church  ought  to  be  corrected 
by  the  prynces.  The  ministers  ought 
to  preache  against  abuses.  Any  manei 

*  The  Byble,  nowe  lately  "with  greate  in 
ditstry  and  Diligece  recognized  (by  Edm 
Becke),  Lond.,  by  John  Daye  and  Wilhanj 
Seres,  1549,  with  Tyndale's  Prologues. 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


of  mere  traditions  of  man  are  abuses." 
What,  meanwhile,  is  their  prince  doing, 
and  why  does  he  leave  abuses  in  the 
church  ?  The  Christian  must  rise  and 

Erotest ;    we   must  purge   the   church 
•om  the  pagan  crust  with  which  tradi- 
tion has  covered  it.* 

Such  are  the  ideas  conceived  by 
these  uncultivated  minds.  Fancy  the 
simple  folk,  more  capable  by  their  sim- 
plicity of  a  sturdy  faith,  these  free- 
holders, these  big  traders,  who  have 
sat  on  juries,  voted  at  elections,  delib- 
erated, discussed  in  common  private 
and  public  business,  used  to  examine 
the  law,  the  comparing  of  precedents, 
all  the  detail  of  juridical  and  legal  pro- 
cedure ;  bringing  their  lawyer's  and 
pleader's  training  to  bear  upon  the  in- 
terpretation of  Scripture,  who,  having 
once  formed  a  conviction,  employ  for 
it  the  cold  passion,  the  intractable  ob- 
stinacy, the  heroic  sternness  of  the 
English  character.  Their  precise  and 
combative  minds  take  the  business  in 
hand.  Every  one  holds  himself  bound 
to  be  ready,  strong,  and  well  prepared 
to  answer  all  such  as  shall  demand  a 
reason  of  his  faith.  Each  one  has  his 
difficulty  and  conscientious  scruple  t 
about  some  portion  of  the  liturgy  or 
the  official  hierarchy:  about  the  dig- 
nities of  canons  and  archdeacons,  or 
certain  passages  of  the  funeral  ser- 
vice ;  about  the  sacramental  bread  or 
the  reading  of  the  aprocyphal  books 
in  church;  about  plurality  of  benefices 
or  the  ecclesiastical  square  cap.  They 
each  oppose  some  point,  all  together 
the  episcopacy  and  the  retention  of 
Romish  ceremonies.}  Then  they  are 
imprisoned,  fined,  put  in  the  pillory  ; 
they  have  their  ears  cut  off ;  their  min- 

*  Examination  of  Mr.  Axton :  I  can't  con- 
sent to  wear  the  surplice,  it  is  against  ray 
conscience  ;  I  trust,  by  the  help  of  God,  I  shall 
ne*'er  put  on  that  sleeve,  which  is  a  mark  of 
th  beast  " — Examination  of  Mr.  White,  "  a 
substantial  citizen  of  London  "  (1572),  accused 
of  nol  going  to  the  parish  church :  "  The 
whole  Scriptures  are  for  destroying  idolatry, 
and  every  thing  that  belongs  to  it." — "  Where 
is  the  place  where  these  are  forbidden  ?  " — "  In 
Deuteronomy  and  other  places  ;  .  .  .  and  God 
by  Isaiah  commandeth  not  to  pollute  ourselves 
with  the  garments  of  the  image." 

t  One  expression  continually  occurs  :  "Ten- 
derness of  conscience  " — "  a  squeamish  stom- 
ach " — "  our  weaker  brethren." 

$  The  separation  of  the  Anglicans  and  dis- 
senters may  be  dated  from  1564. 


isters  are  dismissed,  hunted  out,  prose- 
cuted.* The  law  declares  that  any  one 
above  the  age  of  sixteen  who  for  the 
space  of  a  month  shall  refuse  to  attend 
the  established  worship,  shall  be  im- 
prisoned until  such  time  as  he  shall  sub- 
mit ;  and  if  he  does  not  submit  at  the 
end  of  three  months,  he  shall  be  banish- 
ed the  kingdom  ;  and  if  he  returns,  put 
to  death.  They  allow  this  to  go  on,  and 
show  as  much  firmness  in  suffering  as 
scruple  in  belief ;  for  a  tittle  about  re- 
ceiving of  the  communion,  sitting  rather 
than  kneeling,  or  standing  rather  than 
sitting,  they  give  up  their  livings,  their 
property,  their  liberty,  their  country. 
One  Dr.  Leighton  was  imprisoned 
fifteen  weeks  in  a  dog's  kennel,  with- 
out fire,  roof,  bed,  and  in  irons  :  his 
hair  and  skin  fell  off ;  he  was  set  in 
the  pillory  during  the  November  frosts, 
then  whipt,  and  branded  on  the  fore- 
head ;  his  ears  were  cut  off,  his  nose 
slit ;  he  was  shut  up  eight  years  in  the 
Fleet,  and  thence  cast  into  the  common 
prison.  Many  went  cheerfully  to  the 
stake.  Religion  with  them  was  a  cov- 
enant, that  is,  a  treaty  made  with  God, 
which  must  be  kept  in  spite  of  every 
thing,  as  a  written  engagement,  to  the 
letter,  to  the  last  syllable.  An  admi- 
rable and  deplorable  stiffness  of  an 
over-scrupulous  conscience,  which 
made  cavillers  at  the  same  time  with 
believers,  which  was  to  make  tyrants 
after  it  had  made  martyrs. 

Between  the  two,  it  made  fighting 
men.  These  men  had  become  won- 
derfully wealthy  and  had  increased 
in  numbers  in  the  course  of  eighty 
years,  as  is  always  the  case  with  men 
who  labor,  live  honestly,  and  pass 
their  lives  uprightly,  sustained  by  a 
powerful  source  of  action  from  w'-th- 
in.  Thenceforth  they  are  able  to  re- 
sist, and  they  do  resist  when  driven  to 
extremities;  they  choose  to  have  re- 
course to  arms  rather  than  be  driven 
back  to  idolatry  and  sin.  The  Long 
Parliament  assembles,  defeats  the  king, 
purges  religion;  the  dam  is  broken, 
the  Independents  are  hurled  above  the 
Presbyterians,  the  fanatics  above  the 
mere  zealots ;  irresistible  and  over- 
whelming faith,  enthusiasm,  grow  into 
a  torrent,  swallow  up,  or  at  least  ^  dis- 
turb the  strongest  minds,  politicians,  . 
*  1592- 

12 


266 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK 


lawyers,  captains.  The  Commons  oc- 
cupy a  day  in  every  week  in  delibera- 
ting on  the  progress  of  religion.  As 
soon  as  they  touch  upon  doctrines  they 
become  furious.  A  poor  man,  Paul 
Best,  being  accused  of  denying  the 
Trinity,  they  demand  the  passing  of  a 
decree  to  punish  him  with  death; 
James  Nayler  having  imagined  that  he 
was  God,  the  Commons  devote  •them- 
selves to  a  trial  of  eleven  days,  with  a 
Hebraic  animosity  and  ferocity  :  "  I 
think  him  worse  than  possessed  with 
the  devil.  Our  God  is  here  supplanted. 
My  ears  trembled,  my  heart  shuddered, 
on  hearing  this  report.  I  will  speak 
no  more.  Let  us  all  stop  our  ears  and 
stone  him."*  Before  the  House  of 
Commons,  publicly,  the  men  in  author- 
ity had  ecstasies.  After  the  expulsion 
of  the  Presbyterians,  the  preacher 
Hugh  Peters  started  up  in  the  middle 
of  a  sermon,  and  cried  out :  "  Now  I 
have  it  by  Revelation,  now  I  shall  tell 
you.  This  army  must  root  up  Mon- 
archy, not  only  here,  but  in  France  and 
other  kingdoms  round  about;  this  is 
to  bring  you  out  of  Egypt;  this  Army 
is  that  corner-stone  cut  out  of  the 
Mountaine,  which  must  dash  the  pow- 
ers of  the  earth  to  pieces.  But  it  is 
objected,  the  way  we  walk  in  is  without 
president  (sic)  ;  what  think  you  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  ?  was  there  ever  any  pres- 
ident before,  that  a  Woman  should 
conceive  a  Child  without  the  company 
of  a  Man  ?  This  is  an  Age  to  make 
examples  and  presidents  in."  t  Crom- 
well found  prophecies,  counsels  in  the 
Bible  for  the  present  time,  positive  jus- 
tifications of  his  policy.  "  He  looked 
upon  the  Design  of  the  Lord  in  this 
day  to  be  the  freeing  of  His  People 
from  every  Burden,  and  that  was  now 
accomplishing  what  was  prophesied  in 
the  i  roth  Psalm :  from  the  Considera- 
tion of  which  he  was  often  encouraged  to 
attend  the  effecting  those  Ends,  spend- 
ing at  least  an  hour  in  the  Exposition 
of  that  Psalm."  f  Granted  that  he  was 

*  Burton's  Parliamentary  Diary,  ed.  by 
Rutt,  1828,  4  vols.  i.  54. 

t  Walker's  History  of  Independency,  1648, 
part  ii-  p.  49. 

t  This  passage  may  serve  as  an  example  of 
the  difficulties  and  perplexities  to  which  a 
translator  of  a  History  of  Literature  must 
always  be  exposed,  and  this  without  any  fault 
of  the  original  author.  A  6  uno  disce  omnes. 


a  schemer,  above  all  ambitious,  yet  he 
was  truly  fa  latical  and  sincere.  His 
doctor  related  that  he  had  been  very 
melancholy  for  years  at  a  time,  with 
strange  hallucinations,  and  the  frequent 
fancy  that  he  was  at  death's  door.  Two 
years  before  the  Revolution  he  wrote 
to  his  cousin  :  "  Truly  no  poor  crea 
ture  hath  more  cause  to  put  himself 
forth  in  the  cause  of  his  God  than  I 
.  .  .  The  Lord  accept  me  in  His  Son, 
and  give  me  to  walk  in  the  light  — 
and  give  us  to  walk  in*  the  light,  as 
He  is  the  light!  .  .  .  blessed  be 
His  Name  for  shining  upon  so  dark 
a  heart  as  mine  !  "  *  Certainly  he 
must  have  dreamed  of  becoming  a 
saint  as  well  as  a  king,  and  aspired  to 
salvation  as  well  as  to  a  throne.  At 
the  moment  when  he  was  proceeding  to 
Ireland,  and  was  about  to  massacre 
the  Catholics  there,  he  wrote  to  his 
daughter-in-law  a  letter  of  advice 
which  Baxter  or  Taylor  might  willingly 
have  subscribed.  In  the  midst  of  press- 
ing affairs,  in  1651,  he  thus  exhorted 
his  wife :  "  My  dearest,  I  could  not 
satisfy  myself  to  omit  this  post,  al- 
though I  have  not  much  to  write.  .  .  . 
It  joys  me  to  hear  thy  soul  prospereth  : 
the  Lord  increase  His  favors  to  thee 
more  and  more.  The  great  good  thy 
soul  can  wish  is,  That  the  Lord  lift 
upon  thee  the  light  of  His  countenance, 
which  is  better  than  life.  The  Lord 
bless  all  thy  good  counsel  and  example 
to  all  those  about  thee,  and  hear  all  thy 
prayers,  and  accept  thee  always."  * 
Dying,  he  asked  whether  grace  once 
received  could  be  lost,  and  was  reas- 

M.  Taine  says  that  Cromwell  found  justifica- 
tion for  his  policy  in  Psalm  cxiii.,  which,  on 
looking  out,  I  found  to  be  "  an  exhortation  to 
praise  God  for  His  excellency  and  for  Hig 
mercy," — a  psalm  by  which  Cromwell's  in- 
duct could  nowise  be  justified.  I  opened  then 
Carlyle's  CroimvelFs  Letters,  etc.,  and  saw, 
in  vol.  ii.  part  vi.  p.  157,  the  same  fact  stated, 
but  Psalm  ex.  mentioned  and  given, — a  fai 
more  likely  psalm  to  have  influenced  Cromwell. 
Carlyle  refers  to  Ludlo-w,  i.  319,  Taiae  to 
Guizot,  Portraits  Politiqnes,  p.  63,  and  to 
Carlyle.  In  looking  in  Guizot's  volume,  sth 
ed.,  1862,  I  find  that  this  writer  also  mentions 
Psalm  cxiii.  ;  but  on  referring  finally  to  tha 
Memoirs  of  Edmund  Lndlow,  printed  at 
Vivay  (sic)  in  the  Canton  of  Bern,  1698,  1  read, 
in  vol  i.  p.  319,  the  sentence,  as  given  above, 
therefore  Carlyle  was  right. — TR. 

*  CromwelCs  Letters  and  Speeches,  ed, 
Carlyle,  1866,  3  vols.  i.  79. 

t  Idem,  ii.  273. 


LHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


sured  to  learn  that  it  could  not,  being, 
as  he  said,  certain  that  he  had  once 
been  in  a  state  of  grace.  He  died  with 
this  prayer:  "Lord,  though  I  am  a 
miserable  and  wretched  creature,  I  am 
in  Convenant  with  Thee  through  grace. 
And  I  may,  I  will,  come  to  Thee,  for 
Thy  People.  Thou  hast  made  me, 
though  very  unworthy,  a  mean  instru- 
ment to  do  them  some  good,  and  Thee 
service.  .  .  .  Lord,  however  Thou  do 
dispose  of  me,  continue  and  go  on  to 
do  good  for  them  .  .  .  and  go  on  ... 
with  the  work  of  reformation ;  and 
make  the  Name  of  Christ  glorious  in 
the  world/'*  Underneath  this  prac- 
tical, prudent,  worldly  spirit,  there 
was  an  English  element  of  anxious  and 
powerful  imagination,  capable  of  en- 
gendering an  impassioned  Calvinism 
and  mystic  fears,  t  The  same  con- 
trasts were  jumbled  together  and  rec- 
onciled in  the  other  Independents.  In 
1648,  after  unsuccessful  tactics,  they 
were  in  danger  between  the  king  and 
the  Parliament ;  then  they  assembled 
for  several  days  together  at  Windsor 
to  confess  themselves  to  God,  and  seek 
His  assistance  ;  and  they  discovered 
that  all  their  evils  came  from  the  con- 
ferences they  had  had  the  weakness  tc 
propose  to  the  king.  "  And  in  this  path 
the  Lord  led  us/'  said  Adjutant  Allen, 
"  not  only  to  see  our  sin,  but  also  our 
duty  ;  and  this  so  unanimously  set  with 
weight  upon  each  heart  that  none  was 
able  hardly  to  speak  a  word  to  each 
other  for  bitter  weeping,  partly  in  the 
sense  and  shame  of  our  iniquities ;  of 
our  unbelief,  base  fear  of  men,  and  car- 
nal consultations  (as  the  fruit  thereof) 
with  our  own  wisdoms,  and  not  with 
the  Word  of  the  Lord."  J  Thereupon 
they  resolved  to  bring  the  king  to  judg- 
ment and  death,  and  did  as  they  had 
resolved. 

Around  them,  fanaticism  and  folly 
gained  ground.  Independents,  Millen- 
arians,  Antinomians,  Anabaptists,  Lib- 
ertines, Familists,  Quakers,  Enthusi- 
asts, Seekers,  Perfectionists,  Socinians, 
^Arians,  anti-Trinitarians,  anti-Scriptu- 
'ralists,  Skeptics  ;  the  list  of  sects  is  in- 

*  Cromwell's  Letters,  ed.  Carlyle,  iii.  373. 

4  See  his  speeches.  The  style  is  disjointed, 
ooscure,  impassioned,  out  of  the  common,  like 
that  of  a  man  who  is  not  master  of  his  wits,  and 
who  yet  sees  straight  by  a  sort  of  intuition. 

t  CromweWs  Letters,  i.  265. 


267 


terminable.  Women,  soldiers,  suddenly 
got  up  into  the  pulpit  and  preached 
The  strangest  ceremonies  took  place  in 
public.  In  1644,  says  Dr.  Featly,  the 
Anabaptists  rebaptized  a  hundred  men 
and  women  together  at  twilight,  ir 
streams,  in  branches  of  the  Thames, 
and  elsewhere,  plunging  them  in  the 
water  over  head  and  ears.  One  Gates, 
in  the  county  of  Essex,  was  brought 
before  a  jury  for  the  murder  of  Anne 
Martin,  who  died  a  few  days  after  her 
baptism  of  a  cold  which  had  seized  he' 
George  Fox  the  Quaker  spoke  wit- 
God,  and  witnessed  with  a  loud  voice,  in 
the  streets  and  market  places,  against 
the  sins  of  the  age.  William  Simpson, 
one  of  his  disciples,  "  was  moved  of 
the  Lord  to  go,  at  several  times,  for 
three  years,  naked  and  barefoot  before 
them,  as  a  sign  unto  them,  in  the  mar- 
kets, courts,  towns,  cities,  to  priests7 
houses,  and  to  great  men's  houses,  tell- 
ing them,  so  shall  they  all  be  stripped 
naked,  as  he  was  stripped  naked.  And 
sometime  he  was  moved  to  put  on  hair 
sackcloth,  and  to  besmear  his  face,  and 
to  tell  them,  so  would  the  Lord  be- 
smear all  their  religion  as  he  was  be- 
smeared.* 

"  A  female  came  into  Whitehall 
Chapel  stark  naked,  in  the  midst  of 
public  worship,  the  Lord  Protector  him- 
self being  present.  A  Quaker  came  to 
the  door  of  the  Parliament  House  with 
a  drawn  sword,  and  wounded  several 
who  were  present,  saying  that  he  was 
inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  kill  every 
man  that  sat  in  the  house."  The  Fifth 
Monarchy  men  believed  that  Christ 
was  about  to  descend  to  reign  in  per- 
son upon  earth  for  a  thousand  years* 
with  the  saints  for  His  ministers.  The 
Ranters  looked  upon  furious  vocifera- 
tions and  contortions  as  the  principal 
signs  of  faith.  The  Seekers  thought 
that  religious  truth  could  only  be  seized 
in  a  sort  of  mystical  fog,  with  doubt  and 
fear.  The  Muggletonians  decided  that 
"  John  Reeve  and  Ludovick  Muggleton 
were  the  two  last  prophets  and  messen- 
gers of  God ; "  they  declared  the 
Quakers  possessed  of  the  devil,  exor- 
cised him,  and  prophesied  that  William 
Penn  would  be  damned.  I  have  before 

*  A  Journal 'of  the  Life,  etc.,  of  that  An- 
cient, Eminent,  and  Faithful  Servant  oj 
Jesus  Christ,  George  Fox,  6th  edit.,  1836. 


268 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


mentioned  James  Nayler,  an  old  quar- 
termaster of  General  Lambert,  adored 
as  a  god  by  his  followers.  Several 
women  led  his  horse,  others  cast  before 
him  their  kerchiefs  and  scarves,  sing- 
ing, Holy,  holy,  Lord  God.  They 
called  him  "  lovely  among  ten  thou- 
sand, the  only  Son  of  God,  the  prophet 
of  the  Most  High,  King  of  Israel,  the 
eternal  Son  of  Justice,  the  Prince  of 
Peace,  Jesus,  him  in  whom  the  hope  of 
Israel  rests."  One  of  them,  Dorcas 
Erbury,  declared  that  she  had  lain  dead 
for  two  whole  days  in  her  prison  in 
Exeter  Gaol,  and  that  Nayler  had  re- 
stored her  to  life  by  laying  his  hands 
upon  her.  Sarah  Blackbury  finding 
him  a  prisoner,  took  him  by  the  hand 
and  said,  "  Rise  up  my  love,  my  dove, 
my  fairest  one :  why  stayest  thou 
among  the  pots  ? "  Then  she  kissed 
his  hand  and  fell  down  before  him. 
When  he  was  put  in  the  pillory,  some 
of  his  disciples  began  to  sing,  weep, 
smite  their  breasts ;  others  kissed  his 
hands,  rested  on  his  bosom,  and  kissed 
his  wounds.*  Bedlam  broken  loose 
could  not  have  surpassed  them. 

Underneath  the  surface  and  these 
disorderly  bubbles  the  wise  and  deep 
strata  of  the  nation  had  settled,  and 
the  new  faith  was  doing  its  work  with 
them, — a  practical  and  positive,  a  po- 
litical and  moral  work.  Whilst  the 
German  Reformation,  after  the  German 
wont,  resulted  in  great  volumes  and  a 
scholastic  system,  the  English  Refor- 
mation, after  the  English  wont,  resulted 
in  action  and  establishment.  "  How 
the  Church  of  Christ  shall  be  gov- 
erned ;  "  that  was  the  great  question 
which  was  discussed  among  the  sects. 
The  House  of  Commons  a&ked  the 
Assembly  of  Divines  :  If  the  classical, 
provincial,  and  local  assemblies  were 
jure  divino,  and  instituted  by  the  will 
and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ?  If 
they  were  all  so  ?  If  only  some  were 
so,  and  which  ?  If  appeals  carried  by 
the  elders  of  a  congregation  to  provin- 
cial, departmental,  and  national  assem- 
blies were/zm?  divino,  and  according  to 
the  will  and  appointment  of  Jesus 
Christ  ?  If  some  only  were  jure  divino  ? 
And  which  ?  If  the  power  of  the 

*  Burton's  Parliamentary  Diary,  \.  46- 
173.  Neal,  History  of  the  Puritans,  iii., 

luppk. 


assemblies  in  such  appeals  was  jurt 
divino,  and  by  the  will  and  appointment 
of  Jesus  Christ  ?  and  a  hundred  other 
questions  of  the  same  kind.  Parlia-  ' 
ment  declared  that,  according  to  Scrip- 
ture, the  dignities  of  priest  and  bishop 
were  equal;  it  regulated  ordinations, 
convocations,  excommunications,  juris- 
dictions, elections  ;  spent  half  its  time 
and  exerted  all  its  power  in  establish- 
ing the  Presbyterian  Church.*  So, 
with  the  Independents,  fervor  engen- 
dered courage  and  discipline.  "  Crom- 
well's regiment  of  horse  were  most  of 
them  freeholders'  sons,  who  engaged  in 
the  war  upon  principles  of  conscience  ; 
and  that  being  well  armed  within,  by 
the  satisfaction  of  their  consciences, 
and  without  with  good  iron  arms,  they 
would  as  one  man  stand  firmly  and 
charge  desperately."  t  This  army,  in 
which  inspired  corporals  preached  to 
lukewarm  colonels,  acted  with  the  so- 
lidity and  precision  of  a  Russian  regi- 
ment :  it  was  a  duty,  a  duty  towards 
God,  to  fire  straight  and  march  in  good 
order  ;  and  a  perfect  Christian  made  a 
perfect  soldier.  There  was  no  separa- 
tion here  between  theory  and  practice, 
between  private  and  public  life,  between 
the  spiritual  and  the  temporal.  They 
wished  to  apply  Scripture  to  "  establish 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth,"  to 
institute  not  only  a  Christian  Church, 
but  a  Christian  Society,  to  change  the 
law  into  a  guardian  of  morals,  to  com- 
pel men  to  piety  and  virtue  ;  and  for  a 
while  they  succeeded  in  it.  "  Though 
the  discipline  of  the  church  was  at  an 
end,  there  was  nevertheless  an  uncom- 
mon spirit  of  devotion  among  people 
in  the  parliament  quarters ;  the  Lord's 
day  was  observed  with  remarkable 
strictness,  the  churches  being  crowded 
with  numerous  and  attentive  hearers 
three  or  four  times  in  the  day ;  the 
officers  of  the  peace  patrolled  the 
streets,  and  shut  up  all  publick  houses  ; 
there  was  no  travelling  on  the  road,  or 
walking  in  the  fields,  except  in  cases  of 
absolute  necessity.  Religious  exercises 
were  set  up  in  private  families,  as  read- 
ing the  Scriptures,  family  prayer,  re-" 
peating  sermons,  and  singing  of  psalms, 
which  was  so  universal,  that  you  might 

*  See  Neal,  Hist,  of  the  Puritans,  ii.  418- 
45°- 
t  Wiiitelocke's  Memorials,  i.  68. 


CHAP   V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


walk  through  the  city  of  London  on  the 
evening  of  the  Lord's  day,  without  see- 
ing an  idle  person,  or  hearing  any  thing 
but  the  voice  of  prayer  or  praise  from 
churches  and  private  houses."  *  People 
would  rise  before  daybreak,  and  walk 
a  great  distance  to  be  able  to  hear  the 
word  of  God.  "  There  were  no  gam- 
ing-houses, or  houses  of  pleasure  ;  no 
profane  swearing,  drunkenness,  or  any 
kind  of  debauchery."!  The  Parlia- 
mentary soldiers  came  in  great  num- 
bers to  listen  to  sermons,  spoke  of  re- 
ligion, prayed  and  sang  psalms  to- 
gether, when  on  duty.  In  1644  Parlia- 
ment forbade  the  sale  of  commodities 
on  Sunday,  and  ordained  "  that  no  per- 
son shall  travel,  or  carry  a  burden,  or 
do  any  worldly  labor,  upon  penalty  of 
los.  for  the  traveller,  and  55.  for  every 
burden.  That  no  person  shall  on  the 
Lord's  day  use,  or  be  present  at,  any 
wrestling,  shooting,  fowling,  ringing  of 
bells  for  pleasure,  markets,  wakes, 
church-ales,  dancing,  games  or  sports 
whatsoever,  upon  penalty  of  55.  to 
every  one  above  fourteen  years  of  age. 
And  if  children  are  found  offending  in 
the  premises,  their  parents  or  guardians 
to  forfeit  I2d.  for  every  offence.  If  the 
several  fines  above  mentioned  cannot 
be  levied,  the  offending  party  shall  be 
set  in  the  stocks  for  the  space  of  three 
hours."  When  the  Independents  were 
in  power,  severity  became  still  greater. 
The  officers  in  the  army,  having  con- 
victed one  of  their  quartermasters  of 
blasphemy,  condemned  him  to  have 
his  tongue  bored  with  a  red-hot  iron, 
his  sword  broken  over  his  head,  and 
himself  to  be  dismissed  from  the  army. 
During  Cromwell's  expedition  in  Ire- 
land, we  read  that  no  blasphemy  was 
heard  in  the  camp ;  the  soldiers  spent 
their  leisure  hours  in  reading  the  Bible, 
singing  psalms,  and  holding  religious 
controversies.  In  1650  the  punish- 
ments inflicted  on  Sabbath-breakers 
were  doubled.  Stern  laws  were  passed 
against  betting,  gallantry  was  reckoned 
a  crime ;  the  theatres  were  destroyed, 
the  spectators  fined,  the  actors  whipt 

*  Neal,  ii.  553.  Compare  with  the  French 
Revolution.  When  the  Bastille  was  demol- 
ished, they  wrote  on  the  ruins  these  words: 
"  Tci  Ton  danse."  From  this  contrast  we  see 
the  difference  between  the  two  systems  and  the 
two  nations. 

1  Neal,  Hist,  of  the  Puritans,  ii.  555. 


269 


at  the  cart's  tail ;  adultery  punished 
with  death:  in  order  to  reach  crime 
more  surely,  they  persecuted  pleasure. 
But  if  they  were  austere  against  others, 
they  were  so  against  themselves,  and 
practised  the  virtues  they  exacted. 
After  the  Restoration,  two  thousand 
ministers,  rather  than  conform  to  the 
new  liturgy,  resigned  their  cures,  though 
they  and  their  families  had  to  die  of 
hunger.  Many  of  them,  says  Baxter, 
thinking  that  they  were  not  justified  "a 
quitting  their  ministry  after  being  set 
apart  for  it  by  ordination,  preached  to 
such  as  would  hear  them  in  the  fields 
and  in  certain  houses,  until  they  were 
seized  and  thrown  into  prisons,  where 
a  great  number  of  them  perished. 
Cromwell's  fifty  thousand  veterans, 
suddenly  disbanded  and  without  re- 
sources, did  not  bring  a  single  recruit 
to  the  vagabonds  and  bandits.  "  The 
Royalists  themselves  confessed  that,  in 
every  department  of  honest  industry, 
the  discarded  warriors  prospered  be- 
yond other  men,  that  none  was  charged 
with  any  theft  or  robbery,  that  none 
was  heard  to  ask  an  alms,  and  that,  if  a 
baker,  a  mason,  or  a  wagoner,  attract- 
ed notice  by  his  diligence  and  sobriety, 
he  was  in  all  probability  one  of  Oliver's 
old  soldiers."  *  Purified  by  persecu- 
tion and  ennobled  by  patience,  they 
ended  by  winning  the  tolerance  of  the 
law  and  the  respect  of  the  public,  and 
raised  national  morality,  as  they  had 
saved  national  liberty.  But  others,  ex- 
iles in  America,  pushed  to  the  extreme 
this  great  religious  and  stoical  spirit, 
with  its  weaknesses  and  its  power,  with 
its  vices  and  its  virtues.  Their  deter- 
mination, intensified  by  a  fervent  faith, 
employed  in  political  and  practical  pur- 
suits, invented  the  science  of  emigra- 
tion, made  exile  tolerable,  drove  back 
the  Indians,  fertilized  the  desert,  raised 
a  rigid  morality  into  a  civil  law,  founded 
and  armed  a  church,  and  on  the  Bible 
as  a  basis  built  up  a  new  state.! 

*  Macaulay,  Hist,  of  England,  ed.  Lady 
Trevelyan,  i.  121. 

t  A  certain  John  Denis  was  publicly  whipt 
for  haying  sung  a  profane  song.  Mathias,  a 
ittle  girl,  having  given  some  roasted  chestnuts 
:o  Jeremiah  Bposy,  and  told  him  ironically 
:hat  he  might  give  them  back  to  her  in  Para- 
dise, was  ordered  to  ask  pardon  three  times  in 
church,  and  to  be  three  days  on  bread  and 
water  in  prison.  1660-1670  ;  records  of  Mass»> 
chusetts. 


270 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  I 


That  was  not  a  conception  of  life 
from  which  a  genuine  literature  might 
be  expected  to  issue.  The  idea  of  the 
beautiful  is  wanting,  and  what  is  a  lit- 
erature without  that  ?  The  natural  ex- 
pression of  the  heart's  emotions  is  pro- 
scribed, and  what  is  a  literature  without 
that  ?  They  abolished  as  impious  the 
free  stage  and  the  rich  poesy  which  the 
Renaissance  had  brought  them.  They 
rejected  as  profane  the  ornate  style  and 
copious  eloquence  which  had  been  es- 
tablished around  them  by  the  imitation 
of  antiquity  and  of  Italy.  They  mis- 
trusted reason,  and  were  incapable  of 
philosophy.  They  ignored  the  divine 
languor  of  the  Imitatio  Christi  and  the 
touching  tenderness  of  the  Gospel. 
Their  character  exhibits  only  manliness, 
their  conduct  austerity,  their  mind  pre- 
ciseness.  We  find  amongst  them  only 
excited  theologians,  minute  controver- 
sialists, energetic  men  of  action,  narrow 
and  patient  minds,  engrossed  in  posi- 
tive proofs  and  practical  labors,  void  of 
general  ideas  and  refined  tastes,  dulled 
by  texts,  dry  and  obstinate  reasoners, 
who  twistedi  the  Scripture  in  order  to 
extract  from  it  a  form  of  government 
or  a  table  of  dogma.  What  could  be 
narrower  or  more  repulsive  than  these 
pursuits  and  wrangles  ?  A  pamphlet 
of  the  time  petitions  for  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  draws  its  arguments  (i) 
from  the  parable  of  the  wheat  and  the 
tares  which  grow  together  till  the  har- 
vest ;  (2)  from  this  maxim  of  the  Apos- 
tles, Let  every  man  be  thoroughly  per- 
suaded in  his  own  mind  ;  (3)  from  this 
text,  Whatsoever  is  not  of  faith  is  sin  ; 
(4)  from  this  divine  rule  of  our  Saviour, 
]3o  to  others  what  you  would  they 
should  do  unto  you.  Later,  when  the 
angry  Commons  desired  to  pass  judg- 
ment on  James  Nayler,  the  trial  became 
entangled  in  an  endless  juridical  and 
theological  discussion,  some  declaring 
that  the  crime  committed  was  idolatry, 
others  seduction,  all  emptying  out  be- 
fore the  house  their  armory  of  com- 
mentaries and  texts.*  Seldom  has  a 

*  "  Upon  the  common  sense  of  Scripture," 
said  Major-general  Disbrowe,  "  there  are  few 
but  do  commit  blasphemy,  as  our  Saviour  puts 
't  in  Mark  :  '  sins,  blasphemies  ;  if  so,  then 
.one  without  blasphemy.'  1 1  was  charged  upon 
David,  and  Eli's  son,  '  them  hast  blasphemed, 
or  caused  others  to  blaspheme.'  " — Burton's 
Diary,  i.  54 


generation  been  i  Jund  more  mutilate 
in  all  the  faculties  which  produce  con- 
templation and  ornament,  more  reduced 
to  the  faculties  which  nourish  discus- 
sion and  morality.  Like  a  beautiful 
insect  which  has  become  transformed 
and  has  lost  its  wings,  so  we  see  the 
poetic  generation  of  Elizabeth  disap- 
pear, leaving  in  its  place  but  a  sluggish 
caterpillar,  a  stubborn  and  useful  sp  i 
ner,  armed  with  industrious  feet  aid 
formidable  jaws,  spending  its  existen:e 
in  eating  into  old  leaves  and  devouring 
its  enemies.  They  are  without  style  ; 
they  speak  like  business  men  ;  at  most, 
here  and  there,  a  pamphlet  of  Prynne 
possesses  a  little  vigor.  Their  histories, 
like  May's  for  instance,  are  flat  and 
heavy.  Their  memoirs,  even  those  of 
Ludlowand  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  are  long, 
wearisome,  mere  statements,  destitute 
of  personal  feelings,  void  of  enthusiasm 
or  entertaining  matter  ;  "  they  seem  to 
ignore  themselves,  and  are  engrossed 
by  the  general  prospects  of  their 
cause/'*  Good  works  of  piety,  solid 
and  convincing  sermons  ;  sincere,  edi- 
fying, exact,  methodical  books,  like 
those  of  Baxter,  Barclay,  Calamy,  John 
Owen  ;  personal  narratives,  like  that  of 
Baxter,  like  Fox's  journal,  Bunyan's 
life,  a  large  collection  of  documents  and 
arguments,  conscientiously  arranged, — 
this  is  all  they  offer  ;  the  Puritan  de- 
stroys the  artist,  stiffens  the  man,  fetters 
the  writer ;  and  leaves  of  artist,  man, 
writer,  only  a  sort  of  abstract  being, 
the  slave  of  a  watchword.  If  a  Milton 
springs  up  amongst  them,  it  is  because 
by  his  great  curiosity,  his  travels,  his 
comprehensive  education,  above  all  by 
his  youth  saturated  in  the  grand  poetry 
of  the  preceding  age,  and  by  his  inde- 
pendence of  spirit,  haughtily  defended 
even  against  the  sectarians,  Milton 
passes  beyond  sectarianism.  Strictly 
speaking,  the  Puritans  could  but  have 
one  poet,  an  involuntary  poet,  a  mad- 
man, a  martyr,  a  hero,  and  a  victim  of 
grace  ;  a  genuine  preacher,  who  attains 
the  beautiful  by  chance,  whilst  pursuing 
the  useful  on  principle  ;  a  poor  tinker, 
who,  employing  images  so  as  to  be  un« 
derstood  by  mechanics,  sailors,  servant- 
girls,  attained,  without  pretending  to  it, 
eloquence  and  high  art. 

*  Guizot,  Portraits  Politiques>  5th  ed,,  i86a* 


: 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


271 


VI. 


Next  to  the  Bible,  the  book  most 
widely  read  in  England  is  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  by  John  Bunyan.  The  reason 
is,  that  the  basis  of  Protestantism  is 
the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  grace,  and 
that  no  writer  has  equalled  Bunyan  in 
making  this  doctrine  understood. 

To  treat  well  of  supernatural  impres- 
sions, a  man  must  have  been  subject  to 
them.  Bunyan  had  that  kind  of  imag- 
ination which  produces  them.  Power- 
ful as  that  of  an  artist,  but  more  vehe- 
ment, this  imagination  worked  in  the 
man  without  his  co-operation,  and  be- 
sieged him  with  visions  which  he  bad 
neither  willed  nor  foreseen.  From  that 
moment  there  was  in  him  as  it  were  a 
second  self,  ruling  the  first,  grand  and 
terrible,  whose  apparitions  were  sud- 
den, its  motions  unknown,  which  re- 
doubled or  crushed  his  faculties,  pros- 
trated or  transported  him,  bathed  him  in 
the  sweat  of  agony,  ravished  him  with 
trances  of  joy,  and  which  by  its  force, 
strangeness,  independence,  impressed 
upon  him  the  presence  and  the  action 
of  a  foreign  and  superior  master.  Bun- 
yan, like  Saint  Theresa,  was  from  in- 
fancy "  greatly  troubled  with  the 
thoughts  of  the  fearful  torments  of 
hell-fire,"  sad  in  the  midst  of  pleasures, 
believing  himself  damned,  and  so  de- 
spairing, that  he  wished  he  was  a  devil, 
"  supposing  they  were  only  tormentors  : 
that  if  it  must  needs  be  that  I  went 
thither,  I  might  be  rather  a  tormentor, 
than  be  tormented  myself."  *  There 
already  was  the  assault  of  exact  and 
bodily  images.  Under  their  influence 
reflection  ceased,  and  the  man  was  sud- 
denly spurred  into  action.  The  first 
movement  carried  him  with  closed  eyes, 
as  down  a  steep  slope,  into  mad  resolu- 
tions. One  day,  "  being  in  the  field,with 
my  companions,  it  chanced  that  an  ad- 
der passed  over  the  highway  ;  so  I, 
having  a  stick,  struck  her  over  the 
back ;  and  having  stunned  her,  I  forced 
open  her  mouth  with  my  stick,  and 
plucked  her  sting  out  with  my  fingers, 
by  which  act,  had  not  God  been  merci- 
ful tome,  I  might,  by  my  desperateness, 
have  brought  myself  to  my  end."  t  In 
his  first  approaches  to  conversion  he 

*  Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners, 
§7-  t  Ibid.  §  12. 


was  extreme  in  his  emotions,  and  pene- 
trated to  the  heart  by  the  sight  of  phys- 
ical objects,  "  adoring  "  priest,  service, 
altar,  vestment.  "  This  conceit  grew 
so  strong  upon  my  spirit,  that  had  1 
but  seen  a  priest  (though  never  so 
sordid  and  debauched  in  his  life),  I 
should  find  my  spirit  fall  under  him, 
reverence  him,  and  knit  unto  him  ;  yea, 
I  thought,  for  the  love  I  did  bear  unto 
them  (supposing  they  were  the  minis- 
ters of  God),  I  could  have  laid  down  al 
their  feet,  and  have  been  trampled  upon 
by  them;  their  name,  their  garb,  and 
work  did  so  intoxicate  and  bewitch 
me."  *  Already  his  ideas  clung  to  him 
with  that  irresistible  hold  which  consti- 
tutes monomania ;  no  matter  how  ab- 
surd they  were,  they  ruled  him,  not  by 
their  truth,  but  by  their  presence.  The 
thought  of  an  impossible  danger  terri» 
fied  him  just  as  much  as  the  sight  of  an 
imminent  peril.  As  a  man  hung  over 
an  abyss  by  a  sound  rope,  he  forgot 
that  the  rope  was  sound,  and  he  became 
giddy.  After  the  fashion  of  English 
villagers,  he  loved  bell-ringing  ;  when 
he  became  a  Puritan,  he  considered  the 
amusement  profane,  and  gave  it  up ; 
yet,  impelled  by  his  desire,  he  would  go 
into  the  belfry  and  watch  the  ringers. 
"  But  quickly  after,  I  began  to  think, 
1  How  if  one'  of  the  bells  should  fall  ?  ' 
Then  I  chose  to  stand  under  a  main 
beam,  that  lay  overthwart  the  steeple, 
from  side  to  side,  thinking  here  I  might 
stand  sure  ;  but  then  I  thought  again, 
should  the  bell  fall  with  a  swing,  it 
might  first  hit  the  wall,  and  then  re- 
bounding upon  me,  might  kill  me  for 
all  this  beam.  This  made  me  stand  in 
the  steeple-door ;  and  now,  tho  ight  I, 
I  am  safe  enough,  for  if  a  bell  should 
then  fall,  I  can  slip  out  behind  these 
thick  walls,  and  so  be  preserved  not- 
withstanding. So  after  this  I  would 
yet  go  to  see  them  ring,  but  would  not 
go  any  farther  than  the  steeple-door ; 
but  then  it  came  into  my  head,  '  How  if 
the  steeple  itself  should  fall?'  And 
this  thought  (it  may,  for  aught  I  know, 
when  I  stood  and  looked  on)  did  con- 
tinually so  shake  my  mind,  that  I  durst 
not  stand  at  the  steeple-door  any  longer, 
but  was  forced  to  flee,  for  fear  the  stee- 
ple should  fall  upon  my  head."  t  Fre- 
quently the  mere  conception  of  a  sin 

*  Ibid.  §   17.  t  Ibid.  §§  33,  34- 


272 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


became  for  him  a  temptation  so  invol- 
untary and  so  strong,  that  he  felt  upon 
him  the  sharp  claw  of  the  devil.  The 
fixed  idea  swelled  in  his  head  like  a 
painful  abscess,  full  of  all  sensitiveness 
and  of  all  his  life's  blood.  "  Now  no 
sin  would  serve  but  that  ;  if  it  were  to 
be  committed  by  speaking  of  such  a 
word,  then  I  have  been  as  if  my  mouth 
would  have  spoken  that  word  whether 
I  would  or  no ;  and  in  so  strong  a  meas- 
ure was  the  temptation  upon  me,  that 
often  I  have  been  ready  to  clap  my 
hands  under  my  chin,  to  hold  my  mouth 
from  opening ;  at  other  times,  to  leap 
with  my  head  downward  into  some 
muckhill  hole,  to  keep  my  mouth  from 
speaking."  *  Later,  in  the  middle  of  a 
sermon  which  he  was  preaching,  he  was 
assailed  by  blasphemous  thoughts  ;  the 
word  came  to  his  lips,  and  all  his  power 
of  resistance  was  barely  able  to  restrain 
the  muscle  excited  by  the  tyrannous 
brain. 

Once  the  minister  of  the  parish  was 
preaching  against  the  sin  of  dancing, 
oaths,  and  games,  when  he  was  struck 
with  the  idea  that  the  sermon  was  for 
him,  and  returned  home  full  of  trouble. 
But  he  ate  ;  his  stomach  being  charged, 
discharged  his  brain, and  his  remorse  was 
dispersed.  Like  a  true  child,  entirely  ab- 
sorbed by  the  emotion  of  the  moment,  he 
was  transported,  jumped  out,  and  ran  to 
the  sports.  He  had  thrown  his  ball, 
and  was  about  to  begin  again,  when  a 
voice  from  heaven  suddenly  pierced 
his  soul.  "  '  Wilt  thou  leave  thy  sins 
and  go  to  heaven,  or  have  thy  sins  and 
go  to  hell  ? '  At  this  I  was  put  to  an 
exceeding  maze  ;  wherefore,  leaving  my 
cap  upon  the  ground,  I  looked  up  to 
heaven,  and  was  as  if  I  had  with  the 
eyes  of  my  understanding,  seen  the 
Lord  Jesus  look  down  upon  me,  as 
being  very  hotly  displeased  with  me, 
and  as  if  He  did  severely  threaten  me 
with  some  grievous  punishment  for 
these  and  other  ungodly  practices."  t 
Suddenly  reflecting  that  his  sins  were 
very  great,  and  that  he  would  certainly 
be  damned  whatever  he  did,  he  re- 
solved to  enjoy  himself  in  the  mean 
time,  and  to  sin  as  much  as  he  could  in 
this  life.  He  took  up  his  ball  again,  re- 
commenced the  game  with  ardor,  and 
swore  louder  and  oftener  than  ever.  A 

*  Grace  AboiMtdin^t  §  103.      t  Ibid.  §  22. 


month  afterwards,  being  reproved  by  a 
woman,  "  I  was  silenced,  and  put  to  se- 
cret shame,  and  that  too,  as  I  thought, 
before  the  God  of  heaven  :  wherefore, 
while  I  stood  there,  hanging  down  my 
head,  I  wished  that  I  might  be  a  little 
child  again,  and  that  my  father  might 
learn  me  to  speak  without  this  wicked 
way  of  swearing  ;  for,  thought  I,  I  am 
so  accustomed  to  it,  that  it  is  in  vain  to 
think  of  a  reformation,  for  that  could 
never  be.  But  how  it  came  to  pass  I 
know  not, I  did  from  this  time  forward  so 
leave  my  swearing,  that  it  was  a  great 
wonder  to  myself  to  observe  it ;  and 
whereas  before  I  knew  not  how  to 
speak  unless  I  put  an  oath  before,  and 
another  behind,  to  make  my  words 
have  authority,  now  I  could  without  it 
speak  better,  and  with  more  pleasant- 
ness, than  ever  I  could  before."  *  These 
sudden  alternations,  these  vehement 
resolutions,  this  unlooked-for  renewal 
of  heart,  are  the  products  of  an  invol- 
untary and  impassioned  imagination, 
which  by  its  hallucinations,  its  mastery, 
its  fixed  ideas,  its  mad  ideas,  prepares 
the  way  for  a  poet,  and  announces  an 
inspired  man. 

In  him  circumstances  develop  char- 
acter ;  his  kind  of  life  develops  his 
kind  of  mind.  He  was  born  in  the 
lowest  and  most  despised  rank,  a  tink- 
er's son,  himself  a  wandering  tinker, 
with  a  wife  as  poor  as  himself,  so  that 
they  had  not  a  spoon  or  a  dish  between 
them.  He  had  been  taught  in  child- 
hood to  read  and  write,  but  he  had 
since  "  almost  wholly  lost  what  he  had 
learned."  Education  diverts  and*  dis- 
ciplines a  man ;  fills  him  with  varied 
and  rational  ideas  ;  prevents  him  from 
sinking  into  monomania  or  being  ex- 
cited by  transport;  gives  him  deter- 
minate 'thoughts  instead  of  eccentric 
fancies,  pliable  opinions  for  fixed  con- 
victions ;  replaces  impetuous  images 
by  calm  reasonings,  sudden  resolves  by 
carefully  weighed  decisions  ;  furnishes 
us  with  the  wisdom  and  ideas  of 
others;  gives  us  conscience  and  self- 
command.  Suppress  this  reason  and 
this  discipline,  and  consider  the  poor 
ignorant  working  man  at  his  toil ;  his 
head  works  while  his  hands  work,  not 
ably,  with  methods  acquired  from  any 
logic  he  might  have  mustered,  but  with 
*  Ibid.  §§37  and  28. 


CHAP.   V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


273 


dark  emotions,   beneath  a  disorderly 
flow    of    confused    images.     Morning 
and   evening,   the    hammer   which   he 
uses  in   his   trade,  drives   in   with   its 
deafening   sounds   the    same   thought 
perpetually    returning    and    self-com- 
muning.    A  troubled,  obstinate  vision 
floats  before  him  in  the  brightness   oi 
the   hammered    and   quivering   metal, 
In  the  red  furnace  where  the  iron   is 
glowing,  in  the  clang  of  the  hammered 
brass,  in  the  black  corners  where  the 
damp  shadow  creeps,  he  sees  the  flame 
and  darkness  of  hell,  and  the  rattling 
of  eternal  chains.     Next  day  he  sees 
the    same   image,   the   day   after,   the 
whole  week,  month,  year.     His  brow 
wrinkles,  his  eyes  grow  sad,  and  his 
wife  hears  him  groan  in  the  night-time. 
She  remembers  that   she  has  two  vol- 
umes in  an  old  bag,  The  Plain  Marts 
Pathway  to  Heaven  and    The  Practice 
of  Piety  ;  he  spells  them  out  to  console 
himself ;  and  the  printed  thoughts,  al- 
ready  sublime    in    themselves,   made 
more  so   by  the   slowness  with  which 
they  are  read,  sink  like  an  oracle  into 
his  subdued  faith.     The  braziers  of  the 
devils — the  golden  harps  of  heaven — 
the   bleeding   Christ   on   the   cross,. — 
each  of  these  deep-rooted  ideas  sprouts 
poisonously  or  wholesomely  in  his  dis- 
eased brain,  spreads,  pushes  out  and 
springs  higher  with   a  ramification  of 
fresh  visions,  so  crowded,  that  in  his 
encumbered  mind  he   has  no  further 
place   nor   air  for    more   conceptions. 
Will  he  rest  when  he  sets  forth  in  the 
winter  on  his  tramp  ?    During  his  long 
solitary  wanderings,  over  wild  heaths, 
in   cursed    and   haunted   bogs,  always 
abandoned  to   his    own   thoughts,  the 
inevitable  idea    pursues  him.     These 
neglected  roads  where  he  sticks  in  the 
mud,  these  sluggish  dirty  rivers  which 
he  crosses  on   the   cranky  ferry-boat, 
these  menacing  whispers  of  the  woods 
at  night,  when  in  perilous  places  the 
•ivid    moon    shadows   out    ambushed 
forms,  —  all  that   he  sees   and   hears 
falls  into  an  involuntary  poem  around 
the  one  absorbing  idea  ;  thus  it  changes 
into  a  vast    body  of  visible  legends, 
and  multiplies  its  power  as  it  multi- 
plies its  details.  Having  become  a  dis- 
senter, Bunyan  is  shut  up  for  twelve 
years,    having    no    other    amusement 
but  the  Book  of  Martyrs  and  the   Bi- 


ble, in  one  of  those  pestiferous  pris- 
ons where  the  Puritans  rotted  under 
the  Restoration.  There  he  is,  stil! 
alone,  thrown  back  upon  himself  by 
the  monotony  of  his  dungeon,  besieged 
by  the  terrors  of  the  old  Testament,  by 
the  vengeful  out-pourings  of  the  proph- 
ets, by  the  thunder-striking  words  of 
Paul,  by  the  spectacle  of  trances  anc 
of  martyrs,  face  to  face  with  God,  now 
in  despair,  now  consoled,  troubled 
with  involuntary  images  and  unlooked- 
for  emotions,  seeing  alternately  devil 
and  angels,  the  actor  and  the  witness 
of  an  internal  drama  whose  vicissi- 
tudes he  is  able  to  relate.  He  writes 
them  :  it  is  his  book.  You  see  now 
the  condition  of  this  inflamed  brain. 
Poor  in  ideas,  full  of  images,  given  up 
to  a  fixed  and  single  thought,  plunge c. 
into  this  thought  by  his  mechanical 
pursuit,  by  his  prison  and  his  readings, 
by  his  knowledge  and  his  ignorance, 
circumstances,  like  nature,  make  him 
a  visionary  and  an  artist,  furnish  him 
with  supernatural  impressions  and  vis- 
ible images,  teaching  him  the  history 
of  grace  and  the  means  of  expressing 
it. 

The  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  a  manual 
of  devotion  for  the  use  of  simple  folk, 
whilst  it  is  an  allegorical  poem  of  grace. 
In  it  we  hear  a  man  of  the  people 
speaking  to  the  people,  who  would  ren- 
der intelligible  to  all  the  terrible  doc- 
trine of  damnation  and  salvation.*  Ac- 
cording to  Bunyan,  we  are  "  children  of 

*  This  is  an  abstract  of  the  events : — From 
highest  heaven  a  voice  has  proclaimed  vengeance 
against  the  City  of  Destruction,  where  lives  a 
sinner  of  the  name  of  Christian.  _  Terrified,  he 
rises  up  amid  the  jeers  of  his  neighbours,  and 
departs,  for  fear  of  being  devoured  by  the  fire 
which  is  to  consume  the  criminals.  A  helpful 
man,  Evangelist^  shows  him  the  right  road.  A 
treacherous  man,  Worldlywise,  tries  to  turn 
him  aside.  His  companion,  Pliable,  who  had 
followed  him  at  first,  gets  stuck  in  the  Slough 
of  Despond,  and  leaves  him.  He  advances 
Draveiy  across  the  dirty  water  and  the  slipperj 
mud,  and  reaches  the  Strait  Gate,  where  a 
wise  Interpreter  instructs  him  by  visible  shows, 
and  points  out  the  way  to  the  Heavenly  City. 
He  passes  before  a  cross,  and  the  heavy  burden 
of  sins,  which  he  carried  on  his  back,  is  loosen- 
ed and  falls  off.  He  painfully  climbs  the  steep 
hill  of  Difficulty,  and  reaches  a  great  castle, 
where  Watchful,  the  guardian,  gives  him  in 
charge  to  his  good  daughters  Piety  and  Prw 
dence,  who  warn  him  and  arm  him  against  the 
monsters  of  hell.  He  finds  his  road  barred  by 
one  of  these  demons,  Apollyon,  who  bids  him 
abjure  obedience  to  the  heavenly  King.  After 
12* 


274 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


wrath,"  condemned  from  our  birth, 
guilty  by  nature,  justly  predestined  to 
destruction.  Beneath  this  formidable 
thought  the  heart  gives  way.  The  un- 
happy man  relates  how  he  trembled  in 
all  his  limbs,  and  in  his  fits  it  seemed 
to  him  as  though  the  bones  of  his  chest 
would  break.  "  One  day,"  he  tells  us, 
"  I  walked  to  a  neighboring  town,  and 
sat  down  upon  a  settle  in  the  street, 
and  fell  into  a  very  deep  pause  about 
the  most  fearful  state  my  sin  had 
brought  me  to  ;  and  after  long  musing, 
I  lifted  up  my  head,  but  methought  I 
saw,  as  if  the  sun  that  shineth  in  the 
heavens  did  grudge  to  give  light ;  and 
as  if  the  very  stones  in  the  street,  and 
tiles  upon  the  houses,  did  band  them- 
selves against  me.  O  how  happy  now 
was  every  creature  over  I  was !  For 
they  stood  fast,  and  kept  their  station, 
but  I  was  gone  and  lost/'  *  The  devils 
gathered  together  against  the  repentant 
sinner  ;  they  choked  his  sight,  besieged 
him  with  phantoms,  yelled  at  his  side 
to  drag  him  down  their  precipices  ;  and 
the  black  valley  into  which  the  pilgrim 
plunges,  almost  matches  by  the  horror 
of  its  symbols  the  agony  of  the  terrors 
by  which  he  is  assailed : — 

"  I  saw  then  in  my  Dream,  so  far  as  this 
Valley  reached,  there  was  on  the  right  hand  a 
very  deep  Ditch  ;  that  Ditch  is  it  into  which 
the  blind  have  led  the  blind  in  all  ages,  and 
have  both  there  miserably  perished.  Again,  be- 
ho]d  on  the  left  hand,  there  was  a  very  danger- 
ous Quag,  into  which,  if  even  a  good  man  falls, 
he  can  find  uo  bottom  for  his  foot  to  stand 
on.  ... 

"  The  path-way  was  here  also  exceeding  nar- 
row, and  therefore  good  Christian  was  the 

a  long  fight  he  conquers  him.  Yet  the  way 
grows  narrow,  the  shades  fall  thicker,  sulphur- 
ous flames  rise  along  the  road:  it  is  the  valley 
of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  He  passes  it,  and 
arrives  at  the  town  of  Vanity,  a  vast  fair  of 
ou-iness,  deceits,  and  shows,  which  hewalksby 
writh  lowered  eyes,  not  wishing  to  take  part  in 
its  festivities  or  falsehoods.  The  people  of  the 
place  beat  him,  throw  him  into  prison,  condemn 
him  as  a  traitor  and  rebel,  burn  his  companion 
Faithful.  Escaped  from  their  hands,  he  falls 
into  those  of  Giant  Despair*  who  beats  him, 
leaves  him  in  a  poisonous  dungeon  without 
food,  and  giving  him  daggers  and  cords,  advises 
him  to  rid  hin;-eif  from  so  many  misfortunes. 
At  last  he  reaches  the  Delectable  Minmtains^ 
whence  he  sees  the  holy  city.  To  enter  it  he 
has  only  to  cross  a  deep  rive'',  where  there  is  no 
foothold,  where  the  water  dims  the  sight,  and 
which  is  called  the  river  of  Death. 

*  Bunyan's  Gract  abounding  to  the  Chief  of 
Sinners,  §  187. 


more  put  to  it ;  for  when  he  sought  in  the  dark 
to  shun  the  ditch  on  the  one  hand,  he  was  ready 
to  tip  over  into  the  mire  on  the  other  ;  also 
when  he  sought  to  escape  the  mire,  without 
great  carefulness  he  would  be  ready  to  fall  into 
the  ditch.  Thus  he  went  on,  and  I  heard  him 
here  sigh  bitterly  ;  for,  besides  the  dangers 
mentioned  above,  the  path-way  was  here  so 
dark,  that  ofttimes,  when  he  lift  up  1  is  foot  to 
set  forward  he  knew  not  where,  or  vpon  what 
he  should  set  it  next- 

"  About  the  midst  of  this  Valley,  I  perceived 
the  mouth  of  Hell  to  be,  and  it  stood  also  hard 
by  the  wayside.  Now,  tltought  Christian,  what 
shall  I  do?  And  ever  and  anon  the  flame  and 
smoke  would  come  out  in  such  abundance,  with 
sparks  and  hideous  noises.  .  .  .  that  he  was 
forced  to  put  up  his  Sword,  and  betake  himself 
to  another  weapon,  called  All-prayer.  So  he 
cried  in  my  hearing :  *  O  Lord,  I  beseech  thee 
deliver  my  soul.'  Thus  he  went  on  a  great 
while,  yet  still  the  flames  would  be  reaching  to- 
wards him  :  Also  he  heard  doleful  voices,  and 
rushings  to  and  fro,  so  that  sometimes  he 
thought  he  should  be  torn  in  pieces,  or  trodden 
down  like  mire  in  the  Streets."  * 

Against  this  agony,  neither  his  good 
deeds,  nor  his  prayers,  nor  his  justice, 
nor  all  the  justice  and  all  the  pravers 
of  all  other  men,  could  defend  him. 
Grace  alone  justifies.  God  must  impute 
to  him  the  purity  of  Christ,  and  save 
him  by  a  free  choice.  What  can  be 
more  full  of  passion  than  the  scene  in 
which,  under  the  name  of  his  poor  pil- 
grim, he  relates  his  own  doubts,  his 
conversion,  his  joy,  and  the  sudden 
change  of  his  heart  ? 

"  Then  the  water  stood  in  mine  eyes,  and  I 
asked  further,  But,  Lord,  may  such  a  great  sin- 
ner as  I  am  be  indeed  accepted  of  thee,  and  be 
saved  by  thee?  And  I  heard  him  say,  And 
him  that  cometh  to  me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast 
out.  .  .  .  And  now  was  my  heart  full  of  joy, 
mine  eyes  full  of  tears,  and  mine  affections  run- 
ning over  with  love  to  the  Name,  People,  and 
Ways  of  Jesus  Christ.  .  .  . 

"  It  made  me  see  that  all  the  World,  not- 
withstanding all  the  righteousness  thereof,  is  in 
a  state  of  condemnation.  It  made  me  see  that 
God  the  Father,  though  he  be  just,  can  justly 
justify  the  coming  sinner.  It  made  me  greatly 
ashamed  of  the  vileness  of  my  former  life,  and 
confounded  me  with  the  sense  of  mine  own  ig- 
norance ;  for  there  never  came  thought  into  rny 
heart  before  now,  that  shewed  me  so  the  beauty 
of  Jesus  Christ.  It  made  me  love  a  holy  life, 
and  long  to  do  something  for  the  Honour  ar.a 
Glory  of  the  Name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  ;  yea,  I 
thought  that  had  I  now  a  thousand  gallons  T»f 
blood  in  my  body,  I  could  spill  it  all  for  the 
sake  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  t 

Such  an  emotion  does  not  weigh  lit- 
erary calculations.  Allegory,  the  most 
artificial  kind,  is  natural  to  Bunyan.  If 

*  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Cambridge  1862,  FirsJ 
Part,  p.  64.  f  Ibid,  p-  160, 


CHAP.  V.] 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RENAISSANCE. 


275 


he  employs  it  here,  it  is  because  he ' 
does  so  throughout ;  if  he  employs  it 
throughout,  it  is  from  necessity,  not 
choice.  As  children,  countrymen,  and 
all  uncultivated  minds,  he  transforms 
arguments  into  parables ;  he  only 
grasps  truth  when  it  is  clothed  in  im- 
ages ;  abstract  terms  elude  him ;  he 
must  touch  forms  and  contemplate  col- 
ors. Dry  general  truths  are  a  sort  of 
algebra,  acquired  by  the  mind  slowly 
and  after  much  trouble,  against  our 
primitive  inclination,  which  is  to  ob- 
serve detailed  events  and  visible  ob- 
jects ;  man  being  incapable  of  contem- 
plating pure  formulas  until  he  is  trans- 
formed by  ten  years'  reading  and  re- 
flection. We  understand  at  once  the 
term  purification  of  heart ;  Bunyan  un- 
derstands it  fully  only,  after  translating 
it  by  this  fable  : — 

"  Then  the  Interpreter  took  Christian  by  the 
hand,  and  led  him  into  a  very  large  Parlour  that 
was  full  of  dust,  because  never  swept  ;  the 
which  after  he  had  reviewed  a  little  while,  the 
Interpreter  called  for  a  man  to  sweep.  Now 
when  he  began  to  sweep,  the  dust  began  so 
abundantly  to  fly  about,  that  Christian  had  al- 
most therewith  been  choaked.  Then  said  the 
Interpreter  to  a  Damsel  that  stood  by,  Bring 
hither  the  Water,  and  sprinkle  the  Room  ;  the 
which  when  she  had  done,  it  was  swept  and 
cleansed  with  pleasure. 

"  Then  said  Christian,  What  means  this  ? 

"  The  Interpreter  answered,  This  Parlour  is 
the  heart  of  a  man  that  was  never  sanctified  by 
the  sweet  Grace  of  the  Gospel  :  the  dust  is  his 
Original  Sin,  and  inward  Corruptions,  that  have 
defiled  the  wh<We  man.  He  that  began  to  sweep 
at  first,  is  the  Law  ;  but  she  that  brought  water, 
and  did  sprinkle  it,  is  the  Gospel.  Now, 
whereas  thou  sawest  that  so  soon  as  the  first 
began  to  sweep,  the  dust  did  so  fly  about  that 
the  Room  by  him  could  not  be  cleansed,  but 
that  thou  wast  almost  choaked  there  with  ;  this 
is  to  shew  t^e,  that  the  Law,  instead  of  cleans- 
ing the  heart  (by  its  working)  from  sin,  dcth  re- 
vive, put  strength  into  and  increase  it  in  the 
soul,  e\cn  as  it  doth  discover  and  forbid  it  for 
it  doth  not  give  power  to  subdue. 

"  Again,  as  thou  sawest  the  Damsel  snrinkle 
the  room  with  Water,  upon  which  it  was 
cleansed  with  pleasure  ;  this  is  to  shew  thee 
that  when  the  Gospel  comes  in  the  sweet  and 
precious  influences  thereof  to  the  heart,  then  I 
5ay,  even  as  thou  sawest  the  Damsel  lay  the 
dust  by  sprinkling  the  floor  with  Water,  so  is 
sin  vanquished  and  subdued,  and  the  soul  made 
clean,  through  the  faith  of  it,  and  consequent- 
ly fit  for  the  King  of  Glory  to  inhabit."  * 

These  repetitions^  embarrassed  phrases, 
familiar  comparisons,  this  artless  style, 
whose  awkwardness  recalls  the  child- 
ish periods  of  Herodotus,  and  whose 

*  Pilgrim's  Progress^  First  Part,  p.  26. 


simplicity  recalls  tales  for  children 
prove  that  if  his  work  is  allegorical,  it 
is  so  in  order  that  it  may  be  intelligible, 
and  that  Bunyan  is  a  poet  because  ha 
is  a  child.* 

If  you  study  him  well,  however,  you 
will  find  power  under  his  simplicity, 
and  in  his  puerility  the  vision.  These 
allegories  are  hallucinations  as  clear, 
complete,  and  sound  as  ordinary  per- 
ceptions. No  one  but  Spenser  is  so 
lucid.  Imaginary  objects  rise  of  them- 
selves before  him.  He  has  no  trouble 
in  calling  them  up  or  forming  them. 
They  agree  in  all  their  details  with  all 
the  details  of  the  precept  which  they 
represent,  as  a  pliant  veil  fits  the  body 
which  it  covers.  He  distinguishes  and 
arranges  all  the  parts  of  the  landscape- 
here  the  river,  on  the  right  the  castle, 
a  flag  on  its  left  turret,  the  setting  sun 
three  feet  lower,  an  oval  cloud  in  the 
front  part  of  the  sky — with  the  pre- 
ciseness  of  a  land-surveyor.  We  fancy 
in  reading  him  that  we  are  looking  at 
the  old  maps  of  the  time,  in  which  the 
striking  features  of  the  angular  cities 
are  marked  on  the  copperplate  by  a 
tool  as  certain  as  a  pair  of  compasses.! 
Dialogues  flow  from  his  pen  as  in  a 
dream.  He  does  not  seem  to  be  think- 
ing ;  we  should  even  say  that  he  was 
not  himself  there.  Events  and  speeches 
seem  to  grow  and  dispose  themselves 
within  him,  independently  of  his  will. 
Nothing,  as  a  rule,  is  colder  than  the 
characters  in  an  allegory ;  his  are  liv- 
ing. Looking  upon  these  details,  so 

*  Here  is  another  of  his  allegories,  almost 
witty,  so  just  and  simple  it  is.  See  Pilgrim' & 
Progress,  First  Part,  p.  68  :  Now  I  saw  in  my 
Dream,  that  at  the  end  of  this  Valley  lay  blood, 


bones,  ashes,  and  mangled  bodies  of  men,  even 
of  Pilgrims  that  had  gone  this  way  formerly  ; 
and  while  I  was  musing  what  should  be  the  rea- 
son, I  espied  a  little  before  me  a  Cave,  where 
two  Giants.  Pope  and  Pagan,  dwelt  in  old 
time  ;  by  whose  power  and  tyranny  the  men 
whose  bones,  blood,  ashes,  etc.,  lay  there,  were 


cruelly  put  to  death.     But  by  this  place  Chris- 

*•'•- ---'•  — -i1 — *• '-    dang 

;  learnt  since, 
that   Pagan  has  been  dead  many  a  day  ;  and 


tian    went   without    much    danger,'  whereat   I 
unewhat  wondered  ;  but  I  have  learnt  since, 


as  for  the  other,  though  he  be  yet  alive,  he  is 
by  reason  of  age,  and  also  of  the  many  shrewd 
brushes  that  he  met  with  in  his  younger  days, 
grown  so  crazy,  and  stiff  in  his  joints,  that  he 
can  now  do  little  more  than  sit  in  his  Cave's 
mouth,  grinning  at  Pilgrims  as  they  go  by,  and 
biting  his  nails,  because  he  cannot  come  at 
them. 

t  For  instance,  Hollar's  work,  Cities  of  Gen 
many. 


276 


small  and  familiar,  illusion  gains  upon 
us.  Giant  Despair,  a  simple  abstrac- 
tion, becomes  as  real  in  his  hands  as 
an  English  gaoler  or  farmer.  He  is 
heard  talking  by  night  in  bed  with  his 
wife  Diffidence,  who  gives  him  good 
advice,  because  here,  as  in  other  house- 
holds, the  strong  and  brutal  animal  is 
the  least  cunning  of  the  two  : — 

"  Then  she  counselled  him  that  when  he 
arose  in  the  morning  he  should  (take  the  two 
prisoners  and)  beat  them  without  mercy.  So 
when  he  arose,  he  getteth  him  a  grievous  Crab- 
tree  Cudgel,  and  goes  down  into  the  Dungeon 
to  them,  and  there  first  falls  to  rating  of  them 
as  if  they  were  dogs,  although  they  gave  him 
never  a  word  of  distaste.  Then  he  falls  upon 
them,  and  beats  them  fearfully,  in  such  sort, 
that  they  were  not  able  to  help  themselves,  or 
to  turn  them  upon  the  floor."  * 

This  stick,  chosen  with  a  forester's 
experience,  this  instinct  of  rating  first 
and  storming  to  get  oneself  into  trim 
for  knocking  down,  are  traits  which 
attest  the  sincerity  of  the  narrator,  and 
succeed  in  persuading  the  reader.  Bun- 
yan  has  the  copiousness,  the  tone,  the 
ease,  and  the  clearness  of  Homer  ;  he 
is  as  close  to  Homer  as  an  Anabaptist 
tinker  could  be  to  an  heroic  singer,  a 
creator  of  gods. 

I  err  ;  he  is  nearer.  Before  the  sen- 
timent of  the  sublime,  inequalities  are 
levelled.  The  depth  of  emotion  raises 
peasant  and  poet  to  the  same  eminence ; 
and  here  also,  allegory  stands  the  peas- 
ant in  stead.  It  alone,  in  the  absence 
of  ecstasy,  can  paint  heaven;  for  it 
does  not  pretend  to  paint  it :  express- 
ing it  by  a  figure,  it  declares  it  invisible, 
as  a  glowing  sun  at  which  we  cannot 
look  straight,  and  whose  image  we  ob- 
serve in  a  mirror  or  a  stream.  The 
ineffable  world  thus  retains  all  its  mys- 
tery ;  warned  by  the  allegory,  we  im- 
agine splendors  beyond  all  which  it 
presents  to  us ;  we  feel  behind  the 
beauties  which  are  opened  to  us,  the 
infinite  which  is  concealed  ;  and  the 
ideal  city,  vanishing  as  soon  as  it  ap- 
pears, ceases  to  resemble  the  material 
Whitehall  imagined  for  Jehovah  by 
Milton.  Read  the  arrival  of  the  pilgrims 
in  the  celestial  land.  Saint  Theresa 
has  nothing  more  beautiful : — 

u  Yea,  here  they  heard  continually  the  sing- 
ing of  Birds,  and  saw  every  day  the  Flowers 
appear  in  the  earth,  and  heard  the  voice  of  the 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


Turtle  in  the  land.  In  this  Country  the  Sun 
shineth  night  and  djty.  .  .  .  Here  they  were 
within  sight  of  the  City  they  were  going  to, 
also  here  met  them  some  of  the  inhabitants 
thereof  ;  for  in  this  land  the  Shining  Ones  com- 
monly walked,  because  it  was  upon  the  borders 
of  Heaven.  .  .  .  Here  they  heard  voices  from 
out  of  the  City,  loud  voices,  saying,  '  Say  ye  to 
the  daughter  of  Zion,  Behold  thy  salvation  com- 
eth,  behold  his  reward  is  with  him  !  '  Here  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Country  called  them 
'  The  holy  People,  The  redeemed  of  the  Lord, 
Sought  out,  etc.' 

"  Now  as  they  walked  in  this  land,  they  had 
more  rejoicing  than  in  parts  more  remote  from 
the  Kingdom  to  which  they  were  bound  ;  and 
drawing  near  to  the  City,  they  had  yet  a  more 
perfect  view  thereof.  It  was  builded  of  Pearls 
and  Precious  Stones,  also  the  Street  thereof 
was  paved  with  gold  ;  so  that  by  reason  of  the 
natural  glory  of  the  City,  and  the  reflection  of 
the  Sun-beams  upon  it,  Christian  with  desire 
fell  sick  ;  Hopeful  also  had  a  fit  or  two  of  the 
same  disease.  Wherefore  here  they  lay  by  it  a 
while,  crying  out  because  of  their  pangs,  '  If 
you  see  my  Beloved,  tell  him  that  I  am  sick  of 
love.'*  .  .  . 

"  They  therefore  went  up  here  with  much 
agility  and  speed,  though  the  foundation  upon 
which  the  City  was  framed  was  higher  than  the 
Clouds.  They  therefore  went  up  through  the 
Regions  of  the  Air,  sweetly  talking  as  they 
went,  being  comforted,  because  they  safely  got 
over  the  River,  and  had  such  glorious  Com- 
panions to  attend  them. 

"  The  talk  that  they  had  with  the  Shining 
Ones  was  about  the  glory  of  the  place,  who 
told  them  that  the  beauty  and  glory  of  it  was 
inexpressible.  There,  said  they,  is  the  Mount 
Sion,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  the  innumera- 
ble company  of  Angels,  and  the  Spirits  of  just 
men  made  perfect.  You  are  going  now,  said 
they,  to  the  Paradise  of  God,  wherein  you 
shall  see  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  eat  of  the  never- 
fading  fruits  thereof ;  and  when  you  come  there, 
you  shall  have  white  Robes  given  you,  and 
your  walk  and  talk  shall  be  every  day  with  the 
King,  even  all  the  days  of  Eternity,  t 

"  There  came  out  also  at  this  time  to  meet 
them,  several  of  the  King's  Trumpeters, 
clpathed  in  white  and  shining  Raiment,  who 
with  melodious  noises  and  loud,  made  even  the 
Heavens  to  echo  with  their  sound.  These 
Trumpeters  saluted  Christian  and  his  fellow 
with  ten  thousand  welcomes  from  the  World, 
and  this  they  did  with  shouting  and  sound  of 
Trumpet. 

"  This  done,  they  compassed  them  round  on 
every  side  ;  some  went  before,  some  behind^ 
and  some  on  the  right  hand,  some  on  the  lefl 
(as  't  were  to  guard  them  through  the  uppei 
Regions),  continually  sounding  as  they  went 
with  melodious  noise,  in  notes  on  high  ;  so  that 
the  very  sight  was  to  them  that  could  behold  it, 
as  if  Heaven  itself  was  come  down  to  meet 
them.  .  .  . 

"  And  now  were  these  two  men  as  't  were  in 
Heaven  before  they  came  at  it,  being  swallowed 
up  with  the  sight  of  Angels,  and  with  hearing  oi 
their  melodious  notes.  Here  aiso  they  had  the 
City  itself  in  view,  and  they  thought  they  heard 


*  Pilgrim's  Progress,  First  Part,  p.  126. 


*  Ibid.  p.  174. 


t  Ibid.  p.  179. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


277 


all  the  Bells  therein  ring  to  welcome  them 
thereto.  But  above  all  the  warm  and  joyful 
thoughts  that  they  had  about  their  own  dwell- 
ing there,  with  such  company,  and  that  for  ever 
and  ever.  Oh  by  what  tongiie  or  pen  can  their 
glorious  joy  be  expressed!  "  *  .  .  . 

"  Now  I  saw  in  my  Dream  that  these  two 
men  went  in  at  the  Gate  ;  and  lo,  as  they  en- 
tered, they  were  transfigured,  and  they  had 
Raiment  put  on  that  shone  like  Gold.  There 
was  also  that  met  them  with  Harps  and  Crowns, 
and  gave  them  to  them,  the  Harps  to  praise 
withal,  and  the  Crowns  in  token  of  honour. 
Then  I  heard  in  my  Dream  that  all  the  Bells 
in  the  City  rang  again  for  joy,  and  that  it  was 
said  unto  them,  '  Enter  ye  into  the  joy  of  your 
Lord.'  I  also  heard  the  men  themselves,  that 
they  sang  with  a  loud  voice,  saying,  '  Blessing, 
Honour,  Glory,  and  Power,  be  to  him  that  sit- 
teth  upon  the  Throne,  and  to  the  Lamb  for 
ever  and  ever.' 

"  Now,  just  as  the  Gates  were  opened  to  let 
in  the  men,  I  looked  in  after  them,  and  behold, 
the  City  shone  like  the  Sun ;  the  Streets  also 
were  paved  with  Gold,  and  in  them  walked 
many  men,  with  Crowns  on  their  heads,  Palms 
in  their  hands,  and  golden  Harps  to  sing  praises 
withal. 

"  There  were  also  of  them  that  had  wings, 
and  they  answered  one  another  without  inter- 
mission, saying,  '  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  the 
Lord.'  And  after  that  they  shut  up  the  Gates. 
Which  when  I  had  seen,  I  wished  myself  among 
them."  t 

lie  was  imprisoned  for  twelve  years 
and  a  half;  in  his  dungeon  he  made 
wire-snares  to  support  himself  and  his 
family  ;  he  died  at  the  age  of  sixty  in 
1688.  At  the  same  time  Milton  lin- 
gered obscure  and  blind.  The  last 
two  poets  of  the  Reformation  thus 
survived,  amid  the  classical  coldness 
which  then  dried  up  English  literature, 
and  the  social  excess  which  then  cor- 
rupted English  morals.  "  Shorn  hypo- 
crites, psalm-singers,  gloomy  bigots," 
such  were  the  names  by  which  men 
who  reformed  the  manners  and  renew- 
ed the  constitution  of  England  were 
insulted.  But  oppressed  and  insulted 
as  they  were,  their  work  continued  of 
itself  and  without  noise  underground  ; 
for  the  ideal  which  they  had  raised 
•  was,  after  all,  that  which  the  clime  sug- 
gested and  the  race  demanded.  Gradu- 
ally Puritanism  began  to  approach  the 
world,  and  the  world  to  approach 
Puritanism.  The  Restoration  was  to 
fall  into  evil  odor,  the  Revolution  was 
to  come,  and  beneath  the  gradual  pro- 
gress of  national  sympathy,  as  well  as 
under  the  incessant  effort  of  public  re- 
flection, parties  and  doctrines  were  to 

*  Pilgrim's  Progress,  First  Pirt,  p.  182. 
t  Ibid.  p.  183,  etc. 


rally  around  a  free  and  moral  Protes- 
tantism. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

ptom. 

ON  the  borders  of  the  licentious  Re- 
naissance which  was  drawing  to  a  close, 
and  of  the  exact  school  of  poetry  which 
was  springing  up,  between  the  monot- 
onous conceits  of  Cowley  and  the  cor- 
rect gallantries  of  Waller,  appeared  a 
mighty  and  superb  mind,  prepared  by 
logic  and  enthusiasm  for  eloquence 
and  the  epic  style  ;  liberal,  Protestant, 
a  moralist  and  a  poet,  adorning  the 
cause  of  Algernon  Sidney  and  Locke 
with  the  inspiration  of  Spenser  and 
Shakspeare  ;  the  heir  of  a  poetical  age, 
the  precursor  of  an  austere  age,  hold- 
ing his  place  between  the  epoch  of 
unselfish  dreaming  and  the  epoch  o£ 
practical  action ;  like  his  own  Adam, 
who,  taking  his  way  to  an  unfriendly 
land,  heard  behind  him,  in  the  closed 
Eden,  the  dying  strains  of  heaven. 

John  Milton  was  not  one  of  those 
fevered  souls  void  of  self-command, 
whose  rapture  takes  them  by  fits,  whom 
a  sickly  sensibility  drives  forever  to 
the  extreme  of  sorrow  or  joy,  whose 
pliability  prepares  them  to  produce  a 
variety  of  characters,  whose  inquietude 
condemns  them  to  paint  the  madness 
and  contradictions  of  passion.  Vast 
knowledge,  close  logic,  and  grand  pas- 
sion ;  these  were  his  marks.  His  mind 
was  lucid,  his  imagination  limited.  He 
was  incapable  of  "bating  one  jot  of 
heart  or  hope,"  or  of  being  transformed. 
He  conceived  the  loftiest  of  ideal  beau- 
ties, but  he  conceived  only  one.  He 
was  not  born  for  the  drama,  but  for 
the  ode.  He  does  not  create  souls,  but 
constructs  arguments,  and  experiences 
emotions.  Emotions  and  arguments, 
all  the  forces  and  actions  of  his  soul, 
assemble  and  are  arranged  beneath  a 
unique  sentiment,  that  of  the  sublime  ; 
and  the  broad  river  of  lyric  poetry 
streams  from  him,  impetuous,  with 
even  flow,  splendid  as  a  cloth  of  gold. 

I. 

This  dominant  sense  constituted  the 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


greatness  and  the  firmness  of  his  char- 
acter. Against  external  fluctuations  he 
found  a  refuge  in  himself;  and  the  ideal 
city  which  he  had  built  in  his  soul,  en- 
dured impregnable  to  all  assaults.  It 
is  too  beautiful,  this  inner  city,  for  him 
to  wish  to  leave  it ;  it  was  too  solid  to 
be  destroyed.  He  believed  in  the  sub- 
lime with  the  whole  force  of  his  nature, 
and  the  whole  authority  of  his  logic ; 
and  with  him,  cultivated  reason 
strengthened  by  its  tests  the  sugges- 
tions of  primitive  instinct.  With  this 
double  armor,  man  can  advance  firmly 
through  life.  He  who  is  always  feed- 
ing himself  with  demonstrations  is  ca- 
pable of  believing,  willing,  persever- 
ing in  belief  and  will ;  he  does  not 
change  with  every  event  and  every 
passion,  as  that  fickle  and  pliable 
being  whom  we  call  a  poet ;  he  re- 
mains at  rest  in  fixed  principles. 
He  is  capable  of  embracing  a  cause, 
and  of  continuing  attached  to  it,  what- 
ever may  happen,  spite  of  all,  to  the 
end.  No  seduction,  no  emotion,  no 
accident,  no  change  alters  the  stability 
of  his  conviction  or  the  lucidity  of  his 
knowledge.  On  the  first  day,  on  the 
last  day,  during  the  whole  time,  he  pre- 
serves intact  the  entire  system  of  his 
clear  ideas,  and  the  logical  vigor  of  his 
brain  sustains  the  manly  vigor  of  his 
heart.  When  at  length,  as  here,  this 
close  logic  is  employed  in  the  service 
of  noble  ideas,  enthusiasm  is  added  to 
constancy.  The  man  holds  his  opin- 
ions not  only  as  true,  but  as  sacred, 
lie  fights  for  them,  not  only  as  a  sol- 
dier, but  as  a  priest.  He  is  impassion- 
ed, devoted,  religious,  heroic.  Rarely 
is  such  a  mixture  seen;  but  it  was 
fully  seen  in  Milton. 

He  was  of  a  family  in  which  courage, 
moral  nobility,  the  love  of  art,  were 
present  to  whisper  the  most  beautiful 
and  eloquent  words  around  his  cradle. 
His  mother  was  a  most  exemplary 
woman,  well  known  through  all  the 
neighborhood  for  her  benevolence.* 
His  father,  a  student  of  Christ  Church, 
and  disinherited  as  a  Protestant,  had 
made  his  fortune  by  his  own  ener- 
gies, and,  amidst  his  occupations  as  a 
scrivener  or  writer,  had  preserved  the 

*  Matre  probatissima  et  eleemosynis  per  vici- 
niam  potissimum  noia.—Defensio  Secunda. 
Life  of  Milton>  by  Keightley, 


taste  for  letters,  being  unwilling  to 
give  up  "  his  liberal  and  intelligent 
tastes  to  the  extent  of  becoming  al- 
together a  slave  to  the  world  ; "  he 
wrote  verses,  was  an  excellent  musi- 
cian, one  of  the  best  composers  of  his 
time  ;  he  chose  Cornelius  Jansen  to 
paint  his  son's  portrait  when  in  his  tenth 
year,  and  gave  his  child  the  widest  and 
fullest  literary  education.  *  Let  the 
reader  try  to  picture  this  child,  in  the 
street  (Bread  Street)  inhabited  by  mer- 
chants, in  this  citizen-like  and  scholar- 
ly, religious  and  poetical  family,  whose 
manners  were  regular  and  their  aspira- 
tions lofty,  where  they  set  the  psalms 
to  music,  and  wrote  madrigals  in  honor 
of  Oriana  the  queen,  t  where  vocal 
music,  letters,  painting,  all  the  adorn- 
ments of  the  beautiful  Renaissance, 
decked  the  sustained  gravity,  the  hard- 
working honesty,  the  deep  Christianity 
of  the  Reformation.  All  Milton's  ge- 
nius springs  from  this ;  he  carried  the 
splendor  of  the  Renaissance  into  the 
earnestness  of  the  Reformation,  the 
magnificence  of  Spenser  into  the  se- 
verity of  Calvin,  and,  with  his  family, 
found  himself  at  the  confluence  of  the 
two  civilizations  which  he  combined. 
Before  he  was  ten  years  old  he  had  a 
learned  tutor,  "  a  puritan,  who  cut  his 
hair  short ;  "  after  that  he  went  to  Saint 
Paul's  school,  then  to  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  that  he  might  be  instructed 
in  "  polite  literature  ;  "  and  at  the  age 
of  twelve  he  worked,  in  spite  of  his 
weak  eyes  and  headaches,  until  mid- 
night and  even  later.  His  John  the 
Baptist,  a  character  resembling  him- 
self, says  : 

"  When  I  was  yet  a  child,  no  childish  play 
To  me  was  pleasing  ;  all  my  mind  was  set 
Serious  to  learn  and  know,  and  thence  to  do. 
What    might    be    public    good ;    myself    I 

thought 

Born  to  that  end,  born  to  promote  all  truth, 
All  righteous  things."  % 

At  school,  afterwards  at  Cambi;dge, 
then  with  his  father,  he  was  strengthen- 
ing and  preparing  himself  with  all  his 
power,  free  from  all  blame,  and  loved  by 
all  good  men  ;,  traversing  the  vast  fields 

|  *  "  My  father  destined  me  while  yet  a  little 
child  for  the  study  of  humane  letters."  Life 
by  Masson,  1859,  i.  51. 

t  Queen  Elizabeth. 

\  The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Milton,  ed 
Mitford,  Paradise  Regained,  Book  i.  /.  20. 
206. 


CHAP.  Vi.J 


MILTON. 


279 


of  Greek  and  Latin  literature,  not  only 
the  great  writers,  but  all  the  writers  down 
to  the  half  of  the  middle  age  ;  and  study- 
ing simultaneously  ancient  Hebrew,  Syr- 
iac  and  rabbinical  Hebrew,  French  and 
Spanish,  old  English  literature,  all  the 
[talian  literature,  with  such  zeal  and 
profit  that  he  wrote  Italian  and  Latin 
verse  and  prose  like  an  Italian  or  a 
Roman ;  in  addition  to  this,  music, 
mathematics,  theology,  and  much  be- 
sides. A  serious  thought  regulated 
this  great  toil.  "  The  church,  to  whose 
service,  by  the  intentions  of  my  parents 
and  friends,  I  was  destined  of  a  child, 
and  in  mine  own  resolutions:  till  coming 
to  some  maturity  of  years,  and  per- 
ceiving what  tyranny  had  invaded  the 
church,  that  he  who  would  take- orders 
must  subscribe  slave,  and  take  an  oath 
withal,  which  unless  he  took  with  a  con- 
science that  would  retch,  he  must  either 
straight  perjure,  or  split  his  faith  ;  I 
thought  it  better  to  prefer  a  blameless 
silence  before  the  sacred  office  of  speak- 
ing bought,  and  begun  with  servitude 
and  forswearing."  * 

He  refused  to  be  a  clergyman  from 
the  same  feelings  that  he  had  wished 
it ;  the  desire  and  the  renunciation  all 
sprang  from  the  same  source — a  fixed 
resolve  to  act  nobly.  Falling  back  into 
the  life  of  a  layman,  he  continued  to 
cultivate  and  perfect  himself,  studying 
passionately  and  with  method,  but  with- 
out pedantry  or  rigor :  nay,  rather, 
after  his  master  Spenser,  in  'L1  Allegro, 
II  Penscroso,  Camus,  he  set  forth  in 
sparkling  and  variegated  dress  the 
wealth  of  mythology,  nature,  and  fancy  ; 
then,  sailing  for  the  land  of  science 
and  beauty,  he  visited  Italy,  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Grotius  and  Galileo, 
sought  the  society  of  the  learned,  the 
men  of  letters,  the  men  of  the  world, 
listened  to  the  musicians,  steeped  him- 
self in  all  the  beauties  stored  up  by  the 
Renaissance  at  Florence  and  Rome. 
Everywhere  his  learning,  his  fine  Ital- 
ian and  Latin  style,  secured  him  the 
friendship  and  attentions  of  scholars, 
so  that,  on  his  return  to  Florence,  he 
"  was  as  well  received  as"'  if  he  had  re- 
turned to  his  native  country."  He  col- 
lected books  and  music,  which  he  sent 

*  Milton's  Prose  Works,  ed.  Mitford,  8 
vols.,  The  Reason  of  Church  Government,  i. 
150. 


to  England,  and  thought  of  traversing 
Sicily  and  Gieece,  those  two  homes  of 
ancient  letters  and  arts.  Of  all  the 
flowers  that  opened  to  the  Southern 
sun  under  the  influence  of  the  two 
great  Paganisms,  he  gathered  freely 
the  balmiest  and  the  most  exquisite,  but 
without  staining  himself  with  the  mud 
which  surrounded  them.  "  I  call  the 
Deity  to  witness,"  he  wrote  later,  "that 
in  all  those  places  in  which  vice  meets 
with  so  little  discouragement,  and  is 
practised  with  so  little  shame,  I  never 
once  deviated  from  the  paths  of  integ- 
rity and  virtue,  and  perpetually  reflect- 
ed that,  though  my  conduct  might  es- 
cape the  notice  of  men,  it  could  not 
elude  the  inspection  of  God."  * 

Amid  the  licentious  gallantries  and 
inane  sonnets  like  those  which  the  Ci- 
cisbei  and  Academicians  lavished  forth, 
he  retained  his  sublime  idea  of  poetry  : 
he  thought  to  choose  a  heroic  subject 
from  ancient  English  history;  and  as 
he  says,  **  I  was  confirmed  in  this  opin- 
ion, that  he  who  would  not  be  frus- 
trate of  his  hope  to  write  well  hereafter 
in  laudable  things,  ought  himself  to  be 
a  true  poem ;  that  is,  a  composition 
and  pattern  of  the  best  and  honorablcst 
things ;  not  presuming  to  sing  high 
praises  of  heroic  men,  or  famous  cities, 
unless  he  have  in  himself  the  experience 
and  the  practice  of  all  that  which  is 
praise-worthy."  t  Above  all,  he  loved 
Dante  and  Petrarch  for  their  purity, 
telling  himself  that  "if  unchastity  in  a 
woman,'  whom  St.  Paul  terms  the  glory 
of  man,  be  such  a  scandal  and  dis- 
honor, then  certainly  in  a  man,  who 
is  both  the  image  and  glory  of  God, 
it  must,  though  commonly  not  so 
thought,  be  much  more  deflouring  and 
dishonorable."  \  He  thought  "  that 
every  free  and  gentle  spirit,  without 
that  oath,  ought  to  be  born  a  knight," 
for  the  practice  and  defence  of  chastity, 
and  he  kept  himself  virgin  till  his  mar- 
riage.  Whatever  the  temptation  might 
be,  whatever  the  attraction  or  fear,  it 
found  him  equally  opposed  and  equally 

*  Milton's  Prose  Works  (Bonn's  edition, 
848),  Second  Defence  of  the  People  of  Eng- 
land, i.  257.  See  aiso  his  Italian  Sonnets^ 
•••ith  their  religious  sentiment. 

t  Milton's  Prose  Works,  Mitford,  Apology 
for  Smectymnuus,  i.  270. 

J  Ibid.  273.  See  also  his  Treatise  on  Du 
vorce.  which  shows  clearly  Milton's  meaning* 


28o 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


|BooK  IL 


firm.  From  a  sense  of  gravity  and 
propriety  he  avoided  all  religious  dis- 
putes; but  if  his  own  creed  were  at- 
tacked, he  defended  it  "without  any 
reserve  or  fear,"  even  in  Rome,  before 
the  Jesuits  who  plotted  against  him, 
within  a  few  paces  of  the  Inquisition 
and  the  Vatican.  Perilous  duty,  in- 
stead of  driving  him  away,  attracted 
him.  When  the  Revolution  began  to 
threaten,  he  returned,  drawn  by  con- 
science, as  a  soldier  who  hastens  to 
danger  when  he  hears  the  clash  of 
arms,  convinced,  as  he  himself  tells  us, 
that  it  was  a  shame  to  him  leisurely  to 
spend  his  life  abroad,  and  for  his  own 
pleasure,  whilst  his  fellow-countrymen 
were  striving  for  their  liberty.  In 
battle  he  appeared  in  the  front  ranks 
as  a  volunteer,  courting  danger  every- 
where. Throughout  his  education  and 
throughout  his  youth,  in  his  profane 
readings  and  his  sacred  studies,  in  his 
acts  and  his  maxims,  already  a  ruling 
and  permanent  thought  grew  manifest 
— the  resolution  to  develop  and  unfold 
within  him  the  ideal  man. 

II. 

Two  powers  chiefly  lead  mankind — 
impulse  and  idea :  the  one  influencing 
sensitive,  unfettered,  poetical  souls, 
capable  of  transformations,  like  Shak- 
speare  ;  the  other  governing  active,  com- 
bative, heroic  souls,  capable  of  immu- 
tability, like  Milton.  The  first  are  syrri-. 
pathetic  and  effusive  ;  the  second  are 
concentrative  and  reserved.*  The  first 
give  themselves  up,  the  others  with- 
hold themselves.  These,  by  reliance 
and  sociability,  with  an  artistic  instinct 
and  a  sudden  imitative  comprehension, 
involuntarily  take  the  tone  and  dispo- 
sition of  the  men  and  things  which  sur- 
round them,  and  an  immediate  coun- 
terpoise is  effected  between  the  inner 
and  the  outer  man.  Those,  by  mistrust 
and  rigidity,  with  a  combative  instinct 
and  a  quick  reference  to  rule,  become 
naturally  thrown  back  upon  themselves, 
and  in  their  narrow  limits  no  longer 

*  "  Though  Christianity  had  been  but  slightly 
taught  me,  yet  a  certain  reservedness  of  natu- 
ral disposition  and  moral  discipline,  learnt  out 
of  the  noblest  philosophy,  was  enough  to  keen 
tie  in  disdain  of  far  less  incontinences  than  this 
of  the  bordello." — Apology  for  Smectymnuus, 
Mitford,  i.  272. 


feel  the  solicitations  and  contradictions 
of  their  surroundings.  They  have 
formed  a  model,  and  thenceforth  this 
model  like  a  watchword  restrains  or 
urges  them  on.  Like  all  powers  des- 
tined to  have  sway,  the  inner  idea 
grows  and  absorbs  to  its  use  the  rest  of 
their  being.  They  bury  it  in  themselves 
by  meditation,  they  nourish  it  with  rea- 
soning, they  put  it  in  communication 
with  the  chain  of  all  their  doctrines  and 
all  their  experiences  ;  s:  that  when  \ 
temptation  assails  them,  it  is  not  an  is  *• 
lated  principle  which  it  attacks,  but  it 
encounters  the  whole  combination  of 
their  belief,  an  infinitely  ramified  com- 
bination, too  strong  for  a  sensuous 
seducjtion  to  tear  asunder.  At  the  same 
time  a  man  by  habit  is  upon  his  guard  ; 
the  combative  attitude  is  natural  to  him, 
and  he  stands  erect,  firm  in  the  pride 
of  his  courage  and  the  inveteracy  of 
his  determination. 

A  soul  thus  fortified  is  like  a  diver 
in  his  bell ;  *  it  passes  through  life  as  he 
passes  through  the  sea,  unstained  but 
isolated.  On  his  return  to  England, 
Milton  fell  back  among  his  books,  and 
received  a  few  pupils,  upon  whom  he 
imposed,  as  upon  himself,  continuous 
toil,  serious  reading,  a  frugal  diet,  a 
strict  behavior  ;  the  life  of  a  recluse,  al- 
most of  a  monk.  Suddenly,  in  a  month, 
after  a  country  visit,  he  married,  t  A 
few  weeks  afterwards,  his  wife  returned 
to  her  father's  house,  would  not  come 
back  to  him,  took  no  notice  of  his  let- 
ters, and  sent  back  his  messenger  with 
scorn.  The  two  characters  had  come 
into  collision.  Nothing  displeases 
women  more  than  an  austere  and  self- 
contained  character.  They  see  that 
they  have  no  hold  upon  it ;  its  dignity 
awes  them,  its  pride  repels,  its  pre- 
occupations keep  them  aloof ;  they  feel 
themselves  of  less  value,  neglected  foi 
general  interests  or  speculative  curiosi- 
ties ;  judged,  moreover,  and  that  aftei 
an  inflexible  rule  ;  at  most  regarded 
with  condescension,  as  a  sort  of  less 
reasonable  and  inferior  beings,  debarred 
from  the  equality  which  they  demand, 
and  the  love  which  alone  can  reward 
them  for  the  loss  of  equality.  The 

*  An  expression  of  Jean  Paul  Richter.  See 
an  excellent  article  on  Milton  in  the  Nat.  Re» 
view,  July,  1859. 

t  1643,  at  the  age  of  35. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


281 


"priest"  character  is  made  for  soli- 
tude ;  the  tact,  ease,  charm,  pleasant- 
ness, and  gentleness  necessary  to  all 
companionship,  is  wanting  to  it ;  we 
admire  him,  but  we  go  no  further,  es- 
pecially if,  like  Milton's  wife,  we  are 
somewhat  dull  and  commonplace,* 
adding  mediocrity  of  intellect  to  the 
-epugnance  of  our  hearts.  He  had,  so 
his  biographers  say,  a  certain  gravity 
of  nature,  or  severity  of  mind  which 
would  not  condescend  to  petty  things, 
but  kept  him  in  the  clouds,  in  a  region 
which  is  not  that  of  the  household. 
He  was  accused  of  being  harsh,  chol- 
eric ;  and  certainly  he  stood  upon  his 
manly  dignity,  his  authority  as  a  hus- 
band, and  was  not  so  greatly  esteemed, 
respected,  studied,  as  he  thought  he 
deserved  to  be.  In  short,  he  passed 
the  day  amongst  his  books,  and  the 
rest  of  the1  time  his  heart  lived  in  an 
abstracted  and  sublime  world  of  which 
few  wives  catch  a  glimpse,  his  wife 
least  of  £11.  He  had,  in  fact,  chosen 
like  a  student,  so  much  the  more  at 
random  because  his  former  life  had 
been  of  "  a  well-governed  and  wise 
appetite."  Equally  like  a  man  of  the 
closet,  he  resented  her  flight,  being  the 
more  irritated  because  the  world's 
ways  were  unknown  to  him.  Without 
dread  of  ridicule,  and  with  the  stern- 
ness of  a  speculative  man  suddenly 
brought  into  collision  with  actual  life, 
he  wrote  treatises  on  Divorce,  signed 
them  with  his  name,  dedicated  them 
to  Parliament,  held  himself  divorced 
de  facto ',  because  his  wife  refused  to  re- 
turn, dejure  because  he  had  four  texts 
of  Scripture  for  it;  whereupon  he  paid 
court  to  another  young  lady,  and  sud- 
denly, seeing  his  wife  on  her  knees  and 
weeping,  forgave  her,  took  her  back, 
renewed  the  dry  and  sad  marriage-tie, 
not  profiting  by  experience,  but  on 
the  other  hand  fated  to  contract  two 
other  unions,  the  last  with  a  wife  thirty 
years  younger  than  himself.  Other 

*  Doctrine  and  Discipline  of  Divorce,  Mit- 
ford,  ii.  27,  29,  32.  "  Mute  and  spiritless 
mate."  "  The  bashful  muteness  of  the  virgin 
may  oftentimes  hide  all  the  unliveliness  and 
natural  sloth  which  is  really  unfit  for  conversa- 
tion." "  A  man  shall  find  himself  bound  fast 
to  an  image  of  earth  and  phlegm,  with  whom  he 
looked  to  be  the  copartner  of  a  sweet  and  glad- 
some society."  A  pretty  woman  will  say  in  re- 
ply :  I  cannot  love  a  man  who  carries  his  head 
ike  the  Sacrament. 


& 


parts  of  his  domestic  life  were  neithei 
better  managed  nor  happier.  He  had 
taken  his  daughters  for  secretaries,  and 
made  them  read  languages  which  they 
did  not  understand, — a  repelling  task, 
of  which  they  bitterly  complained.  In 
return,  he  accused  them  of  being  "  un- 
dutiful  and  unkind,"  of  neglecting  him, 
not  caring  whether  they  left  him  alone, 
of  conspiring  with  the  servants  to  rob 
him  in  their  purchases,  of  stealing  his 
books,  so  that  they  would  have  dis- 
posed of  the  whole  of  them.  Mary, 
the  second,  hearing  one,  day  that  he 
was  going  to  be  married,  said  that  his 
marriage  was  no  news ;  the  btst  news 
would  be  his  death.  An  incredible 
speech,  and  one  which  throws  a  strange 
light  on  the  miseries  of  this  family. 
Neither  circumstances  nor  nature  had 
created  him  for  happiness. 

III. 

They  had  created  him  for  strife,  and 
after  his  return  to  England  he  had 
thrown  himself  heartily  into  it,  armed 
with  logic,  anger,  and  learning,  pro- 
tected by  conviction  and  conscience. 
When  "  the  liberty  of  speech  was  no 
longer  subject  to  control,  all  mouths 
began  to  be  opened  against  the  bish- 
ops. ...  I  saw  that  a  way  was  open- 
ing for  the  establishment  of  real  liber- 
ty ;  that  the  foundation  was  laying  for 
the  deliverance  of  man  from  the  yoke 
of  slavery  and  superstition;  .  .  .  and 
as  I  had  from  my  youth  studied  the  dis- 
tinction between  religious  and  civil 
rights,  ...  I  determined  to  relinquish 
the  other  pursuits  in  which  I  was  en- 
gaged, and  to  transfer  the  whole  force 
of  my  talents  and  my  industry  to  this 
one  important  object."  *  And  there- 
upon he  wrote  his  Reformation  in 
England,  jeering  at  and  attacking  with 
haughtiness  and  scorn  the  prelacy  and 
its  defenders.  Refuted  and  attacked 
in  turn,  he  became  still  more  bitter, 
and  crushed  those  whom  he  had  beat- 
en.f  Transported  to  the  limits  of 

*  Second  Defence  of  the  People  of  England, 
Prose  Works  (Bohn),  i.  257. 

t  Of  Reformation  touching  Church  Disci- 
pline in  England,andthe  Causes  that  hitherto 
have  hindered  it.  Of  Prelatical  Episcopacy. 
The  Reason  of  Church  Government  iirgeA 
against  Prelaty:  1641.  Apology  for  Smec* 
tymnuus :  1642. 


*S2 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


his  creed,  and  like  a  knight  making  a 
Tush,  and  who  pierces  with  a  dash  the 
whole  line  of  battle,  he  hurled  himself 
upon  the  prince,  wrote  that  the  aboli- 
tion of  royalty  as  well  as  the  overthrow 
of  Episcopacy  were  necessary;  and 
one  month  after  the  death  of  Charles 
I.,  justified  his  execution,  replied  to 
the  Eikon  Basilike,  then  to  Salmasius' 
Defence  of  the  King,  with  incomparable 
breadth  of  style  and  scorn,  like  a  sol- 
dier, like  an  apostle,  like  a  man  who 
-yerywhere  feels  the  superiority  of 
his  science  and  logic,  who  wishes  to 
make  it  felt,  who  proudly  tramples 
upon  and  crushes  his  adversaries  as 
ignoramuses,  inferior  minds,  base 
hearts.*  "  Kings  most  commonly,"  he 
says,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Eikono- 
klastes,  "  though  strong  in  legions,  are 
but  weak  at  arguments  ;  as  they  who 
ever  have  accustomed  from  their  cra- 
dle to  use  their  will  only  as  their  right 
hand,  their  reason  always  as  their  left. 
Whence  unexpectedly  constrained  to 
that  kind  of  combat,  they  prove  but 
weak  and  puny  adversaries."!  Yet, 
for  love  of  those  who  suffer  themselves 
to  be  overcome  by  this  dazzling  name 
of  royalty,  he  consents  to  "take  up 
King  Charles's  gauntlet,"  and  bangs 
him  with  it  in  a  style  calculated  to 
make  the  imprudent  men  who  had 
thrown  it  down  repent.  Far  from  re- 
coiling at  the  accusation  of  murder,  he 
accepts  and  boasts  of  it  He  vaunts 
the  regicide,  sets  it  on  a  triumphal  car, 
decks  it  in  all  the  light  of  heaven.  He 
relates  with  the  tone  of  a  judge,  "how 
a  most  potent  king,  after  he  had 
trampled  upon  the  laws  of  the  nation, 
and  given  a  shock  to  its  religion,  and 
began  to  rule  at  his  own  will  and 
pleasure,  was  at  last  subdued  in  the 
field  by  his  own  subjects,  who  had 
undergone  a  long  slavery  under  him  ; 
how  afterwards  he  was  cast  into  pris- 
on, and  when  he  gave  no  ground, 
either  by  words  or  actions,  to  hope  bet- 
ter things  of  him,  was  finally  by  the 
supreme  council  of  the  kingdom  con- 
demned to  die,  and  beheaded  before 
the  very  gates  of  the  royal  palace.  .  .  . 

*  The  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magistrates. 
E Ikonoklastes :  1648-9.  Defensio  Populi  A  n- 
g licani:  1651.  Defensio  Secunda  :  1654.  Au- 
thor is  fro  se  defensio.  Responsio  :  1655. 

t  Milton's  Prose  Wort s,  Mitford,  vol.  i. 
329. 


For  what  king's  majesty  sitting  upon 
an  exalted  throne,  ever  shone  sc 
brightly,  as  that  of  the  people  of 
England  then  did,  when,  shaking  of! 
that  old  superstition,  which  had  pre- 
vailed a  long  time,  they  gave  judgment 
upon  the  king  himself,  or  rather  upon 
an  enemy  who  had  been  their  king, 
caught  as  it  were  in  a  net  by  his  own 
laws  (who  alone  of  all  mortals  chal- 
lenged to  himself  impunity  by  a  divine 
right),  and  scrupled  not  to  inflict  the 
same  punishment  upon  him,  being  guil- 
ty, which  he  would  have  inflicted  upon 
any  other?"*  After  having  justified 
the  execution,  he  sanctified  it ;  conse- 
crated it  by  decrees  of  heaven  after  he 
had  authorized  it  by  the  laws  of  the 
world ;  from  the  support  of  Law  he 
transferred  it  to  the  support  of  God. 
This  is  the  God  who  "  uses  to  throw 
down  proud  and  unruly  kings,  .  .  . 
and  utterly  to  extirpate  them  and  all 
their  family.  By  his  manifest  impulse 
being  set  on  work  to  recover  our  al- 
most lost  liberty,  following  him  as  our 
guide,  and  adoring  the  impresses  of 
his  divine  power  manifested  upon  all 
occasions,  we  went  on  in  no  obscure 
but  an  illustrious  passage,  pointed  out 
and  made  plain  to  us  by  God  himself."  t 
Here  the  reasoning  ends  with  a  song 
of  triumph,  and  enthusiasm  breaks  out 
through  the  mail  of  the  warrior.  Such 

*  Ibid.  Preface  to  the  Defence  of  the  People 
of  England,  vi.  pp.  1,2. 

t  Mitford,  vi.  pp.  2-3.  This  "Defence'* 
was  in  Latin.  Milton  ends  it  thus : — 

"  He  (God)  has  gloriously  delivered  you,  the 
first  of  nations,  from  the  two  greatest  mischiefs 
of  this  life,  and  most  pernicious  to  virtue,  tyr- 
anny aud  superstition  ;  he  has  endued  you 
with  greatness  of  mind  to  be  the  first  of  man- 
kind, who  after  having  conquered  their  own 
king,  and  having  had  him  delivered  into  their 
hands,  have  not  scrupled  to  condemn  him  judi- 
cial iy,  and,  pursuant  to  that  sentence  of  con- 
demnation, to  put  him  to  death.  After  the  per- 
forming so  glorious  an  action  as  this,  you  ought 
to  do  nothing  that  is  mean  and  little,  not  so 
much  as  to  think  of,  much  less  to  do,  anything 
but  what  is  great  and  sublime.  Which  to  at- 
tain to,  this  is  your  only  way  ;  as  you  have 
subdued  your  enemies  in  the  held,  so  to  make 
appear,  that  unarmed,  and  in  the  highest  out- 
ward peace  and  tranquillity,  you  of  all  mankind 
are  best  able  to  subdue  ambition,  avarice,  the 
love  of  riches,  and  can  best  avoid  the  corrup- 
tions that  prosperity  is  apt  to  introduce  (which 
generally  subdue  and  triumph  over  other  na- 
tions), to  show  as  great  justice,  temperance, 
and  moderation  in  the  maintaining  your  liber* 
ty,  as  you  have  shown  courage  in  freeing  your- 
selves from  slavery." — Ibid.  vol.  vi.  251  -a. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


he  displayed  himself  in  all  his  actions 
and  in  all  his  doctrines.  The  solid 
files  of  bristling  and  well-ordered  argu- 
ments which  he  disposed  in  battle-ar- 
ray were  changed  in  his  heart  in  the 
moment  of  triumph  into  glorious  pro- 
cessions of  crowned  and  resplendent 
hymns.  He  was  transported  by  them, 
he  deluded  himself,  and  lived  thus 
alone  with  the  sublime,  like  a  warrior- 
pontiff,  who  in  his  stiff  armor,  or  his 
glittering  stole,  stands  face  to  face 
with  truth.  Thus  absorbed  in  strife 
and  in  his  priesthood,  he  lived  out  of 
the  world,  as  blind  to  palpable  facts  as 
he  was  protected  against  the  seduc- 
tions of  the  senses,  placed  above  the 
stains  and  the  lessons  of  experience, 
as  incapable  of  leading  men  as  of 
yielding  to  them.  There  was  nothing 
in  him  akin  to  the  devices  and  delays 
of  the  statesman,  the  crafty  schemer, 
who  pauses  on  his  way,  experimental- 
izes, with  eyes  fixed  on  what  may  turn 
up,  who  gauges  what  is  possible,  and 
employs  logic  for  practical  purposes. 
Milton  was  speculative  and  chimerical. 
Locked  up  in  his  own  ideas,  he  sees 
but  them,  is  attracted  but  by  them. 
Is  he  pleading  against  the  bishops  ? 
He  would  extirpate  them  at  once, 
without  hesitation ;  he  demands  that 
the  Presbyterian  worship  shall  be  at 
once  established,  without  forethought, 
contrivance,  hesitation.  It  is  the  com- 
mand of  God,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
faithful  ;  beware  how  you  trifle  with 
God  or  temporize  with  faith.  Concord, 
gentleness,  liberty,  piety,  he  sees  a 
whole  swarm  of  virtues  issue  from 
this  new  worship.  Let  the  king  tear 
nothing  from  it,  his  power  will  be  all 
the  stronger.  Twenty  thousand  demo- 
cratic assemblies  will  take  care  that 
hi«j  rights  be  not  infringed.  These 
ideas  make  us  smile.  We  recognize 
the  party-man,  who,  on  the  verge  of 
the  Restoration,  when  "the  whole 
multitude  was  mad  with  desire  for  a 
king,"  published  A  Ready  and  Easy 
Way  to  establish  a  Free  Commonwealth, 
vnd  described  his  method  at  length. 
We  recognize  the  theorist  who,  to  ob- 
tain a  law  of  divorce,  only  appealed  to 
Scripture,  and  aimed  at  transforming 
the  civil  constitution  of  a  people  by 
changing  the  accepted  sense  of  a  verse. 
With  closed  eyes,  sacred  text  in  hand, 


MILTON.  283 


he  advances  from  consequence  to  con 
sequence,  trampling  upon  the  prejudi 
ces,  inclinations,  habits,  wants  of  men. 
as  if  a  reasoning  or  religious  spirit 
were  the  whole  man,  as  if  evidence  al- 
ways created  belief,  as  if  belief  always 
resulted  in  practice,  as  if,  in  the  strug- 
gle of  doctrines,  truth  or  justice  gave 
doctrines  the  victory  and  sovereignty. 
To  cap  all,  he  sketched  out  a  treatise 
on  education,  in  which  he  proposed  to 
teach  each  pupil  every  science,  every 
art,  and,  what  is  more,  every  virtue. 
"  He  who  had  the  art,  and  proper  elo- 
quence .  .  .  might  in  a  short  space 
gain  them  to  an  incredible  diligence 
and  courage,  .  .  .  infusing  into  their 
young  breasts  such  an  ingenuous  and 
noble  ardor  as  would  not  fail  to  make 
many  of  them  renowned  and  matchless* 
men."  *  Milton  had  taught  for  many 
years  and  at  various  times.  A  man 
must  be  insensible  to  experience  or 
doomed  to  illusions  who  retains  such 
deceptions  after  such  experiences. 

But  his  obstinacy  constituted  his 
power,  and  the  inner  constitution, 
which  closed  his  mind  to  instruction, 
armed  his  heart  against  weaknesses. 
With  men  generally,  the  source  of  de- 
votion dries  up  when  in  contact  with  life. 
Gradually,  by  dint  of  frequenting  the 
world,  we  acquire  its  tone.  We  do  not 
choose  to  be  dupes,  and  to  abstain  from 
the  license  which  others  allow  them- 
selves; we  relax  our  youthful  strictness 
we  even  smile,  attributing  it  to  our  heat- 
ed blood ;  we  know  our  own  motives,  and 
cease  to  find  ourselves  sublime.  We 
end  by  taking  it  calmly,  and  we  see  the 
world  wag,  only  trying  to  avoid  shocks, 
picking  up  here  and  there  a  few  little 
comfortable  pleasures.  Not  so  Milton, 
He  lived  complete  and  pure  to  the  end, 
without  loss  of  heart  or  weakness  ;  ex- 
perience could  not  instruct  nor  misfor- 
tune depress  him  ;  he  endured  all,  and 
repented  of  nothing.  He  lost  his  sight, 
by  his  own  fault,  by  writing,  though 
ill,  and  against  the  prohibition  of  his 
doctors,  to  justify  the  English  people 
against  the  invectives  of  Salmasius. 
He  saw  the  funeral  of  the  Republic, 
the  proscription  of  his  doctrines,  the 
defamation  of  his  honor.  Around  him 
ran  riot,  a  distaste  for  liberty,  an  en- 
thusiasm for  slavery.  A  whole  people 
*  Of  Education.  Mitford,  ii.  385. 


284 


77/5"  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  IL 


threw  itself  at  the  feet  of  a  young  inca- 
pable and  treacherous  libertine.  The 
glorious  leaders  of  the  Puritan  faith 
were  condemned,  executed,  cut  down 
alive  from  the  gallows,  quartered  amidst 
insults  ;  others,  whom  death  had  saved 
from  the  hangman,  were  dug  up  and 
exposed  on  the  gibbet ;  others,  exiles 
in  foreign  lands,  lived,  threatened  and 
attacked  by  royalist  bullies;  others 
again,  more  unfortunate,  had  sold  their 
cause  for  money  and  titles,  and  sat  amid 
the  executioners  of  their  former  friends. 
The  most  pious  and  austere  citizens  of 
England  filled  the  prisons,  or  wandered 
about  in  poverty  and  shame  ;  and  gross 
vice,  impudently  seated  on  the  throne, 
rallied  around  it  a  herd  of  unbridled 
.lusts  and  sensualities.  Milton  himself 
'had  been  constrained  to  hide  ;  his  books 
had  been  burned  by  the  hand  of  the 
hangman  ;  even  after  the  general  act  of 
indemnity  he  was  imprisoned;  when 
set  at  liberty,  he  lived  in  the  expecta- 
tion of  being  assassinated,  for  private 
fanaticism  might  seize  the  weapon  re- 
linquished by  public  revenge.  Other 
smaller  misfortunes  came  to  aggravate 
by  their  stings  the  great  wounds  which 
afflicted  him.  Confiscations,  a  bank- 
ruptcy, finally,  the  great  fire  of  London, 
had  robbed  him  of  three-fourths  of  his 
fortune ;  *  his  daughters  neither  esteem- 
ed nor  respected  him ;  he  sold  his 
books,  knowing  that  his  family  could 
not  profit  by  them  after  his  death  ;  and 
amidst  so  many  private  and  public  mis- 
eries, he  continued  calm.  Instead  of 
repudiating  what  he  had  done,  he  glo- 
ried in  it :  instead  of  being  cast  down, 
he  increased  in  firmness.  He  says,  in 
his  22d  sonnet : 

'  Cyriack,   this  three  years  day   these   eyes, 

though  clear, 

To  outward  view,  of  blemish  or  of  spot, 
Bereft  of  sight,  their  seeing  have  forgot ; 
Nor  to  their  idle  orbs  doth  day  appear 
Of  sun,   or  moon,  or  star,  throughout  the 

year, 


*  A  scrivener  caused  him  to  lose  ^2000.  At 
the  Restoration  he  was  refused  payment  of 
^2000  which  he  had  put  into  the  Excise  Office, 
and  deprived  of  an  estate  of  ,£50  a  year,  bought 
by  him  from  the  property  of  the  Chapter  of 
Westminster.  His  house  in  Bread  Street  was 
burnt  in  the  great  fire.  When  he  died  he  is 
said  to  have  left  about  ^1500  in  money  (equiva- 
lent to  about  ;£;>ooo  now),  besides  household 
goods.  [I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of 
Professor  Masson  for  the  collation  of  this 
note.— TR.] 


Or  man,  or  woman.    Yet  I  argue  not 
Against  Heaven's  hand  or  will,  nor  bate  one 

jot 
Of  heart  or  hope ;    but  still  bear  up  and 

steer 
Right  onward.    What  supports  me,  dost  thou 

ask? 
The  conscience,  friend,  to  have  lost   them 

overplied 

In  liberty's  defence,  my  noble  task  ; 
Of  which  all  Europe  rings  from  side  to  side. 
This  thought    might   lead  me  through  the 

world's  vain  mask 
Content     though    blind,    had    I    no    other 

guide."  * 

That  thought  was  indeed  his  guide  ;  he 
was  "armed  in  himself,"  and  that 
"  breastplate  of  diamond  "  t  which  had 
protected  him  in  his  prime  against  the 
wounds  in  battle,  protected  him  in  his 
old  age  against  the  temptations  and 
doubts  of  defeat  and  adversity. 

IV. 

Milton  lived  in  a  small  house  in  Lon- 
don, or  in  the  country,  at  Horton,  in 
Buckinghamshire,  published  his  Histo- 
ry of  Britain,  his  Logic,  a  J^reatise  on 
True  Religion  and  Heresy,  meditated 
his  great  Treatise  on  Christian  Doctrine. 
Of  all  consolations,  work  is  the  most 
fortifying  and  the  most  healthy,  because 
it  solaces  a  man  not  by  bringing  him 
ease,  but  by  requiring  him  to  exert 
himself.  Every  morning  he  had  a  chap- 
ter of  the  Bible  read  to  him  in  Hebrew, 
and  remained  for  some  time  in  silence, 
grave,  in  order  to  meditate  on  what  he 
had  heard.  He  never  went  to  a  place 
of  worship.  Independent  in  religion 
as  in  all  else,  he  was  sufficient  to  him- 
self ;  finding  in  no  sect  the  marks  of 
the  true  church,  he  prayed  to  God  alone, 
without  needing  others'  help.  He  stud- 
ied till  mid-day;  then,  after  an  hour's 
exercise,  he  played  the  organ  or  the  bass- 
violin.  Then  he  resumed  his  studies 
till  six,  and  in  the  evening  enjoyed  the 
society  of  his  friends.  When  any  0112 
came  to  visit  him,  he  was  usuall) 
found  in  a  room  hung  with  old  green 
hangings,  seated  in  an  arm-chair,  and 
dressed  neatly  in  black ;  his  complex- 
ion was  pale,  says  one  of  his  visitors, 
but  not  sallow  ;  his  hands  and  feet 
were  gouty  ;  his  hair,  of  a  light  brown, 
was  parted  in  the  midst  and  fell  in  long 
curls  ;  his  eyes,  gray  and  clear,  showed 

*  Milton's  Poetical  Works,  Mitford,  i.  Son* 
net  xxii.  \  Italian  Sonnets. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


no  sign  of  blindness.  He  had  been  very 
beautiful  in  his  youth,  and  his  English 
cheeks,  once  delicate  as  a  young  girl's, 
retained  their  color  almost  to  the  end. 
His  face,  we  are  told,  was  pleasing ;  his 
straight  and  manly  gait  bore  witness 
to  intrepidity  and  courage.  Something 
great  and  proud  breathes  out  yet  from 
all  his  portraits  ;  and  certainly  few  men 
have  done  so  much  honor  to  their  kind. 
7  hus  went  out  this  noble  life,  like  a 
setting  sun,  bright  and  calm.  Amid  so 
many  trals,  a  pure  and  lofty  joy,  alto- 
geth  er  worthy  of  him,  had  been  grant- 
ed to  him  :  the  poet,  buried  under  the 
Puritan,  had  reappeared,  more  sublime 
than  ever,  to  give  to  Christianity  its 
second  Homer.  The  dazzling  dreams 
of  his  youth  and  the  reminiscences  of 
his  ripe  age  were  found  in  him,  side  by 
by  side  with  Calvinistic  dogmas  and 
the  visions  of  Saint  John,  to  create  the 
Protestant  epic  of  damnation  and  grace  ; 
and  the  vastness  of  primitive  horizons, 
the  flames  of  the  infernal  dungeon,  the 
splendors  of  the  celestial  court,  opened 
to  the  inner  eye  of  the  soul  unknown 
regions  beyond  the  sights  which  the 
eyes  of  the  flesh  had  lost. 

V. 

I  have  before  me  the  formidable  vol- 
ume in  which  some  time  after  Milton's 
death,  his  prose  works  were  collected.* 
What  a  book  !  The  chairs  creak  when 
you  place  it  upon  them,  and  a  man  who 
had  turned  its  leaves  over  for  an  hour, 
would  have  less  pain  in  his  head  than 
in  his  arm.  As  the  book,  so  were  the 
men  ;  from  the  mere  outsides  we  might 
gather  some  notion  of  the  controver- 
sialists and  theologians  whose  doctrines 
they  contain.  Yet  we  must  conclude 
that  the  author  was  eminently  learned, 
e*.  -gant,  travelled,  philosophic,  and  a 
man  of  the  world  for  his  age.  We 
Ihink  involuntarily  of  the  portraits  of 
the  theologians  of  those  days,  severe 
fa^i  t  engraved  on  metal  by  the  hard 

*  3  vote,  folio,  1697-8.  The  titles  of  Mil- 
ton's chief  writings  in  prose  are  these  : — Of 
Reformation  in  England',  The  Reason  of 
Chrirch  Government  urged  against  Prelaty  ; 
Animadversions  upon  the  Remonstrants'1  De- 
fence ;  Doctrine  and  Discipline  of  Divorce ; 
Tetr  zchoi  don  ;  Tractate  on  Education  ; 
A  reopagitica  ;  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magis- 
trates ;  Eikonoklastes  ;  Plistory  of  Britain; 
Defence  of  the  People  of  England. 


MILTON.  285 

artists'  tool,  whose  square  brows  and 
steady  eyes  stand  out  in  startling  prom- 
inence against  a  dark  oak  panel.  We 
compare  them  to  modern  countenances, 
in  which  the  delicate  and  complex  fea- 
tures seem  to  quiver  at  the  varied  con- 
tact of  hardly  begun  sensations  and  in- 
numerable ideas.  We  try  to  imagine 
the  heavy  classical  education,  the  phys- 
ical exercises,  the  rude  treatment,  the 
rare  ideas,  the  imposed  dogmas,  which 
formerly  occupied,  oppressed,  fortified, 
and  hardened  the  young ;  and  we  might 
fancy  ourselves  looking  at  an  anatomy 
of  megatheria  and  mastodons,  recon- 
structed by  Cuvier. 

The  race  of  living  men  is  changed. 
Our  mind  fails  us  now-a-days  at  the 
idea  of  this  greatness  and  this  barbar- 
ism ;  but  we  discover  that  the  barbar- 
ism was  then  the  cause  of  the  greatness. 
As  in  other  times  we  might  have  seen, 
in  the  primitive  slime  and  among  the 
colossal  ferns,  ponderous  monsters 
slowly  wind  their  scaly  backs,  and  tear 
the  flesh  from  one  another's  sides  with 
their  misshapen  talons  ;  so  now,  at  a 
distance,  from  the  height  of  our  calm 
civilization,  we  see  the  battles  of  the 
theologians,  who,  armed  with  syllo- 
gisms, bristling  with  texts,  covered  one 
another  with  filth,  and  labored  to  de- 
vour each  other. 

Milton  fought  in  the  front  rank,  pre- 
ordained to  barbarism  and  greatness 
by  his  individual  nature  and  the  man- 
ners of  the  time,  capable  of  displaying 
in  high  prominence  the  logic,  style,  and 
spirit  of  his  age.  It  is  drawing-room 
life  which  trims  men  into  shape :  the 
society  of  ladies,  the  lack  of  serious  in- 
terests, idleness,  vanity,  security,  are 
needed  to  bring  men  to  elegance,  urban 
ity,  fine  and  light  humor,  to  teach  the 
desire  to  please,  the  fear  to  become 
wearisome,  a  perfect  clearness,  a  finish- 
ed precision,  the  art  of  gradual  transi- 
tions and  delicate  tact,  a  taste  for  suit- 
able images,  continual  ease,  and  choice 
diversity.  Seek  nothing  like  this  in 
Milton.  The  old  scholastic  system 
was  not  far  off  ;  it  still  weighed  on 
those  who  were  destroying  it.  Under 
this  secular  armor  discussion  proceeded 
pedantically,  with  measured  steps. 
The  first  thing  was  to  propound  a 
thesis;  and  Milton  writes,  in  large 
characters,  at  the  head  of  his  Treatist 


286 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


on  Divorce,  "  that  indisposition,  unfit- 
ness,  or  contrariety  of  mind,  arising 
from  a  cause  in  nature  unchangeable, 
hindering,  and  ever  likely  to  hinder 
the  main  benefits  of  conjugal  society, 
which  are  solace  and  peace,  is  a  greater 
reason  of  divorce  than  natural  frigidity, 
especially  if  there  be  no  children,  and 
that  there  be  mutual  consent."  And 
then  follow,  legion  after  legion,  the 
disciplined  army  of  the  arguments. 
Battalion  after  battalion  they  pass  by, 
numbered  very  distinctly.  There  is  a 
dozen  of  them  together,  each  with  its 
title  in  clear  characters,  and  the  little 
brigade  of  subdivisions  which  it  com- 
mands. Sacred  texts  hold  the  post  of 
honor.  Every  word  of  them  is  dis- 
cussed, the  substantive  after  the  adjec- 
tive, the  verb  after  the  substantive,  the 
preposition  after  the  verb ;  interpreta- 
tions, authorities,  illustrations,  are  sum- 
moned up,  and  ranged  between  pali- 
sades of  new  divisions.  And  yet  there 
is  a  lack  of  order,  the  question  is  not 
reduced  to  a  single  idea  ;  we  cannot 
see  our  way;  proofs  succeed  proofs 
without  logical  sequence  ;  we  are  rather 
tired  out  than  convinced.  We  remem- 
ber that  the  author  speaks  to  Oxford 
men,  lay  or  cleric,  trained  in  pretended 
discussions,  capable  of  obstinate  atten- 
tion, accustomed  to  digest  indigestible 
books.  They  are  at  home  in  this 
thorny  thicket  of  scholastic  brambles  ; 
they  beat  a  path  through,  somewhat  at 
hazard,  hardened  against  the  hurts 
which  repulse  us,  and  not  having  the 
smallest  idea  of  the  daylight  which  we 
require  everywhere  now. 

With  such  ponderous  reasoners,  you 
must  not  look  for  wit.  Wit  is  the 
nimbleness  of  victorious  reason  ;  here, 
because  every  thing  is  powerful,  all  is 
heavy.  When  Milton  wishes  to  joke, 
he  looks  like  one  of  Cromwell's  pike- 
men,  who,  entering  a  room  to  dance, 
should  fall  upon  the  floor,  and  that 
with  the  extra  weight  of  his  armor. 
Few  things  could  be  more  stupid  than 
his  Animadversions  upon  the  Remon- 
strants' Defence.  At  the  end  of  an  argu- 
ment his  adversary  concludes  with  this 
specimen  of  theological  wit:  "In  the 
meanwhile  see,  brethren,  how  you  have 
with  Simon  fished  all  night,  and  caught 
nothing."  And  Milton  boastfully  re- 
plies :  "  If  we,  fishing  with  Simon  the 


apostle,  can  catch  nothing  ;  see  whaf 
you  can  catch  with  Simon  Magus  ;  foi 
all  his  hooks  and  fishing  implements 
he  bequeathed  among  you."  Here  a 
great  savage  laugh  would  break  out. 
The  spectators  saw  a  charm  in  this  way 
of  insinuating  that  his  adversary  was 
simoniacal.  A  little  before,  the  latter 
says  :  "  Tell  me,  is  this  liturgy  good  or 
evil  ?  "  Answer  :  "  It  is  evil :  repair 
the  acheloian  horn  of  your  dilemma, 
how  you  can,  against  the  next  push  " 
The  doctors  wondered  at  the  fine 
mythological  simile,  and  rejoiced  to  see 
the  adversary  so  neatly  compai  ed  to 
an  ox,  a  beaten  ox,  a  pagan  ox.  On 
the  next  page  the  Remonstrant  said, 
by  way  of  a  spiritual  and  mocking  re- 
proacn  :  "  Truly,  brethren,  you  have 
not  well  taken  the  heighth  of  the  pole." 
Answer  :  "  No  marvel ;  there  be  many 
more  that  do  not  take  well  the  height 
of  your  pole,  but  will  take  better  the 
declination  of  your  altitude/'  Three 
quips  of  the  same  savor  follow  one  upon 
the  other;  all  this  looked  pretty.  Else- 
where, Salmasius  exclaiming  "  that  the 
sun  itself  never  beheld  a  more  outrage- 
ous action  "  than  the  murder  of  the  king, 
Milton  cleverly  answers,  "  The  sun  has 
beheld  many  things  that  blind  Bernard 
never  saw.  But  we  are  content  you 
should  mention  the  sun  over  and  over. 
And  it  will  be  a  piece  of  prudence  in 
you  so  to  do.  For  though  our  wicked- 
ness does  not  require  it,  the  coldness 
of  the  defence  that  you  are  making 
does."*  The  marvellous  heaviness  of 
these  conceits  betrays  minds  yet  en- 
tangled in  the  swaddling-clothes  of 
learning.  The  Reformation  was  the 
inauguration  of  free  thought,  but  only 
the  inauguration.  Criticism  was  yet 
unborn  ;  authority  still  presses  with  a 
full  half  of  its  weight  upon  the  freest 
and  boldest  minds.  Milton,  to  prove 
that  it  was  lawful  to  put  a  king  to 
death,  quotes  Orestes,  the  laws  of 
Publicola,  and  the  death  of  Nero,  f  lis 
History  of  Britain  is  a  farrago  of  all 
the  traditions  and  fables.  Under 
every  circumstance  he  adduces  a  text 
of  Scripture  for  proof ;  his  boldness 
consists  in  showing  himself  a  bold 
grammarian,  a  valorous  commentator 
He  is  blindly  Protestant  as  others  were 

*  A  Defence  of  the  People  of  England,  Mit- 
ford,  vi.  21. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


blindly  Catholic.  He  leaves  in  its 
bondage  the  higher  reason,  the  mother 
ot  principles  ;  he  has  but  emancipated 
a  subordinate  reason,  an  interpreter  of 
texts.  Like  the  vast  half  shapeless 
creatures,  the  birth  of  early  times,  he 
is  yet  but  half  man  and  half  mud. 

Can  we  expect  urbanity  here  ?  Ur- 
banity is  the  elegant  dignity  which 
answers  insult  by  calm  irony,  and  re- 
spects man  whilst  piercing  a  dogma. 
Milton  coarsely  knocks  his  adversary 
liown.  A  bristling  pedant,  born  from 
a.  Greek  lexicon  and  a  Syriac  grammar, 
Salmasius  had  disgorged  upon  the 
English  people  a  vocabulary  of  insults 
and  a  folio  of  quotations.  *  Milton  re- 
plies to  him  in  the  same  style  ;  calling 
him  a  buffoon,  a  mountebank,  "pro- 
fessor triobolaris"  a  hired  pedant,  a 
nobody,  a  rogue,  a  heartless  being,  a 
wretch,  an  idiot,  sacrilegious,  a  slave 
worthy  of  rods  and  a  pitchfork.  A 
dictionary  of  big  Latin  words  passed 
between  them.  "  You,  who  know  so 
many  tongues,  who  read  so  many 
books,  who  write  so  much  about 
them,  you  are  yet  but  an  ass."  Find- 
ing the  epithet  good,  he  repeats  and 
sanctifies  it.  "  Oh  most  drivelling  of 
asses,  you  come  ridden  by  a  woman, 
with  the  cured  heads  of  bishops  whom 
**ou  had  wounded,  a  little  image  of  the 
great  beast  of  the  Apocalypse  !  "  He 
ends  by  calling  him  savage  beast,  apos- 
tate and  devil.  "  Doubt  not  that  you 
are  reserved  for  the  same  end  as  Judas, 
and  that,  driven  by  despair  rather  than 
repentance,  self-disgusted,  you  must 
one  day  hang  yourself,  and  like  your 
rival,  burst  asunder  in  your  belly."  * 
We  fancy  we  are  listening  to  the  bel- 
lowing of  two  bulls. 

They  had  all  a  bull's  ferocity.  Mil- 
ton was  a  good  hater.  He  fought  with 
his  pen,  as  the  Ironsides  with  the 
sword,  inch  by  inch,  with  a  concen- 

*  Mitford,  vi.  250.  Salmasius  said  of  the 
death  of  the  king  :  "  Horribilis  nuntius  aures 
nostras  atroci  vulnere,  sed  magis  mentes  per- 
culit."  Milton  replied  :  "  Profecto  nuntius  iste 
horribilis  aut  gladium  multolongioreri  eo  quern 
strinxit  Petrus  habuerit  oportet,  aut  aures  istae 
auritissimne  fuerint,  quas  tarn  longinquo  vulnere 
perculerit." 

"  Oratorem  tarn  insipidum  et  insulsum  ut  ne 
ex  lacrymis  quidem  ejus  mica  salis  exiguissima 
possit  exprimi." 

"  Salmasius  nova  quadam  metamorphosi  sal- 
macis  factus  est." 


MILTON.  287 


trated  rancor  and  a  fierce  obstinacy. 
The  bishops  and  the  king  then  suf- 
fered for  eleven  years  of  despotism. 
Each  man  recalled  the  banishments, 
confiscations,  punishments,  the  law 
violated  systematically  and  relentless- 
ly, the  liberty  of  the  subject  attacked 
by  a  well-laid  plot,  Episcopal  idolatry 
imposed  on  Christian  consciences,  the 
faithful  preachers  driven  into  the  wilds 
of  America,  or  given  up  to  the  execu- 
tioner and  the  stocks.*  Such  renrin 
iscences  arising  in  powerful  minds, 
stamped  them  with  inexpiable  hatred, 
and  the  writings  of  Milton  bear  witness 

*  I  copy  from  Neal's  History  of  tJte  Puri- 
tans, ii.  ch.  vii.  367,  one  of  these  sorrows  and 
complaints.  By  the  greatness  of  the  outrage 
the  reader  can  judge  of  the  intensity  of  the 
hatred : — 

"  The  humble  petition  of  (Dr.)  Alexander 
Leigh  ton,  Prisoner  in  the  Fleet, — Humbly 
Sheweth, 

"  That  on  Feb.  17.  1630,  he  was  apprehended 
coming  from  sermon  by  a  high  commission  war- 
rant, and  dragged  along  the  street  with  bills  and 
staves  to  London-house.  That  the  gaoler  of 
Newgate  being  sent  for,  clapt  him  in  irons,  and 
carried  him  with  a  strong  power  into  a  loath- 
some and  ruinous  dog-hole,  full  of  rats  and 
mice,  and  that  had  no  light  but  a  little  grate, 
and  the  roof  being  uncovered,  the  snpw  and 
rain  beat  in  upon  him,  having  no  bedding,  nor 
place  to  make  a  fire,  but  the  ruins  of  an  old 
smoaky  chimney.  In  this  woeful  place  he  was 
shut  up  for  fifteen  weeks,  nobody  being  suffered 
to  come  near  him,  till  at  length  his  wife  only 
was  admitted.  That  the  fourth  day  after  his 
commitment  the  persuivant,  with  a  mighty  mul- 
titude, came  to  his  house  to  search  for  Jesuits 
books,  and  used  his  wife  in  such  a  barbarous 
and  inhuman  manner  as  he  is  ashamed  to  ex- 

Eress  ;  that  they  rifled  every  person  and  place, 
olding  a  pistol  to  the  breast  of  a  child  of  five 
years  old,  threatening  to  kill  him  if  he  did  not 
discover  the  books :  that  they  broke  open 
chests,  presses,  boxes,  and  carried  away  every- 
thing, even  household  stuff,  apparel,  arms,  and 
other  things  ;  that  at  the  end  of  fifteen  weeks 
he  was  served  with  a  subpoena,  on  an  in- 
formation laid  against  him  by  Sir_  Robert 
Heath,  attorney-general,  whose  dealing  with 
him  was  full  of  cruelty  and  deceit ;  but  he  was 
then  sick,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  four  physicians, 
thought  to  be  poisoned,  becaiise  all  his  hair  and 
skin  came  off ;  that  in  the  height  of  this  sick- 
ness the  cruel  sentence  was  passed  upon  him 
mentioned  in  the  year  1630,  and  executed  Nov. 
26  following,  when  he  received. thirty-six  stripes 
upon  his  naked  back  with  a  threefold  cord,  his 
hands  being  tied  to  a  stake,  and  then  stood  al- 
most two  hours  in  the  pillory  in  the  frost  and 
snow,  before  he  was  branded  in  the  face,  his 
nose  slit,  and  his  ears  cut  off ;  that  after  this 
he  was  carried  by  water  to  the  Fleet,  and  shut 
up  in  such  a  room  that  he  was  never  well,  and 
after  eight  years  was  turned  into  the  common 
<raol." 


288 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II, 


to  a  rancor  which  is  now  unknown. 
The  impression  left  by  his  Eikonoklas- 
tes*  is  oppressive.  Phrase  by  phrase, 
harshly,  bitterly,  the  king  is  refuted 
and  accused  to  the  last,  without  a  min- 
ute's respite  of  accusation,  the  accused 
being  credited  with  not  the  slightest 
good  intention,  the  slightest  excuse, 
the  least  show  of  justice,  the  accuser 
never  for  an  instant  digressing  to  or 
resting  upon  a  general  idea.  It  is  a 
band-to-hand  fight,  where  every  word 
takes  effect,  prolonged,  obstinate,  with- 
out dash  and  without  weakness,  full  of 
a  harsh  and  fixed  hostility,  where  the 
only  thought  is  how  to  wound  most 
severely  and  to  kill  surely.  Against 
the  bishops,  who  were  alive  and  pow- 
erful, his  hatred  flowed  more  violently 
still,  and  the  fierceness  of  his  enven- 
omed mataphors  hardly  suffices  to  ex- 
press it.  Milton  points  to  them  "  bask- 
ing in  the  sunny  warmth  of  wealth  and 
promotion,"  like  a  brood  of  foul  rep- 
tiles. "  The  sour  leaven  of  human  tra- 
ditions, mixed  in  one  putrified  mass 
with  the  poisonous  dregs  of  hypocrisie 
in  the  hearts  of  Prelates,  ...  is  the 
serpent's  egg  that  will  hatch  an  anti- 
christ wheresoever,  and  ingender  the 
same  monster  as  big  or  little  as  the 
lump  is  which  breeds  him."  t 

So  much  coarseness  and  dulness 
was  as  an  outer  breastplate,  the  mark 
and  the  protection  of  the  super-abun- 
dant force  and  life  which  coursed  in 
those  athletic  limbs  and  chests.  Now- 
a-days,  the  mind  being  more  refined 
has  become  feebler ;  convictions,  being 
less  stern,  have  become  less  strong. 
Attention,  freed  from  the  heavy  scho- 
lastic logic  and  scriptural  tyranny,  has 
become  more  inert.  Belief  and  the 
will,  dissolved  by  universal  tolerance 
and  by  the  thousand  opposing  shocks 
of  multiplied  ideas,  have  engendered 
an  exact  apd  refined  style,  an  instru- 
ment of  conversation  and  pleasure, 
and  have  expelled  the  poetic  and  rude 
style,  a  weapon  of  war  and  enthusiasm. 
If'  we  have  effaced  ferocity  and  dul- 
ness, we  have  diminished  force  and 
greatness. 

Force  and  greatness  are  manifested 

*  An  answer  to  the  Eikon  Basilike,  a  work 
on  the  king's  side,  and  attributed  to  the  king. 

\  Of.  Reformat  ion  in  England^  4to,  1641,  p. 
62. 


in  Milton,  displayed  in  his  opinions 
and  his  style,  the  sources  of  his  belief 
and  his  talent.  This  proud  reason  as- 
pired to  unfold  itself  without  shackles ; 
it  demanded  that  reason  might  unfold 
itself  without  shackles.  It  claimed  for 
humanity  what  it  coveted  for  itself,  and 
championed  every  liberty  in  his  every 
work.  From  the  first  he  attacked  the 
corpulent  bishops,  scholastic  upstarts, 
persecutors  of  free  discussion,  pen- 
sioned tyrants  of  Christian  conscience.* 
Above  the  clamor  of  the  Protestant 
Revolution,  his  voice  was  heard  thun- 
dering against  tradition  and  obedience. 
He  sourly  railed  at  the  pedantic  theolo- 
gians, devoted  worshippers  of  old  texts, 
who  mistook  a  mouldy  martyrology  for 
a  solid  argument,  and  answered  a  de- 
monstration with  a  quotation.  He  de- 
clared that  most  of  the  Fathers  were 
turbulent  and  babbling  intriguers,  that 
they  were  not  worth  more  collectively 
than  individually,  that  their  councils 
were  but  a  pack  of  underhand  intrigues 
and  vain  disputes  ;  he  rejected  their 
authority  and  their  example,  and  set 
up  logic  as  the  only  interpreter  of 
Scripture. t  A  Puritan  as  against 
bishops,  an  Independent  as  against 
Presbyterians,  he  was  always  master  of 
his  thought  and  the  inventor  of  his 
own  faith.  No  one  better  loved,  prac- 
tised, and  praised  the  free  and  bold 
use  of  reason.  He  exercised  it  even 
rashly  and  scandalously.  He  revolted 
against  custom,  the  illegitimate  queen 
of  human  belief,  the  born  and  relent- 
less enemy  of  truth,  raised  his  hand 
against  marriage,  and  demanded  di- 
vorce in  the  case  of  incompatibility  of 
temper.  He  declared  that  "  error  sup- 
ports custom,  custom  countenances 
error ;  and  these  two  between  them, 
.  .  .  with  the  numerous  and  vulgar 
train  of  their  followers,  .  .  .  envy  and 
cry  down  the  industry  of  free  reason- 
ing, under  the  terms  of  humor  and  in- 
novation." \  He  showed  that  truth 
"  never  comes  into  the  world,  but  like 
a  bastard,  to  the  ignominy  of  him  that 
brought  her  forth  ;  till  Time,  the  mid- 
wife rather  than  the  mother  of  truth, 

*  Of  Reformation  in  England. 

t  The  loss  of  Cicero's  works  alone,  or  those 
of  Livy,  could,  not  be  repaired  by  all  the  Fathers 
of  the  church. 

t  Doctrine  and  Discipline  of  Divorce,  Mit« 
ford,  ii.  4. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON.  289 


have  washed  and  salted  the  infant,  de- 
clared her  legitimate/'  *  He  stood 
out  in  three  or  four  writings  against 
the  flood  of  insults  and  anathemas,  and 
dai  ed  even  more  ;  he  attacked  the 
censorship  before  Parliament,  though 
its  own  work;  he  spoke  as  a  man  who 
is  wounded  and  oppressed,  for  whom 
a  public  prohibition  is  a  personal  out- 
rage, who  is  himself  fettered  by  the 
fetters  of  the  nation.  He  does  not 
want  the  pen  of  a  paid  "  licenser,"  to 
insult  by  its  approval  the  first  page  of 
hi3  book.  He  hates  this  ignorant  and 
imperious  hand,  and  claims  liberty  of 
writing  on  the  same  grounds  as  he 
claims  liberty  of  thought  : — 

"  What  advantage  is  it  to  be  a  man,  over  it 
is  to  be  a  boy  at  school,  if  we  have  only  escaped 
the  ferula,  to  come  under  the  fescue  of  an  im- 
primatur? If  serious  and  elaborate  writings, 
as  if  they  were  no  more  than  the  theme  of  a 
grammar-lad  under  his  pedagogue,  must  not  be 
uttered  without  the  cursory  eyes  of  a  temporiz- 
ing and  extemporizing  licenser  ?  He  who  is 
not  trusted  with  his  own  actions,  his  drift  not 
being  known  to  be  evil,  and  standing  to  the 
hazard  of  law  and  penalty,  has  no  great  argu- 
ment to  think  himself  reputed  in  the  common- 
wealth wherein  he  was  bora  for  other  than  a 
fool  or  a  foreigner.  When  a  man  writes  to  the 
world,  he  summons  up  all  his  reason  and  de- 
liberation to  assist  him  ;  he  searches,  meditates, 
is  industrious,  and  likely  consults  and  confers 
with  his  judicious  friends  j  after  all  which  done, 
he  takes  himself  to  be  informed  in  what  he 
writes,  as  well  as  any  that  wrote  before  him  ;  if 
in  this,  the  most  consummate  act  of  his  fidelity 
and  ripeness,  no  years,  no  industry,  no  former 
proof  of  his  abilities,  can  bring  him  to  that  state 
of  maturity,  as  not  to  be  still  mistrusted  and  sus- 
pected, unless  he  carry  all  his  considerate  dili- 
gence, all  his  midnight  watchings,  and  expense 
of  Paliadian  oil,  to  the  hasty  view  of  an  un- 
leisured  licenser,  perhaps  much  his  younger, 
perhaps  far  his  inferior  in  judgment,  perhaps 
one  who  never  knew  the  labour  of  book  writ- 
ing ;  and  if  he  be  not  repulsed,  or  slighted, 
must  appear  in  print  like  a  puny  with  his 
guardian,  and  his  censor's  hand  on  the  back  of 
his  title  to  be  his  bail  and  surety,  that  he  is  no 
idiot  or  seducer  ;  it  cannot  be  but  a  dishonour 
and  derogation  to  the  author,  to  the  book,  to 
the  privilege  and  dignity  if  learning."  f 

Throw  open,  then  all  the  doors;  let 
there  be  light;  let  every  man  think, 
and  bring  his  thoughts  to  the  light. 
Dread  not  any  diversities  of  opinion, 
rejoice  in  this  great  work  ;  why  insult 
the  laborers  by  the  name  of  schismatics 
and  sectaries  ? 

*  Doctrine  and  Discipline  of  Divorce,  Mit- 
Cord,  ii.  5. 
t  Areopagitica,)  Mitford,  ii.  423-4. 


"  Yet  these  are  the  men  cried  out  against  for 
schismatics  and  sectaries,  as  if,  while  the  temple 
of  the  Lord  was  building,  some  cutting,  some 
squaring  the  marble,  others  hewing  the  cedars, 
there  should  be  a  sort  of  irrational  men,  who 
could  not  consider  there  must  be  many  schisms 
and  many  dissections  made  in  the  quarry  and 
in  the  timber  ere  the  house  of  God  can  be 
built.  And  when  every  stone  is  laid  artfully 
together,  it  cannot  be  united  into  a  continuity, 
it  can  but  be  contiguous  in  this  world  :  neither 
can  every  piece  of  the  building  be  of  one  form  ; 
nay,  rather  the  perfection  consists  in  this,  that 
out  of  many  moderate  varieties  and  brotherly 
dissimilitudes  that  are  not  vastly  dispropor- 
tional,  arises  the  goodly  and  the  graceful  sym- 
metry that  commends  the  whole  pile  and  struc- 
ture/' * 

Milton  triumphs  here  through  sym- 
pathy; he  breaks  forth  into  magnificent 
images,  he  displays  in  his  style  the 
force  which  he  perceives  around  him 
and  in  himself.  He  lauds  the  revo- 
lution, and  his  praises  seem  like  the 
blast  of  a  trumpet,  to  come  from  a 
brazen  throat: — 

"  Behold  now  this  vast  city,  a  city  of  refuge, 
the  mansion-house  of  liberty,  encompassed  and 
surrounded  with  his  protection  ;  the  shop  of 
war  has  not  there  more  anvils  and  hammers 
working,  to  fashion  out  the  plates  and  instru- 
ments of  armed  justice  in  defence  of  beleagured 
truth,  than  there  be  pens  and  heads  there,  sit- 
ting by  their  studious  lamps,  musing,  searching, 
revolving  new  notions  and  ideas  wherewith  to 
present,  as  with  their  homage  and  their  feality, 
the  approaching  reformation.  .  .  .  What  could 
a  man  require  more  from  a  nation  so  pliant,  and 
so  prone  to  seek  after  knowledge  ?  What  wants 
there  to  such  a  towardly  and  pregnant  soil,  but 
wise  and  faithful  labourers,  to  make  a  knowing 
people,  a  nation  of  prophets,  of  sages,  and  of 
worthies  ?f  .  .  .  Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind 
a  noble  and  puissant  nation  rousing  herself  like 
a  strong  man  after  sleep,  and  shaking  her  in- 
vincible locks :  methmks  I  see  her  as  an  eagle 
mewing  her  mighty  youth,  and  kindling  her  uu- 
dazzled  eyes  at  the  full  midday  beam  ;  purging 
and  unsealing  her  long-abused  sight  at  the 
fountain  itself  of  heavenly  radiance  ;  while  the 
whole  noise  of  timorous  and  flocking  birds,  with 
those  also  that  love  the  twilight,  flutter  about, 
amazed  at  what  she  means,  and  in  their  envious* 
gabble  would  prognosticate  a  year  of  sects  and 
schisms."  t 

It  is  Milton  who  speaks,  and  it  i» 
Milton  whom  he  unwittingly  describes. 

With  a  sincere  writer,  doctrines  fore- 
tell the  style.  The  sentiments"  and 
needs  which  form  and  govern  his  be- 
liefs, construct  and  color  his  phrases. 
The  same  genius  leaves  once  and  again 
the  same  impress,  in  the  thought  and 
in  the  form.  The  power  of  logic  and 
enthusiasm  which  explains  the  opinions 

*  Ibid.  439-        *  Und.  437-8-        \  Ibid.  441. 

'3 


290 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


of  Milton,  explains  his  genius.  The 
sectary  and  the  writer  are  one  man,  and 
we  shall  find  the  faculties  of  the  sectary 
in  the  talent  of  the  writer. 

When  an  idea  is  planted  in  a  logical 
mind,  it  grows  and  fructifies  there  in  a 
multitude  of  accessory  and  explanatory 
ideas  which  surround  it,  entangled 
among  themselves,  and  form  a  thicket 
and  a  forest.  The  sentences  in  Milton 
are  immense ;  page-long  periods  are 
necessary  to  enclose  the  train  of  so 
many  linked  arguments,  and  so  many 
metaphors  accumulated  around  the 
governing  thought.  In  this  great  tra- 
vail, heart  and  imagination  are  sha- 
ken;  Milton  exults  while  he  reasons, 
and  the  words  come  as  from  a  catapult, 
doubling  the  force  of  their  flight  by  their 
heavy  weight.  I  dare  not  place  before 
a  modern  reader  the  gigantic  periods 
which  commence  the  treatise  Of  Refor- 
mation in  England.  We  no  longer  pos- 
sess this  power  of  breath  ;  we  only  un- 
•v*  derstand  little  short  phrases  ;  we  cannot 
fix  our  attention  on  the  same  point  for 
a  page  at  a  time.  We  require  manage- 
able ideas  ;  we  have  given  up  the  big 
two-handed  sword  of  our  fathers,  and  we 
only  carry  a  light  foil.  I  doubt,  how- 
ever, if  the  piercing  phraseology  of  Vol- 
taire be  more  mortal  than  the  cleaving 
of  this  iron  mace  : — 

"  If  in  less  noble  and  almost  mechanick  arts 
he  is  not  esteemed  to  deserve  the  name  of  a 
compleat  architect,  an  excellent  painter,  or  the 
like,  that  bears  not  a  generous  mind  above  the 
peasantly  regard  of  wages  and  hire  ;  much  more 
must  we  think  him  a  most  imperfect  and  incom- 
pleat  Divine,  who  is  so  far  from  being  a  con- 
temner  of  filthy  lucre  ;  that  his  whole  divinity 
is  moulded  and  bred  up  in  the  beggarly  and 
brutish  hopes  of  a  fat  prebendary,  deanery,  or 
bishoprick."  * 

If  Michael  Angelo's  prophets  could 
speak,  it  would  be  in  this  style ;  and 
twenty  tim^s  while  reading  it,  we  may 
ilis<  ern  the  sculptor. 

1  he  p  Averful  logic  which  lengthens 
the  periods  sustains  the  images.  If 
Shakspeare  and  the  nervous  poets  em- 
brace a  picture  in  the  compass  of  a  fleet- 
ing expression,  break  upon  their  meta- 
phors with  new  ones,  and  exhibit  suc- 
cessively in  the  same  phrase  the  same 
idea  in  five  or  six  different  forms,  the 
abrupt  motion  of  their  winged  imagi- 


nation authorizes  or  explains  these 
varied  colors  and  these  mingling  flashes. 
More  connected  and  more  master  of 
himself,  Milton  develops  to  the  end  the 
threads  which  these  poets  break.  All 
his  images  display  themselves  in  little 
poems,  a  sort  of  solid  allegory,  of 
which  all  the  interdependent  parts  con- 
centrate their  light  on  the  single  idea 
which  they  are  intended  to  embellish  or 
demonstrate  : — 

"  In  this  manner  the  prelates,  .  .  .  coming 
from  a  mean  and  plebeian  life  on  a  sudden  to 
be  lords  of  stately  palaces,  rich  furniture,  dc.'i- 
cious  fare,  and  princely  attendance,  thought  the 
plain  and  homespun  verity  of  Christ's  gospel 
unfit  any  longer  to  hold  their  lordships'  acquaint- 
ance,  unless  the  poor  threadbare  matron  were 
put  into  better  clothes  :  her  chaste  and  modest 
veil  surrounded  with  celestial  beams,  they  over- 
laid with  wanton  tresses,  and  in  a  flaring  tire 
bespeckled  her  with  all  the  gaudy  allurements 
of  a  whore."  * 

Politicians  reply  that  this  gaudy  church 
supports  royalty. 

"  What  greater  debasement  can  there  be  to 
royal  dignity,  whose  towering  and  steadfast 
height  rests  upon  the  unmovable  foundations  pi 
justice,  and  heroic  virtue,  than  to  chain  it  in 
a  dependence  of  subsisting,  or  ruining,  to  the 
painted  battlements  and  gaudy  rottenness  of 
prelatry,  which  want  but  one  puff  of  the  king's 
to  blow  them  down  like  a  pasteboard  house 
built  of  court-cards  ?  "  t 

Metaphors  thus  sustained  receive  a 
singular  breadth,  pomp,  and  majesty. 
They  are  spread  forth  without  clashing 
together,  like  the  wide  folds  of  a 
scarlet  cloak,  bathed  in  light  and 
fringed  with  gold. 

Do  not  take  these  metaphors  for  an 
accident.  Milton  lavishes  them,  like  a 
priest  who  in  his  worship  exhibits 
splendors  and  wins  the  eye,  to  gain  the 
heart.  He  has  been  nourished  by  the 
reading  of  Spenser,  Drayton,  Shak- 
speare, Beaumont,  all  the  most  spark- 
ling poets  ;  and  the  golden  flow  of  the 
preceding  age,  though  impoverished 
all  around  him  and  slackened  within 
himself,  has  become  enlarged  like  a 
lake  through  being  dammed  up  in  his 
heart.  Like  Shakspeare,  he  imagine*, 
at  every  turn,  and  even  out  of  turn,  anr3. 
scandalizes  the  classical  and  French 
taste. 

"...  As  if  they  could  make  God  earthly 
and  fleshly,  because  they  could  not  make  them- 


*  Aniinadrersions  upon  Remonstrants*  De-         *  Of  Reformation  in  England,  first  book, 
ice,  Mitford,  i.  234-5.  Mitford,  i.  23.         t  Ibid,  second  book,  42. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


291 


selves  heavenly  and  spiritual ;  they  began  to 
draw  down  all  the  divine  intercourse  betwixt 
God  and  the  soul,  yea,  the  very  shape  of  God 
himself,  into  an  exterior  and  bodily  form  ;  .  .  . 
they  hallowed  it,  they  fumed  up,  they  sprinkled 
it,  t'.iey  bedecked  it,  not  in  robes  of  pure  inno- 
cen;y,  but  of  pure  linen,  with  other  deformed 
and  fantastic  dresses,  in  palls  and  mitres,  and 
gewgaws  fetched  from  Aaron's  old  wardrobe, 
or  the  flamins  vestry :  then  was  the  priest  set 
to  con  his  motions  and  his  postures,  his  litur- 
gies and  his  lurries,  till  the  soul  by  this  means, 
of  overbodying  herself,  given  up  justly  to  flesh- 
ly delights,  bated  her  wing  apace  downward  ; 
and  finding  the  ease  she  had  from  her  visible 
a'.id  sensuous  colleague,  the  body  in  perform- 
ance of  religious  duties,  her  pinions  now 
broken,  and  flagging,  shifted  off  from  herself 
the  labour  of  high  soaring  any  more,  forgot  her 
heavenly  flight,  and  left  the  dull  and  droiling 
carcase  to  plod  on  in  the  old  road,  and  drudging 
trade  of  outward  conformity."  * 

If  we  did  not  discern  here  the  traces  of 
theological  coarseness,  we  might  fancy 
we  were  reading  an  imitator  of  the 
Phado,  and  under  the  fanatical  anger 
recognize  the  images  of  Plato.  There 
is  one  phrase  which  for  manly  beauty 
and  enthusiasm  recalls  the  tone  of  the 
Republic  : — "  I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive 
and  cloistered  virtue  unexercised  and 
unbreathed,  that  never  sallies  out  and 
sees  her  adversary,  but  slinks  out  of 
the  race  where  that  immortal  garland 
is  to  be  run  for,  not  without  dust  and 
heat."  t  But  Milton  is  only  Platonic 
by  his  richness  and  exaltation.  For 
the  rest,  he  is  a  man  of  the  Renaissance, 
pedantic  and  harsh ;  he  insults  the 
Pope,  who,  after  the  gift  of  Pepin  le 
Bref,  "  never  ceased  baiting  and  goring 
the  successors  of  his  best  lord  Con- 
stantine,  what  by  his  barking  curses 
and  excommunications ;  "  {  he  is 
mythological  in  his  defence  of  the 
press,  showing  that  formerly  "  no  en- 
vious Juno  sat  cross-legged  over  the 
nativity  of  any  man's  intellectual  off- 
spring.''^ It  matters  little:  these 
learned,  familiar,  grand  images,  what- 
ever they  be,  are  powerful  and  natural. 
Superabundance,  like  crudity,  here 

*  Of  Reformation  in  England,  book  first, 
Mitfo.d,  i.  3. 

t  Areopagitica,  n.  411-12. 

\  Of  reformation  in  England,  book  second, 
40. 

§  Areoj>agitica,  ii.  406.  "  Whatsoever  time, 
or  the  hoe  Hess  hand  of  blind  chance,  hath 
drawn  down  from  of  old  to  this  present,  in  her 
huge  drag-net,  whether  fish  or  sea-weed,  shells 
or  shrubs,  unpicked,  unchosen,  those  are  the 
fathers."  (Of  Prelatical Episcopacy,  Mitford, 


only  manifests  the  vigor  and  lyric  dash 
which  Milton's  character  had  foretold 
Passion  follows  naturally;  exaltatiou 
brings  it  with  the  images.  Bold  ex 
pressions,  exaggeration  of  style,  cause 
us  to  hear  the  vibrating  voice  of  the 
suffering  man,  indignant  and  de  fcr 
mined. 

"  For  books  are  not  absolutely  dead  things, 
but  do  contain  a  potency  of  life  in  them  lo  be  as 
active  as  that  soul  was  whose  progeny  they  are; 
nay,  they  do  preserve  as  in  a  vial  the  purest 
efficacy  and  extraction  of  that  living  intellect 
that  bred  them.  I  know  they  are  as  lively,  and 
as  vigorously  productive,  as  those  fabulous 
dragon's  teeth :  and  being  sown  up  and  down, 
may  chance  to  spring  up  armed  men.  And  yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  unless  wariness  be  used,  as 
good  almost  kill  a  man  as  kill  a  good  book  ; 
who  kills  a  man  kills  a  reasonable  creature, 
God's  image  ;  but  he  who  destroys  a  good  book, 
kills  reason  itself,  kills  the  image  of  God,  as  it 
were,  in  the  eye.  Many  a  man  lives  a  burden 
to  the  earth  ;  but  a  good  book  is  the  precious 
life-blood  of  a  master-spirit,  embalmed  and 
treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life. 
It  is  true,  no  age  can  restore  a  life,  whereof, 
perhaps  there  is  no  great  loss  ;  and  revolutions,  . 
of  ages  do  not  oft  recover  the  loss  of  a  rejected^ 
truth,  for  the  want  of  which  whole  nations  fare 
the  worse.  We  should  be  wary,  therefore, 
what  persecution  we  raise  against  the  living 
labours  of  public  men,  how  we  spill  that  sea- 
soned life  of  man,  preserved  and  stored  up  in 
books  ;  since  we  see  a  kind  of  homicide  maybe 
thus  committed,  sometimes  a  martyrdom  ;  and 
if  it  extend  to  the  whole  impression,  a  kind  of 
massacre,  whereof  the  execution  ends  not  in 
the  slaying  of  an  elemental  life,  but  strikes  at 
the  ethereal  and  fifth  essence,  the  breath  of 
reason  itself  ;  slays  an  immortality  rather  than 
a  life."* 

This  energy  is  sublime ;  the  man  is 
equal  to  the  cause,  and  never  did  a 
loftier  eloquence  match  a  loftier  truth. 
Terrible  expressions  overwhelm  the 
book-tyrants,  the  profaners  of  thought, 
the  assassins  of  liberty.  "  The  council 
of  Trent  and  the  Spanish  inquisition, 
engendering  together,  brought  forth  or 
perfected  those  catalogues  and  ex- 
purging  indexes,  that  rake  through  the 
entrails  of  many  an  old  good  author 
with  a  violation  worse  than  any  that 
could  be  offered  to  his  tomb."  *  Simi- 
lar expressions  lash  the  carnal  minds 
which  believe  without  thinking,  and 
make  their  servility  into  a  religion 
There  is  a  passage  which,  by  its  bitter 
familiarity,  recalls  Swift,  and  surpasses 
him  in  all  loftiness  of  imagination  and 
genius : — 

*  Areopagitica,  ibid,  ii,  400.     t  Ibid.  404. 


292 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


"  A  man  may  be  an  heretic  in  the  truth,  and 
if  he  believes  things  only  because  his  pastor 
says  so,  ...  the  very  truth  he  holds  becomes 
his  heresy.  ...  A  wealthy  man,  addicted  to 
his  pleasure  and  to  his  profits,  finds  religion  to 
be  a  traffic  so  entangled,  and  of  so  many  pid- 
dling accounts,  that  of  all  mysteries  he  cannot 
skill  to  keep  a  stock  going  upon  that  trade. 
.  .  .  What  does  he  therefore,  but  resolves  to 
give  over  toiling,  and  to  find  himself  out  some 
factor,  to  whose  care  and  credit  he  may  com- 
mit the  whole  managing  of  his  religious  af- 
fairs ;  some  divine  of  note  and  estimation  that 
ciust  be.  To  him  he  adheres,  resigns  the 
whole  warehouse  of  his  religion,  with  all  the 
leeks  and  keys,  into  his  custody ;  and  indeed 
makes  the  very  person  of  that  man  his  religion. 
...  So  that  a  man  may  say  his  religion  is  now 
no  more  within  himself,  but  is  become  a  dividual 
movable,  and  goes  and  comes  near  him,  accord- 
ing as  that  good  man  frequents  the  house.  He 
entertains  him?  gives  him  gifts,  feasts  him, 
lodges  him  ;  his  religion  comes  home  at  night, 
prays,  is  liberally  supped,  and  sumptuously 
laid  to  sleep  ;  rises,  is  saluted,  and  after  the 
malmsey,  or  some  well-spiced  bruage,  .  . 
his  religion  walks  abroad  at  eight,  and  leaves 
his  kind  entertainer  in  the  shop  trading  all  day 
without  his  religion."  * 

He  condescended  to  mock  for  an  in- 
stant, with  what  piercing  irony  we  have 
seen.  But  irony,  piercing  as  it  may  be, 
seems  to  him  weak,  t  Hear  him  when 
he  comes  to  himself,  when  he  returns 
to  open  and  serious  invective,  when 
after  the  carnal  believer  he  overwhelms 
the  carnal  prelate  : — 

"  The  table  of  communion,  now  becomes  a 
table  of  separation,  stands  like  an  exalted  plat- 
form upon  the  brow  of  the  quire,  fortified  with 
bulwark  and  barricado,  to  keep  off  the  profane 
touch  of  the  laics,  whilst  the  obscene  and  sur- 
feited priest  scruples  not  to  paw  and  mammoc 
the  sacramental  bread,  as  familiarly  as  his 
tavern  biscuit."  \ 

He  triumphs  in  believing  that  all  these 
profanations  are  to  be  avenged.  The 
horrible  doctrine  of  Calvin  has  once 
more  fixed  men's  gaze  on  the  dogma  of 
reprobation  and  everlasting  damnation. 
Hell  in  hand,  Milton  menaces  ;  he  is 
drunk  with  justice  and  vengeance  amid 
the  abysses  which  he  opens,  and  the 
brands  which  he  wields  : — 

*  Areopagitica,  Mitford,  ii.  431-2. 

t  When  he  is  simply  comic,  he  becomes,  like 
Hogarth  and  Swift,  eccentric,  rude,  and  farc- 
ical. "A  bishop's  foot  that  has  all  his  toes, 
maugre  the  gout,  and  a  linen  sock  over  it,  is 
the  aptest  emblem  of  the  prelate  himself ; 
who,  being  a  pluralist,  may,  under  one  surplice, 
which  is  also  linen,  hide  four  benefices,  besides 
the  jjreat  metropolitan  toe."— An  Apology, 
etc.,  i.  275. 

\  Of  Reformation  in  England,  Mitford,  i. 


"  They  shall  be  thrown  downe  eternally  int< 
the  darkest  and  deepest  Gnlfe  of  HELL,  where, 
under  the  dcspightfull  controule,  the  trampla 
and  spurne  of  all  the  other  Damned,  that  in 
the  anguish  of  their  Torture  shall  have  no 
other  ease  than  to  exercise  a  Raving  and 
Bestiall  Tyranny  over  them  as  their  Slaves 
and  Negro's,  they  shall  remaine  in  that  plight 
for  ever,  the  basest,  the  lowermost,  the  most 
dejected,  most  imderfoot^  and  downe-trodden 
Vassals  of  Perdition.* 

Fury  here  mounts  to  the  sublime,  and 
Michael  Angelo's  Christ  is  not  more 
inexorable  and  vengeful. 

Let  us  fill  the  measure  ;  let  us  add, 
as  he  does,  the  prospects  of  heaven  to 
the  visions  of  darkness ;  the  pamphlet 
becomes  a  hymn : 

"  When  I  recall  to  mind  at  last,  after  so 
many  dark  ages,  wherein  the  huge  overshadow- 
ing train  of  error  had  almost  swept  all  the  stars 
out  of  the  firmament  of  the  church  ;  how  the 
bright  and  blissful  Reformation  (by  divine 
power)  struck  through  the  black  and  settled 
night  of  ignorance  and  anti-christian  tyranny, 
methinks  a  sovereign  and  reviving  joy  must 
needs  rush  into  the  bosom  of  him  that  reads  or 
hears ;  and  the  sweet  odour  of  the  returning 
gospel  imbathe  his  soul  with  the  fragrancy  of 
heaven."  t 

Overloaded  with  ornaments,  infinitely 
prolonged,  these  periods  are  triumph- 
ant choruses  of  angelic  alleluias  sung 
by  deep  voices  to  the  accompaniment 
of  ten  thousand  harps  of  gold.  In  the 
midst  of  his  syllogisms,  Milton  prays, 
sustained  by  the  accent  of  the 
prophets,  surrounded  by  memories  of 
the  Bible,  ravished  with  the  splendors 
of  the  Apocalyse,  but  checked  on  the 
brink  of  hallucination  by  science  and 
logic,  on  the  summit  of  the  calm  clear 
atmosphere,  without  rising  to  the  burn- 
ing tracts  where  ecstasy  dissolves 
reason,  with  a  majesty  of  eloquence 
and  a  solemn  grandeur  never  surpassed, 
whose  perfection  proves  that  he  has 
entered  his  domain,  and  gives  promise 
of  the  poet  beyond  the  prose-writer  : — 

"  Thou,  therefore,  that  sittest  in  light  and 
glory  unapproachable,  parent  of  angels  and 
men !  next,  thee  I  implore,  omnipotent  King, 
Redeemer  of  that  lost  remnant  whose  nature 
thou  didst  assume,  ineffable  and  everlasting 
Love !  and  thou,  the  third  subsistence  of  di- 
vine infinitude,  illumining  Spirit,  the  joy  and 
solace  of  created  things !  one  Tri-personai 
Godhead !  look  upon  this  thy  poor  and  almost 
spent  and  expiring  church.  .  .  O  let  them 
not  bring  about  their  damned  designs,  .  .  .  «> 


*  Ibid.  i.  71.     [The  old  spelling  has  been 
retained  in  this  passage. — TR.] 
t  Ibid.  4. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


293 


reinvolve  us  in  that  pitchy  cloud  of  inferna' 
darkness,  where  we  shall  never  more  see  the 
sun  of  thy  truth  again,  never  hope  for  the 
cheerful  dawn,  never  more  hear  the  bird  oJ 
morning  sing."  * 

"  O  Thou  the  ever-begotten  Light  and  per- 
fect Image  of  the  Father,  .  .  .  Who  is  there 
that  cannot  trace  thee  now  in  thy  beamy  walk 
through  the  midst  of  thy  sanctuary,  amidst 
those  golden  candlesticks,  which  have  long  suf- 
fered a  dimness  amongst  us  through  the  vio- 
lence of  those  that  had  seized  them,  and  were 
more  taken  with  the  mention  of  their  gold  than 
of  their  starry  light  ?  .  .  .  Come  therefore,  O 
thou  that  hast  the  seven  stars  in  thy  right  hand, 
appoint  thy  chosen  priests  according  to  their 
orders  and  courses  of  old,  to  minister  before 
thee,  and  duly  to  press  and  pour  out  the  con- 
secrated oil  into  thy  holy  and  ever-burning 
lamps.  Thou  hast  sent  out  the  spirit  of  prayer 
upon  thy  servants  over  all  the  land  to  this  ef- 
fect, and  stirred  up  their  vows  as  the  sound  of 
many  waters  about  thy  throne.  .  .  .  O  perfect 
and  accomplish  thy  glorious  acts  I  ...  Come 
forth  out  of  thy  royal  chambers,  O  Prince  of 
all  the  kings  of  the  earth !  put  on  the  visible 
robes  of  thy  imperial  majesty,  take  up  that  un- 
limited sceptre  which  thy  Almighty  Father 
hath  bequeathed  thee  ;  for  now  the  voice  of 
thy  bride  calls  thee,  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be 
renewed."  f 

This  song  of  supplication  and  joy  is  an 
outpouring  of  splendors ;  and  if  we 
search  all  literature,  we  will  hardly  find 
a  poet  equal  to  this  writer  of  prose. 

Is  he  truly  a  prose-writer  ?  Entan- 
gled dialectics,  a  heavy  and  awkward 
mind,  fanatical  and  ferocious  rusticity, 
an  epic  grandeur  of  sustained  and 
superabundant  images,  the  blast  and 
the  recklessness  of  implacable  and  all- 
powerful  passion,  the  sublimity  of  re- 
ligious and  lyric  exaltation  ;  we  do  not 
recognize  in  these  features  a  man  born 
to  explain,  persuade,  and  prove.  The 
scholasticism  and  coarseness  of  the 
time  have  blunted  or  rusted  his  logic. 
Imagination  and  enthusiasm  carried 
him  away  and  enchained  him  in  meta- 
phor. Thus  'dazzled  or  marred,  he 
could  not  produce  a  perfect  work  ;  he 
did  but  write  useful  tracts,  called  forth 
by  practical  interests  and  actual  hate, 
and  fine  isolated  morsels,  inspired  by 
collision  with  a  grand  idea,  and  by  the 
sudden  burst  of  genius.  Yet,  in  all 
these  abandoned  fragments,  the  man 
shows  in  his  entirety.  The  systematic 
and  lyric  spirit  is  manifested  in  the 
pamphlet  as  well  as  in  the  poem  ;  the 
faculty  of  embracing  general  effects, 

*  Of  Reformation  in  England,  Mitford,  i. 
16-69. 
t  Animadversions,  etc.,  ibid.  220-2. 


and  of  being  shaken  by  them,  remains 
the  same  in  Milton's  two  careers,  and 
we  will  see  in  the  Paradise  and  Comus 
what  we  have  met  with  in  the  treatise 
Of  Reformation,  and  in  the  Animadver 
sions  on  the  Remonstrant. 

VI. 

"Milton  has  acknowledged  to  me/* 
writes  Dryden,  "  that  Spencer  was  his 
original."  In  fact,  by  the  purity  and 
elevation  of  their  morals,  by  the  ful- 
ness and  connection  of  their  style,  by 
the  noble  chivalric  sentiments,  and 
their  fine  classical  arrangement,  they 
are  brothers.  But  Milton  had  yet 
other  masters — Beaumont,  Fletcher, 
Burton,  Drummond,  Ben  Jonson,  Shak- 
speare,  the  whole  splendid  English  Re- 
naissance, and  behind  it  the  Italian 
poesy,  Latin  antiquity,  the  fine  Greek 
literature,  and  all  the  sources  whence 
the  English  Renaissance  sprang.  He 
continued  the  great  current,  but  in  a 
manner  of  his  own.  He  took  their 
mythology,  their  allegories,  sometimes 
their  conceits,*  and  discovered  anew 
their  rich  coloring,  their  magnificent 
sentiment  of  living  nature,  their  inex- 
haustible admiration  of  forms  and  col- 
ors. But,  at  the  same  time,  he  trans- 
formed their  diction,  and  employed 
poetry  in  a  new  service.  He  wrote, 
not  by  impulse,  and  at  the  mere  con- 
tact with  things,  but  like  a  man  of  let- 
ters, a  classic,  in  a  scholarlike  manner, 
with  the  assistance  of  books,  seeing 
objects  as  much  through  previous  wri- 
tings as  in  themselves,  adding  to  his 
images  the  images  of  others,  borrowing 
and  re-casting  their  inventions,  as  an 
artist  who  unites  and  multiples  the 
bosses  and  driven  gold,  already  ui- 
twined  on  a  diadem  by  twenty  work- 
men. He  made  thus  for  himself  a 
composite  and  brilliant  style,  less  nat- 
ural than  that  of  his  precursors,  less 
fit  for  effusions,  less  akin  to  the  lively 
first  glow  of  sensation,  but  more  solid', 
more  regular,  more  capable  of  concen- 
trating in  one  large  patch  of  light  all 
their  sparkle  and  splendor.  He  brings 
together  like  yEschylus,  words  of  "  six 
cubits/'  plumed  and  decked  in  purple, 
and  makes  them  pass  like  a  royal  train 

*  See  the  Hymn  on  the  Nativity;  amongst 
others,  the  first  few  strophes.  See  also 
Lycidas. 


294 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


before  his  idea  to  exalt  and  announce 
it.  He  introduces  to  us 

"  The  breathing  roses  of  the  wood, 
Fair  silver-buskin'd  nymphs  ;  "  * 

and  tells  how 

"  The  gray-hooded  Even, 
Like  a  sad  votarist  in  palmer  s  weed, 
Rose  from  the  hindmost  wheels  of  Phoebus' 
wain  ; "  f 

and  speaks  of 

"  All  the  sea-girt  isles, 
That,  like  to  rich  and  various  gems,  inlay 
The  unadorned  bosom  of  the  deep  ;  "  £ 

and 

**  That  undisturbed  song  of  pure  concent, 
Aye  sung  before  the  sapphire-colour' d  throne, 
To  Him  that  sits  thereon, 
With  saintly  shout,  and  solemn  jubilee  ; 
Where  the  bright  Seraphim,  in  burning  row, 
Their  loud-uplifted  angel-trumpets  blow."  § 

He  gathered  into  full  nosegays  the 
flowers  scattered  through  the  other 
poets : 

"  Ye  valleys  low,  where  the  mild  whispers  use 
Of  shades,  and  wanton  winds,  and  gushing 

brooks, 
On  whose  fresh  lap  the   swart-star  sparely 

looks ; 

Throw  hither  all  your  quaint  enamell'd  eyes, 
That    on    the  green   turf  suck  the    honied 

showers, 
And    purple    all    the    ground  with    vernal 

flowers. 

Bring  the  rathe  primrose  that  forsaken  dies, 
The  tufted  crow-toe,  and  pale  jessamine, 
The  white   pink,  aud  the  pansy  freak' d  with 

jet, 

The  glowing  violet, 

The   musk-rose,  and  the  well-attired  wood- 
bine, 
With  cowslips  wan  that  hang  the  pensive 

head, 

And  every  flower  that  sad  embroidery  wears : 
Bid  amaranthus  all  his  beauty  shed, 
And  daffadillies  fill  their  cups  with  tears, 
ID    strew   the  laureat  herse  where    Lycid 

lies."  || 

When  still  quite  young,  on  his  quitting 
Cambridge,  he  inclined  to  the  magnif- 
icent and  grand  ;  he  wanted  a  great 
flowing  verse,  an  ample  and  sounding 
strophe,  vast  periods  of  fourteen  and 
four-and-twenty  lines.  He  did  not 
face  objects  on  a  level,  as  a  mortal, 
but  from  on  high,  like  those  archangels 
of  Goethe,1f  who  embrace  at  a  glance 
the  whole  ocean  lashing  its  coasts  and 

*  Arcade,  1.  32.  t  C omits.  I.  188-190. 

\Ibid.  L  21-23. 

§  Ode  at  a  Solemn  Music,  L  6-n. 

II  Lycidas,  I.  136-151. 

\  Fuust,  Prolog  im  Himmel. 


the  earth  rolling  on,  wrapt  in  the  har- 
mony of  the  fraternal  stars.  It  was 
not  life  that  he  felt,  like  the  masters  oi 
the  Renaissance,  but  grandeur,  like 
^Eschylus,  and  the  Hebrew  seers,* 
manly  and  lyric  spirits  like  his  own,  who 
nourished  like  him  in  religious  emo- 
tions and  continuous  enthusiasm,  like 
him  displayed  sacerdotal  pomp  and 
majesty.  To  express  such  a  sentiment, 
images,  and  poetry  addressed  only  to 
the  eyes,  were  not  enough ;  sounds  also 
were  requisite,  and  that  more  intro- 
spective poetry  which,  purged  from 
corporeal  shows,  could  reach  the  soul. 
Milton  was  a  musician;  his  hymns 
rolled  with  the  slowness  of  a  measured 
song  and  the  gravity  of  a  declamation ; 
and  he  seems  himself  to  be  describing 
his  art  in  these  incomparable  verses, 
which  are  evolved  like  the  solemn  har- 
mony of  an  anthem : 

"  But  else,  in  deep  of  night,  when  drowsiness 
Hath  lock'd  up  mortal  sense,  then  listen  I 
To  the  celestial  sirens'  harmony, 
That  sit  upon  the  nine  infolded  spheres, 
And  sing  to  those  that  hold  the  vital  shears, 
And  turn  the  adamantine  spindle  round, 
On   which   the   fate   of   Gods    and    men    is 

wound. 

Such  sweet  compulsion  doth  in  musick  lie, 
To  lull  the  daughters  of  Necessity, 
And  keep  unsteady  Nature  to  her  law, 
And  the  low  world  in  measured  motion  draw 
After   the   heavenly  tune,   which  none   can 

hear 
Of  human  mould,  with  gross  unpurged  ear."1 

With  his  style,  his  subjects  differed  ; 
he  compacted  and  ennobled  the  poet's 
domain  as  well  as  his  language,  and 
consecrated  his  thoughts  as  well  as  his 
words.  He  who  knows  the  true  na- 
ture of  poetry  soon  finds,  as  Milton 
said  a  little  later,  what  despicable  crea- 
tures "  libidinous  and  ignorant  poetas- 
ters "  are,  and  to  what  religious,  glori- 
ous, splendid  use  poetry  can  be  put  in 
things  divine  and  human.  "  These 
abilities,  wheresoever  they  be  found 
are  the  inspired  gift  of  God,  rarely  be- 
stowed,  but  yet  to  some  (though  most 
abuse)  in  every  nation;  and  are  of 
power,  beside  the  office  of  a  pulpit,  to 
imbreed  and  cherish  in  a  great  people 

*  See  the  prophecy  against  Archbishop  Laud 
in  LycidaS)  I.  130: 

"  But  that  two-handed  engine  at  the  door 
Stands  ready  to  smite  once,  and  smite  no 
more." 

*  Arcades,  I.  61-73. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


295 


the  seeds  of  virtue  and  public  civility, 
to  allay  the  perturbations  of  the  mind, 
and  set  the  affections  in  right  tune  ;  to 
celebrate  in  glorious  and  lofty  hymns 
the  throne  and  equipage  of  God's  al- 
mightiness,  and  what  he  works,  and 
what  he  suffers  to  be  wrought  with 
high  providence  in  his  church ;  to  sing 
the  victorious  agonies  of  martyrs  and 
saints,  the  deeds  and  triumphs  of  just 
and  pious  nations,  doing  valiantly 
through  faith  against  the  enemies  of 
Christ"* 

In  fact,  from  the  first,  at  St.  Paul's 
School  and  at  Cambridge,  he  had  writ- 
ten paraphrases  of  the  Psalms,  then 
composed  odes  on  the  Nativity,  Circum- 
cision, and  the  Passion.  Presently  ap- 
peared sad  poems  on  the  Death  of  a 
Fair  Infant,  Aft  Epitaph  on  the  Mar- 
chioness of  Winchester  ;  then  grave  and 
noble  verses  On  Time,  At  a  solemn 
Mustek,  a  sonnet  On  his  being  arrived 
to  the  Age  of  Twenty -three,  "  his  late 
spring  which  no  bud  or  blossom 
shew'th."  At  last  we  have  him  in  the 
country  with  his  father,  and  the  hopes, 
dreams,  first  enchantments  of  youth, 
rise  from  his  heart  like  the  morning 
breath  of  a  summer's  day.  But  what 
a  distance  between  these  calm  and 
bright  contemplations  and  the  warm 
youth,  the  voluptuous  Adonis  of  Shak- 
speare !  He  walked,  used  his  eyes, 
listened  ;  there  his  joys  ended ;  they 
are  but  the  poetic  joys  of  the  soul : 

"  To  hear  the  lark  begin  his  flight, 
And  singing,  startle  the  dull  night, 
From  his  watch-tower  in  the  skies, 
Till  the  dappled  dawn  doth  rise  ;  .  .  . 

v^While  the  plowman,  near  at  hand, 
Whistles  o'er  the  furrow' d  land, 
And  the  milk-maid  singeth  blithe, 
And  the  mower  whets  his  sithe, 
And  every  shepherd  tells  his  tale 
Under  the  hawthorn  in  the  dale."-.t 

To  see  the  village  dances  and  gayety  ; 
to  look  upon  the  "  high  triumphs  "  and 
the  "  busy  hum  of  men  "  in  the  "  tow- 
er'd  cities ; "  above  all,  to  abandon 
himself  to  melody,  to  the  divine  roll  of 
sweet  verse,  and  the  charming  dreams 
which  they  spread  before  us  in  a  golden 
light  ; — this  is  all ;  and  presently,  as  if 
he  had  gone  too  far,  to  counterbalance 
this  eulogy  of  visible  joys,  he  summons 
Melancholy  : 

*  The  Reason  of  Church  Government)  book 
u.  Mitford,  i.  147.  f  V Allegro, L  41-68- 


"  Come,  pensive  Nun,  devout  and  pure, 
Sober,  stedfast,  and  demure, 
All  in  a  robe  of  darkest  grain, 
Flowing  with  majestick  train, 
And  sable  stole  of  Cypress  lawn 
Over  thy  decent  shoulders  drawn. 
Come,  but  keep  thy  wonted  state, 
With  even  step,  and  musing  gait ; 
And  looks  commercing  with  the  skies, 
Thy  rapt  soul  sitting  in  thine  eyes."  * 

With  her  he  wanders  amidst  grave 
thoughts  and  grave  sights,  which  recall 
a  man  to  his  condition,  and  prepare 
him  for  his  duties,  now  amongst  the 
lofty  colonnades  of  primeval  trees, 
whose  "  high-embowed  roof  "  retains 
the  silence  and  the  twilight  under  theii 
shade ;  now  in 

"  The  studious  cloysters  pale,  .  .  . 
With  antick  pillars  massy  proof, 
And  storied  windows  richly  dight, 
Casting  a  dim  religious  light  ;     t 

now  again  in  the  retirement  of  the 
study,  where  the  cricket  chirps,  where 
the  lamp  of  labor  shines,  where  the 
mind,  alone  with  the  noble  minds  of 
the  past,  may 

"  Unsphere 

The  spirit  of  Plato,  to  unfold 
What  worlds  or  what  vast  regions  hold 
The  immortal  mind,  that  hath  forsook 
Her  mansion  in  this  fleshly  nook."  t 

He  was  filled  with  this  lofty  philoso- 
phy. Whatever  the  language  he  used, 
English,  Italian,  or  Latin,  whatever 
the  kind  of  verse,  sonnets,  hymns, 
stanzas,  tragedy  or  epic,  he  always  re- 
turned to  it.  He  praised  everywhere 
chaste  love,  piety,  generosity,  heroic 
force.  It  was  not  from  scruple,  but  it 
was  innate  in  him  ;  his  chief  need  and 
faculty  led  him  to  noble  conceptions. 
He  took  a  delight  in  admiring,  as  Shak- 
speare  in  creating,  as  Swift  in  destroy- 
ing, as  Byron  in  combating,  as  Spenser 
in  dreaming.  Even-  on  ornamental 
poems,  which  were  only  employed  to 
exhibit  costumes  and  introduce  fairy- 
tales in  Masques,  like  those  of  Ben 
Jonson,  he  impressed  his  own  charac- 
ter. They  were  amusements  for  the 
castle ;  he  made  out  of  them  lectures 
on  magnanimity  and  constancy :  one  of 
them,  Comus,  well  worked  out,  with  a 
complete  originality  and  extraordinary 
elevation  of  style,  is  perhaps  his  mas- 
terpiece, and  is  simply  the  eulogy  oi 
virtue. 


*  //  Penseroso,  I.  3 1-40. 
t  Ibid.  L  156-160. 


\  Ibid.  L  8S-ga. 


296 


Here  at  the  beginning  we  are  in  the 
heavens.  A  spirit,  descended  in  the 
midst  of  wild  woods,  repeats  this  ode 

"  Before  the  starry  threshold  of  Jove's  court 
My  mansion  is,  where  those  immortal  shapes 
Of  bright  aerial  spirits  live  insphered 
In  regions  mild  of  calm  and  serene  air, 
Above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  this  dim  spot, 
Which    men    call    earth ;    and,    with    low- 

thoughted  care 

Confined,  and  pester'd  in  this  pinfold  here, 
Strive  to  keep  up  a  frail  and  feverish  being, 
Unmindful  of  the  crown  that  Virtue  gives. 
Alter  this  mortal  change,  to  her  true  ser- 
vants, 

Amongst    the    enthron'd   Gods    on  sainted 
seats."  * 

Such  characters  cannot  speak  :  they 
sing.  The  drama  is  an  antique  opera, 
composed  like  the  Prometheus,  of  sol- 
emn hymns.  The  spectator  is  trans- 
ported beyond  the  real  world.  He 
does  not  listen  to  men  but  to  senti- 
ments. He  hears  a  concert,  as  in 
Shakspeare ;  the  Comus  continues  the 
Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream,  as  a  choir 
of  deep  men's  voices  continues  the 
glowing  and  sad  symphony  of  the  in- 
struments : 

"  Through  the  perplex'd  paths  of  this  drear 

wood, 

The  nodding  horror  of  whose  shady  brows 
Threats  the   forlorn  and  wandering  passen- 
ger," t 

strays  a  noble  lady,  separated  from 
her  two  brothers,  troubled  by  the 
"  sound  of  riot  and  ill-managed  merri- 
ment "  which  she  hears  from  afar. 
The  son  of  Circe  the  enchantress,  sen- 
sual Comus  enters  with  a  charming 
rod  in  one  hand,  his  glass  in  the  other, 
amid  the  clamor  of  men  and  women, 
with  torches  in  their  hands,  headed 
like  sundry  sorts  of  wild  beasts  ;  "  it  is 
the  hour  when 

1  The  sounds  and  seas,  with  all  their  finny 

drove, 
Now    to    the    moon    in    wavering    morrice 

move  ; 

And,  on  the  tawny  sands  and  shelves 
Trip  the  pert  faeries  and  the  dapper  elves." t 

The  lady  is  terrified  and  sinks  on  her 
knees :  and  in  the  misty  forms  which 
float  above  in  the  pale  light,  perceives 
the  mysterious  and  heavenly  guardians 
who  watch  over  her  life  and  honor : 

"  O,  welcome,  pure-eyed  Faith  ;  white-handed 

Hope, 
Thou  hovering  angel,  girt  with  golden  wings ; 


THE  RENAISSANCE 


[BOOK  II 


And  thou,  unblemish'd  form  of  Chastity, 

I  see  ye  visibly,  and  now  believe 

That  He,  the   Supreme  good,  t'  whom  all 

things  ill 

Are  but  as  slavish  officers  of  vengeance, 
Would   send  a  glistering  guardian,  if  need 

were, 

To  keep  my  life  and  honour  unassail'd. 
WTas  I  deceived,  or  did  a  sable  cloud 
Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night? 
I  did  not  err  ;  there  does  a  sable  cloud 
Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night, 
And  casts  a  gleam  over  this  tufted  grove."  * 

She  calls  her  brothers  in  "  a  soft  and 
solemn-breathing  sound,"  which  "  rose 
like  a  steam  of  rich  distill'd  perfumes, 
and  stole  upon  the  air,"t  across  the 
"  violet-embroider'd  vale,"  to  the  dis- 
solute god  whom  she  enchants.  He 
comes  disguised  as  a  "gentle  shep- 
herd/' and  says : 

"  Can  any  mortal  mixture  of  earth's  mould 
Breathe     such    divine,    enchanting    ravish- 

ment  ? 

Sure  something  holy  lodges  in  that  breast, 
And  with  these  raptures  moves  the  vocal  air 
To  testify  his  hidden  residence. 
How  sweetly  did  they  float  upon  the  wings 
Of  silence,  through  the  empty-vaulted  night, 
At  every  fall  smoothing  the  raven  down 
Of    darkness,    till    it    smiled!      I   have   oft 

heard 

My  mother  Circe  with  the  syrens  three, 
Amidst  the  flowery-kirtled  Naiades, 
Culling  their  potent  herbs  and  baleful  drugs  ; 
Who,  as  they  sung,  would  take  the  prison'd 

soul. 

And  lap  it  in  Elysium  :  Scylla  wept, 
And  chid  her  barking  waves  into  attention.  . 
But  surh  a  sacred  and  home-felt  delight, 
Such  sober  certainty  of  waking  bliss, 
I  never  heard  till  now."  J 

They  were  heavenly  songs  which 
Comus  heard  ;  Milton  describes,  and 
at  the  same  time  imitates  them ;  he 
makes  us  understand  the  saying  of  his 
master  ^  Plato,  that  virtuous  melodies 
:each  virtue. 

Circe's  son  has  by  deceit  carried  off. 
:he  noble  lady,  and  seats  her,  with- 
'  nerves  all  chained  up,"  in  a  sumptu- 
ous palace  before  a  table  spread  with 
all  dainties.  She  accuses  him,  resists 
nsults  him,  and  the  style  assumes  an 
air  of  heroical  indignation,  to  scorn 
.he  offer  of  the  tempter. 

"  When  lust, 
By  unchaste  looks,  loose  gestures,  and  foul 

talk, 

But  most  by  lewd  and  lavish  act  of  sin, 
Lets  in  defilement  to  the  inward  parts ; 
The  soul  grows  clotted  by  contagion, 


*  Cotnus,  I.  i-ii. 
llbid.  /.  115-118. 


t  Ibid.  /.  37-39. 


*  Ibid.  L  213-225. 
I  Ibid.  I.  244-264. 


t  Ibid.  I.  535-557 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


297 


Imbodies  and  imbrutes,  till  she  quite  lose 

The  divine  property  of  her  first  being. 

Such  are  those  thick  and  gloomy  shadows 

damp, 

Oft  seen  in  charnel  vaults  and  sepulchres 
Lingering,  and  sitting  by  a  new-made  grave, 
As  loth  to  leave  the  body  that  it  loved."  * 

"  A  cold  shuddering  dew  dips  all  o'er  " 
Comus;  he  presents  a  cup  of  wine  ;  at 
the  same  instant  the  brothers,  led  by 
the  attendant  Spirit,  rush  upon  him 
with  swords  drawn.  He  flees,  carry- 
ing off  his  magic  wand.  To  free  the 
enchanted  lady,  they  summon  Sabrina, 
the  benevolent  naiad,  who  sits 

' J  Under  the  glassy,  cool,  translucent  wave, 
In  twisted  braids  of  lilies  knitting 
The  loose  train  of  thy  (her)  amber-dropping 
hair."  t 

The  "  goddess  of  the  silver  lake  "  rises 
lightly  from  her  "  coral -paven  bed," 
and  her  chariot  "  of  turkis  blue  and 
emerald-green,"  sets  her  down 

*'  By  the  rushy-fringed  bank, 
Where    grows    the    willow,   and    the    osier 
dank."  t 

Sprinkled  by  this  cool  and  chaste 
hand,  the  lady  leaves  the  "  venom'd 
seat  "  which  held  her  spell-bound  ;  the 
brothers,  with  their  sister,  reign  peace- 
fully in  their  father's  palace  ;  and  the 
Spirit,  who  has  conducted  all,  pro- 
nounces this  ode,  in  which  poetry  leads 
up  to  philosophy  ;  the  voluptuous  light 
of  an  Oriental  legend  beams  on  the 
Elysium  of  the  good,  and  all  the  splen- 
dors of  nature  assemble  to  render  vir- 
tue more  seductive. 

"  To  the  ocean  now  I  fly, 

And  those  happy  climes  that  He 

Where  day  never  shuts  his  eye 

Up  in  the  broad  fields  of  the  sky : 

There  I  suck  the  liquid  air 

All  amidst  the  gardens  fair 

Of  Hesperus,  and  his  daughters  three 

That  sing  about  the  golden  tree : 

Along  the  crisped  shades  and  bowers 

Revels  the  spruce  and  jocund  spring  ; 

The  Graces,  and  the  rosy-bosom'd  Hours, 

Thither  all  their  bounties  bring  ; 

There  eternal  Summer  dwells, 

And  west  winds,  with  musky  wing, 

About  the  cedar'n  alleys  fling 

Nard  and  cassia's  balmy  smells. 

Iris  there  with  humid  bow 

"Waters  the  odorous  banks,  that  blow 

Flowers  of  more  mingled  hew 

Than  her  purfled  scarf  can  shew  ; 

*  Coinus,  I.  463-473.  It  is  the  elder  brother 
who  utters  these  lines  when  speaking  of  his  sis- 
ter.— TR.  t  Ibid.  I.  861-863. 

%  Ibid.  I.  890. 


And  drenches  with  Elysian  dew 

(List,  mortals,  if  your  ears  be  true) 

Beds  of  hyacinth  and  roses, 

Where  young  Adonis  oft  reposes, 

Waxing' well  of  his  deep  wound 

In  slumber  soft  ;  and  on  the  ground 

Sadly  sits  the  Assyrian  queen  : 

But  far  above  in  spangled  sheen 

Celestial  Cupid,  her  famed  son,  advanced 

Holds  his  dear  Psyche  sweet  entranced 

After  her  wandering  labours  long, 

Till  free  consent  the  gods  among 

Make  her  his  eternal  bride, 

And  from  her  fair  unspotted  side 

Two  blissful  twins  are  to  be  born, 

Youth  and  Joy  ;  so  Jove  hath  sworn. 

But  now  my  task  is  smoothly  done, 

I  can  fly,  or  I  can  run 

Quickly  to  the  green  earth's  end, 

Where  the  bow'd  welkin  slow  doth  bend  ; 

And  from  thence  can  soar  as  soon 

To  the  corners  of  the  moon. 

Mortals,  that  would  follow  me, 

Love  Virtue,  she  alone  is  free  : 

She  can  teach  ye  how  to  climb 

Higher  than  the  sphery  chime  ; 

Or,  if  Virtue  feeble  were, 

Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her."  * 

Ought  I  to  have  pointed  out  the 
awkwardnesses,  strangenesses,  exag- 
gerated expressions,  the  inheritance  of 
the  Renaissance,  a  philosophical  quar- 
rel, the  work  of  a  reasoner  and  a  Pla- 
tonist  ?  I  did  not  perceive  these  faults. 
All  was  effaced  before  the  spectacle  of 
the  bright  Renaissance,  transformed 
by  austere  philosophy,  and  of  sublimity 
worshipped  upon  an  altar  of  flowers. 

That,  I  think,  was  his  last  profane 
poem.  Already,  in  the  one  which  fol- 
lowed, Lycidas,  celebrating  in  the  style 
of  Virgil  the  death  of  a  beloved  friend,t 
he  surfers  Puritan  wrath  and  prepos- 
sessions to  shine  through,  inveighs 
against  the  bad  teaching  and  tyranny 
of  the  bishops,  and  speaks  of  "  that 
two-handed  engine  at  the  door,  ready 
to  smite  (but)  once,  and  smite  no 
more."  On  his  return  from  Italy,  con- 
troversy and  action  carried  him  away; 
prose  begins,  poetry  is  arrested.  P'rom 
time  to  time  a  patriotic  or  religious 
sonnet  breaks  the  long  silence  ;  now  to 
praise  the  chief  Puritans,  Cromwell, 
Vane,  Fairfax;  now  to  celebrate  the 
death  of  a  pious  lady,  or  the  life  of  a 
"  virtuous  young  lady  ;  "  once  to  pray 
God  "  to  avenge  his  slaughtered  saints," 
the  unhappy  Protestants  of  Piedmont, 
"  whose  bones  lie  scatter'd  on  the  Al 
pine  mountains  cold ;  "  again,  on  his 

*  Ibid.  /.  976-1023. 

t  Edward  King  died  in  1637. 


298 


second  wife,  dead  a  year  after  their 
marriage,  his  well-beloved  "  saint  " — 
"  brought  to  me,  like  Alcestis,  from 
the  grave,  .  .  .  came,  vested  all  in 
jvhite,  pure  as  her  mind ;  "  loyal 
friendships,  sorrows  bowed  to  or  sub- 
dued, aspirations  generous  or  stoical, 
which  reverses  did  but  purify.  Old 
age  came ;  cut  off  from  power,  action, 
even  hope,  he  returned  to  the  grand 
dreams  of  his  youth.  As  of  old,  he 
went  out  of  this  lower  world  in  search 
of  the  sublime ;  for  the  actual  is  petty, 
and  the  familiar  seems  dull.  He  se- 
lects his  new  characters  on  the  verge  of 
sacred  antiquity,  as  he  selected  his  old 
ones  on  the  verge  of  fabulous  antiquity, 
because  distance  adds  to  their  stature  ; 
and  habit,  ceasing  to  measure,  ceases 
also  to  depreciate  them.  Just  now  we 
had  creatures  of  fancy  :  Joy,  daughter 
of  Zephyr  and  Aurora;  Melancholy, 
daughter  of  Vesta  and  Saturn;  Co- 
mus,  son  of  Circe,  ivy-crowned,  god 
of  echoing  woods  and  turbulent  ex- 
cess. Now  we  have  Samson,  the  despis- 
er  of  giants,  the  elect  of  Israel's  God, 
the  destroyer  of  idolaters,  Satan  and 
his  peers,  Christ  and  his  angels  ;  they 
come  and  rise  before  our  eyes  like 
superhuman  statues  ;  and  their  far  re- 
moval, rendering  vain  our  curious 
hands,  preserves  our  admiration  and 
their  majesty.  We  rise  further  and 
higher,  to  the  origin  of  things,  amongst 
eternal  beings,  to  the  commencement 
of  thought  and  life,  to  the  battles  of 
God,  in  this  unknown  world  where 
sentiments  and  existences,  raised  above 
the  ken  of  man,  elude  his  judgment 
and  criticism  to  command  his  venera- 
tion and  awe ;  the  sustained  song  of 
solemn  verse  unfolds  the  actions  of 
these  shadowy  figures;  and  then  we 
experience  the  same  emotion  as  in  a 
cathedral,  while  the  music  of  the  organ 
rolls  along  among  the  arches,  and 
amidst  the  brilliant  light  of  the  tapers 
clouds  of  incense  hide  from  our  view 
the  colossal  columns. 

But  if  the  heart  remains  unchanged, 
the  genius  has  become  transformed. 
Manliness  has  supplanted  youth.  The 
richness  has  decreased,  the  severity 
has  increased.  Seventeen  years  of 
fighting  and  misfortune  have  steeped 
his  soul  in  religious  ideas.  Mythology 
has  yielded  to  theology ;  the  habit  of 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II, 


discussion  has  ended  by  subduing  the 
lyric  flight;  accumulated  learning  by 
choking  the  original  genius.  The  poet 
no  more  sings  sublime  verse,  he  ro 
lates  or  harangues,  in  grave  verse.  He 
no  longer  invents  a  personal  style  ;  he 
imitates  antique  tragedy  or  epic.  In 
Samson  Agonistes  he  hits  upon  a  cold 
and  lofty  tragedy,  in  Paradise  Regained 
on  a  cold  and  noble  epic  ;  he  composes 
an  imperfect  and  sublime  poem  in  Par- 
adise Lost. 

Would  to  Heaven  he  could  have  writ- 
ten it  as  he  tried,  in  the  shape  of  a 
drama,  or  better,  as  the  Prothemeus  of 
yEschylus,  as  a  lyric'  opera  !  A  pecu- 
liar kind  of  subject  demands  a  pecu- 
liar kind  of  style  ;  if  you  resist,  you 
destroy  your  work,  too  happy  if,  in 
the  deformed  medley,  chance  produces 
and  preserves  a  few  beautiful  frag- 
ments. To  bring  the  supernatural 
upon  the  scene,  you  must  not  continue 
in  your  every-day  mood  ;  if  you  do,  you 
look  as  if  you  did  not  believe  in  it. 
Vision  reveals  it,  and  the  style  of 
vision  must  express  it.  When  Spen- 
ser writes,  he  dreams.  We  listen  to 
the  happy  concerts  of  his  aerial  music, 
and  the  varying  train  of  his  fanci- 
ful apparitions  unfolds  like  a  vapor 
before  our  accommodating  and  dazzled 
gaze.  When  Dante  writes,  he  is  rapt ; 
and  his  cries  of  anguish,  his  transports, 
the  incoherent  succession  of  his  infer- 
nal or  mystical  phantoms,  carry  us  with 
him  into  the  invisible  world  which  he 
describes.  Ecstasy  alone  renders  vis- 
ible and  credible  the  objects  of  ecstasy. 
If  you  tell  us  of  the  exploits  of  the 
Deity  as  you  tell  us  of  Cromwell's,  in  a 
grave  and  lofty  tone,  we  do  not  see 
God  ;  and  as  He  constitutes  the  whole 
of  your  poem,  we  do  not  see  any  thing. 
We  conclude  that  you  have  accepted 
a  tradition,  that  you  adorn  it  with  the 
fictions  of  your  mind,  that  you  are  a 
preacher,  not  a  prophet,  a  decorator, 
not  a  poet.  Wd  find  that  you  sing  of 
God  as  the  vulgar  pray  to  Him,  after  a 
formula  learnt,  not  from  spontaneous 
emotion.  Change  your  style,  or,  rather 
if  you  can,  change  your  emotion.  Try 
and  discover  in  yourself  the  ancient 
fervor  of  psalmists  and  apostles,  to  re- 
create the  divine  legend,  to  experience 
the  sublime  agitations  by  which  the  in- 
spired and  disturbed  mind  perceives 


CHAP.  VL] 


MILTON. 


299 


God :  then  the  grand  lyric  verse  will 
roll  on,  laden  with  splendors.  Thus 
roused,  we  shall  not  have  to  examine 
whether  it  be  Adam  or  Messiah  who 
speaks ;  we  shall  not  have  to  demand 
that  they  shall  be  real,  and  constructed 
by  the  hand  of  a  psychologist;  we  shall 
not  trouble  ourselves  with  their  puerile 
or  unlocked  for  actions;  we  shall  be 
carried  away,  we  shall  share  in  your 
creative  madness  ;  we  shall  be  drawn 
onward  by  the  flow  of  bold  images,  or 
raised  by  the  combination  of  gigantic 
metaphois;1  we  shall  be  moved  like 
^Eschylus,  when  his  thunder-stricken 
Prometheus  hears  the  universal  con- 
cert of  rivers,  seas,  forests,  and  created 
beings,  lament  with  him,*  as  David  be- 
fore «Jehovah,  for  whom  a  thousand 
years  are  but  as  yesterday,  who  "car- 
riest  them  away  as  with  a  flood ;  in  the 
morning  they  are  like  grass  which 
groweth  up."  t 

But  the  age  of  metaphysical  inspira- 
tion, long  gone  by,  had  not  yet  reap- 
E  eared.  Far  in  the  past  Dante  was 
iding  away;  far  in  the  future  Goethe 
lay  unrevealed.  People  saw  not  yet 
the  pantheistic  Faust,  and  that  incom- 
prehensible nature  which  absorbs  all 
varying  existence  in  her  deep  bosom  ; 
they  saw  no  longer  the  mystic  paradise 
and  immortal  Love,  whose  ideal  light 
envelopes  souls  redeemed.  Protes- 
tantism had  neither  altered  nor  renewed 
the  divine  nature  ;  the  guardian  of  an 
accepted  creed  and  ancient  tradition, 
it  had  only  transformed  ecclesiastical 
discipline  and  the  doctrine  of  grace.  It 
had  only  called  the  Christian  to  per- 
sonal salvation  and  freedom  from  priest- 
ly rule.  It  had  only  remodelled  man, 
it  had  not  recreated  the  Deity.  It 
could  not  produce  a  divine  epic,  but  a 
human  epic.  It  could  not  sing  the 
battles  and  works  of  God,  but  the  temp- 
tations and  salvation  of  the  soul.  At 
the  time  of  Christ  came  the  poems  of 
cosmogony ;  at  the  time  of  Milton,  the 
confessions  of  psychology.  At  the 
time  of  Christ  each  imagination  pro- 
duced a  hierarchy  of  supernatural 

*  o>  Slos  aiOrip  /cat  ra.\viTrepoi  irvoai 

TTora/JLtav  re  Trrjycu,  novriiov  re  KVjuaTtov 
avypiQiJiov  yc'Aacr/xa,  ira/ijujjrdp  re  yr>, 
KcCi  rov  iravoTfr^v  KTJK\OV  r)\iov  xaAai, 
ISea-Oe  ju.',  ola  Trpbs  6eu»v  ndcrx<a  0eo?. 
Prometheus   Vinctus^  ed.   Hermann,  p.  487, 
line  83.—  TR.  t  Ps.  xc.  5. 


beings,  and  a  history  of  the  world  ;  at 
the  time  of  Milton,  every  heart  record- 
ed  the  series  of  its  upliftings,  and  thl 
history  of  grace.  Learning  and  reflec- 
tion led  Milton  to  a  metaphysical  poem 
which  was  not  the  natural  offspring  of 
the  age,  whilst  inspiration  and  ignorance 
revealed  to  Bunyan  the  psychological 
narrative  which  suited  the  age,  and  the 
great  man's  genius  was  feebler  than  . 
the  tinker's  simplicity. 

And  why  ?  Because  Milton's  poem, 
whilst  it  suppresses  lyrical  illusion,  ad- 
mits critical  inquiry.  Free  from  en- 
thusiasm we  judge  his  characters;  we  de- 
mand that  they  shall  be  living,  real,  com- 
plete, harmonious,  like  those  of  a  novel 
or  a  drama.  No  longer  hearing  odes,  we 
would  see  objects  and  souls :  we  ask 
that  Adam  and  Eve  should  act  in  con- 
formity with  their  primitive  nature  ; 
that  God,  Satan,  and  Messiah  should 
act  and  feel  in  conformity  with  their 
superhuman  nature.  Shakspeare  would 
scarcely  have  been  equal  to  the  task  ; 
Milton,  the  logician  and  reasoner,  failed 
in  it.  He  gives  us  correct  solemn  dis- 
course, and  gives  us  nothing  more  ;  his 
characters  are  speeches,  and  in  theii 
sentiments  we  find  only  heaps  of  puer- 
ilities and  contradictions. 

Adam  and  Eve,  the  first  pair  !  I  ap- 
proach, and  it  seems  as  though  I  dis- 
covered the  Adam  and  Eve  of  Raphael 
Sanzio,  imitated  by  Milton,  so  his  biog- 
raphers tell  us,  glorious,  strong  volup- 
tuous children,  naked  in  the  light  of 
heaven,  motionless  and  absorbed  be- 
fore grand  landscapes,  with  bright 
vacant  eyes,  with  no  more  thought 
than  the  bull  or  the  horse  on  the  grass 
beside  them.  I  listen,  and  I  hear  an 
English  household,  two  reasoners  of 
the  period — Colonel  Hutchinson  and 
his  wife.  Good  Heavens  !  dress  them 
at  once.  People  with  so  much  culture 
should  have  invented  before  all  a  pair 
of  trousers  and  modesty.  What  dia- 
logues !  Dissertations  capped  by  polite 
ness,  mutual  sermons  concluded  by 
bows.  What  bows  !  Philosophical  com- 
pliments and  moral  smiles.  I  yielded, 
says  Eve, 

"  And  from  that  time  see 
How  beauty  is  exceii'd  by  manly  grace 
And  wisdom,  which  alone  is  truly  fair."  * 

*  Paradise  Lost,  book  iv.  /.  489. 


3oc 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


Dear  learned  poet,  you  would  have 
been  better  pleased  if  one  of  your  three 
wives,  as  an  apt  pupil,  had  uttered  to 
you  by  way  of  conclusion  the  above 
solid  theoretical  maxim.  They  did 
utter  it  to  you  ;  this  is  a  scene  from 
your  own  household : 

"  So  spake  our  general  mother ;  and,  with  eyes 
Of  conjugal  attraction  unreproved 
And  meek  surrender,  half-embracing  lean'd 

*  On  our  first  father  ;  half  her  swelling  breast 
Naked  met  his,  under  the  flowing  gold 
Of  her  loose  tresses  hid  ;  he,  in  delight 
Both  of  her  beauty  and  submissive  charms, 
Smiled  with    superiour  love,  .  .  and  press'd 

her  matron  lip 
With  kisses  pure."  * 

This  Adam  entered  Paradise  via  Eng- 
land. In  that  country  he  learned  re- 
spectability, and  studied  moral  speech- 
ifying. Let  us  hear  this  man  before  he 
has  tasted  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  A 
bachelor  of  arts,  in  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress, could  not  utter  more  fitly  and 
nobly  a  greater  number  of  pithless 
sentences : 

"  Fair  consort,  the  hour 
Of  night,  and  all  things  now  retired  to  rest, 
Mind  us  of  like  repose  ;  since  God  hath  set 
Labour  and  rest,  as  day  and  night,  to  men 
Successive  ;  and  the  timely  dew  of  sleep, 
Now  falling  with  soft  slumbrous  weight,  in- 
clines 

Our  eyelids  ;  other  creatures  all  day  long 
Rove  idle,  unemployed,  and  less  need  rest : 
Man  hath  his  daily  work  of  body  or  mind 
Appointed,  which  declares  his  dignity, 
And  the  regard  of  Heaven  on  all  his  ways  ; 
While  other  animals  unactive  range, 
And  of  their  doings  God  takes  no  account."t 

A  very  useful  and  excellent  Puritanical 
exhortation !  This  is  English  virtue 
and  morality  ;  and  at  evening,  in  every 
family,  it  can  be  read  to  the  children 
like  the  Bible.  Adam  is  your  true 
paterfamilias,  with  a  vote,  an  M.  P.,  an 
old  Oxford  man,  consulted  at  need  by 
his  wife,  dealing  out  to  her  with  pru- 
dent measure  the  scientific  explanations 
which  she  requires.  This  night,  for 
instance,  the  poor  lady  had  a  bad 
dream,  and  Adam,  in  his  trencher-cap, 
administers  this  learned  psychological 
draught :  \ 

"  Know,  that  in  the  soul 
Are  many  lesser  faculties  that  serve 

*  Paradise  Lost,  book  iv.  /.  492-502. 

t  Ibid.  I.  610-622. 

t  It  would  be  impossible  that  a  man  so 
learned,  so  ^  argumentative,  should  spend  his 
whole  time  in  gardening  and  making  up  nose- 
gays. 


Reason  as  chief  ;  among  these  Fancy  next 
Her  office  holds  ;  of  all  external  things, 
Which  the  five  watchful  senses  represent, 
She  forms  imaginations,  aery  shapes 
Which  Reason,  joining  or  disjoining,  frames 
Ail  what  we  affirm  or  what  deny,  and  call 
Our  knowledge  or  opinion.  .  .  . 
Oft  in  her  absence  mimic  fancy  wakes 
To  imitate  her  ;  but,  misjoining  shapes, 
Wild  work  produces  oft,  and  most  in  dreams ; 
111  matching  words  and  deeds  long  past  or 
late."  * 

Here  was  something  to  send  Eve  off 
to  sleep  again.  Her  husband  noting  the 
effect,  adds  like  an  accredited  casuist : 

"  Yet  be  not  sad:    • 
Evil  into  the  mind  of  God  or  man 
May   come  and    go,   so    unapproved  J    and 

leave 
No  spot  or  blame  behind."  t 

We  recognize  the  Protestant  husband, 
his  wife's  confessor.  Next  day  comes 
an  angel  on  a  visit.  Adam  tells  Eve : 

"  Go  with  speed, 
And,  what  thy  stores  contain,  bring  forth, 

and  pour 

Abundance,  fit  to  honour  and  receive 
Our  heavenly  stranger.  J 

She,  like  a  good  housewife,  talks  about 
the  menu,  and  rather  proud  of  hei 
kitchen-garden,  says  : 

He 

Beholding  shall  confess,  that  here  on  earth 
God  hath  dispensed  his  bounties  as  in  hea- 
ven." § 

Mark  this  becoming  zeal  of  a  hospitable 
lady.  She  goes  "  with  dispatchful 
looks,  in  haste  "  : 

"  What  choice  to  choose  for  delicacy  best ; 
What  order,  so  contrived  as  not  to  mix 
Tastes,  not  well   join'd,  inelegant ;  but  bring 
Taste     after    taste     upheld    with    kindliest 
change."  || 

She  makes  sweet  wine,  perry,  creams  ; 
scatters  flowers  and  leaves  under  the 
table.  What  an  excellent  housewife  1 
What  a  great  many  votes  she  will  gain 
among  the  country  squires,  when  Adam 
stands  for  Parliament.  Adam  belongs 
to  the  Opposition,  is  a  Whig,  a  Puritan, 

He  "  walks  forth  ;  without  more  train 
Accompanied  than  with  his  own  complete 
Perfections  :  in  himself  was  all  his  state, 
More  solemn  than  the  tedious  pomp  that  waila 
On  princes,  when  their  rich  retinue  long 
Of    horses  led,   and  grooms  besmeared  with 

gold, 
Dazzles  the  crowd."  TT 


*  Paradise  Lost,  book  v.  /.  100-113. 
t  Ibid.  I.  116-119.  t  Ibid.  I.  313-316. 

§  Ibid.  1.  328-330.  ||  Ibid.  I.  333-336. 

H  Ibid.  I.  35^-357' 


CHAP.  VL] 


MIL  TON. 


30* 


The  epic  is  changed  into  a  political 
poem,  and  \ve  have  just  heard  an  epi- 
gram against  power.  The  preliminary 
ceremonies  are  somewhat  long;  for- 
tunately, the  dishes  being  uncooked, 
"  no  fear  lest  dinner  cool."  The  angel, 
though  ethereal,  eats  like  a  Lincoln- 
shire farmer : 

"  Nor  seemingly 

The  angel,  nor  in  mist,  the  common  gloss 
Of  theologians  ;  but  with  keen  dispatch 
Of  real  hunger,  and  concoctive  heat 
To    transubstantiate :     what    redounds,    tran- 
spires 
Through  spirits  with  ease."  * 

At  table  Eve  listens  to  the  angel's 
stones,  then  discreetly  rises  at  dessert, 
when  they  are  getting  into  politics. 
English  ladies  may  learn  by  her  ex- 
ample to  perceive  from  their  lord's 
faces  when  they  are  "  entering  on 
studious  thoughts  abstruse."  The  sex 
does  not  mount  so  high.  A.  wise  lady 
prefers  her  husband's  talk  to  that  of 
strangers.  "  Her  husband  the  relater 
she  prefered."  Now  Adam  hears  a 
little  treatise  on  astronomy.  He  con- 
cludes, like  a  practical  Englishman  : 

"  But  to  know 

That  which  before  us  lies  in  daily  life, 
Is  the  prime  wisdom  :  what  is  more,  is  fume, 
Or  emptiness,  or  fond  impertinence  ; 
And  renders  us,  in  things  that  most  concern, 
Unpractised,  unprepared,  and  still  to  seek."  t 

The  angel  gone,  Eve,  dissatisfied  with 
her  garden,  wishes  to  have  it  improved, 
and  proposes  to  her  husband  to  work  in 
it,  she  on  one  side,  he  on  the  other. 
lie  says,  with  an  approving  smile : 

"  Nothing  lovelier  can  be  found 
In  woman,  than  to  study  household  good, 
And  good  works  in  her  husband  to  promote."  % 

But  he  fears  for  her,  and  would  keep 
her  at  his  side.  She  rebels  with  a 
little  prick  of  proud  vanity,  like  a 
young  lady  who  mayn't  go  out  by  her- 
self. She  has  her  way,  goes  alone 
and  eats  the  apple.  Here  interminable 
speeches  come  down  on  the  reader,  as 
numerous  and  cold  as  winter  showers. 
The  speeches  of  Parliament  after 
Pride's  Purge  were  hardly  heavier. 
The  serpent  seduces  Eve  by  a  collec- 
tion of  arguments  worthy  of  the  punc- 
tilious Chillingworth,  and  then  the 
syllogistic  mist  enters  her  poor  brain  : 

*  Paradise  Lost,  bookv.  /.  434-439. 
t  Ibid*  book  yiii.  /.  192-197. 
t  Ibid,  book  ix.  /.  232. 


•'  His  forbidding 

Commends  thee  more,  while  it  infers  the  good 
Py  thee  communicated,  and  our  want  : 
For  good  unknown  sure  is  not  had  ;  or,  had 
And  yet  unknown,  is  as  not  had  at  all.  .  .  . 
Such  prohibitions  bind  not."  * 

Eve  is  from  Oxford  too,  has  also  learn 
ed  law  in  the  inns  about  the  Temple 
and  wears,  like  her  husband,  the  doc 
tor's  trencher-cap. 

The  flow  of  dissertations  never  ceas- 
es ;  from  Paradise  it  gets  into  heaven : 
neither  heaven  nor  earth,  nor  hell  it- 
self, would  swamp  it. 

Of  all  characters  which  man  could 
bring  upon  the  scene,  God  is  the  finest. 
The  cosmogonies  of  peoples  are  sub- 
lime poems,  and  the  artists'  genius 
does  not  attain  perfection  until  it  is 
sustained  by  such  conceptions.  The 
Hindoo  sacred  poems,  the  Biblical 
prophecies,  the  Edda,  the  Olympus  of 
Hesiod  and  Homer,  the  visions  of 
Dante,  are  glowing  flowers  from  which 
a  whole  civilization  blooms,  and  every 
emotion  vanishes  before  the  terrible 
feeling  through  which  they  have  leapt 
from  the  bottom  of  our  heart.  Nothing 
then  can  be  more  depressing  than  the 
degradation  of  these  noble  ideas,  set- 
tling into  the  regularity  of  formulas, 
and  under  the  discipline  of  a  popular 
worship.  What  is  smaller  than  a  god 
sunk  to  the  level  of  a  king  and  a  man  ? 
what  more  repulsive  than  the  Hebrew 
Jehovah,  defined  by  theological  pedan- 
try, governed  in  his  actions  by  the  last 
manual  of  doctrine,  petrified  by  literal 
interpretation  ? 

Milton's  Jehovah  is  a  grave  king, 
who  maintains  a  suitable  state,  some- 
thing like  Charles  I.  When  we  meet 
him  for  the  first  time,  in  Book  III.,  he 
is  holding  council,  and  setting  forth  a 
matter  of  business.  From  the  style 
we  see  his  grand  furred  cloak,  his 
pointed  Vandyke  beard,  his  velvet- 
covered  throne  and  golden  dais.  The 
business  concerns  a  law  which  does 
not  act  well,  and  respecting  which  he 
desires  to  justify  his  rule.  Adam  is 
about  to  eat  the  apple  :  why  have  ex- 
posed Adam  to  the  temptation  ?  The 
royal  orator  discusses  the  question,  and 
shows  the  reason ; 

"  I  made  him  just  and  rightj 
Sufficient  to  have  stood,  though  free  to  fall. 


*  Ibid.  I.  753-760. 


302 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II. 


Such  I  created  all  the  ethereal  powers 

And  spirits,  both  them  who  stood  and  them 

who  fail'd.  .  .  . 
Not  free,  what  proof  could  they  have  given 

sincere 

Of  true  allegiance,  constant  faith,  or  love? 
Where   only,   what  they  needs   must   do,  ap- 

pear'd, 
Not  what  they  would  :  what  praise  could  they 

receive  ? 

What  pleasure  I  from  such  obedience  paid  ? 
When  will  and  reason  (reason  also  is  choice), 
Useless  and  vain,  of  freedom  both  despoil 'd, 
Made  passive  both,  had  served  necessity, 
Not  me.    They  therefore,  as  to  right  beiong'd, 
So  were  created,  nor  can  justly  accuse 
Their  Maker,  or  their  making,  or  their  fate  ; 
As  if  predestination  over-ruled 
Their  will,  disposed  by  absolute  decree 
Or  high  foreknowledge  :  they  themselves  de- 
creed 

Their  own  revolt,  not  1  :  if  I  foreknew, 
Foreknowledge  had  no  influence  on  their  fault, 
Which   had    no   less  proved    certain    unf ore- 
known. 

So  without  least  impulse  or  shadow  of  fate, 
Or  aught  by  me  immutably  foreseen, 
They  trespass,  authors  to  themselves  in  all, 
Both  what  they  judge  and  what  they  choose."* 

The  modern  reader  is  not  so  patient 
as  the  Thrones,  Seraphim,  and  Domi- 
nations ;  this  is  why  I  stop  halfway  in 
the  royal  speech.  We  perceive  that 
Milton's  Jehovah  is  connected  with  the 
theologian  James  I.,  versed  in  the 
arguments  of  Arminians  and  Gomarists, 
very  clever  at  the  distinguo,  and,  be- 
fore all,  incomparably  tedious.  He 
must  pay  his  councillors  of  state  very 
well  if  he  wishes  them  to  listen  to  such 
tirades.  His  son  answers  him  respect- 
fully in  the  same  style.  Goethe's  God, 
half  abstraction,  half  legend,  source  of 
calm  oracles,  a  vision  just  beheld  after 
a  pyramid  of  ecstatic  strophes,!  greatly 
excels  this  Miltonic  God,  a  business 
man,  a  schoolmaster,  an  ostentatious 
man !  I  honor  him  too  much  in  giving 
him  these  titles.  He  deserves  a  worse 
name,  when  he  sends  Raphael  to  warn 
Adam  that  Satan  intends  him  some 
mischief : 

"  This  let  him  know, 
Lest,  wilfully  transgressing,  he  pretend 
Surprisal,  unadmonish'd,  unforewarn'd."  $ 

This  Miltonic  Deity  is  only  a  school- 
master, who,  foreseeing  the  fault  of 
his  pupil,  tells  him  beforehand  the 
grammar  rule,  so  as  to  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  scolding  him  without  discussion. 

*  Paradise  Lost,  book  iii.  /.  98-123. 

t  End  of  the  continuation  of  Faust.  Pro- 
logue in  Heaven. 

t  Paradise  Lost,  book  v.  /.  243. 


Moreover,  like  a  good  politician,  he 
had  a  second  motive,  just  as  with  his 
angels,  "  For  state,  as  Sovran  King  ; 
and  to  inure  our  prompt  obedience." 
The  word  is  out ;  we  see  what  Milton's 
heaven  is  :  a  Whitehall  filled  with  be- 
dizened footmen.  The  angels  are  the 
choristers,  whose  business  is  to  sing 
cantatas  about  the  king  and  before 
the  king,  keeping  their  places  as  long 
as  they  obey,  alternating  all  night  long 
to  sing  "  melodious  hymns  about  the 
sovran  throne."  What  a  life  for  this 
poor  king  !  and  what  a  cruel  condition, 
to  hear  eternally  his  own  praises  !  *  To 
amuse  himself,  Milton's  Deity  decides 
to  crown  his  son  king — partner-king, 
if  you  prefer  it.  Read  the  passage,  and 
say  if  it  be  not  a  ceremony  of  his  time 
that  the  poet  describes  : 

"  Ten  thousand  thousand    ensigns    high    ad- 
vanced, 

Standards  and  gonfalons  'Uyixt  van  and  rear 
Stream  in  the  air,  and  for  distinction  serve 
Of  hierarchies,  of  orders,  and  degrees  ; 
Or  in  their  glittering  tissues  bear  imbiazed 
Holy  memorials,  acts  of  zeal  and  love 
Recorded  eminent  ;  "  t 

doubtless  the  capture  of  a  Dutch  ves- 
sel, the  defeat  of  the  Spaniards  in  the 
Downs.  The  king  brings  forward  his 
son,  "  anoints  "  him,  declares  him  "  his 
great  vicegerent :  " 

".  To  him  shall  bow 

All  knees  in  heaven.  .  .  .  Him  who  disobeys, 
Me  disobeys  ;  "  $ 

and  such  were,  in  fact,  expelled  from 
heaven  the  same  day.  "  All  seem'd 
well  pleased ;  all  seem'd,  but  were  not 
all."  Yet 

"  That  day,  as  other  solemn  days,  they  spent 
In  song  and  dance  about  the  sacred  hill.  .  .  . 
Forthwith  from  dance  to  sweet  repast  they 

turn 
Desirous."  § 

Milton  describes  the  tables,  the  dishes, 
the  wine,  the  vessels.  It  is  a  popular 
festival  ;  I  miss  the  fireworks,  the  bell- 
ringing,  as  in  London,  and  I  can  fancy 
that  all  would  drink  to  the  health  of 
*  We  are  reminded  of  the  history  of  Ira  in 
Voltaire,  condemned  to  hear  without  intermis- 
sion or  end  the  praises  of  four  chamberlains, 
and  the  following  hymn  : 

"  Que  son  meVite  est  extreme! 
Que  de  graces,  qtie'de  grandeur. 
Ah !  combien  monseigneur 
Doit  etre  content  de  lui-memel  " 
t  Paradise  Lost,  book  v.  /.  588-594. 
t  Ibid.  I.  607-612.  §  Ibid.  I.  617-631. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


3°3 


the  new  king.  Then  Satan  revolts  ; 
he  takes  his  troops  to  the  other  end  of 
the  country,  like  Lambert  or  Monk, 
toward  *'  the  quarters  of  the  north/' 
Scotland  perhaps,  passing  through 
well-governed  districts,  "  empires," 
with  their  sheriffs  and  lord-lieutenants. 
Heaven  is  partitioned  off  like  a  good 
map.  Satan  holds  forth  before  his 
officers  against  royalty,  opposes  in  a 
word-combat  the  good  royalist  Abdiel, 
who  refutes  his  "  blasphemous,  false, 
and  proud  "  arguments,  and  quits  him 
to  rejoin  his  prince  at  Oxford.  Well 
armed,  the  rebel  marches  with  his 
pikemen  and  artillery  to  attack  the 
fortress.*  The  two  parties  slash  each 
other  with  the  sword,  mow  each  other 
down  with  cannon,  knock  each  other 
down  with  political  arguments.  These 
sorry  angels  have  their  mind  as  well 
disciplined  as  their  limbs ;  they  have 
passed  their  youth  in  a  class  of  logic 
and  in  a  drill  school.  Satan  holds 
forth  like  a  preacher  : 

"  What  heaven's  Lord  had  powerfulest  to  send 
Against  us  from  about  his  throne,  and  judged 
Sufficient  to  subdue  us  to  his  will, 
But  proves  not  so  :  then  fallible,  it  seems, 
Of  future  we  may  deem  him,  though  till  now 
Omniscient  thought."  t 

He  also  talks  like  a  drill-sergeant. 
"  Vanguard,  to  right  and  left  the  front 
unfold."  He  makes  quips  as  clumsy 
as  those  of  Harrison,  the  former  butch- 
er turned  officer.  What  a  heaven  ! 
It  is  enough  to  disgust  a  man  with 
Paradise  ;  any  one  would  rather  enter 
Charles  I.'s  troop  of  lackeys,  or  Crom- 
well's Ironsides.  We  have  orders  of 
the  day,  a  hiei^rchy,  exact  submission, 
extra-duties,  disputes,  regulated  cere- 
monials, prostrations,  etiquette,  fur- 
bished arms,  arsenals,  depots  of  char- 
iots and  ammunition.  Was  it  worth 
while  leaving  earth  to  find  in  heaven 
carriage- works,  buildings,  artillery,  a 
manual  of  tactics,  the  art  of  salutations, 
and  the  Almanac  de  Gotha  ?  Are 

*  The  Miltonic  Deity  is  so  much  on  the  level 
of  a  king  and  man,  that  he  uses  (with  irony 
certainly)  words  like  these  : 

"  Lest  unawares  we  lose 
This  our  high  place,  our  Sanctuary,  our  Hill." 

His  son,  about  to  ffosh  his  maiden  sword,  re- 
plies : 

"  If  I  be  found  the  vorst  in  heaven,"  etc. 
Book  v.  731-742. 

t  Paradise  Lost,  book  vi.  /.  425-430. 


these  the  things  which  "  eye  hath  no* 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  entered 
into  the  heart  to  conceive  ? "  What  a 
gap  between  this  monarchical  frippery  * 
and  the  visions  of  Dante,  the  souls 
floating  like  stars  amid  the  harmonies, 
the  mingled  splendors,  the  mystic  roses 
radiating  and  vanishing  in  the  azure, 
the  impalpable  world  in  which  all  the 
laws  of  earthly  life  are  dissolved,  the 
unfathomable  abyss  traversed  by  fleet- 
ing visions,  like  golden  bees  gliding  in 
the  rays  of  the  deep  central  sun  !  Is 
it  not  a  sign  of  extinguished  imagina- 
tion, of  the  inroad  of  prose,  of  the  birth 
of  practical  genius,  replacing  metaphys- 
ics by  morality  ?  What  a  fall !  To 
measure  it,  read  a  true  Christian  poem 
the  Apocalypse.  I  copy  half-a-dozen 
verses  ;  think  what  it  has  become  in 
the  hands  of  the  imitator  : 

*'  And  I  turned  to  see  the  voice  that  spake 
with  me.  And  being  turned,  I  saw  seven 
golden  candlesticks  ; 

"  And  in  the  midst  of  the  seven  candlesticks, 
one  like  unto  the  Son  of  man,  clothed  with  a 
garment  down  to  the  foot,  and  girt  about  the 
paps  with  a  golden  girdle. 

"  His  head  and  his  hairs  were  white  like 
wool,  as  white  as  snow  |  and  his  eyes  were  as  a 
flame  of  fire  ; 

"  And  his  feet  like  unto  fine  brass,  as  if  they 
burned  in  a  furnace ;  and  his  voice  as  the 
sound  of  many  waters. 

"  And  he  had  in  his  right  hand  seven  stars  : 
and  out  of  his  mouth  went  a  sharp  two  edged 
sword  :  and  his  countenance  was  as  the  suu 
shineth  in  his  strength. 

"  And  when  I  saw  him,  I  fell  at  his  feet  as 
dead."  t 

When  Milton  was  arranging  his 
celestial  show,  he  did  not  fall  as  dead. 

But  if  the  innate  and  inveterate  habits 
of  logical  argument,  joined  with  the 
literal  theology  of  the  time,  prevented 
him  from  attaining  to  lyrical  illusion  or 
from  creating  living  souls,  the  splen- 
dor of  his  grand  imagination,  combined 
with  the  passions  of  Puritanism,  fur- 
nished him  with  an  heroic  character, 
several  sublime  hymns,  and  scenery 
which  no  one  has  surpassed.  The 
finest  thing  in  connection  with  this 
Paradise  is  hell ;  and  in  this  history  of 

*  When  Raphael  comes  on  earth,  the  angels 
who  are  "under  watch,"  "in  honour  rise." 
The  disagreeable  and  characteristic  feature  oi 
this  heaven  is,  that  the  universal  motive  is  obe- 
dience, while  in  Dante's  it  is  love.  "Lowly 
reverent  they  bow.  .  .  .  Our  happy  state  we 
hold,  like  yours,  while  our  obedience  holds." 

t  Rev.  i.  12. 


3°4 


THE  RENAISSANCE. 


[BOOK  II 


God,  the  chief  part  is  taken  by  the 
devil.  The  ridiculous  devil  of  the 
middle-age,  a  horned  enchanter,  a  dirty 
jester,  a  petty  and  mischievous  ape, 
band-leader  to  a  rabble  of  old  women, 
has  become  a  giant  and  a  hero.  Like 
a  conquered  and  banished  Cromwell, 
he  remains  admired  and  obeyed  by 
those  whom  he  has  drawn  into  the 
abyss.  If  he  continues  master,  it  is 
because  he  deserves  it ;  firmer,  more 
enterprising,  more  scheming  than  the 
lest,  it  is  always  from  him  that  deep 
counsels,  unlooked-for  resources,  cour- 
ageous deeds,  proceed.  It  was  he  who 
invented  "deep-throated  engines  .  .  . 
disgorging,  .  .  .  chained  thunderbolts, 
and  hail  of  iron  globes,"  and  won  the 
second  day's  victory;  he  who  in  hell 
roused  his  dejected  troops,  and  plan- 
ned the  ruin  of  man ;  he  who,  passing 
the  guarded  gates  and  the  boundless 
chaos,  amid  so  many  dangers,  and 
across  so  many  obstacles,  made  man 
revolt  against  God,  and  gained  for  hell 
the  whole  posterity  of  the  new-born. 
Though  defeated,  he  prevails,  since  he 
has  won  from  the  monarch  on  high  the 
third  part  of  his  angels,  and  almost  all 
the  sons  of  his  Adam.  Though  wound- 
ed, he  triumphs,  for  the  thunder  which 
smote  his  head  left  his  heart  invincible. 
Though  feebler  in  force,  he  remains 
superior  in  nobility,  since  he  prefers 
suffering  independence  to  happy  ser- 
vility, and  welcomes  his  defeat  and  his 
torments  as  a  glory,  a  liberty,  and  a 
joy.  These  are  the  proud  and  sombre 
political  passions  of  the  constant 
though  oppressed  Puritans;  Milton 
had  felt  them  in  the  vicissitudes  of  war, 
and  the  emigrants  who  had  taken  ref- 
uge amongst  the  wild  beasts  and  sav- 
ages of  America,  found  them  strong 
and  energetic  in  the  depths  of  their 
h  -.arts 

"  Is  this  the  region,  this  the  soil,  the  clime, 
Said  then  the  lost  Archangel,  this  the  seat 
That  we  must  change  for  heaven  ?  this 

mournful  gloom 

For  that  celestial  light?     Be  it  so,  since  he, 
Who  now  is  Sovran,  can  dispose  and  bid 
What   shall  be  right :  farthest  from  him  is 

best, 
Whom  reason  has  equal' d,  force  hath  made 

supreme 

Above  his  equals.     Farewell,  happy  fields, 
Where  joy  for  ever  dwells!     Hail,  horrours  ; 

hail, 
Infernal  world !  and  them,  profoundest  hell, 


Receive  thy  new  possessor  ;  one  who  brings 
A  mind  not  to  be  changed  by  place  or  time. 
The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  heaven  of  hell,  a  hell  of  heaven. 
What  matter  where,  if  I  be  still  the  same, 
And  what  I  should  be  ;  all  but  less  than  he 
Whom  thunder  hath  made  greater?     Here 

at  least 
We  shall  be  free  ;  the  Almighty  hath  nol 

built 

Here  for  his  envy  ;  will  not  drive  us  hence  : 
Here   we    may    reign   secure  ;   and   in   my 

choice 

To  reign  is  worth  ambition,  though  in  hell  ? 
Better    to    reign    in    hell,    than     serve    .n 

heaven."  * 

This  sombre  heroism,  this  harsh  obsti- 
nacy, this  biting  irony,  these  proud 
stiff  arms  which  clasp  grief  as  a  mis- 
tress, this  concentration  of  invincible 
courage  which,  cast  on  its  own  re- 
sources, finds  every  thing  in  itself,  this 
power  of  passion  and  sway  over  pas- 
sion,— 

"  The  unconquerable  will, 
And  study  of  revenge,  immortal  hate, 
And  courage  never  to  submit  or  yield, 
And  what  is  else  not  to  be  overcome,"  t 

are  features  proper  to  the  English 
character  and  to  English  literature, 
and  you  will  find  them  later  on  in 
Byron's  Lara  and  Conrad. 

Around  the  fallen  angel,  as  within 
him,  all  is  great.  Dante's  hell  is  but  a 
hall  of  tortures,  whose  cells,  one  below 
another,  descend  to  the  deepest  wells. 
Milton's  hell  is  vast  and  vague. 

"  A  dungeon  horrible  on  all  sides  round 
As  one  great  furnace  flamed,  yet  from  those 

flames 

No  light,  but  rather  darkness  visible 
Served  only  to  discover  sights  of  woe, 
Regions  of  sorrow,  doleful  shades.  \  .  .   . 

Beyond  this  flood  a  frozen  continent 

Lies  dark    and  wild,   beat  with    perpetual 

storms 
Of  whirlwind  and  dire  hail,  which   on  firm 

land 

Thaws  not,  but  gathers  heap,  and  ruin  seems 
Of  ancient  pile."  § 

The  angels  gather,  innumerable  le- 
gions : 

"  As  when  heaven's  fire 
Hath  scathed  the  forest  oaks    or    mountain 

pines, 
With  singed  top  their  stately  growth,  though 

bare, 
Stands  on  the  blasted  heath."  || 

Milton  needs  the  grand  and  infinite  \ 
*  Paradise  Lost,  book  i.  /.  242-263. 
t  Ibid.  I.  1067109.  %  Ibid.  I.  61-65- 

§  Ibid,  book  ii.  /.  587-591. 
II  Ibid,  book  i.  /.  612-615. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


305 


he  lavishes  them.  His  eyes  are  only 
content  in  limitless  space,  and  he  pro- 
duces colossal  figures  to  fill  it.  Such 
is  Satan  wallowing  on  the  surges  of  the 
livid  sea : 

"  In  bulk  as  huge  .  .  .  as  .  .  .  that  sea-beast 
Leviathan,  which  God  of  all  his  works 
Created  hugest  that  swim  the  ocean  stream  : 
Him,  haply,  slumbering  on  the  Norway  foam, 
The  pilot  of  some  small  night-founder'd  skiff, 
Deeming  some  island,  oft,  as  seamen  tell, 
With  fixed  anchor  in  his  scaly  rind 
Moors  by  his  side  under  the  lee,  while  night 
Invests  the  sea,  and  wished  morn  delays.     * 

Spenser  has  discovered  images  just 
as  fine,  but  he  has  not  the  tragic  gravity 
which  the  idea  of  hell  impresses  on  a 
Protestant.  No  poetic  creation  equals 
in  horror  and  grandeur  the  spectacle 
that  greeted  Satan  on  leaving  his  dun- 
geon : 

"  At  last  appear 

Hell  bounds,  high  reaching  to  the  horrid  roof, 
And  thrice  threefold  the  gates  ;  three  folds 

were  brass, 

Three  iron,  three  of  adamantine  rock, 
Impenetrable,  impaled  with  circling  fire, 
Yet  unconsumed.     Before  the  gates  there  sat 
On  either  side  a  formidable  shape  ; 
The  one  seem'd  woman  to  the  waist,  and  fair, 
But  ended  foul  in  many  a  scaly  fold 
Voluminous  and  vast,  a  serpent  arm'd 
With  mortal  sting  :  about  her  middle  round 
A  cry  of  hell  hounds  never  ceasing  bark'd 
With  wide   Cerberean  mouths  full  loud,  and 

rung 
A  hideous  peal :    yet,  when  they  list,  would 

creep, 

If  aught  disturb'd  their  noise,  into  her  womb, 
And  kennel  there  ;  yet  there  still  bark'd  and 

howl'd 

Within  unseen.  .  .  .  The  other  shape. 
If  shape  it  might  be  call'd,  that  shape  had  none 
Distinguishable  in  member,  joint,  or  limb, 
Or  substance    might    be    call'd    that    shadow 

seem'd, 
For  each   seem'd  either:    black  it  stood    as 

night, 

Fierce  as  ten  furies,  terrible  as  hell, 
And  shook  a  dreadful  dart :  what  seem'd  his 

head 

The  likeness  of  a  kingly  crown  had  on. 
Satan  was  now  at  hand,  and  from  his  seat 
The  monster  moving  onward  came  as  fast, 
With    horrid    strides ;    hell    trembled    as    he 

strode. 

Thf    undaunted  fiend  what  this  might  be  ad- 
mired, 
Admired,  not  fear  d."  t 

The  heroic  glow  of  the  old  soldier 
of  the  Civil  Wars  animates  the  infernal 
battle ;  and  if  any  one  were  to  ask  why 
Milton  creates  things  greater  than 
other  men,  I  should  answer,  because 
he  has  a  greater  heart. 

*  Paradise  Lost,  book  i.  /.  196-208. 
t  Ibid,  book  ii.  /.  643-678. 


Hence  the  sublimity  of  his  scenery, 
If  I  did  not  fear  the  paradox,  I  should 
say  that  this  scenery  was  a  school  ol 
virtue.  Spenser  is  a  smooth  glass, 
which  fills  us  with  calm  images.  Shak- 
speare  is  a  burning  mirror,  which  over- 
powers us,  repeatedly,  with  multiplied 
and  dazzling  visions.  The  one  dis- 
tracts, the  other  disturbs  us.  Milton 
raises  our  mind.  The  force  of  the  ob- 
jects which  he  describes  passes  into 
us  ;  we  become  great  by  sympathy 
with  their  greatness.  Such  is  the  effect 
of  his  description  of  the  Creation.  The 
calm  and  creative  command  of  the 
Messiah  leaves  its  trace  in  the  heart 
which  listens  to  it,  and  we  feel  more 
vigor  and  moral  health  at  the  sight  of 
this  great  work  of  wisdom  and  will : 

"  On  heavenly  ground  they  stood  ;  and  from 

the  shore 

They  view'd  the  vast  immeasurable  abyss 
Outrageous  as  a  sea,  dark,  wasteful,  wild, 
Up  from  the  bottom  tum'd  by  furious  winds 
And  surging  waves,  as  mountains,  to  assault 
Heaven's  highth,  and  with  the  centre  mix  the 

pole. 
*  Silence,  ye  troubled  waves,  and  thou  deep, 

peace,' 
Said  then  the  omnific  Word :  '  your  discord 

end! 
Let  there  be  light,  said  God  ;  and  forthwith 

light 

Ethereal,  first  of  things,  quintessence  pure, 
Sprung  from  the  deep  ;  and  from  her  native 

east 

To  journey  through  the  aery  gloom  began, 
Sphered  in  a  radiant  cloud.  .  .  . 
The  earth  was  form'd  ;  but  in  the  womb  as 

yet 

Of  waters,  embryon  immature  involved, 
Appear'd  not :  over  all  the  face  of  eartn 
Main  ocean  flow'd,  not  idle,  but,  with  warm 
Prolific  humour  softening  all  her  globe, 
Fermented  the  great  mother  to  conceive, 
Satiate  with  genial  moisture,  when  God  said, 
'  Be  gather'd  now,  ye  waters  under  heaven, 
Into  one  place,  and  let  dry  land  appear.' 
Immediately  the  mountains  huge  appear 
Emergent,  and  their  broad  bare   backs  up- 
heave 

Into  the  clouds,  their  tops  ascend  the  sky : 
So  high  as  heaved  the  tumid  hills,  so  low 
Down    sunk  a   hollow    bottom    broad   and 

deep, 

Capacious  bed  of  waters  :  thither  they 
Hasted  with  glad  precipitance,  uproll  d, 
As  drops  on  dust  conglobing  from  the  dry."  * 

This  is  primitive  scenery ;  immense 
bare  seas  and  mountains,  as  Raphael 
Sanzio  outlines  them  in  the  background 
of  his  biblical  paintings.  Milton  em- 
braces the  general  effects,  and  handles 
the  whole  as  easily  as  his  Jehovah. 
*  Ibid.,  book  vii.  /.  210-292. 


306 


Let  us  quit  superhuman  and  fanciful 
spectacles.  A  simple  sunset  equals 
them.  Milton  peoples  it  with  solemn 
allegories  and  regal  figures,  and  the 
sublime  is  born  in  the  poet,  as  just 
before  it  was  born  from  the  subject : — 

"  The  sun,  now  fallen  .  .  . 
Arraying  with  reflected  purple  and  gold 
The  clouds  that  on  his  western  throne  at- 
tend: 

Now  came  still  evening  on,  and  twilight  gray 
Had  in  her  sober  livery  all  things  clad  ; 
Silence  accompanied,  for  beast  and  bird, 
They  to  their  grassy  couch,  these  to  their 

nests, 

Were  slunk,  all  but  the  wakeful  nightingale  ; 
She  all  night  long  her  amorous  descant  sung  ; 
Silence  was  pleased :  now  glowed  the  firma- 
ment 

With  living  sapphires  :  Hesperus,  that  led 
The  starry  host,  rode  brightest,  till  the  moon, 
Rising  in  clouded  majesty,  at  length, 
Apparent  queen,  unveiled  her  peerless  light, 
And  o'er  the  dark  her  silver  mantle  threw."* 

The  changes  of  the  light  become  here 
a  religious  procession  of  vague  beings 
who  fill  the  soul  with  veneration.  So 
sanctified,  the  poet  prays.  Standing 
by  the  "  inmost  bower  "  of  Adam  and 
Eve,  he  says  : — 

"  Hail    wedded    love,    mysterious    law,    true 

source 

Of  human  offspring,  sole  propriety 
In  Paradise  of  ail  things  common  else  I 
By  thee  adulterous  lust  was  driven  from  men 
Among  the  bestial  herds  to  range  by  thee, 
Founded  in  reason,  loyal,  just,  and  pure, 
Relations  dear,  and  ail  the  charities 
Of    father,    son,    and    brother,    first    were 

known."  t 

He  justifies  it  by  the  example  of 
saints  and  patriarchs.  He  immolates 
before  it  "the  bought  smile"  and 
"  court-amours,  mix'cl  dance,  or  wanton 
mask,  or  midnight  ball,  or  serenate." 
We  are  a  thousand  miles  from  Shak- 
speare;  and  in  this  Protestant  eulogy 
of  the  family  tie,  of  lawful  love,  of 
domestic  sweets,"  of  orderly  piety  and 
of  home,  we  perceive  a  new  literature 
and  an  altered  time. 

A  strange  great  man,  and  a  strange 
spectacle !  He  was  born  with  the 
instinct  of  noble  things;  and  this  in- 
stinct, strengthened  in  him  by  solitary 
meditation,  by  accumulated  knowledge, 
by  stern  logic,  becomes  changed  into  a 
body  of  maxims  and  beliefs  which  no 
temptation  could  dissolve,  and  no  re- 
verse shake.  Thus  fortified,  he  passes 
*  Paradise  Lost,  book  iv.  /.  591-609 
t  Ibid.  /.  750-757. 


THE  RENAISSANCE, 


[BOOK  II. 


life  as  a  combatant,  as  a  poet,  with 
courageous  deeds  and  splendid  dreams 
heroic  and  rude,  chimerical  and  im- 
passioned, generous  and  calm,  like 
every  self-contained  reasoner,  like 
every  enthusiast,  insensible  to  experi- 
ence and  enamored  of  the  beautiful. 
Thrown  by  the  chance  of  a  revolution 
into  politics  and  theology,  he  demands 
for  others  the  liberty  which  his  power- 
ful reason  requires,  and  strikes  at  the 
public  fetters  which  impede  his  per- 
sonal energy.  By  the  force  of  his  in- 
tellect, he  is  more  capable  than  any 
one  of  accumulating  science  ;  by  the 
force  of  his  enthusiasm,  he  is  more  ca- 
pable than  any  of  experiencing  hatred. 
Thus  armed,  he  throws  himself  into 
controversy  with  all  the  clumsiness  and 
barbarism  of  the  time  ;  but  this  proud 
logic  displays  its  arguments  with  a 
marvellous  breadth,  and  sustains  its 
images  with  an  unwonted  majesty; 
this  lofty  imagination,  after  having 
spread  over  his  prose  an  array  of  mag- 
nificent figures,  carries  him  into  a  tor- 
rent of  passion  even  to  the  height  of 
the  sublime  or  excited  ode — a  sort  of 
archangel's  song  of  adoration  or  ven- 
geance. The  chance  of  a  throne  pre- 
served, then  re-established,  led  him  be- 
fore the  revolution  took  place,  into  pa- 
gan and  moral  poetry,  after  the  revolu- 
tion into  Christian  and  moral  verse.  In 
both  he  aims  at  the  sublime,  and  in- 
spires admiration :  because  the  sub- 
lime is  the  work  of  enthusiastic  reason, 
and  admiration  is  the  enthusiasm  of  rea- 
son. In  both,  he  arrives  at  his  point 
by  the  accumulation  of  splendors,  by 
the  sustained  fulness  of  poetic  song,  by 
the  greatness  of  his  allegories,  the  lofti- 
ness of  his  sentiments,  the  description 
of  infinite  objects  and  heroic  emotions. 
In  the  first,  a  lyrist  and  a  philosopher, 
with  a  wider  poetic  freedom,  and  the 
creator  of  a  stronger  poetic  illusion, 
he  produces  almost  perfect  odes  and 
choruses.  In  the  second,  an  epic 
writer  and  a  Protestant,  enslaved  by  a 
strict  theology,  robbed  of  the  style 
which  makes  the  supernatural  visible, 
deprived  of  the  dramatic  sensibility 
which  creates  varied  and  living  souls, 
he  accumulates  cold  dissertations, 
transforms  man  and  God  into  orthodox 
I  and  vulgar  machines,  and  only  regains 
I  his  genius  in  endowing  Satan  with  his 


CHAP.  VI.] 


MILTON. 


307 


republican  soul,  in  multiplying  grand 
landscapes  and  collossal  apparitions,  in 
consecrating  his  poetry  to  the  praise  of 
religion  and  duty. 

Placed,  as  it  happened,  between  two 
ages,  he  participates  in  their  two  char- 
acters, as  a  stream  which,  flowing  be- 
tween two  different  soils,  is  tinged  by 
both  their  hues.  A  poet  and  a  Protes- 
tant, he  receives  from  the  closing  age 
the  free  poetic  afflatus,  and  from  the 
opening  age  the  severe  political  relig- 
ion. He  employed  the  one  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  other,  and  displayed  the  old 
inspiration  in  new  subjects.  In  his 
works  we  recognize  two  Englands  :  one 
impassioned  for  the  beautiful,  devoted 
to  the  emotions  of  an  unshackled  sensi- 
bility and  the  fancies  of  pure  imagina- 
tion, with  no  law  but  the  natural  feel- 
ings, and  no  religion  but  natural  belief ; 


willingly  pagan,  often  immoral ;  such 
as  it  is  exhibited  by  Ben  Jonson,  Beau- 
mont, Fletcher,  Shakspeare,  Spenser, 
and  the  superb  harvest  of  poets  which 
covered  the  ground  for  a  space  of  fifty 
years  ;  the  other  fortified  by  a  practi- 
cal religion,  void  of  metaphysical  inven 
tion,  altogether  political  worshipping 
rule,  attached  to  measured,  sensible, 
useful,  narrow  opinions,  praising  the 
virtues  of  the  family,  armed  and  stiffen- 
ed by  a  rigid  morality,  driven  into 
prose,  raised  to  the  highest  degree  j>£ 
power,  wealth,  and  liberty.  In  tnis 
sense,  this  style  and  these  ideas  are 
monuments  of  history;  they  concen- 
trate, recall,  or  anticipate  the  past  and 
the  future  ;  and  in  the  limits  of  a  single 
work  are  found  the  events  and  the  feel- 
ings of  several  centuries  and  of  a  whole 
nation. 


HISTORY   OF   ENGLISH    LITERATURE. 


BOOK  III. 

THE    CLASSIC    AGE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


I.   THE   ROISTERERS. 

WHEN  we  alternately  look  at  the  works 
of  the  court  painters  of  Charles  I.  and 
Charles  II.,  and  pass  from  the  noble 
portraits  of  Van  Dyck  to  the  figures  of 
Lely,  the  fall  is  sudden  and  great  ;  we 
have  left  a  palace,  and  we  light  on  a 
bagnio. 

Instead  of  the  proud  and  dignified 
lords,  at  once  cavaliers  and  courtiers, 
instead  of  those  high-born  yet  simple 
ladies  who  look  at  the  same  time  prin- 
cesses and  modest  maidens,  instead  of 
that  generous  and  heroic  company,  ele- 
gant and  resplendent,  in  whom  the 
spirit  of  the  Renaissance  yet  survived, 
but  who  already  displayed  the  refine- 
ment of  the  modern  age,  we  are  con- 
fronted by  perilous  and  importunate 
courtesans,  with  an  expression  either 
trile  or  harsh,  Incapable  of  shame  or  of 
remorse.*  Their  plump  smooth  hands 
toy  fondlingly  with  dimpled  fingers  ; 
ringlets  of  heavy  hair  fall  on  their  bare 
shoulders;  their  swimming  eyes  Ian- 

*  See  especially  the  portraits  of  Lady  Mor- 
land,  Lady  Willi  ims,  the  countess  of  Ossory, 
the  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  Lady  Price,  and 
many  others. 


guish  voluptuously;  an  insipid  smile 
hovers  on  their  sensual  lips.  One  is 
lifting  a  mass  of  dishevelled  hair  which 
streams  over  the  curves  of  her  rosy 
flesh  ;  another  falls  down  with  languor, 
and  uncloses  a  sleeve  whose  soft  folds 
display  the  full  whiteness  of  her  arms. 
Nearly  all  are  half -draped ;  many  of 
them  seem  to  be  just  rising  from  their 
beds  ;  the  rumpled  dressing-gown  clings 
to  the  neck,  and  looks  as  though  it 
were  soiled  by  a  night's  debauch ;  the 
tumbled  under-garment  slips  down  to 
the  hips:  their  feet  tread  the  bright 
and  glossy  silk.  With  bosoms  uncov- 
ered, they  are  decked  out  in  all  the  lux- 
urious extravagance  of  prostitutes ;  dia- 
mond girdles,  puffs  of  lace,  the  vulgar 
splendor  of  gilding,  a  superfluity  of  em- 
broidered and  rustling  fabrics,  enor- 
mous head-dresses,  the  curls  and  fringes 
of  which  rolled  up  and  sticking  out, 
compel  notice  by  the  very  height  of 
their  shameless  magnificence.  Fold- 
ing curtains  hang  round  them  in  the 
shape  of  an  alcove,  and  the  eyes  pene- 
trate through  a  vista  into  the  recesses 
of  a  wide  park,  whose  solitude  will  not 
ill  serve  the  purpose  of  their  pleasures. 

I. 

All   this   came  by  way  of  contrast; 
Puritanism  had  brought  on  an  orgic, 
(309) 


3io 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


and  fanatics   had  talked  down  virtue. 
For  many  years  the  gloomy  English  im- 
agination, possessed   by  religious  ter- 
rors, had   desolated   the   life   of   men. 
Conscience   had   become  disturbed  at 
the  thought  of  death  and  dark  eterni- 
ty;    half-expressed    doubts    stealthily 
swarmed  within  like  a  bed   of  thorns, 
and  the  sick  heart,  starting  at  every 
motion,  had  ended  by  taking  a  disgust 
at  all  its  pleasures,  and  abhorred   all 
its   natural  instincts.     Thus   poisoned 
at  its  very  beginning,  the  divine  senti- 
ment   of    justice   became   a  mournful 
madness.      Man,  confessedly  perverse 
and  condemned,  believed  himself  pent 
in  a  prison-house  of  perdition  and  vice, 
into   which   no   effort"  and   no'  chance 
could  dart  a  ray  of  light,  except  a  hand 
from  above  should  come  by  free  grace, 
to  rend  the  sealed  stone  of  this  tomb. 
Men  lived  the  life  of  the  condemned, 
amid  torments  and  anguish,  oppressed 
by  a  gloomy  despair,haunted  by  spectres. 
People  would  frequently  imagine  them- 
selves at  the  point  of  death  ;  Cromwell 
himself,  according  to  Dr.  Simcott,  physi- 
cian in  Huntingdon,  "  had  fancies  about 
the  Town  Cross ;  "  *  some  would   feel 
within  them  the  motions  of  an  evil  spirit; 
one  and  all  passed  the  night  with  their 
eyes  glued  to  the  tales  of  blood  and 
the   impassioned   appeals   of  the    Old 
Testament,  listening  to  the  threats  and 
thunders  of  a  terrible  God,  and  renew- 
ing in  their  own  hearts  the  ferocity  of 
murderers  and  the  exaltation  of  seers. 
Under   such  a   strain  reason   gradual- 
ly  left   them.     They  continually  were 
seeking  after  the   Lord,  and  found  but 
a  dream.     After  long  hours  of  exhaus- 
tion, they  labored   under  a  warped  and 
over-wrought    imagination.      Dazzling 
forms,  unwonted   ideas,  sprang  up  on 
a  sudden  in  their  heated  brain ;  these 
men  were  raised  and  penetrated  by  ex- 
traordinary emotions.     So  transformed, 
they  knew  themselves  no  longer ;  they 
did   not   ascribe   to  themselves   these 
violent  and  sudden  inspirations  which 
were  forced  upon  them,  which  compell- 
ed them   to   leave  the   beaten   tracks, 
which   had   no    connection    one    with 
another,  which  shook  and  enlightened 
them  when  least  expected,  without  be- 
ing able  either  to  check  or  to  govern 

*  Oliver  Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches, 
ed.  by  Carlyle    1866,  i.  39.— TR. 


:hem  ;  they  saw  in  them  the  agency  of 
a  supernatural  power,  and  gave  them- 
selves up  to  it  with  the  enthusiasm  or 
madness  and  the  stubbornness  of  faith. 
To  crown  all,  fanaticism  had  become 
an  institution;  the  sectary  had  laid 
down  all  the  steps  of  mental  transfig- 
uration, and  reduced  the  encroachment 
of  his  dream  to  a  theory  :  he  set  about 
methodically  to  drive  out  reason  and 
enthrone  ecstasy.  George  Fox  wrote 
its  history,  Bunyan  gave  it  its  laws, 
Parliament  presented  an  example  of  it, 
all  the  pulpits  lauded  its  practice.  Ar- 
tisans, soldiers,  women  discussed  it, 
mastered  it,  excited  one  another  by  the 
details  of  their  experience  and  the  pub- 
licity of  the  exaltations.  A  new  life 
was  inaugurated  which  had  blighted 
and  excluded  the  old.  All  secular 
tastes  were  suppressed,  all  sensual 
joys  forbidden  ;  the  spiritual  man  alone 
remained  standing  upon  the  ruins  of 
the  past,  and  the  heart,  debarred  from 
all  its  natural  safety-valves,  could  only 
direct  its  views  or  aspirations  towards 
a  sinister  Deity.  The  typical  Puritan 
walked  slowly  along  the  streets,  his 
eyes  raised  towards  heaven,  with  elon- 
gated features,  yellow  and  haggard, 
with  closely  cropt  hair,  clad  in  brown 
or  black,  unadorned,  clothed  only  to 
cover  his  nakedness.  If  a  man  had 
round  cheeks,  he  passed  for  lukewarm.* 
The  whole  body,  the  exterior,  the  very 
tone  of  voice,  all  must  wear  the  sign 
of  penitence  and  divine  grace.  A  Pu- 
ritan spoke  slowly,  with  a  solemn  and 
somewhat  nasal  tone  of  voice,  as  if  to 
destroy  the  vivacity  oi  conversation 
and  the  melody  of  the  natural  voice. 
His  speech  stuffed  with  scriptural  quo- 
tations, his  style  borrowed  from  the 
prophets,  his  name  and  the  names  of 
his  children  drawn  from  the  Bible,  bore 
witness  that  his  thoughts  were  confined 
to  the  terrible  world  of  the  seers  and 
ministers  of  divine  vengeance.  From 
within,  the  contagion  spread  outwards. 
The  fears  of  conscience  were  converted 
into  laws  of  the  state.  Personal  asceti- 
cism grew  into  public  tyranny.  The 
Puritan  proscribed  pleasure  as  an  ene- 
my, for  others  as  well  as  for  himself. 
Parliament  closed  the  gambling  houses 


*  Colonel  Hutchinson  was  at  one  time  held  in 
ispi 
well. 


suspicion  because  he  wore  long  hair  and  dressed 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


and  theatres,  and  had  the  actors  whip- 
ped at  the  cart's  tail ;  oaths  were  fined  ; 
the  May-trees  were  cut  down ;  the 
bears,  whose  fights  amused  the  people, 
were  put  to  death ;  the  plaster  of  Puri- 
tan masons  reduced  nude  statues  to  de- 
cency; the  beautiful  poetic  festivals 
were  forbidden.  Fines  and  corporal 
punishments  shut  out,  even  from  chil- 
dren, games,  dancing,  bell-ringing,  re- 
joicings, junketings, wrestling,  the  chase, 
all  exercises  and  amusements  which 
might  profane  the  Sabbath.  The  orna- 
ments, pictures,  and  statues  in  the 
churches  were  polled  down  or  mutila- 
ted. The  only  pleasure  which  they  re- 
tained and  permitted  was  the  singing 
of  psalms  through  the  nose,  the  edifi- 
cation of  long  sermons,  the  excitement 
of  acrimonious  controversies,  the  harsh 
and  sombre  joy  of  a  victory  gained 
over  the  enemy  of  mankind,  and  of  the 
tyranny  exercised  against  the  demon's 
supposed  abettors.  In  Scotland,  a 
colder  and  sterner  land,  intolerance 
reached  the  utmost  limits  of  ferocity 
and  pettiness,  instituting  a  surveillance 
over  the  private  life  and  home  devotions 
of  every  member  of  a  family,  depriving 
Catholics  of  their  children,  imposing 
the  abjuration  of  Popery  under  pain  of 
perpetual  imprisonment  or  death,  drag- 
ging crowds  of  witches  *  to  the  stake. t 

*  1648  ;  thirty  in  one  day.  One  of  them  con- 
fessed that  she  had  been  at  a  gathering  of  more 
than  five  hundred  witches. 

t  In  1652,  the  kirk-session  of  Glasgow  "  brot 
boyes  and  servants  before  them,  for  breaking 
the  sabbath,  and  other  faults.  They  had  clan- 
destine censors,  and  gave  money  to  some  for 
this  end." — Note  28,  taken  from  Wodrow's 
Analecta  ;  Buckle,  History  of  Civilization  in 
England,  3  vols.  1867,  iii.  208. 

Even  early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  "  the 
most  popular  divines "  in  Scotland  affirmed 
that  Satan  "frequently  appears  clothed  in  a 
corporeal  substance."—  Ibid.  iii.  233,  note  76, 
taken  from  Memoirs  of  C.  L.  Leives. 

"  No  husband  shall  kiss  his  wife,  and  no 
mother  shall  kiss  her  child  on  the  Sabbath  day." 
—Note  135.  Ibid.  iii.  253  ;  from  Rev.  C.  J. 
Lyon's  St.  Andrews,  vol.  i.  458,  with  regard 
to  government  of  a  colony.  [It  would  have 
been  satisfactory  if  Mr.  Lyon  had  given  his 
authority  ] — TR. 

"  (Sept.  22,  1649)  The  quhilk  day  the  Ses- 
sioune  caused  mak  this  act,  that  ther  sould  be 
no  pypers  at  brydels,"  etc. — Ibid.  iii.  258,  note 
153.  In  1719,  the  Presbytery  of  Edinburgh  in- 
dignantly declares :  "  Yea,  some  have  arrived 
at  that  height  of  impiety,  as  not  to  be  ashamed 
cf  washing  in  waters,  and  swimming  in  rivers 
upon  the  holy  Sabbath."—  Note  187.  Ibid.  iii. 


It  seemed  as  though  a  black  cloud  had 
weighed  down  the  life  of  man,  drown- 
ing all  light,  wiping  out  all  beauty,  ex- 
tinguishing all  joy,  pierced  here  and 
there  by  the  glitter  of  the  sword  and 
by  the  flickering  of  torches,  beneath 
which  one  might  perceive  the  indistinct 
forms  of  gloomy  despots,  of  bilious 
sectarians,  of  silent  victims. 

II. 

After  the  Restoration  a  deliverance 
ensued.  Like  a  checked  and  choked 
up  stream,  public  opinion  dashed  with 
all  its  natural  force  and  all  its  acquired 
momentum,  into  the  bed  from  which 
it  had  been  debarred.  The  outburst 
carried  away  the  dams.  The  violent 
return  to  the  senses  drowned  morality. 
Virtue  had  the  semblance  of  Puritanism. 
Duty  and  fanaticism  became  mingled  in 
common  disrepute.  In  this  great  re- 
action, devotion  and  honesty,  swept 
away  together,  left  to  mankind  but  the 
wreck  and  the  mire.  The  more  ex- 
cellent parts  of  human  nature  disap- 
peared ;  there  remained  but  the  animal, 
without  bridle  or  guide,  urged  by  his 
desires  beyond  justice  and  shame. 

When  we  see  these  manners  through 
the  medium  of  a  Hamilton  or  a  Saint- 
Evremond,  we  can  tolerate  them.  Their 
French  varnish  deceives  us.  Debauch- 
ery in  a  Frenchman  is  only  half  dis- 
gusting ;  with  him,  if  the  animal  breaks 
loose,  it  is  without  abandoning  itself  to 
excess.  The  foundation  is  not,  as  with 
the  Englishman,  coarse  and  powerful. 
You  may  break  the  glittering  ice  which 
covers  him,  without  bringing  down  upon 
yourself  the  swollen  and  muddy  torrent 
that  roars  beneath  his  neighbor  ;  *  the 
stream  which  will  issue  from  it  will 
only  have  its  petty  dribblings,  and  will 
return  quickly  and  of  itself  to  its  accus- 
tomed channel.  The  Frenchman  is 
mild,  naturally  refined,  little  inclined 
for  great  or  gross  sensuality,  liking  a 

"  I  think  David  had  never  so  sweet  a  time 
is  then,  when  he  was  pursued  as  a  partridge  by 
his  son  Absalom." — Note  190.  Gray's  Great 
and  Precious  Promises. 

See  the  whole  of  Chapter  iii.  vol.  iii.,  in 
which  Buckle  has  described,  by  similar  quota- 
tions, the  condition  of  Scotland,  chiefly  in  the 
seventeenth  century. 

*  See,  in  Richardson,  Swift,  and  Fielding, 
but  particularly  in  Hogarth,  the  delineation  of 
brutish  debauchery. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


sober  style  of  talk,  easily  armed  against 
filthy  manners  by  his  delicacy  and  good 
taste.  The  Count  de  Grammont  has 
too  much  wit  to  love  an  orgie.  After 
all  an  orgie  is  not  pleasant  ;  the  break- 
ing of  glasses,  brawling,  lewd  talk,  ex- 
cess in  eating  and  drinking, — there  is 
nothing  in  this  very  tempting  to  a  ra- 
ther delicate  taste :  the  Frenchman, 
after  Grammont's  type,  is  born  an 
epicurean,  not  a  glutton  or  a  drunkard. 
What  he  seeks  is  amusement,  not  unre- 
strained joy  or  bestial  pleasure.  I 
know  full  well  that  he  is  not  without 
reproach.  I  would  not  trust  him  with 
my  purse,  he  forgets  too  readily  the 
distinction  between  meum  and  tuum  ; 
above  all,  I  would  not  trust  him  with 
my  wife  :  he  is  not  over-delicate  ;  his 
escapades  at  the  gambling-table  and 
with  women  smack  too  much  of  the 
sharper  and  the  briber.  But  I  am 
wrong  to  use  these  big  words  in  con- 
nection with  him  ;  they  are  too  weighty, 
they  crush  so  delicate  and  so  pretty  a 
specimen  of  humanity.  These  heavy 
habits  of  honor  or  shame  can  only  be 
worn  by  serious-minded  men,  and 
Grammont  takes  nothing  seriously,  nei- 
ther his  fellow-men,  nor  himself,  nor 
vice,  nor  virtue.  To  pass  his  time 
agreeably  is  his  sole  endeavor.  "  They 
had  said  good-by  to  dulness  in  the 
army,"  observed  Hamilton,  "  as  soon 
as  he  was  there/'  That  is  his  pride 
and  his  aim  ;  he  troubles  himself,  and 
cares  for  nothing  beside.  His  valet 
robs  him  ;  another  would  have  brought 
the  rogue  to  the  gallows  ;  but  the  theft 
was  clever,  and  he  keeps  his  rascal. 
He  left  England  forgetting  to  marry  the 
girl  he  was  betrothed  to  ;  he  is  caught 
at  Dover  ;  he  returns  and  marries  her  : 
this  was  an  amusing  contre-temps  ;  he 
asks  for  nothing  better.  One  day, 
being  penniless,  he  fleeces  the  Count  de 
Cameran  at  play.  "  Could  Grammont, 
after  the  figure  he  had  once  cut,  pack 
off  like  an^  common  fellow  ?  By  no 
means  ;  he  is  a  man  of  feeling  ;  he  will 
maintain  the  honor  of  France."  He 
covers  his  cheating  at  play  with  a  joke  ; 
in  reality,  his  notions  of  property  are 
not  over-clear.  He  regales  Cameran 
with  Cameran's  own  money  ;  would 
Cameran  have  acted  better  or  other- 
wise ?  What  matter  if  his  money  be 
in  Grammont's  purse  or  his  own  ?  The 


main  point  is  gained,  since  there  is 
pleasure  in  getting  the  money,  and 
there  is  pleasure  in  spending  it.  The 
hateful  and  the  ignoble  vanish  from 
such  a  life.  If  he  pays  his  court  to 
princes,  you  may  be  sure  it  is  not  on  his 
knees  ;  so  lively  a  soul  is  not  weighed 
down  by  respect,  his  wit  places  him  on 
a  level  with  the  greatest  ;  under  pre- 
text of  amusing  the  king,  he  tells  him 
plain  truths.*  If  he  finds  himself  in 
London,  surrounded  by  open  debauch- 
ery, he  does  not  plunge  into  it ;  he 
passes  through  on  tiptoe,  and  so  daintily 
that  the  mire  does  not  stick  to  him. 
We  do  not  recognize  any  longer  in  his 
anecdotes  the  anguish  and  the  brutality 
which  were  really  felt  at  that  time  ;  the 
narrative  flows  on  quickly,  raising  a 
smile,  then  another,  and  another  yet,  so 
that  the  whole  mind  is  brought  by  an 
adroit  and  easy  progress  to  something 
like  good  humor.  At  table,  Grammont 
will  never  stuff  himself  ;  at  play,  he 
will  never  grow  violent ;  with  his  mis- 
tress, he  will  never  give  vent  to  coarse 
talk  ;  in  a  duel,  he  will  not  hate  his 
adversary.  The  wit  of  a  Frenchman  is 
like  French  wine  ;  it  makes  men  nei- 
ther brutal,  nor  wicked,  nor  gloomy. 
Such  is  the  spring  of  these  pleasures  :  a 
supper  will  destroy  neither  delicacy, 
nor  good  nature,  nor  enjoyment.  The 
libertine  remains  sociable,  polite,  oblig- 
ing ;  his  gayety  culminates  only  in  the 
gayety  of  others  ;  t  he  is  attentive  to 
them  as  naturally  as  to  himself  ;  and  in 
addition,  he  is  ever  on  the  alert  and 
intelligent  :  repartees,  flashes  of  bril- 
liancy, witticisms,  sparkle  on  his  lips  ; 
he  can  think  at  table  and  in  company, 
sometimes  better  than  if  alone  or  fast- 
ing. It  is  clear  that  with  him  debauch- 
ery does  not  extinguish  the  man  ;  Gram- 
mont would  say  that  it  perfects  him  , 
that  wit,  the  heart,  the  senses,  only 
arrive  at  excellence  and  true  enjoyment, 
amid  the  elegance  and  animation  of  a 
choice  supper. 

*  The  king  was  playing  at  backgammon  ;  a 
doubtful  throw  occurs:  "Ah,  here  is  Gram- 
mont, who'll  decide  for  us  ;  Grammont,  come 
and  decide."  "  Sire,  you  have  lost."  "  What : 
you  do  not  yet  know."  .  .  .  "Ah,  Sire,  if  the 
throw  had  been  merely  doubtful,  these  gentle- 
men would  not  have'  failed  to  say  you  had 
won." 

t  Hamilton  says  of  Grammont,  "  He  sought 
out  the  unfortunate  only  to  succour  them." 


CHAI>.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


3*3 


III. 


It  is  quite  the  contrary  in  England. 
When  we  scratch  the  covering  of  an 
Englishman's  morality,  the  brute  ap- 
pears in  its  violence  and  its  deformity. 
One  of  the  English  statesmen  said  that 
with  the  French  an  unchained  mob 
could  be  led  by  words  of  humanity  and 
honor,*  but  that  in  England  it  was 
necessary,  in  order  to  appease  them,  to 
throw  to  them  raw  flesh.  Insults,  blood, 
orgie,  that  is  the  food  on  which  the 
mob  of  noblemen,  under  Charles  II., 
precipitated  itself.  All  that  excuses 
a  carnival  was  absent  ;  and,  in  particu- 
lar, wit.  Three  years  after  the  return 
of  the  king,  Butler  published  his  Hudi- 
bras  ;  and  with  what  eclat  his  contem- 
poraries only  could  tell,  while  the  echo 
of  applause  is  kept  up  even  to  our  own 
days.  How  low  is  the  wit,  with  what 
awkwardness  and  dulness  he  dilutes 
his  revengeful  satire.  Here  and  there 
lurks  a  happy  picture,  the  remnant  of 
a  poetry  which  has  just  perished  ;  but 
the  whole  work  reminds  one  of  a  Scar- 
ron,  as  unworthy  as  the  other,  and 
more  malignant.  It  is  written,  people 
say,  on  the  model  of  Don  Quixote  ; 
Hudibras  is  a  Puritan  knight,  who 
goes  about,  like  his  antitype,  redress- 
ing wrongs,  and  pocketing  beatings.  It 
would  be  truer  to  say  that  it  resem- 
bles the  wretched  imitation  of  Avel- 
laneda.f  The  short  metre,  well  suited 
to  buffoonery,  hobbles  along  without 
rest  and  limpingly,  floundering  in  the 
mud  which  it  delights  in,  as  foul  and 
as  dull  as  that  of  the  Eneide  Travestie.  \ 
The  description  of  Hudibras  and  his 
horse  occupies  the  best  part  of  a 
canto ;  forty  lines  are  taken  up  by 
describing  his  beard,  forty  more  by 
describing  his  breeches.  Endless  scho- 
lastic discussions,  arguments  as  long 
as  those  of  the  Puritans,  spread 
their  wastes  and  briars  over  half  the 
poem.  No  action,  no  simplicity,  all  is 
w  mld-be  satire  and  gross  caricature; 

*  This  saying  sounds  strange  after  the  hor- 
rcrs  of  the  Commune.— TR. 

t  A  Spanish  author,  who  continued  and  im- 
itated Cervantes'  Don  Quixote. 

\  A   work  by   Scarron.      Hudibras,  ed.  Z. 
Grey,  1801,  2  vols.,  i.  canto  i.  /.  289,  says  also  : 
"  For  as  /Eneas  bore  his  sire 

Upon  his  shoulders  through  the  fire, 
Our  knight  did  bear  no  less  a  pack 
Of  his  own  buttocks  oil  his  back. 


there  is  neither  art,  nor  harmony,  nor 
good  taste  to  be  found  in  it  ;  the  Puri- 
tan style  is  converted  into  an  absurd 
gibberish  ;  and  the  engalled  rancor, 
missing  its  aim  by  its  mere  excess,  spoils 
the  portrait  it  wishes  to  draw.  Would 
you  believe  that  such  a  writer  gives 
himself  airs,  wishes  to  enliven  us,  pre- 
tends to  be  funny  ?  What  delicate 
raillery  is  there  in  this  picture  of  Hudi- 
bras' beard  ! 
'*  His  tawny  beard  was  th'  equal  grace 

Both  of  his  \yisdom  and  his  face  ; 

In  cut  and  die  so  like  a  tile, 

A  sudden  view  it  would  beguile  : 

The  upper  part  whereof  was  whey, 

The  nether  orange,  mix'd  with  grey. 

This  hairy  meteor  did  denounce 

The  fall  of  sceptres  and  of  crowns  : 

With  grisly  type  did  represent 

Declining  age  of  government, 

And  tell  with  hieroglyphic  spade 

Its  own  grave  and  the  state's  were  made.*'  * 

Butler  is  so  well  satisfied  with  his  in- 
sipid fun,  that  he  prolongs  it  for  a  good 
many  lines  : 

"  Like  Samson's  heart-breakers,  it  grew 
In  time  to  make  a  nation  rue  ; 
Tho'  it  contributed  its  own  fall, 
To  wait  upon  the  public  downfall.  .  .  • 
'Twas  bound  to  suffer  persecution 
And  martyrdom  with  resolution  ; 
T'  oppose  itself  against  the  hate 
And  vengeance  of  the  incens'd  state. 
In  whose  defiance  it  was  worn, 
Still  ready  to  be  pull'd  and  torn, 
With  red-hot  irons  to  be  tortur'd, 
Revil'd,  and  spit  upon,  and  martyr'd. 
Maugre  all  which,  'twas  to  stand  fast 
As  long  as  monarchy  should  last  ; 
But  when  the  state  should  hap  to  reel, 
'Twas  to  submit  to  fatal  steel, 
And  fall,  as  it  was  consecrate, 
A  sacrifice  to  fall  of  state, 
Whose  thread  of  life  the  fatal  sisters 
Did  twist  together  with  its  whiskers, 
And  twine  so  close,  that  time  should  never, 
In  life  or  death,  their  fortunes  sever ; 
But  with  his  rusty  sickle  mow 
Both  down  together  at  a  blow."  t 

The  nonsense  increases  as  we  go  on. 
Could  any  one  have  taken  pleasure  in 
humor  such  as  this  ? — 

"  This  sword  a  dagger  had,  his  page, 
That  was  but  little  for  his  age  ; 
And  therefore  waited  on  him  so 
As  dwarfs  upon  knights-errant  do.  ... 
When  it  had  stabb'd,  or  broke  a  head, 
It  would  scrape  trenchers,  or  chip  bread.  . .  . 
'Twould  make  clean  shoes,  and  in  the  earth 
Set  leeks  and  onions,  and  so  forth."  t 
Every  thing   becomes  trivial ;    if   any 
beauty  presents  itself,  it  is  spoiled  by 

*  Hudibras,  part  i.  canto  i.  /.  241-250. 
t  Ibid.  /.  253-280.  %  Ibid.  I.  375~386. 

14 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  lit 


burlesque.  To  read  those  long  details 
of  the  kitchen,  those  servile  and  crude 
jokes,  people  might  fancy  themselves 
in  the  company  of  a  common  buffoon 
in  the  market-place ;  it  is  the  talk  of 
the  quacks  on  the  bridges,  adapting 
their  imagination  and  language  to  the 
manners  of  the  beer-shop  and  the 
hovel.  There  is  filth  to  be  met  with 
there;  indeed,  the  rabble  will  laugh 
when  the  mountebank  alludes  to  the 
disgusting  acts  of  private  life.*  Such 
is  the  grotesque  stuff  in  which  the 
courtiers  of  the  Restoration  delighted  ; 
their  spite  and  their  coarseness  took 
a  pleasure  in  the  spectacle  of  these 
bawling  puppets  ;  even  now,  after  two 
centuries,  we  hear  the  ribald  laughter 
of  this  audience  of  lackeys. 

IV. 

Charles  II.,  when  at  his  meals,  os- 
tentatiously drew  Grammont's  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  his  officers  served 
him  on  their  knees.  They  were  in  the 
right;  it  was  their  fit  attitude.  Lord 
Chancellor  Clarendon,  one  of  the  most 
honored  and  honest  men  of  the  Court, 
learns  suddenly  and  in  full  council  that 
his  daughter  Anne  is  enceinte  by  the 
Duke  of  York,  and  that  the  Duke,  the 
ring's  brother,  has  promised  her  mar- 
riage. Listen  to  the  words  of  this  ten- 
der father  ;  he  has  himself  taken  care 
to  hand  them  down  : 

"The  Chancellor  broke  out  into  a  very  im- 
moderate passion  against  the  wickedness  of  his 
daughter,  and  said  with  all  imaginable  earnest- 
ness, '  that  as  soon  as  he  came  home,  he  would 
turn  her  (his  daughter)  out  of  his  house  as  a 
strumpet  to  shift  for  herself,  and  would  never 
see  her  again.'  "  t 

Observe  that  this  great  man  had  re- 
ceived the  news  from  the  king  unpre- 
*  "  Quoth  Hudibras,  I  smell  a  rat. 
Ralpho,  thou  dost  prevaricate  ; 
For  though  the  thesis  which  thou  lay'st 
Be  true  ad  amussim  as  thou  say'st 
(For  that  bear-baiting  should  appear 
Jure  divino  lawful  ler 
Than  Synods  are,  thou  do'st  deny, 
Totidem  verbis  ;  so  do  I), 
Yet  there  is  fallacy  in  this  ; 
For  if  by  sly  homceosis, 
Tussis  pro  crepfat,  an  art 

Thou  wouldst  sophistically  imply, 
Both  are  unlawful,  I  deny." 

Part  i.  canto  i.  /.  821-834. 
t  Tke  Life  of  Clarendon,  ed.   by  himself, 
uew  ed.,  1827,  3  vols.,  i.  378. 


pared,  and  that  he  made  use  of  these 
fatherly  expressior  $  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment.  He  added,  "  that  he  had 
much  rather  his  daughter  should  be 
the  duke's  whore  than  his  wife."  Is 
this  not  heroical  ?  But  let  Clarendon 
speak  for  himself.  Only  such  a  true 
monarchical  heart  can  surpass  itself  : 

"  He  was  ready  to  give  a  positive  judgment, 
in  which  he  hoped  their  lordships  would  con- 
cur with  him  ;  that  the  king  should  immediate- 
ly cause  the  woman  to  be  sent  to  the  Tower, 
and  to  be  cast  into  a  dungeon  under  so  strict  a 
guard,  that  no  person  living  should  be  ad- 
mitted to  come  to  her  ;  and  then  that  an  act  of 
Parliament  should  be  immediately  passed  for 
the  cutting  off  her  head,  to  which  he  would 
not  only  give  his  consent,  but  would  very  wil- 
lingly be  the  first  man  that  should  propose 
it."  * 

What  Roman  virtue!  Afraid  of  not 
being  believed  he  insists;  whoever 
knew  the  man,  will  believe  that  all  this 
came  from  the  very  bottom  of  his 


heart.  He  is  not  yet  satisfied  ;  he  re- 
peats his  advice  ;  he  addresses  to  the 
king  different  conclusive  reasonings, 
in  order  that  they  might  cut  off  the 
head  of  his  daughter  : 

"  I  had  rather  submit  and  bear  it  (this  dis- 
grace) with  all  humility,  than  that  it  should  be 
repaired  by  making  her  his  wife,  the  thought 
whereof  I  do  so  much  abominate,  that  I  had 
much  rather  see  her  dead,  with  all  the  infamy 
that  is  due  to  her  presumption."  f 

In  this  manner,  a  man,  who  is  in  diffi- 
culty, can  keep  his  salary  and  his 
Chancellor's  robes.  Sir  Charles  Berk- 
ley, captain  of  the  Duke  of  York's 
guards,  did  better  still  ;  he  solemnly 
swore  "  that  he  had  lain  with  the  young 
lady,"  and  declared  himself  ready  to 
marry  her  "  for  the  sake  of  the  duke, 
though  he  knew  well  the  familiarity 
the  duke  had  with  her."  Then,  shortly 
afterwards,  he  confessed  that  he  hacl 
lied,  but  with  a  good  intention,  in  all 
honor,  in  order  to  save  the  royal  family 
from  such  a  mesalliance.  This  admira- 
ble self-sacrifice  was  rewarded;  he 
soon  had  a  pension  from  the  privy 
purse,  and  was  created  Earl  of  Fal- 
mouth.  From  the  first,  the  baseness 
of  the  public  corporations  rivalled  that 
of  individuals.  The  House  of  Com- 
mons, but  recently  master  of  the  coun- 
try, still  full  of  Presbyterians,  rebels, 
and  conquerors,  voted  "that  neither 

*  The  Life  of  Clarendon,  i.  379. 

t  Ibid.  i.  380. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


315 


themselves  nor  the  people  of  England 
could  be  free  from  the  horrid  guilt  of 
the  late  unnatural  rebellion,  or  from 
the  punishment  which  that  guilt  mer- 
ited, unless  they  formally  availed  them- 
selves of  his  majesty's  grace  and  par- 
don, as  set  forth  in  the  declaration  of 
Breda."  Then  all  these  heroes  went 
in  a  body  and  threw  themselves  with 
contrition  at  the  sacred  feet  of  their 
monarch.  In  this  universal  prostra- 
tion it  seemed  that  no  one  had  any 
courage  left.  The  king  became  the 
hireling  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  sold  his 
country  for  a  large  pension.  Ministers, 
members  of  Parliament,  ambassadors, 
all  received  French  money.  The  conta- 
gion spread  even  to  patriots,  to  men 
noted  for  their  purity,  to  martyrs.  Lord 
William  Russell  intrigued  with  Ver- 
sailles ;  Algernon  Sidney  accepted  500 
guineas.  They  had  not  discrimination 
enough  to  retain  a  show  of  spirit ;  they 
had  not  spirit  enough  to  retain  a  show 
of  honor.* 

In  men  thus  laid  bare,  the  first  thing 
that  strikes  you  is  the  bloodthirsty  in- 
stinct of  brute  beasts.  Sir  John  Cov- 
entry, a  member  of  Parliament,  let 
some  word  escape  him,  which  was  con- 
strued into  a  reproach  of  the  royal 
amours.  His  friend,  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth,  contrived  that  he  should 
be  treacherously  assaulted  under  the 
king's  command,  by  respectable  men 
devoted  to  his  service,  who  slit  his  nose 
to  the  bone.  A  vile  wretch  of  the 
name  of  Blood  tried  to  assassinate  the 
Duke  of  Ormond,  and  to  stab  the 
keeper  of  the  Tower,  in  order  to  steal 
the  crown  jewels.  Charles  II. ,  con- 
sidering that  this  was  an  interesting 

*  "  Mr.  Evelyn  tells  me  of  several  of  the 
menial  servants  of  the  Court  lacking  bread, 
that  have  not  received  a  farthing  wages  since 
the  King's  coming  in." — Pepys1  Diary,  ed. 
Lord  Braybrooke,  3d  ed.,  1848,  5  vols.,  iv. 
April  26,  1667. 

"  Mr.  Povy  says  that  to  this  day  the  King  do 
follow  the  women  as  much  as  he  ever  did  ; 
that  the  Duke  of  York  ....  hath  come  out 
of  his  wife's  bed,  and  gone  to  others  laid  in 
bed  for  him  ;  .  .  .  .  that  the  family  (of  the 
Dake)  is  in  horrible  disorder  by  being  iu  debt 
by  spending  above  ,£60,000  per  annum,  when 
he  hath  not  ,£40,000"  (Ibid.  iv.  June  23, 
1667). 

'  It  is  certain  that,  as  it  now  is,  the  seamen 
of  England,  in  my  conscience,  would,  if  they 
could,  go  over  and  serve  the  king  of  France  or 
Holland  rather  than  us  "  (Ibid.  iv.  June  25, 
1667). 


and  distinguished  man  of  his  kind, 
pardoned  him,  gave  him  an  estate  in 
Ireland,  and  admitted  him  to  his  pres* 
ence,  side  by  side  with  the  Duke  of 
Ormond,  so  that  Blood  became  a  sort 
of  hero,  and  was  received  in  good  so- 
ciety. After  such  splendid  examples, 
men  dared  every  thing.  The  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  a  lover  of  the  Countess 
of  Shrewsbury,  slew  the  Earl  in  a  duel ; 
the  Countess,  disguised  as  a  page,  held 
Buckingham's  horse,  while  she  em- 
braced him,  covered  as  he  was  with 
her  husband's  blood;  and  the  mur- 
derer and  adulteress  returned  publicly, 
and  as  triumphantly,  to  the  house  of 
the  dead  man.  We  can  no  longer 
wonder  at  hearing  Count  Konigsmark 
describe  as  a  "  peccadillo  "  an  assas- 
sination which  he  had  committed  by 
waylaying  his  victim.  I  transcribe  a 
duel  out  of  Pepys,  to  give  a  notion  of 
the  manners  of  these  bloodthirsty  cut- 
throats. Sir  H.  Bellassis  and  Tom 
Porter,  the  greatest  friends  in  the  world, 
were  talking  together : 

"and  Sir  H.  Bellassis  talked  a  little  louder 
than  ordinary  to  Tom  Porter,  giving  of  him 


it,  said,  '  No  !  '  says  he  :  'I  would  have  you 
know  I  never  quarrel,  but  I  strike  :  and  take 
that  as  a  rule  of  mine!  '  '  How?'  says  Torn 
Porter,  '  strike  !  I  would  I  could  see  the  man 
in  England  that  durst  give  me  a  blow !  '  with 
that  Sir  H.  Bellassis  did  give  him  a  box  of  the 
eare  ;  and  so  they  were  going  to  fight  there, 
but  were  hindered.  .  .  .  Tom  Porter,  being  in- 
formed that  Sir  H.  Bellassis'  coach  was  com- 
ing, went  down  put  of  the  coffee-house  where 
he  staid  for  the  tidings,  and  stopped  the  coach, 
and  bade  Sir  H.  Bellassis  come  out.  '  Why,' 
says  H.  Bellassis,  '  you  will  not  hurt  me  com- 
ing out,  will  you?'  'No,'  says  Tom  Porter. 
So  out  he  went,  and  both  drew.  .  .  .  They 
wounded  one  another,  and  Sir  H.  Bellassis  so 
much  that  it  is  feared  he  will  die  " — -  * 

which  he  did  ten  days  after. 

Bull-dogs  like  these  took  no  pity  on 
their  enemies.  The  Restoration  open- 
ed with  a  butchery.  The  Lords  con- 
ducted the  trials  of  the  republicans 
with  a  shamelessness  of  cruelty  and  an 
excess  of  rancor  that  were  extraordi- 
nary. A  sheriff  struggled  with  Sir 
Harry  Vane  on  the  scaffold,  rummag- 
ing his  pockets,  and  taking  from  him  a 
paper  which  he  attempted  to  read. 
During  the  trial  of  Major-General  Har« 

*  Pepys  Diary }  vol.  iv.,  agth  July,  1667. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


rison,  the  hangman  was  placed  by  his 
side,  in  a  black  dress,  with  a  rope  in 
his  hand ;  they  sought  to  give  him  a 
full  enjoyment  of  the  foretaste  of 
death.  He  was  cut  down  alive  from 
the  gibbet,  and  disembowelled ;  he 
saw  his  entrails  cast  into  the  fire  ;  he 
was  then  quartered,  and  his  still  beat- 
ing heart  was  torn  out  and  shown  to 
the  people.  The  cavaliers  gathered 
round  for  amusement.  H  ere  and  there 
one  of  them  would  do  worse  even  than 
this.  Colonel  Turner,  seeing  them 
quarter  John  Coke,  the  lawyer,  told 
the  sheriff's  men  to  bring  Hugh  Peters, 
another  of  the  condemned,  nearer ; 
the  executioner  came  up,  and  rubbing 
his  bloody  hands,  asked  the  unfortu- 
nate man  if  the  work  pleased  him.  The 
rotting  bodies  of  Cromwell,  Ire  ton  and 
Bradshaw  were  dug  up  in  the  night, 
and  their  heads  fixed  on  poles  over 
Westminster  Hall.  Ladies  went  to 
see  these  disgusting  sights ;  the  good 
Evelyn  applauded  them  ;  the  courtiers 
made  songs  on  them.  These  people 
were  fallen  so  low,  that  they  did  not 
even  turn  sick  at  it.  Sight  and  smell 
no  longer  aided  humanity  by  producing 
repugnance;  their  senses  were  as  dead 
as  their  hearts. 

From  carnage  they  threw  themselves 
into  debauchery.  You  should  read  the 
life  of  the  Earl  of  Rochester,  a  courtier 
and  a  poet,  who  was  the  hero  of  the 
time.  His  manners  were  those  of  a 
lawless  and  wretched  mountebank  ;  his 
delight  was  to  haunt  the  stews,  to  de- 
bauch women,  to  write  filthy  songs  and 
lewd  pamphlets ;  he  spent  his  time 
between  gossiping  with  the  maids  of 
honor,  broils  with  men  of  letters,  the 
receiving  of  insults,  the  giving  of 
blows.  By  way  of  playing  the  gallant, 
he  eloped  with  his  wife  before  he  mar- 
ried her.  Out  of  a  spirit  of  bravado, 
he  declined  fighting  a  duel,  and  gained 
the  name  of  a  coward.  For  five  years 
together  he  was  said  to  be  drunk.  The 
spirit  within  him  failing  of  a  worthy 
outlet,  plunged  him  into  adventures 
more  befitting  a  clown.  Once  with  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham  he  rented  an  inn 
on  the  Newmarket  road,  and  turned 
innkeeper,  supplying  the  husbands  with 
drink  and  defiling  their  wives.  He 
introduced  himself,  disguised  as  an  old 
woman,  into  the  house  of  a  miser, 


robbed  him  of  his  wife,  and  passed  her 
on  to  Buckingham.  The  husband 
hanged  himself  ;  they  made  very  merry 
over  the  affair.  At  another  time  he 
disguised  himself  as  a  chairman,  then 
as  a  beggar,  and  paid  court  to  the 
gutter-girls.  He  ended  by  turning  a 
quack  astrologer,  and  vendor  of  drugs 
for  procuring  abortion,  in  the  subur  js. 
It  was  the  licentiousness  of  a  fervid 
imagination,  which  fouled  itself  as  an- 
other would  have  adorned  it,  which 
forced  its  way  into  lewdness  and  folly 
as  another  would  have  done  into  sense 
and  beauty.  What  can  come  of  love 
in  hands  like  these  ?  We  cannot  copy 
even  the  titles  of  his  poems  ;  they  were 
written  only  for  the  haunts  of  vice. 
Stendhal  said  that  love  is  like  a  dried 
up  bough  cast  into  a  mine  ;  the  crys- 
tals cover  it,  spread  out  into  filagree 
work,  and  end  by  converting  the  worth- 
less stick  into  a  sparkling  tuft  of  the 
purest  diamonds.  Rochester  begins  by 
depriving  love  of  all  its  adornment,  and 
to  make  sure  of  grasping  it,  converts  it 
into  a  stick.  Every  refined  sentiment, 
every  fancy ;  the  enchantment,  the  se- 
rene, sublime  glow  which  transforms 
in  a  moment  this  wretched  world  of 
ours ;  the  illusion  which,  uniting  all 
the  powers  of  our  being,  shows  us  per- 
fection in  a  finite  creature,  and  eternal 
bliss  in  a  transient  emotion, — all  has 
vanished ;  there  remain  but  satiated 
appetites  and  palled  senses.  The  worst 
of  it  is,  that  he  writes  without  spirit 
and  methodically  enough.  He  has  no 
natural  ardor,  no  picturesque  sensual- 
ity ;  his  satires  prove  him  a  disciple  of 
Boileau.  Nothing  is  more  disgusting 
than  obscenity  in  cold  blood.  We  can 
endure  the  obscene  works  of  Giulio 
Romano,  and  his  Venetian  voluptuous- 
ness, because  in  them  genius  sets  off 
sensuality,  and  the  loveliness  of  the 
splendid  colored  draperies  transforms 
an  orgie  into  a  work  of  art.  \\e 
pardon  Rabelais,  when  we  have  entered 
into  the  deep  current  of  manly  joy  and 
vigor,  with  which  his  feasts  abound. 
We  can  hold  our  nose  and  have  done 
with  it,  while  we  follow  with  admira- 
tion, and  even  sympathy,  the  torrent  of 
ideas  and  fancies  which  flows  through 
his  mire.  But  to  see  a  man  trying  to 
be  elegant  and  remaining  obscene,  en- 
deavoring to  paint  the  sentiments  of  a 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


3*7 


navvy  in  the  language  of  a  man  of  the 
world,  who  tries  to  find  a  suitable  meta- 
phor for  every  kind  of  filth,  who  plays 
the  blackguard  studiously  and  deliber- 
ately, who,  excused  neither  by  genuine 
feeling,  nor  the  glow  of  fancy,  nor 
knowledge,  nor  genius,  degrades  a  good 
style  of  writing  to  such  work, — it  is 
like  a  rascal  who  sets  himself  to  sully  a 
set  of  gems  in  a  gutter.  The  end  of 
all  is  but  disgust  and  illness.  While 
La  Fontaine  continues  to  the  last  day 
capable  of  tenderness  and  happiness, 
this  man  at  the  age  of  thirty  insults  the 
weaker  sex  with  spiteful  malignity  : 
"  When  she  is  young,  she  whores  herself  for 
sport ; 

And  when  she's  old,  she  bawds  for  her  sup- 
port. .  .  . 

She  is  a  snare,  a  shamble,  and  a  stews  ; 

Her  meat  and  sauce  she  does  for  lechery 
chuse, 

And  does  in  laziness  delight  the  more, 

Because  by  that  she  is  provoked  to  whore. 

Ungrateful,  treacherous,  enviously  inclined, 

Wild  beasts  are  tamed,  floods  easier  far  con- 
fined, 

Than  is  her  stubborn  and  rebellious  mind... . 

Her  temper  so  extravagant  we  find, 

She  hates,  or  is  impertinently  kind. 

Would  she  be  grave,  she  then  looks  like  a 
devil, 

And  like  a  fool  or  whore,  when  she  be  civil.. 

Contentious,  wicked,  and  not  fit  to  trust, 

And  covetous  to  spend  it  on  her  lust."  * 

What  a  confession  is  such  a  judgment ! 
what  an  abstract  of  life  !  You  see  the 
roisterer  stupefied  at  the  end  of  his 
career,  dried  up  like  a  mummy,  eaten 
away  by  ulcers.  Amid  the  choruses, 
the  crude  satires,  the  remembrance  of 
plans  miscarried,  the  sullied  enjoyments 
which  are  heaped  up  in  his  wearied 
brain  as  in  a  sink,  the  fear  of  damna- 
tion is  fermenting  ;  he  dies  a  devotee 
at  the  age  of  thirty-three. 

At  the  head  of  all,  the  king  sets  the 
example.  This  "old  goat,"  as  the 
courtiers  call  him,  imagines  himself  a 
man  of  gayety  and  elegance.  What 
gayety !  what  elegance  !  French 
manners  do  not  suit  men  beyond  the 
Channel.  When  they  are  Catholics, 
they  fall  into  narrow  superstition; 
when  epicureans,  into  gross  debauch- 
ery ;  when  courtiers,  into  base  ser- 
vility; when  skeptics,  into  vulgar 
atheism.  The  court  of  England  could 
only  imitate  French  furniture  and  dress. 
The  regular  and  decent  exterior  which 

*  Rochester's  works,  edited  by  St.  Evre- 
mond. 


public  taste  maintained  at  Versailles 
was  here  dispensed  with  as  trouble- 
some. Charles  and  his  brother,  i« 
their  state  dress,  would  set  off  running 
as  in  a  carnival.  On  the  day  when  the 
Dutch  fleet  burned  the  English  ships 
in  the  Thames,  the  king  supped  with 
the  Duchess  of  Monmouth,  and  amused 
himself  by  chasing  a  moth.  In  council, 
while  business  was  being  transacted, 
he  would  be  playing  with  his  dog. 
Rochester  and  Buckingham  insilted 
him  by  insolent  repartees  or  dissolute 
epigrams  ;  he  would  fly  into  a  pas- 
sion and  suffer  them  to  go  on.  He 
quarrelled  with  his  mistress  in  public  ; 
she  called  him  an  idiot,  and  he  called 
her  a  jade.  He  would  leave  her  in  the 
morning,  "  so  that  the  very  sentrys 
speak  of  it."*  He  suffered  her  to 
play  him  false  before  the  eyes  of  all ; 
at  one  time  she  received  a  couple  of 
actors,  one  of  whom  was  a  mounte- 
bank. If  need  were,  she  would  use 
abusive  language  to  him.  "  The  King 
hath  declared  that  he  did  not  get  the 
child  of  which  she  is  conceived  at  this 
time.  But  she  told  him,  "  .  .  .  !  but 
you  shall  own  it."t  Whereupon  he 
did  acknowledge  the  child,  and  took  to 
himself  a  couple  of  actresses  for  con- 
solation. When  his  new  wife,  Cathe- 
rine of  Braganza,  arrived,  he  drove 
away  her  attendants,  used  coarse 
language  to  her,  that  he  might  force  on 
her  the  familiarities  of  his  mistress, 
and  finished  by  degrading  her  to  a 
friendship  such  as  this.  The  good 
Pepys,  notwithstanding  his  loyal  feel- 
ings, ends  by  saying,  having  heard  the 
king  and  the  duke  talk,  and  seeing  and 
observing  their  manner  of  discourse, 
"  God  forgive  me  !  though  I  admire 
them  with  all  the  duty  possible,  yet  the 
more  a  man  considers  and  observes 
them,  the  less  he  finds  of  difference  be- 
tween them  and  other  men,  though, 
blessed  be  God  !  they  are  both  princes 
of  great  nobleness  and  spirits/'  \  He 
heard  that,  on  a  certain  day,  the  king 
was  so  besotted  with  Mrs.  Stewart  that 
he  gets  "  into  corners,  and  will  be  with 
her  half  an  hour  together  kissing  her 
to  the  observation  of  all  the  world."  § 

*  Pefiys*  Diarv<>  ii.  January  i,  1662-1663. 


t  Ibid.  iv.  July  30,  1667. 
I  Ibid.  iii.  July  26,  1665. 
§  Ibid.  ii.  Nov.  9,  1663. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK   III 


Another  day,  Captain  Ferrers  told  him 
"  how,  at  a  ball  at  Court,  a  child  was 
dropped  by  one  of  the  ladies  in  danc- 
ing." They  took  it  off  in  a  handker- 
chief, "and  the  King  had  it  in  his 
closet  a  week  after,  and  did  dissect  it, 
making  great  sport  of  it."*  These 
ghastly  freaks  and  these  lewd  events 
make  us  shudder.  The  courtiers  went 
with  the  stream.  Miss  Jennings,  who 
became  Duchess  of  Tyrconnel,  dis- 
guised herself  one  day  as  an  orange 
girl,  and  cried  her  wares  in  the  street. t 
Pepys  recounts  festivities  in  which 
lords  and  ladies  smeared  one  another's 
faces  with  candle-grease  and  soot,  "  till 
most  of  us  were  like  devils."  It  was 
the  fashion  to  swear,  to  relate  scandal- 
ous adventures,  to  get  drunk,  to  prate 
against  the  preachers  and  Scripture,  to 
gamble.  Lady  Castlemaine  in  one 
night  lost  ^£2 5,000.  The  Duke  of  St. 
Albans,  a  blind  man,  eighty  years  old, 
went  to  the  gambling-house  with  an 
attendant  at  his  side  to  tell  him  the 
cards.  Sedley  and  Buckhurst  stripped 
nearly  naked,  and  ran  through  the 
streets  after  midnight.  Another,  in  the 
open  day,  stood  naked  at  the  window 
to  address  the  people.  I  let  Grammont 
keep  to  himself  his  accounts  of  the 
maids  of  honor  brought  to  bed,  and  o'f 
unnatural  lusts.  We  must  either  ex- 
hibit or  conceal  them,  and  I  have-  not 
the  courage  lightly  to  insinuate  them, 
after  his  fashion.  I  end  by  a  quotation 
from  Pepys,  which  will  serve  for  ex- 
ample :  "  Here  I  first  understood  by 
their  talk  the  meaning  of  company  that 
lately  were  called  Bailers  ;  Harris  tell- 
ing how  it  was  by  a  meeting  of  some 
young  blades,  where  he  was  among 
them,  and  my  Lady  Bennet  and  her 
ladies ;  and  their  dancing  naked,  and 
all  the  roguish  things  in  the  world."  J 
The  marvellous  thing  is,  that  this  fair 
is  not  even  gay ;  these  people  were 
misanthropic,  and  became  morose ; 
they  quote  the  gloomy  Hobbes,  and  he 
is  their  master.  In  fact,  the  philosophy 
of  Hobbes  shall  give  us  the  last  word 
and  the  last  characteristics  of  this 
society. 

*  Pepyf  Diary,  ii.  Feb.  8,  17,  1662-3. 

t  Ibid.  Feb.  21,  1664-1665. 

t  The  author  has  inadvertently  confounded 
"my  Lady  Bennet"  with  the  Countess  of 
Arlington.  See  Pepys'  Diary,  iv.  May  30, 
footnote—  TR. 


V. 

Hobbes  was  one  of  those  powerful, 
limited,  and,  as  they  are  called,  positive 
minds,  so  common  in  England,  of  the 
school  of  Swift  and  Bentham,  effica- 
cious and  remorseless  as  an  iron  ma- 
chine. Hence  we  find  in  him  a  meth- 
od and  style  of  surprising  dryness  and 
vigor,  most  adapted  to  build  up  and 
pull  down  ;  hence  a  philosophy  which, 
by  the  audacity  of  its  teaching,  has 
placed  in  an  undying  light  one  of 
the  indestructible  phases  of  the  human 
mind.  In  every  object,  every  event, 
there  is  some  primitive  and  constant 
fact,  which  forms,  as  it  were,  the  nu- 
cleus around  which  group  themselves 
the  various  developments  which  com- 
plete it.  The  positive  mind  swoops 
down  immediately  upon  this  nucleus, 
crushes  the  brilliant  growth  which 
covers  it ;  disperses,  annihilates  it ; 
then,  concentrating  upon  it  the  full 
force  of  its  violent  grasp,  loosens  it, 
raises  it  up,  shapes  it,  and  lifts  it  into 
a  conspicuous  position,  from  whence  it 
may  henceforth  shine  out  to  all  men 
and  for  all  time  like  a  crystal.  All  orna- 
ment, all  emotions,  are  excluded  from 
the  style  of  Hobbes  ;  it  is  a  mere  ag- 
gregate of  arguments  and  concise  facts 
in  a  small  space,  united  together  by 
deduction,  as  by  iron  bands.  There 
are  no  tints,  no  fine  or  unusual  word. 
He  makes  use  only  of  words  most  fa- 
miliar to  common  and  lasting  usage  ; 
there  are  not  a  dozen  employed  by  him 
which,  during  two  hundred  years,  have 
grown  obsolete ;  he  pierces  to  the  root 
of  all  sensation,  removes  the  transient 
and  brilliant  externals,  narrows  the 
solid  portion  which  is  the  permanent 
subject-matter  of  all  thought,  and  the 
proper  object  of  common  intelligence. 
He  curtails  throughout  in  order  to 
strengthen ;  he  attains  solidity  by  sup- 
pression. Of  all  the  bonds  which  con- 
nect ideas,  he'  retains  but  one,  and  that 
the  most  stable  ;  his  style  is  only  a  con- 
tinuous chain  of  reasoning  of  the  most- 
stubborn  description,  wholly  made  up 
of  additions  and  subtractions,  reduced 
to  a  combination  of  certain  simple 
ideas,  which  added  on  to  or  diminish- 
ing from  one  another,  make  up,  under 
various  names,  the  totals  or  differences 
of  which  we  are  forever  either  study- 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


fag  the  formation  or  unravelling  the 
elements.  He  pursued  beforehand  the 
method  of  Condillac,  beginning  with 
tracing  to  the  original  fact,  palpably 
and  clearly,  so  as  to  pursue  step  by 
step  the  filiation  and  parentage  of  the 
ideas  of  which  this  primary  fact  is  the 
stock,  in  such  a  manner  that  the  reader, 
conducted  from  total  to  total,  may  at 
any  moment  test  the  exactness  of  his 
operation,  and  verify  the  truth  of  his 
results.  Such  a  logical  system  cuts 
across  the  grain  of  prejudice  with  a 
mechanical  stiffness  and  boldness. 
Hobbes  clears  science  of  scholastic 
words  and  theories.  He  laughs  down 
quiddities,  he  does  away  with  rational 
and  intelligible  classifications,  he  re- 
jects the  authority  of  references.*  He 
cuts,  as  with  a  surgeon's  knife,  at  the 
heart  of  the  most  living  creeds.  He 
denies  the  authenticity  of  the  books  of 
Moses,  Joshua,  and  the  like.  He  de- 
clares that  no  argument  proves  the 
divinity  of  Scripture,  and  that,  in  order 
to  believe  it,  every  man  requires  a  su- 
pernatural and  personal  revelation. 
He  upsets  in  half-a-dozen  words  the 
authority  of  this  and  every  other  reve- 
lation, t  He  reduces  man  to  a  mere 
body,  the  soul  to  a  function,  God,  to  an 
unknown  existence.  His  phrases  read 
like  equations  or  mathematical  results. 
In  fact  it  is  from  mathematics  *  that 
he  derives  the  idea  of  all  science.  He 

*  Though  I  reverence  those  men  of  ancient 
times  that  either  have  written  truth  perspicu- 
ously, or  set  it  in  a  better  way  to  find  it  put 
ourselves,  yet  to  the  antiquity  itself,  I  think 
nothing  due  ;  for  if  we  reverence  the  age,  the 
present  is  the  oldest. — Hobbes'  Works,  Moles- 
worth,  ii  vols.  8vo,  1839-45,  iii.  712. 

t  "To  say  he  hath  spoken  to  him  in  a 
dream,  is  no  more  than  to  say  he  dreamed  that 
God  spake  to  him.  ...  To  say  he  hath  seen  a 
vision  or  heard  a  voice,  is  to  say  that  he  has 
dreamed  between  sleeping  and  waking.  .  .  . 
To  say  he  speaks  by  supernatural  inspiration, 
is  to  say  he  finds  an  ardent  DESIRE  to  speak,  or 
some  strong  opinion  of  himself  for  which  he 
can  allege  no  sufficient  and  natural  reason." — 
Ibid.  iii.  361-2. 

%  "  From  the  principal  parts  of  Nature,  Rea- 
son, and  Passion,  have  proceeded  two  kinds  of 
learning,  mathematical  and  dogmatical.  The 
former  is  free  from  controversy  and  dispute, 
because  it  consisteth  in  comparing  figure  and 
motion  only,  in  which  things  truth  and  the  in- 
terest of  men  oppose  not  each  other.  But  in 
the  other  there  is  nothing  undisputable,  be- 
cause it  compares  men,  and  meddles  with  their 
right  and  profit." — Ibid.  iv.  Epis.  ded. 


would  reconstitute  moral  science  on 
the  same  basis.  He  assigns  to  it  this 
foundation  when  he  lays  down  that 
sensation  is  an  internal  movement 
caused  by  an  external  shock ;  desire,  an 
internal  movement  toward  an  external 
object ;  and  he  builds  upon  these  two 
notions  the  whole  system  of  morals. 
Again,  he  assigns  to  morals  a  mathe- 
matical method,  when  he  distinguishes 
like  the  geometrician,  between  two  sim- 
ple ideas,  which  he  transforms  by  de- 
grees into  two  more  complex;  and 
when  on  the  basis  of  sensation  and 
desire  he  constructs  the  passions,  the 
rights,  and  institutions  of  man,  just  as 
the  geometrician  out  of  straight  lines 
and  curves  constructs  all  the  varieties 
of  figure.  To  morals  he  gives  a  mathe- 
matical aspect,  by  mapping  out  the  in- 
complete and  rigid  construction  of  hu- 
man life,  like  the  network  of  imaginary 
forms  which  geometricians  have  con- 
ceived. For  the  first  time  there  was 
discernible  in  him,  as  in  Descartes,  but 
exaggerated  and  standing  out  more 
conspicuously,  that  species  of  intellect 
which  produced  the  classic  age  in 
Europe :  not  the  independence  of  in- 
spiration and  genius  which  marked  the 
Renaissance;  not  the  mature  experi- 
mental methods  and  conceptions  of 
aggregates  which  distinguish  the  pres- 
ent age,  but  the  independence  of  ar- 
gumentative reasoning,  which  dispens- 
ing with  the  imagination,  liberating 
itself  from  tradition,  badly  practising 
experience,  acknowledges  its  queen  in 
logic,  its  model  in  mathematics,  its  in- 
struments in  ratiocination,  its  audience 
in  polished  society,  its  employment  in 
average  truth,  its  subject-matter  in  ab- 
stract humanity,  its  formula  in  ideolo- 
gy, and  in  the  French  Revolution  at 
once  its  glory  and  its  condemnation, 
its  triumph  and  its  close. 

But  whereas  Descartes,  in  the 
midst  of  a  purified  society  and  religion, 
noble  and  calm,  enthroned  intellli- 
gence  and  elevated  man,  Hobbes,  in 
the  midst  of  an  overthrown  society 
and  a  religion  run  mad,  degraded  man 
and  enthroned  matter.  Through  dis- 
gust of  Puritanism,  the  courtiers  re- 
duced human  existence  to  an  animal 
licentiousness  ;  through  disgust  of 
Puritanism,  Hobbes  reduced  human 
nature  to  its  merely  animal  aspect. 


320 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  Tit 


The  courtiers  \rere  practically  atheists 
and  brutish,  as  he  was  atheistic  and 
brutish  in  the  province  of  speculation. 
They  had  established  the  fashion  of 
instinct  and  egotism ;  he  wrote  the 
philosophy  of  egotism  and  instinct. 
They  had  wiped  out  from  their  hearts 
all  refined  and  noble  sentiments;  he 
wiped  out  from  the  heart  all  noble  and 
refined  sentiment.  He  arranged  their 
manners  into  a  theory,  gave  them  the 
manual  of  their  conduct,  wrote  down 
beforehand  the  maxims  which  they 
were  to  reduce  to  practice.*  With 
him,  as  with  them,  "  the  greatest  good 
is  the  preservation  of  life  and  limb  ; 
the  greatest  evil  is  death,  especially 
with  pain."  Other  goods  and  other 
evils  are  only  the  means  of  these.  None 
seek  or  wish  for  any  thing  but  that 
which  is  pleasurable.  "  No  man  gives 
except  for  a  personal  advantage."  Why 
are  friendships  good  things  ?  "  Be- 
cause they  are  useful ;  friends  serve 
for  defence  and  otherwise."  Why  do 
we  pity  one  another  ?  "  Because  we 
imagine  that  a  similar  misfortune  may 
befall  ourselves."  Why  is  it  noble  to 
pardon  him  who  asks  it  ?  "  Because 
thus  one  proves  confidence  in  self." 
Such  is  the  background  of  the  human 
heart.  Consider  now  what  becomes 
of  the  most  precious  flowers  in  these 
blighting  hands.  "  Music,  painting, 
poetry,  are  agreeable  as  imitations 
which  recall  the  past,  because  if  the 
past  was  good,  it  is  agreeable  in  its 
imitation  as  a  good  thing ;  but  if  it  was 
bad,  it  is  agreeable  in  its  imitation  as 
being  past."  To  this  gross  mechanism 
he  reduces  the  fine  arts ;  it  was  per- 
ceptible in  his  attempt  to  translate  the 
Jliad.  In  his  sight,  philosophy  is  a 
thing  of  like  kind.  "  Wisdom  is  ser- 
viceable, because  it  has  in  it  some  kind 
of  protection ;  if  it  is  desirable  in  it- 
self, it  is  because  it  is  pleasant."  Thus 
there  is  no  dignity  in  knowledge.  It  is 
a  pastime  or  an  assistance  ;  good,  as  a 
servant  or  a  puppet  is  a  good  thing. 
Money  being  more  serviceable,  is 
worth  more.  "  Not  he  who  is  wise  is 
rich,  as  the  Stoics  say ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  he  who  is  rich  is  wise."  t  As 

*  His  chief  works  were  written  between  1646 
and  1655. 

t  Nemo  dat  nisi  respiciens  ad  bomim  sibi. 
Amicitiae  bonae,  nempe  utiles.     Nam  amici- 


to  religion,  it  is  but  "  the  fear  of  am 
invisible  power,  whether  this  be  a  fig 
ment,  or  adopted  from  history  by  gen- 
eral consent."  *  Indeed,  this  was  true 
for  a  Rochester  or  a  Charles  II.  ;  cow 
ards  or  bullies,  superstitious  or  blasphe 
mers,  they  conceived  of  nothing  beyond 
Neither  is  there  any  natural  right 
"  Before  men  were  bound  by  contract 
one  with  another,  each  had  the  right  to 
do  what  he  would  against  whom  he 
would."  Nor  any  natural  friendship. 
"All  association's  for  the  cause  of 
advantage  or  of  glory,  that  is,  for  love 
of  one's  self,  not  of  one's  associates. 
The  origin  of  great  and  durable  asso- 
ciations is  not  mutual  well-wishing  but 
mutual  fear.  The  desire  of  injuring  is 
innate  in  all.  Man  is  to  man  a  wolf. 
.  .  .  Warfare  was  the  natural  condi- 
tion of  men  before  societies  were 
formed  ;  and  this  not  incidentally,  but 
of  all  against  all :  and  this  war  is  of  its 
own  nature  eternal. "t  Sectarian  vio- 
lence let  loose,  the  conflict  of  ambi- 
tions, the  fall  of  governments,  the 
overflow  of  soured  imaginations  and 
malevolent  passions,  had  raised  up  this 
idea  of  society  and  of  mankind.  One 
tiae  cum  ad  multa  alia,  turn  ad  presidium  con- 
ferunt. 

Sapientia  utile.  Nam  praesidium  in  se  habet 
nonnullum.  Etiam  appetibile  est  per  se,  id 
est  jucundum.  Item  pulchrum,  quia  acquisitu 
difficilis. 

Non  enim  qui  sapiens  est,  ut  dixere  stoici, 
dives  est,  sed  contra  qui  dives  est  sapiens  est 
dicendus  est. 

Ignoscere  veniam  petenti  pulchrum.  Nam 
indicium  fiducias  sui. 

Imitatio  jucundum  :  revocat  enim  prseterita* 
Praeterita  autem  si  bona  fuorint,  jucunda  sunt 
repraesentata,  quia  bona  ;  si  mala,  quia  prae- 
terita.  Jucunda  igitur  musica,  poesis  pictura. 
— Hobbes'  Opera  Latina,  Molesworth,  vol.  ii. 
98-102. 

*  Metus  potentiarum  invisibilium,  sive  fictae 
illse  sint,  sive  ab  historiis  acceptae  sint  pub'ice, 
religio  est  si  publice  acceptae  non  sint,  super- 
stitio. — Ibid.  iii.  45. 

t  Oninis  igitur  societas  vel  commodi  causa 
vel  glorise,  hoc  est,  sui,  non  sociorum  amore 
contrahitur. — Ibid.  ii.  161. 

Statuendum  igitur  est,  originem  magnarum 
et  diuturnarum  societatum  non  a  mutua  homi- 
num  benevolentia,  sed  a  mntuo  metu  exstitisse. 
—Ibid. 

Voluntas  lasdendi  omnibus  quidem  inest  in 
statu  naturae. — Ibid.  ii.  162. 

Status  hominum  naturalis  antequam  in  so- 
cietatem  coiretur  bellum  fuerit ;  neque  hoc 
simphciter,  sed  bellum  omnium  in  omnes.— 
Ibid.  ii.  166. 

Bellum  sua  natura  sempiternum. — See  i66j 
/.  16. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORA  TION. 


321 


and  all,  philosophers  and  people, 
yearned  for  monarchy  and  repose. 
Hobbes,  an  inexorable  logician,  would 
have  it  absolute ;  repression  would 
thus  be  more  stern,  peace  more  last- 
ing. The  sovereign  should  be  un- 
opposed. Whatsoever  he  might  do 
against  a  subject,  under  whatever  pre- 
text, would  not  be  injustice.  He  ought 
to  decide  upon  the  canonical  books. 
He  was  pope,  and  more  than  pope. 
Were  he  to  command  it,  his  subjects 
should  renounce  Christ,  at  least  with 
their  mouth  ;  the  original  contract  has 
given  up  to  him,  without  any  reserva- 
tion, all  responsibility  of  external  ac- 
tions ;  at  least,  according  to  this  view, 
the  sectarian  will  no  longer  have  the 
pretext  of  his  conscience  in  harassing 
the  state.  To  such  extremities  had 
the  intense  weariness  and  horror  of 
civil  war  driven  a  narrow  but  logical 
intellect.  Upon  the  secure  den  in 
which  he  had  with  every  effort  impris- 
oned and  confined  the  evil  beast  of 
prey,  he  laid  as  a  final  weight,  in  order 
that  he  might  perpetuate  the  captivity 
of  humanity,  the  whole  philosophy  and 
theory  not  simply  of  man,  but  of  the 
remainder  of  the  universe.  He  re- 
duced judgment  to  the  "combina- 
tion of  two  terms,"  ideas  to  condi- 
tions of  the  brain,  sensations  to  mo- 
tions of  the  body,  general  laws  to 
simple  words,  all  substance  to  corpore- 
ality, all  science  to  the  knowledge  of 
sensible  bodies,  the  human  being  to  a 
body  capable  of  motion  given  or  re- 
ceived ;  so  that  man,  recognizing  him- 
self and  nature  only  under  this  de- 
spised form,  and  degraded  in  his  con- 
ception of  himself  and  of  the  world, 
might  bow  beneath  the  burden  of  a 
necessary  authority,  and  submit  in  the 
snd  to  the  yoke  which  his  rebellious 
nature  rejects,  yet  is  forced  to  tolerate.* 
Such,  in  brief,  is  the  aim  which  this 

*  Corpus  et  substantia  idem  significant,  et 
proinde  vox  composita  substantia  incorporea 
est  insignificans  aeque  ac  si  quis  diceret  corpus 
incorporeum. — Hobbes'  Opera  Laiina,  Moles- 
worth,  iii.  281. 

Quidquid  imaginamur  finitum  est.  Nulla 
ergo  est  idea  neque  conceptus  qui  oriri  potest  a 
voce  hac,  in  finitum. — Ibid.  iii.  20. 

Recidit  itaque  ratiocinatio  omnis  ad  duas 
operationes  animi,  additionem  et  substractio- 
aem. — Ibid.  i.  3. 

Nomina  signa  sunt  non  rerum  sed  cogita- 
tionem. — Ibid.  i.  15. 


spectacle  of  the  English  Restoration 
suggests.  Men  deserved  then  thit 
treatment,  because  they  gave  birth  tft 
this  philosophy  ;  they  were  represented 
on  the  stage  as  they  had  proved  them 
selves  to  be  in  theory  and  in  manners. 

VI. 

When  the  theatres,  which  Parlia- 
ment had  closed,  were  re-opened,  the 
change  of  public  taste  was  soon  mani- 
fested. Shirley,  the  last  of  the  grand 
old  school,  wrote  and  lived  no  longer. 
Waller,  Buckingham,  and  Dryden  were 
compelled  to  dish  up  the  plays  of 
Shakspeare  and  Beaumont  and  Fletch- 
er, and  to  adapt  them  to  the  modern 
style.  Pepys,  who  went  to  see  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  declared  that 
he  would  never  go  there  again  ;  "  for 
it  is  the  most  insipid,  ridiculous  play 
that  ever  I  saw  in  my  life."  *  Comedy 
was  transformed ;  the  fact  was,  that  the 
public  was  transformed. 

What  an  audience  was  that  of  Shak- 
speare and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  I 
What  youthful  and  delightful  souls! 
In  this  evil-smelling  room  in  which  it 
was  necessary  to  burn  juniper,  before 
that  miserable  half-lighted  stage,  be- 
fore decorations  worthy  of  an  alehouse, 
with  men  playing  the  women's  parts, 
illusion  enchained  them.  They  scarce- 
ly troubled  themselves  about  probabili- 
ties ;  they  could  be  carried  in  an  in- 
stant over  forest  and  ocean,  from  clime 
to  clime,  across  twenty  years  of  time, 
through  ten  battles  and  all  the  hurry 
of  adventure.  They  did  not  care  to  be 
always  laughing  ;  comedy,  after  a  burst 
of  buffoonery,  resumed  its  serious  or 
tender  tone.  They  came  less  to  be 
amused  than  to  muse.  In  these  fresh 
minds,  amidst  a  woof  of  passions  and 
dreams,  there  were  hidden  passions 
and  brilliant  dreams  whose  imprisoned 
swarm  buzzed  indistinctly,  waiting  for 
the  poet  to  come  and  lay  bare  to  them 
the  novelty  and  the  splendor  of  heav- 
en. Landscapes  revealed  by  a  light- 

Veritas  enim  in  dicto  non  in  re  consistit. — 
Ibid.\.  31. 

Sensio  igitur  in  sentiente  nihil  aliud  esse  po- 
test praeter  motum  partium  aliquarum  intus  in 
sentiente  existentium,  quae  partes  motae  organ- 
orum  quibus  sentimus  partes  sunt. — Ibid.  i« 
3*7- 

*  Pepys*  Diary  >  ii.  Sept.  29,1662. 
14* 


322 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK   HI, 


ning  flash,  the  gray  mane  of  a  long  and 
overhanging  billow,  a  wet  forest  nook 
where  the  deer  raise  their  startled 
heads,  the  sudden  smile  and  purpling 
cheek  of  a  young  girl  in  love,  the  sub- 
lime and  various  flight  of  all  delicate 
sentiments,  a  cloak  of  ecstatic  and  ro- 
mantic passion  over  all, — these  were 
the  sights  and  feelings  which  they 
came  to  seek.  They  raised  them- 
selves without  any  assistance  to  the 
summit  of  the  world  of  ideas;  they 
desired  to  contemplate  extreme  gener- 
osity, absolute  love  ;  they  were  not  as- 
t'onished  at  the  sight  of  fairy-land; 
they  entered  without  an  effort  into  the 
region  of  poetical  transformation, whose 
light  was  necessary  to  their  eyes.  They 
took  in  at  a  glance  its  excesses  and  its 
caprices  ;  they  needed  no  preparation  ; 
they  followed  its  digressions,  its  whim- 
sicalities, the  crowding  of  its  abundant 
creations,  the  sudden  prodigality  of  its 
high  coloring,  as  a  musician  follows  a 
symphony.  They  were  in  that  tran- 
sient and  strainea  condition  in  which 
the  imagination,  adult  and  pure,  laden 
with  desire,  curiosity,  force,  develops 
man  all  at  once,  and  in  that  man  the 
most  exalted  and  exquisite  feelings. 

The  roisterers  took  the  place  of  these. 
They  were  rich,  they  had  tried  to  deck 
themselves  with  the  polish  of  French- 
men; they  added  to  the  stage  move- 
able  decorations,  music,  lights,  proba- 
bility, comfort,  every  external  aid ;  but 
they  wanted  heart.  Imagine  those 
foppish  and  half  intoxicated  men,  who 
saw  in  love  nothing  beyond  desire,  and 
in  man  nothing  beyond  sensuality  ; 
Rochester  in  the  place  of  Mercutio. 
What  part  of  his  soul  could  compre- 
hend poesy  and  fancy  ?  The  comedy 
of  romance  was  altogether  beyond  his 
reach ;  he  could  only  seize  the  actual 
world,  and  of  this  world  but  the  palpa- 
ble and  gross  externals.  Give  him  an 
exact  picture  of  ordinary  life,  common- 
place and  probable  occurrences,  literal 
•/mitations  of  what  he  himself  was  and 
did  ;  lay  the  scene  in  London,  in  the 
current  year  ;  copy  his  coarse  words, 
his  brutal  jokes,  his  conversation  with 
the  orange  girls,  his  rendezvous  in  the 
park,  his  attempts  at  French  disserta- 
tion. Let  him  recognize  himself,  let 
him  find  again  the  people  and  the 
manners  he  had  just  left  behind  him  in 


the  tavern  or  the  ante-chamber  ;  let  the 
theatre  and  the  street  reproduce  one 
another.  Comec'y  will  give  him  the 
same  entertainment  as  real  life ;  he 
will  wallow  equally  well  there  in  vul- 
garity and  lewd  ness  ;  to  be  present 
there  will  demand  neither  imagination 
nor  wit ;  eyes  and  memory  are  the  only 
requisites.  This  exact  imitation  will 
amuse  him  and  instruct  him  at  the 
same  time.  Filthy  words  will  make  him 
laugh  through  sympathy ;  shameless 
imagery  will  divert  him  by  appealing  to 
his  recollections.  The  author,  too, 
will  take  care  to  arouse  him  by  his 
plot,  which  generally  has  the  deceiving 
of  a  father  or  a  husband  for  its  sub- 
ject. The  fine  gentlemen  agree  with 
the  author  in  siding  with  the  gallant  ; 
they  follow  his  fortunes  with  interest, 
and  fancy  that  they  themselves  have 
the  same  success  with  the  fair.  Add 
to  this,  women  debauched,  and  willing 
to  be  debauched;  and  it  is  manifest 
how  these  provocations,  these  man- 
ners of  prostitutes,  that  interchange 
of  exchanges  and  surprises,  that  carni- 
val of  rendezvous  and  suppers,  the 
impudence  of  the  scenes  only  stopping 
short  of  physical  demonstration,  those 
songs  with  their  double  meaning,  that 
coarse  slang  shouted  loudly  and  re- 
plied to  amidst  tableaux  vivants,  all 
that  stage-imitation  of  orgie,  must 
have  stirred  up  the  innermost  feel- 
ings of  the  habitual  practisers  of  in- 
trigue. And  what  is  more,  the  thea- 
tre gave  its  sanction  to  their  manners. 
By  representing  nothing  but  vice,  it 
authorized  their  vices.  Authors  laid 
it  down  as  a  rule,  that  all  women  were 
impudent  hussies,  and  that  all  men 
were  brutes.  Debauchery  in  their 
hands  became  a  matter  of  course,  nay 
more,  a  matter  of  good  taste  ;  they 
profess  it.  Rochester  and  Charles 
II.  could  quit  the  theatre  highly  edi- 
fied; more  convinced  than  they  were 
before  that  virtue  was  only  a  pretence 
the  pretence  of  clever  rascals  who 
wanted  to  sell  themselves  dear. 

VII. 

Dryden,  who  was  amongst  the  first  * 
to  adopt  this  view  of  the  matter,  did 
not  adopt  it  heartily.  A  kind  of  hazy 

*  His  Wild  Gallant  dates  from  i66a. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


323 


mist,  the  relic  of  the  former  age,  still 
floated  over  his  plays.  His  wealthy  im- 
agination half  bound  him  to  the  come- 
dy of  romance.  At  one  time  he  adapted 
Milton's  Paradise,  Shakspeare's  Tem- 
pest, and  Troihis  and  Cressida.  An- 
other time  he  imitated,  in  Love  in  a 
Nunnery,  in  Marriage  a  la  Mode,  in 
The  Mock  Astrologer,  the  imbroglios  and 
surprises  of  the  Spanish  stage.  Some- 
times he  displays  the  sparkling  images 
and  lofty  metaphors  of  the  older  na- 
tional poets,  sometimes  the  affected 
figures  of  speech  and  cavilling  wit  of 
Calderon  and  Lope  de  Vega.  He 
mingles  the  tragic  and  the  humorous, 
the  overthrow  of  thrones  and  the  or- 
dinary description  of  manners.  But  in 
this  awkward  compromise  the  poetic 
spirit  of  ancient  comedy  disappears  ; 
only  the  dress  and  the  gilding  remain. 
The  new  characters  are  gross  and  im- 
moral, with  the  instincts  of  a  lackey 
beneath  the  dress  of  a  lord ;  which  is 
the  more  shocking,  because  by  it  Dry- 
den  contradicts  his  own  talents,  being 
at  bottom  grave  and  a  poet ;  he  follows 
die  fashion,  and  not  his  own  mind  ;  he 
plays  the  libertine  with  deliberate  fore- 
thought, to  adapt  himself  to  the  taste 
of  the  day.*  He  plays  the  blackguard 
awkwardly  and  dogmatically;  he  is  im- 
pious without  enthusiasm,  and  in  meas- 
ured periods.  One  of  his  gallants 
cries  : 

*  Is  not  love  love  without  a  priest  and  altars  ? 
The  temples  are  inanimate,  and  know  not 
What  vows  are  made  in   them  ;  the  priest 

stands  ready 
For  his  hire,  and  cares  not  what  hearts  he 

couples  ; 
Love  alone  is  marriage."  t 

Hippolita  says,  "  I  wished  the  ball 
might  be  kept  perpetually  in  our  clois- 
ter, and  that  half  the  handsome  nuns 
"n  it  might  be  turned  to  men,  for  the 
sake  of  the  other."  \  Dryden  has  no 

*  u  We  love  to  get  our  mistresses,  and  purr 
over  them,  as  cats  do  over  mice,  and  let  them 
get  a  little  way  ;  and  all  the  pleasure  is  to  pat 
them  back  again." — Mock  Astrologer,  ii.  i. 

Wildblood  says  to  his  mistress :  "  I  am  none 
of  those  unreasonable  lovers  that  propose  to 
themselves  the  loving  to  eternity.  A  month  is 
commonly  my  stint. *  And  Jacintha  replies: 
"  Or  would  not  a  fortnight  serve  our  turn  ?  " — 
Ibid. 

Frequently  one  would  think  Dryden  was 
translating  Hobbes,  by  the  harshness  of  his 
jests. 

t  Love  in  a  Nunnery,  ii.  3.      J  Ibid.  iii.  3. 


tact  or  contrivance.  In  his  Spanisf 
Friar,  the  queen,  a  good  enough  wo 
man,  tells  Torrismond  that  she  is  going 
to  have  the  old  dethroned  king  put  to 
death,  in  order  to  marry  him,  Torris- 
mond, more  at  her  ease.  Presently  she 
is  informed  that  the  murder  is  com- 
pleted. "  What  hinders  now,"  says 
she,  "  but  that  the  holy  priest,  in  secret 
joins  our  mutual  vows  ?  and  then  this 
night,  this  happy  night,  is  yours  and 
mine."  *  Side  by  side  with  this  sen- 
sual tragedy,  a  comic  intrigue,  pushed 
to  the  most  indecent  familiarity,  ex- 
hibits the  love  of  a  cavalier  for  a  mar- 
ried woman,  who  in  the  end  turns  out 
to  be  his  sister.  Dryden  discovers 
nothing  in  this  situation  to  shock  him. 
He  has  lost  the  commonest  repug- 
nances of  natural  modesty.  Trans- 
lating any  pretty  broad  play,  Amphi- 
tryon for  instance,  he  finds  it  too  pure  ; 
he  strips  off  all  its  small  delicacies, 
and  enlarges  its  very  improprieties,  f 
Thus  Jupiter  says  : 

"  For  kings    arid  priests    are    in    a    manner 

bound, 

For    reverence    sake,    to    be    close    hypo- 
crites." % 

And  he  proceeds  thereupon  boldly  to 
lay  bare  his  own  despotism.  In  reality, 
his  sophisms  and  his  shamelessness 
serve  Dryden  as  a  means  of  decrying 
by  rebound  the  arbitrary  Divinity  of 
the  theologians.  He  lets  Jupiter  say  : 

"  Fate  is  what  I, 

By  virtue  of  omnipotence,  have  made  it  ; 
And  power  omnipotent  can  do  no  wrong  I 
Not  to  myself,  because  I  will  it  so  ; 
Nor  yet  to  men,  for  what  they  are  is  mine.— 
This  night  I  will  enjoy  Amphitryon's  wife  ; 
For  when  I  made  her,  I  decreed  her  such 
As  I  should  please  to  love."  § 

This  open  pedantry  is  changed  into 
open  lust  as  soon  as  Jupiter  sees  Alc- 

*  Spanish  Friar,  iii.  3.  And  jumbled  up 
with  the  plot  we  keep  meeting  with  political 
allusions.  This  is  a  mark  of  the  time.  Torris- 
mond, to  excuse  himself  from  marrying  the 
queen,  says,  "  Power  which  in  one  age  is 
tyranny  is  ripen' d  in  the  next  to  true  succes- 
sion. She's  in  possession." — Spanish  Friar, 

.  2. 

t  Plautus'  A  mphitryon  has  been  imitated  by 
Dryden  and  Moliere.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in 
the  introduction  to  Dryden's  play,  says:  "  Ha 
is,  in  general,  coarse  and  vulgar,  where  Mol- 
iere is  witty  ;  and  where  the  Frenchman  ven- 
tures upon  a  double  meaning,  the  Englishman 
always  contrives  to  make  it  a  single  one."—* 

\  A  mphitryont  i.  i.  §  Ibid. 


324 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


mena.  No  detail  is  omitted :  Jupiter 
speaks  his  whole  mind  to  her,  and  be- 
fore the  maids ;  and  next  morning, 
when  he  is  going  away,  she  outdoes 
him  :  she  hangs  on  to  him,  and  indulges 
in  the  most  familiar  details.  All  the 
noble  externals  of  high  gallantry  are 
torn  off  like  a  troublesome  garment ;  it 
is  a  cynical  recklessness  in  place  of 
aristocratic  decency  ;  the  scene  is  writ- 
ten after  the  example  of  Charles  II. 
and  Castlemaine,  not  of  Louis  XIV. 
and  Mme.  de  Montespan.  * 

VIII. 

I  pass  over  several  writers  :  Crowne, 
author  of  Sir  Courtly  Nice  ;  Shadwell, 
an  imitator  of  Ben  Jonson  ;  Mrs.  Aphra 
Behn,  who  calls  herself  Astraea,  a  spy 
and  a  courtesan,  paid  by  government 
and  the  public.  Etherege  is  the  first 
to  set  the  example  of  imitative  comedy 
in  his  Man  of  Fashion,  and  to  depict 
only  the  manners  of  his  age  ;  for  the 
rest  he  is  an  open  roisterer,  and  frankly 
describes  his  habits  : 

"  From  hunting  whores,  and  haunting  play, 
And  minding  nothing  all  the  day, 
And  all  the  night  too,  you  will  say."   .  .  . 

Such  were  his  pursuits  in  London ;  and 
further  on,  in  a  letter  from  Ratisbon  to 
Lord  Middleton, 

"  He  makes  grave  legs  in  formal  fetters, 
Converses  with  foois  and  writes  dull  letters; " 

and  gets  small  consolation  out  of  the 
German  ladies.  In  this  grave  mood 
Etherege  undertook  the  duties  of  an 
ambassador.  One  day,  having  dined 
too  freely,  he  fell  from  the  top  of  a 
staircase,  and  broke  his  neck  ;  a  death 
of  no  great  importance.  But  the  hero 
of  this  society  was  William  Wycherley, 
the  coarsest  writer  who  ever  polluted  the 
stage.  Being  sent  to  France  during  the 
Revolution,  he  there  became  a  Roman 
Catholic;  then  on  his  return  abjured; 

*  As  Jupiter  is  departing,   on   the   plea   of 
daylight,  Alcmena  says  to  him  : 
*'  But  you  and  I  will  draw  our  curtains  close, 
Extinguish  daylight,  and  put  out  the  sun. 
Come  back,  my  lord.  .  .  . 
You  have  not  yet  laid  long  enough  in  bed 
To  warm  your  widowed  side." — Act  ii.  2. 
Compare   Plautus'  Roman  matron  and  Mol- 
iire's   honest  Frenchwoman  with   this  expan- 
sive   female.      [Louis    XIV.    and    Made,   de 
Montespan  were  not  very  decent  either.     See 
Memoires  de  Saint  Simon.} — TR. 


then  in  the  end,  as  Pope  tells  us,  ab- 
jured again.  Robbed  of  their  Protes- 
tant ballast,  these  shallow  brains  ran 
from  dogma  to  dogma,  from  supersti 
tion  to  incredulity  or  indifference,  to 
end  in  a  state  of  fear.  He  had  learnt 
at  M.  de  Montausier's  *  residence  the 
art  of  wearing  gloves  and  a  peruke, 
which  sufficed  in  those  days  to  make  a 
gentleman.  This  merit,  and  the  success 
of  a  filthy  piece,  Love  in  a  Wood,  drew 
upon  him  the  eyes  of  the  Duchess  of 
Cleveland,  mistress  of  the  king  and 
of  anybody.  This  woman,  who  used 
to  have  amours  with  a  rope-dancer, 
picked  him  up  one  day  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  Ring.  She  put  her  head 
out  of  her  carriage-window,  and  cried 
to  him  before  all,  "  Sir,  you  are  a  rascal, 

a  villain,  the  son  of  a ."    Touched 

by  this  compliment,  he  accepted  her 
favors,  and  in  consequence  obtained 
those  of  the  king.  He  lost  them,  mar- 
ried the  Countess  of  Drogheda,  a  wo- 
man of  bad  temper,  ruined  himself,  re- 
mained seven  years  in  prison,  passed 
the  remainder  of  his  life  in  pecuniary 
difficulties,  regretting  his  youth,  losing 
his  memory,  scribbling  bad  verses, 
which  he  got  Pope  to  correct,  amidst 
many  twitches  of  wounded  self-esteem, 
stringing  together  dull  obscenities, 
dragging  his  worn-out  body  and  ener- 
vated brain  through  the  stages  of  mis- 
anthropy and  libertinage,  playing  the 
miserable  part  of  a  toothless  roisterer 
and  a  white-haired  blackguard.  Eleven 
days  before  his  death -he  married  a 
young  girl,  who  turned  out  to  be  a 
strumpet.  He  ended  as  he  had  begun, 
by  stupidity  and  misconduct,  having 
succeeded  neither  in  becoming  happy 
nor  honest,  having  used  his  vigorous 
intelligence  and  real  talent  only  to  his 
own  injury  and  the  injury  of  others. 

The  reason  was,  that  Wycherley  was 
not  an  epicurean  born.  His  nature, 
genuinely  English,  that  is  to  say,  ener- 
getic and  sombre,  rebelled  against  the 
easy  and  amiable  carelessness  which 
enables  one  to  take  life  as  a  pleasure- 
party.  His  style  is  labored,  and  trou- 
blesome to  read.  His  tone  is  virulent 
and  bitter.  He  frequently  forces  his 

*  Himself  a  Huguenot,  who  had  become  a 
Roman  Catholic,  and  the  husband  of  Julia 
d'Angennes,  for  whom  the  French  poets  com- 
posed the  celebrated  Guirlande. — TR. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RES  TOR  A  TION. 


325 


comedy  in  order  to  get  at  spiteful  sa- 
tire. Effort  and  animosity  mark  all 
that  he  says  or  puts  into  the  mouths  of 
others.  It  is  Hobbes,  not  meditative 
and  calm,  but  active  and  angry,  who 
sees  in  man  nothing  but  vice,  yet  feels 
himself  man  to  the  very  core.  The 
only  fault  he  rejects  is  hypocrisy  ;  the 
only  virtue  he  preaches  is  frankness. 
He  wants  others  to  confess  their  vice, 
and  he  begins  by  confessing  his  own. 
"  Though  I  cannot  lie  like  them  (the 
poets),  I  am  as  vain  as  they  ;  I  can- 
not but  publicly  give  your  Grace  my 
humble  acknowledgments.  .  .  .  This 
is  the  poet's  gratitude,  which  in  plain 
English  is  only  pride  and  ambition."* 
We  find  in  him  no  poetry  of  expres- 
sion, no  glimpse  of  the  ideal,  no  set- 
tled morality  which  could  console, 
raise,  or  purify  men.  He  shuts  them 
up  in  their  perversity  and  uncleanness, 
and  installs  himself  among  them.  He 
shows  them  the  filth  of  the  lowest 
depths  in  which  he  confines  them  ;  he 
expects  them  to  breathe  this  atmos- 
phere ;  he  plunges  them  into  it,  not  to 
disgust  them  with  it  as  by  an  acci- 
dental fall,  but  to  accustom  them 
to  it  as  if  it  were  their  natural  ele- 
ment. He  tears  down  the  partitions 
and  decorations  by  which  they  en- 
deavor to  conceal  their  state,  or  reg- 
ulate their  disorder.  He  takes  plea- 
sure in  making  them  fight,  he  delights 
in  the  hubbub  of  their  unfettered  in- 
stincts ;  he  loves  the  violent  changes  of 
the  human  mass,  the  confusion  of  their 
wicked  deeds,  the  rawness  of  their 
bruises.  He  strips  their  lusts,  sets 
them  forth  at  full  length,  and  of 
course  feels  them  himself ;  and  whilst 
he  condemns  them  as  nauseous,  he  en- 
joys them.  People  take  what  pleasure 
they  can  get :  the  drunkards  in  the 
suburbs,  if  asked  how  they  can  relish 
their  miserable  liquor,  will  tell  you  it 
makes  them  drunk  as  soon  as  better 
stuff,  and  that  is  the  only  pleasure  they 
have. 

I  can  understand  that  an  author  may 
dare  much  in  a  novel.  It  is  a  psycho- 
logical study,  akin  to  criticism  or  his- 
tory, having  almost  equal  license,  be- 

*  The  Dramatic  Works  of  Wycherley, 
Congreve,  Vanbrugh^  and  Farqiihar,  ed. 
Leigh  Hunt,  1840.  Dedication  of  Love  in  a 
Wood  to  her  Grace  the  Duchess  of  Cleveland. 


cause  it  contributes  almost  oquall  •/  to 
explain  the  anatomy  of  the  heart.  It 
is  quite  necessary  to  expose  moral  dis- 
eases, especially  when  this  is  done  to 
add  to  science,  coldly,  accurately,  md 
in  the  fashion  of  a  dissection.  Su'.h  a 
book  is  by  its  nature  abstruse  ;  it  must 
be  read  in  the  study,  by  lamp-light. 
But  transport  it  to  the  stage,  exagger- 
ate the  bed-room  liberties,  give  them 
additional  life  by  a  few  disreputable 
scenes,  bestow  bodily  vigor  upon  them 
by  the  energetic  action  and  word ;  of 
the  actresses;  let  the  eyes  and  the 
senses  be  filled  with  them,  not  the  ;yes 
of  an  individual  spectator,  but  of  a 
thousand  men  and  women  mingled  to- 
gether in  the  pit,  excited  by  the  in- 
terest of  the  story,  by  the  correctness 
of  the  literal  imitation,  by  the  glitter 
of  the  lights,  by  the  noise  of  applause, 
by  the  contagion  of  impressions  which 
run  like  a  shudder  through  fiery  and 
longing  minds.  That  was  the  specta- 
cle which  Wycherley  furnished,  and 
which  the  court  appreciated.  Is  it 
possible  that  a  public,  and  a  select 
public,  could  come  and  listen  to  such 
scenes  ?  In  Love  in  a  Wood,  amidst 
the  complications  of  nocturnal  rendez- 
vous, and  violations  effected  or  begun, 
we  meet  with  a  witling,  named  Dap- 
perwit,  who  desires  to  sell  his  mistress 
Lucy  to  a  fine  gentleman  of  that  age, 
Ranger.  With  what  minuteness  he 
bepraises  her!  He  knocks  at  her 
door ;  the  intended  purchaser  mean- 
time, growing  impatient,  is  treating  him 
like  a  slave.  The  mother  comes  in, 
but  wishing  to  sell  Lucy  herself  and 
for  her  own  advantage,  scolds  them 
and  packs  them  off.  Next  appears  an 
old  puritanical  usurer  and  hypocrite, 
named  Gripe,  who  at  first  will  not  bar 
gain : — 

"  Mrs.  Joyner.  You  must  send  for  some- 
thing to  entertain  her  with.  .  .  .  Upon  my  life 
a  groat !  what  will  this  purchase  ? 

Gripe.  Two  black  pots  of  ale  and  a  cake  a 
the  cellar. — Come,  the  wine  has  arsenic  in't. 

Mrs.  y.  A  treat  of  a  groat !     I  will  not  wag. 

G.  Why  dont  you  go?  Here,  take  more 
money,  and  fetch  what  you  will ;  take  here, 
half-a-crown. 

Mrs.  J.  What  will  half-a-crown  do  ? 

G.  Take  a  crown  then,  an  angel,  a  piece  ;— 
begone ! 

Mrs.  y.  A  treat  only  will  not  serve  my  turn; 
I  must  buy  the  poor  wretch  there  some  toys. 

G.  What  toys  ?  what  ?  speak  quickly. 


326 


Mrs.  y.  Pendants,  necklaces,  fans,  ribbons, 
points,  laces,  stockings,  gloves.  .  .  . 

G.  But  here,  take  half  a  piece  for  the  other 
things. 

Mrs.  y.  Half  a  piece! — 

G.  Prithee,  begone ! — take  t'other  piece 
then — two  pieces — three  pieces — five !  here  ;  'tis 
all  I  have. 

Mrs.  y.  I  must  have  the  broad-seal  ring  too, 
or  I  stir  not."  * 

She  goes  away  at  last,  having  extorted 
all,  and  Lucy  plays  the  innocent,  seems 
to  think  that  Gripe  is  a  dancing-mas- 
ter, and  asks  for  a  lesson.  What 
scenes,  what  double  meanings !  At 
last  she  calls  out,  her  mother,  Mrs. 
Crossbite,  breaks  open  the  door,  and 
enters  with  men  placed  there  before- 
hand; Gripe  is  caught  in  the  trap: 
they  threaten  to  call  in  the  constable, 
they  swindle  him  out  of  five  hundred 
pounds. 

Need  I  recount  the  plot  of  the  Coun- 
try Wife?  It  is  useless  to  wish  to 
skim  the  subject  only  :  we  sink  deeper 
and  deeper.  Horner,  a  gentleman  re- 
turned from  France,  spreads  the  re- 
port that  he  is  no  longer  able  to  trouble 
the  peace  of  husbands.  You  may  im- 
agine what  becomes  of  such  a  subject 
in  Wycherley's  hands,  and  he  draws 
from  it  all  that  it  contains.  Women 
converse  about  Horner's  condition, 
even  before  him;  they  suffer  them- 
selves to  be  undeceived,  and  boast  of 
it  Three  of  them  come  to  him  and 
feast,  drink,  sing — such  songs  !  The 
excess  of  orgie  triumphs,  adjudges  it- 
self the  crown,  displays  itself  in  max- 
ims. "  Our  virtue,"  says  one  of  them, 
"  is  like  the  statesman's  religion,  the 
quaker's  word,  the  gamester's  oath,  and 
the  great  man's  honor;  but  to  cheat 
those  that  trust  us."  t  In  the  last 
scene,  the  suspicions  which  had  been 
aroused,  are  set  at  rest  by  a  new  dec- 
laration of  Horner.  All  the  mar- 
riages are  polluted,  and  the  carnival 
ends  by  a  dance  of  deceived  husbands. 
To  crown  all,  Horner  recommends 
his  example  to  the  public,  and  the 
actress  who  comes  on  to  recite  the 
epilogue,  completes  the  shamefulness 
of  the  piece,  by  warning  gallants  that 
they  must  look  what  they  are  doing  ; 
for  that  if  they  can  deceive  men,  "  we 
women — there's  no  cozening  us."  J 

*  Act  iii.  3.  t  The  Country  Wife,  v.  4. 

t  Read  the  epilogue,  and  see  what  words  and 
details  authors  dared  then  to  put  in  the  mouths 
of  actresses. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


But  the  special  and  most  extraor- 
dinary  sign  of  the  times  is,  that  amid 
all  these  provocatives,  no  repellent 
circumstance  is  omitted,  and  that 
the  narrator  seems  to  aim  as  much 


at   disgusting    as    at    depraving   us.* 
Every    moment    the   fine    gentlemen, 


ing   u 
ntlem 

even  the  ladies,  introduce  into  their 
conversation  the  ways  and  means  by 
which,  since  the  sixteenth  century, 
love  has  endeavored  to  adorn  itself. 
Dapperwit,  when  making  an  offer  of 
Lucy,  says,  in  order  to  account  for  the 
delay  ;  "  Pish  !  give  her  but  leave  to 
.  .  .  put  on  ...  the  long  patch  un- 
der the  left  eye  ;  awaken  the  roses  on 
her  cheeks  with  some  Spanish  wool, 
and  warrant  her  breath  with  some  lem- 
on peel."  t  Lady  Flippant,  alone  in 
the  park,  cries  out  :  "  Unfortunate 
lady  that  I  am  !  I  have  left  the  herd  on 
purpose  to  be  chased,  and  have  wan- 
dered this  hour  here  ;  but  the  park  af- 
fords not  so  much  as  a  satyr  for  me  ; 
and  no  Burgundy  man  or  drunken 
scourer  will  reel  my  way.  The  rag- 
women  and  cinder-women  have  better 
luck  than  I."  \ 

Judge  by  these  quotations,  which  are 
the  best,  of  the  remainder  !  Wycher- 
ley  makes  it  his  business  to  revolt  even 
the  senses  ;  the  nose,  the  eyes,  every 
thing  suffers  in  his  plays;  the  audience 
must  have  had  the  stomach  of  a  sailor. 
And  from  this  abyss  English  literature 
lias  ascended  to  the  strict  morality,  the 
excessive  decency  which  it  now"  pos- 
sesses !  The  stage  is  a  declared  war 
against  beauty  and  delicacy  of  every 
dnd.  If  Wycherley  borrows  a  char- 
acter anywhere,  it  is  only  to  do  vio- 
ence,  or  degrade  it  to  the  level  of  his 
own  characters.  If  he  imitates  the 
Agnes  of  Moliere,  §  as  he  does  in  the 

*  "  That  spark,  who  has  his  fruitless  designs 
upon  the  bed-ridden  rich  widow,  down  to  the 
ucking  heiress  in  her  .  .  .  clout."  —  Love  in  a 


Mrs-  Flippant  :  "  Though  I  had  married  the 
ool,  I  thought  to  have  reserved  the  wit  as  well 
as  other  ladies."  —  Ibid. 

DafifierTvit  :  "  I  will  contest  with  no  rival, 
ot  with  my  old  rival  your  coachman."  —  Ibid. 

"  She  has  a  complexion  like  a  he  Hand  cheese, 
and  no  more  teeth  left,  than  such  as  give  a  haul 
gout  to  her  breath."  —  Ibid.  ii.  > 

t  Ibid.  iii.  2.  I  Ibid.  v.  2. 

§  The  letter  of  Agnes,  in  Moliere's  F  Ecole 
des  Femmes,  iii.  4,  begins  thus  :  "  Je  veux 
vous  e'crire,  et  je  suis  bien  en  peine  par  ou  je 
tn'y  prendrai.  J'ai  des  pensdes  que  je  ddsirer- 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


327 


Country  Wife,  he  marries  her  in  order 
to  profane  marriage,  deprives  her  of 
honor,  still  more  of  modesty,  still  more 
of  grace,  and  changes  her  "artless  ten- 
derness into  shameless  instincts  and 
scandalous  confessions.  If  he  takes 
Shakspeare's  Viola,  as  in  the  Plain 
Dealer,  it  is  to  drag  her  through  the 
vileness  of  infamy,  amidst  brutalities 
and  surprises.  If  he  translates  the  part 
of  Moliere's  Celimene,  he  wipes  out  at 
one  stroke  the  manners  of  a  great 
lady,  the  woman's  delicacy,  the  tact 
of  the  lady  of  the  house,  the  politeness, 
the  refined  air,  the  superiority  of  wit 
and  knowledge  of  the  world,  in  order 
to  substitute  for  them  the  impudence 
and  deceit  of  a  foul-mouthed  courte- 
san. If  he  invents  an  almost  innocent 
girl,  Hippolita,*  he  begins  by  putting 
into  her  mouth  words  that'  will  not 
bear  transcribing.  Whatever  he  does 
or  says,  whether  he  copies  or  origin- 
ates, blames  or  praises,  his  stage  is  a 
defamation  of  mankind,  which  repels 
even  when  it  attracts,  and  which  sick- 
ens a  man  while  it  corrupts. 

A  certain  gift  hovers  over  all  — 
namely,  vigor — which  is. never  absent 
in  England,  and  gives  a  peculiar  char- 
acter to  their  virtues  as  well  as  to 
their  vices.  When  we  have  removed 
the  oratorical  and  heavily  construct- 
ed phrases  imitated  from  the  French, 
we  get  at  the  genuine  English  tal- 
ent —  a  deep  sympathy  with  nature 
and  life.  Wycherley  possessed  that 
lucid  and  vigorous  perspicacity  which 
in  any  particular  situation  seizes  upon 
gesture,  physical  expression,  evident 
detail,  which  pierces,  to  the  depth  of 
the  crude  and  base,  which  hits  off,  not 
men  in  general,  and  passion  as  it 
ought  to  be,  but  an  individual  man, 
and  passion  as  it  is.  He  is  a  realist, 

ais  que  vous  sussiez  ;  mais  je  ne  sais  comment 
faire  pour  vous  les  dire,  et  je  me  dene  de  mes 
paroles,"  etc.  Observe  how  Wycherley  trans- 
lates it  :  "  Dear,  sweet  Mr.  Homer,  my  hus- 
band would  have  me  send  you  a  base,  rude,  un- 
mannerly letter  ;  but  I  won't — and  would  have 
me  forbid  you  loving  me  ;  but  I  won't — and 
would  have  me  say  to  you,  I  hate  you,  poor 
Mr.  Homer  ;  but  I  won't  tell  a  lie  for  him — for 
I'm  sure  if  you  and  I  were  in  the  country  at 
cards  together,  I  could  not  help  treading  on 
your  toe  under  the  table,  or  rubbing  knees  with 
you,  and  staring  in  your  face,  till  you  saw  me, 
and  then  looking  down,  and  blushing  for  an 
hour  together,"  etc. — Country  Wife^  iv.  2. 
*  In  the  Gentleman  Dancing- Master. 


not  of  set  purpose,  as  the  realists  of 
our  day,  but  naturall) .  In  a  violent 
manner  he  lays  on  his  plaster  over  the 
grinning  and  pimpled  faces  of  his  ras 
cals,  in  order  to  bring  before  our  very 
eyes  the  stern  mask  to  which  the  living 
imprint  of  their  ugliness  has  stuck  on 
the  way.  He  crams  his  plays  with  in- 
cident, he  multiplies  action,  he  pushes 
comedy  to  the  verge  of  dramatic  effect ; 
he  hustles  his  characters  amidst  sur- 
prises and  violence,  and  all  but  stulti- 
fies them  in  order  to  exaggerate  his 
satire.  Observe  in  Olivia,  a  copy  of 
Celimene,  the  fury  of  the  passions 
which  he  depicts.  She  describes  her 
friends  as  does  Celimene,  but  with 
what  insults !  Novel,  a  coxcomb,  says : 

"  Madam,  I  have  been  treated  to-day  with 
all  the  ceremony  and  kindness  imaginable  at  my 
lady  Autumn's.  But  the  nauseous  old  woman 
at  the  upper  end  of  the  table  '  .  .  . 

Olivia :  "  Revives  the  old  Grecian  custom, 
of  serving  in  a  death's  head  with  their  banquets. 
...  I  detest  her  hollow  cherry  cheeks  :  she 
looks  like  an  old  coach  new  painted.  .  .  .  She 
is  still  most  splendidly,  gallantly  ugly,  and 
looks  like  an  ill  piece  of  daubing  in  a  rich 
frame."  * 

The  scene  is  borrowed  from  Mo- 
liere's Misanthrope  and  the  Critique  de 
V  Ecole  des  Femmes ;  but  how  trans- 
formed !  Our  modern  nerves  would 
not  endure  the  portrait  Olivia  draws 
of  Manly,  her  lover ;  he  hears  her  un- 
awares ;  she  forthwith  stands  before 
him,  laughs  at  him  to  his  face,  declares 
herself  to  be  married ;  tells  him  she 
means  to  keep  the  diamonds  which  he 
has  given  her,  and  defies  him.  Fidelia 
says  to  her : 

"  But,  madam,  what  could  make   you  di- 
semble  love  to  him,  when  'twas  so  hard  a  thing 
for  you  ;  and  flatter  his  love  to  you  ?  " 

Olivia.  "  That  which  makes  all  the  world 
flatter  and  dissemble,  'twas  his  money :  I  had 
a  real  passion  for  that.  ...  As  soon  as  I  had 
his  money,  I  hastened  his  departure  like  a  wife, 
who  when  she  has  made  the  most  of  a  dying 
husband's  breath,  pulls  away  his  pillow."  t 

The  last  phrase  is  rather  that  of  a  mo- 
rose satirist  than  of  an  accurate  ob- 
server. The  woman's  impudence  is 
like  a  professed  courtesan's.  In  love 
at  first  sight  with  Fidelia,  whom  she 
takes  for  a  young  man,  she  hangs  upon 
her  neck,  "  stuffs  her  with  kisses," 
gropes  about  in  the  dark,  crying, 
"  Where  are  thy  lips  ?  "  There  is  a 

*  The  Plain  Dealer,  ii.  i.        t  Ibid.  iv.  2.^ 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III, 


kind  of  animal  ferocity  in  her  love. 
She  sends  her  husband  off  by  an  im- 
provised comedy  ;  then  skipping  about 
like  a  dancing  girl  cries  out :  "  Go, 
husband,  and  come  up,  friend ;  just 
the  buckets  in  the  well ;  the  absence 
of  one  brings  the  other."  "  But  I  hope, 
like  them,  too,  they  will  not  meet  in  the 
way,  jostle,  and  clash  together/'*  Sur- 
prised in  flagrante  delicto,  and  having 
confessed  all  to  her  cousin,  as  soon  as 
she  sees  a  chance  of  safety,  she  swal- 
lows her  avowal  with  the  effrontery  of 
an  actress  : — 

"  Eliza.  Well,  cousin,  this,  I  confess,  was 
reasonable  hypocrisy  ;  you  were  the  better 
for  't. 

Olivia.  What  hypocrisy  ? 

E.  Why,  this  last  deceit  of  your  husband 
was  lawful,  since  in  your  own  defence. 

O.  What  deceit?  I'd  have  you  know  I  never 
deceived  my  husband. 

E.  You  do  not  understand  me,  sure  ;  I  say, 
this  was  an  honest  come-off,  and  a  good  one. 
But  'twas  a  sign  your  gallant  had  had  enough 
of  your  conversation,  since  he  could  so  dexter- 
ously cheat  your  husband  in  passing  for  a 
woman. 

O.  What  d'ye  mean,  once  more,  with  my  gal- 
lant, and  passing  for  a  woman  ? 

E.  What  do  you  mean  ?  you  see  your  hus- 
band took  him  for  a  woman  I 

O.  Whom? 

E.  Heyday !  why,  the  man  he  found  with.  .  . 

O.  Lord,  you  rave  sure ! 

E.  Why,  did  you  not  tell  me  last  night.  .  .  . 
Fy,  this  fooling  is  so  insipid,  'tis  offensive. 

O.  And  fooling  with  my  honour  will  be  more 
offensive.  .  .  . 

E.  O  admirable  confidence !  .  .  . 

O.  Confidence,  to  me  !  to  me  such  language  ! 
nay,  then  I'll  never  see  your  face  again.  .  •  . 
Lettice,  where  are  you  ?  Let  us  begone  from 
this  censorious  ill  woman.  .  .  . 

E.  One  word  first,  pray,  madam  ;  can  you 
swear  that  whom  your  husband  found  you 
with  .  .  . 

O'  Swear!  ay,  that  whosoever  'twas  that 
stole  up,  unknown,  into  my  room,  when  'twas 
dark,  I  know  not,  whether  man  or  woman,  by 
heavens,  by  all  that's  good  ;  or,  may  I  never 
more  have  joys  here,  or  in  the  other  world ! 
Nay,  may  I  eternally — 

E.  Be  damned.  So,  so,  you  are  damned 
enough  already  by  your  oaths.  .  .  .  Yet  take 
this  advice  with  you?  in  this  plain-dealing  age, 
to  leave  off  forswearing  yourself.  .  .  . 

O.  O  hideous,  hideous  advice  !  let  us  go  out 
Df  the  hearing  of  it.  She  will  spoil  us,  Let- 
tice." t 

Here  is  animation ;  and  if  I  dared  to 
relate  the  boldness  and  the  assevera- 
tion in  the  night  scene,  it  would  easily 
appear  that  Mme.  Marneffe  J  had  a 
sister,  and  Balzac  a  predecessor. 

*  The  Plain  Dealer ;  iv.  2.        t  Ibid.  v.  i. 
t  See  note,  ante^  page  35. 


There  is  a  character  who  shows  in 
a  concise  manner  Wycherley's  talent 
and  his  morality,  wholly  formed  of 
energy  and  indelicacy, — Manly,  the 
"  plain  dealer,"  so  manifestly  the  au- 
thor's  favorite,  that  his  contemporaries 
gave  him  the  name  of  his  hero  for  a 
surname.  Manly  is  copied  after  Alceste, 
and  the  great  difference  between  the 
two  heroes  shows  the  difference  between 
the  two  societies  and  the  two  coun- 
tries.* Manly  is  not  a  courtier,  but  a 
ship-captain,  with  the  bearing  of  a  sail- 
or of  the  time,  his  cloak  stained  with 
tar,  and  smelling  of  brandy,  t  ready 
with  blows  or  foul  oaths,  calling  those 
he  came  across  dogs  and  slaves,  and 
when  they  displeased  him,  kicking  them 
down  stairs.  And  he  speaks  in  this 
fashion  to  a  lord  with  a  voice  like  a 
mastiff.  Then,  when  the  poor  noble- 
man tries  to  whisper  something  in  his 
ear,  "  My  lord,  all  that  you  have  made 
me  know  by  your  whispering  which  I 
knew  not  before,  is  that  you  have  a 
stinking  breath  ;  there's  a  secret  for 
your  secret."  When  he  is  in  Olivia's 
drawing-room,  with  "these  fluttering 
parrots  of  the  town,  these  apes,  these 
echoes  of  men,"  he  bawls  out  as  if 
he  were  on  his  quarter-deck,  "  Peace, 
you  Bartholomew  fair  buffoons !  "  He 
seizes  them  by  the  collar,  and  says  : 
"  Why,  you  impudent,  pitiful  wretches, 
.  .  .  you  are  in  all  things  so  like 
women,  that  you  may  think  it  in  me  a 
kind  of  cowardice  to  beat  you.  Begone,  I 
say.  .  .  .  No  chattering,  baboons  ;  in- 
stantly begone,  or "  .  .  .  Then  he 
turns  them  out  of  the  room.  These 
are  the  manners  of  a  plain-dealing  man. 
He  has  been  ruined  by  Olivia,  whom  he 
loves,  and  who  dismisses  him.  Poor 
Fidelia,disguised  as  a  man,and  whom  he 

*  Compare  with  the  sayings  of  Alceste,  in 
Moliere's  Misanthrope,  such  tirades  as  this: 
"  Such  as  you,  like  common  whores  and  pick- 

Eockets,  are  only  dangerous  to  those  you  em- 
race."  And  with  the  character  of  Philinte,  in 
the  same  French  play,  such  phrases  as  these  : 
"  But,  faith,  could  you  think  I  was  a  friend  to 
those  I  hugged,  kissed,  flattered,  bowed  to  ? 
When  their  backs  were  turned,  did  not  I  tell 
you  they  were  rogues,  villains,  rascals,  whom  I 
despised  and  hated  ?  " 

t  Olivia  says :  "  Then  shall  I  have  again  my 
alcove  smell  like  a  cabin,  my  chamber  perfumed 
with  his  tarpaulin  Brandenburgh  ;  and  hear 
vollies  of  brandy-sighs,  enough  to  make  a  fog 
in  one's  room." — The  Plain  Dealer,  ii.  i. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


329 


takes  for  a  timid  youth,  comes  and  finds 
him  while  he  is  fretting  with  anger  : 

"  Fidelia.  I  warrant  you,  sir  ;  for,  at  worst, 
I  could  beg  or  steal  for  you. 

Manly.  Nay,  more  bragging  I  ...  You  said 
you'd  beg  for  me. 

F.   I  did,  sir. 

M.  Then  you  shall  beg  for  me 

F.  With  all  my  heart,  sir. 

M.  That  is,  pimp  for  me. 

F.  How,  sir? 

M.  D'ye  start  ?  .  .  .  No  more  dissembling  : 
here  (I  say,)  you  must  go  use  it  for  me  to  Oli- 
via. .  .  .  Go,  flatter,  lie,  kneel,  promise,  any- 
thing to  get  her  for  me  :  I  cannot  live  unless  I 
have  her."  * 

And  when  Fidelia  returns  to  him,  say- 
ing that  Olivia  has  embraced  her,  by 
force,  in  a  fit  of  love,  he  exclaims ; 
*'  Her  love  !  —  a  whore's,  a  witch's 
love  ! — But  what,  did  she  not  kiss  well, 
sir  ?  I'm  sure,  I  thought  her  lips — but 
I  must  not  think  of  'em  more — but 
yet  they  are  such  I  could  still  kiss, — 
grow  to, — and  then  tear  off  with  my 
teeth,  grind  'em  into  mammocks,  and 
spit  'em  into  her  cuckold's  face."  t 
These  savage  words  indicate  savage 
actions.  He  goes  by  night  to  enter 
Olivia's  house  with  Fidelia,  and  under 
her  name  ;  and  Fidelia  tries  to  pre- 
vent him,  through  jealousy.  Then  his 
blood  boils,  a  storm  of  fury  mounts  to 
his  face,  and  he  speaks  to  her  in  a 
whispering,  hissing  voice  :  "  What,  you 
are  my  rival,  then  !  and  therefore  you 
shall  stay,  and  keep  the  door  for  me, 
whilst  I  go  in  for  you ;  but  when  I'm 
gone,  if  you  dare  to  stir  off  from  this 
very  board,  or  breathe  the  least  mur- 
muring accent,  I'll  cut  her  throat  first ; 
and  if  you  love  her,  you  will  not  ven- 
ture her  life. — Nay,  then  I'll  cut  your 
throat  too,  and  I  know  you  love  your  own 
life  at  least.  .  .  .  Not  a  word  more,  lest 
I  begin  my  revenge  on  her  by  killing 
you."  J  He  knocks  over  Olivia's  hus- 
band, another  traitor  seizes  from  her 
the  casket  of  jewels  he  had  given  her, 
casts  her  one  or  two  of  them,  saying, 
"  Here,  madam,  I  never  yet  left  my 
wench  unpaid,"  and  gives  this  same 
casket  to  Fidelia,  whom  he  marries.  All 
these  actions  then  appeared  natural. 
Wycherley  took  to  himself  in  his  dedi- 
cation the  title  of  his  hero,  Plain  Deal- 
er; he  fancied  he  had  drawn  the  portrait 
of  a  frank,  honest  man,  and  praised 

*  The  Plain  Dealer,  iii.  i. 

t  Ibid.  iv.  i.  t  Ibid.  iv.  2. 


himself  for  having  set  the  public  a  fine 
example ;  he  has  only  given  them  the 
model  of  an  unreserved  and  energetic 
brute.  That  was  all  the  manliness  that 
was  left  in  this  pitiable  world.  Wych- 
erly  deprived  man  of  his  ill-fitting 
French  cloak,  and  displayed  him  with 
his  framework  of  muscles,  and  in  his 
naked  shamelessness. 

And  in  the  midst  of  all  these,  a  great 
poet,  blind,  and  sunk  into  obscurity, 
his  soul  saddened  by  the  misery  of  tt  e 
times,  thus  depicted  the  madness  of  the 
infernal  rout : 

"  Belial  came  last,  than  whom  a  spirit  more 

lewd 

Fell  not  from  heaven,  or  more  gross  to  love 
Vice  for  itself  .  .  .  whc  more  oft  than  he 
In  temples  and  at  altars,  when  the  priest 
Turns  atheist,  as  did  Eli's  sons,  who  fill'd 
With  lust  and  violence  the  house  of  God? 
In  courts  and  palaces  he  also  reigns, 
And  in  luxurious  cities,  where  the  noise 
Of  riot  ascends  above  their  loftiest  towers, 
And  injury,  and  outrage  :  and  when  night 
Darkens  the  streets,  then  wander  forth  the 

sons 
Of  Belial,  flown  with  insolence  and  wine."  * 

2.  THE  WORLDLINGS. 

I. 

IN  the  seventeenth  century  a  new 
mode  of  life  was  inaugurated  in  Europe, 
the  worldly,  which  soon  took  the  lead 
of  and  shaped  every  other.  In  France 
especially,  and  in  England,  it  appeared 
and  gained  ground,  from  the  same 
causes  and  at  the  same  time. 

In  order  to  people  the  drawing- 
rooms,  a  certain  political  condition  is 
necessary;  and  this  condition,  which  is 
the  supremacy  of  the  king  in  combina- 
tion with  a  regular  system  of  police, 
was  established  at  the  same  period  on 
both  sides  of  the  Channel.  A  regular 
police  brings  about  peace  among  men, 
draws  them  out  of  their  feudal  inde- 
pendence and  provincial  isolation,  in- 
creases and  facilitates  intercommuni- 
cation, confidence,  union,  comfort,  and 
pleasures.  The  kingly  supremacy 
calls  into  existence  a  court,  the  centre 
of  intercourse,  from  which  all  favors 
flow,  and  which  calls  for  a  display  of 
pleasure  and  splendor.  The  aristoc- 
racy thus  attracted  to  one  another, 
and  attracted  to  the  throne  by  securi- 
ty, curiosity,  amusement,  and  interest, 
*  Paradise  Lost,  book  i.  /.  490-502. 


330 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


meet  together,  and  become  at  once 
men  of  the  world  and  men  of  the  court. 
They  are  no  longer,  like  the  barons 
ot  a  preceding  age,  standing  in  their 
lofty  halls,  armed  and  stern,  possessed 
by  the  idea  that  they  might  perhaps, 
when  they  quit  their  palace,  cut  each 
other  to  pieces,  and  that  if  they  fall  to 
blows  in  the  precincts  of  the  court,  the 
executioner  is  ready  to  cut  off  their 
hand  and  stop  the  bleeding  with  a  red- 
hot  iron  ;  knowing,  moreover,  that  the 
king  may  probably  have  them  be- 
headed to-morrow,  and  ready  accord- 
ingly to  cast  themselves  on  their  knees 
and  break  out  into  protestations  of 
submissive  fidelity,  but  counting  under 
their  breath  the  number  of  swords  that 
will  be  mustered  on  their  side,  and  the 
tiusty  men  who  keep  sentinel  behind 
the  drawbridge  of  their  castles.*  The 
rights,  privileges,  constraints,  and  at- 
tractions of  feudal  life  have  disappear- 
ed. There  is  no  more  need  that  the 
manor  should  be  a  fortress.  These 
men  can  no  longer  experience  the  joy 
of  reigning  there  as  in  a  petty  state.  It 
has  palled  on  them,  and  they  quit  it. 
Having  no  further  cause  to  quarrel 
with  the  king,  they  go  to  him.  His 
court  is  a  drawing-room,  most  agree- 
able to  the  sight,  and  most  serviceable  to 
those  who  frequent  it.  Here  are  festivi- 
ties, splendid  furniture,  a  decked  and 
select  company,  news,  and  tittle-tattle  ; 
here  they  find  pensions,  titles,  places  for 
themselves  and  their  friends  ;  they  re- 
ceive amusement  and  profit;  it  is  all 
gain  and  all  pleasure.  Here  they  at- 
tend the  levee,  are  present  at  dinners, 
return  to  the  ball,  sit  down  to  play,  are 
there  when  the  king  goes  to  bed.  Here 
they  cut  a  dash  with  their  half-French 
dress,  their  wigs,  their  hats  loaded 
with  feathers,  their  trunk-hose,  their 
cannions,  the  large  rosettes  on  their 
shoes.  The  ladies  paint  and  patch 
their  faces,  display  robes  of  magnificent 
satin  and  velvet,  laced  up  with  silver 
and  very  long,  and  above  you  may  see 
their  white  busts,  whose  brilliant  naked- 
ness is  extended  to  their  shoulders  and 
arms.  They  are  gazed  upon,  saluted, 
approached.  The  king  rides  on  horse- 
back in  Hyde  Park  ;  by  his  side  -canter 
the  queen,  and  with  her  the  two  mis- 
tresses, Lady  Castlemaine  and  Mrs. 
*  Consult  all  Shakspeare's  historical  plays. 


Stewart:  "tie  queen  in  a  white-laced 
waistcoate  and  a  crimson  short  petty- 
coate,  and  her  hair  dressed  a  la  negli- 
gence ;  .  .  Mrs.  Stewart  with  her  hat 
cocked  and  a  red  plume,  with  her 
sweet  eye,  little  Roman  nose,  and  ex 
cellent  taille."  *  Then  they  returned 
to  Whitehall  "where  all  the  ladies 
walked,  talking  and  fiddling  with  their 
hats  and  feathers,  and  changing  and 
trying  one  another's  by  one  another's 
heads,  and  laughing."  \  In  such  fine 
company  there  was  no  lack  of  gallantry. 
Perfumed  gloves,  pocket  mirrors,  work- 
cases  fitted  up,  apricot  paste,  essences, 
and  other  little  love-tokens,  came  over 
every  week  from  Paris.  London  furnish- 
ed more  substantial  gifts,  ear-rings,  dia- 
monds, brilliants,  and  golden  guineas  : 
the  fair  ones  put  up  with  these,  as  if  they 
had  come  from  a  greater  distance.  { 
There  were  plenty  of  intrigues — Heav- 
en knows  how  many  or  of  what  kind. 
Naturally,  also,  conversation  does  not 
stop.  They  did  not  mince  the  adven- 
tures of  Miss  Warmestre  the  haughty 
who,  "  deceived  apparently  by  a  bad 
reckoning,  took  the  liberty  of  lying-in  in 
the  midst  of  the  court. "§  They  spoke 
in  whispers  about  the  attempts  of  Miss 
Hobart,  or  the  happy  misfortune  of 
Miss  Churchill,  who,  being  very  plain, 
but  having  the  wit  to  fall  from  her 
horse,  touched  the  eyes  and  heart  of 
the  Duke  of  York.  The  Chevalier  de 
Grammont  relates  to  the  king  the  his- 
tory of  Termes,  or  of  Poussatin  the 
almoner  :  every  one  leaves  the  dance 
to  hear  it  ;  and  when  it  is  over  they 
all  burst  out  laughing.  We  perceive 
that  this  is  not  the  world  of  Louis  XIV., 
and  yet  it  is  a  world  ;  and  if  it  has  more 
froth,  it  runs  with  the  identical  current. 
The  great  object  here  also  is  selfish 
amusement,  and  to  put  on  appear- 
ances ;  people  strive  to  be  men  of 
fashion  ;  a  coat  bestows  a  certain  kind 
of  glory  on  its  wearer.  De  Grammont 
was  in  despair  when  the  roguery  of  his 
valet  obliged  him  to  wear  the  same 
suit  twice  over.  Another  courtier 
piques  himself  on  his  songs  and  his 
guitar-playing.  "  Russell  had  a  collec- 
tion of  two  or  three  hundred  quadrilles 
in  tablature,  all  of  which  he  used  to 

*  Pepys1  Diary,  ii.  July  13,  1663.  t  Ibid. 
%  M&moires  de  Grammont^  by  A.  Hamilton 
§  Ibid.  ch.  he. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


33' 


dance  without  ever  having  studied 
them."  Jermyn  was  known  for  his 
success  with  the  fair.  "  A  gentleman," 
said  Etherege,  "ought  to  dress  well, 
dance  well,  fence  well,  have  a  talent 
lor  love-letters,  a  pleasant  voice  in  a 
room,  to  be  always  very  amorous,  suf- 
ficiently discreet,  but  not  too  constant." 
These  are  already  the  court  manners 
as  they  continued  in  France  up  to  the 
time  of  Louis  XVI.  With  such  man- 
ners, words  take  the  place  of  deeds. 
Life  is  passed  in  visits  and  conversation. 
The  art  of  conversing  became  the  chief 
of  all ;  of  course  to  converse  agreeably, 
to  fill  up  an  idle  hour,  on  twenty  sub- 
jects in  an  hour,  hinting  always,  with- 
out going  deep,  in  such  a  fashion  that 
conversation  should  not  be  a  labor,  but 
a  promenade.  It  was  followed  up  by 
letters  written  in  the  evening,  by 
madrigals  or  epigrams  to  be  read  in  the 
morning,  by  drawing-room  tragedies,  or 
caricatures  of  society.  In  this  manner 
a  new  literature  was  produced,  the 
work  and  the  portrait  of  the  world 
which  was  at  once  its  audience  and  its 
model,  which  sprung  from  it,  and  ended 
in  it. 

II. 

The  art  of  conversation  being  then  a 
necessity,  people  set  themselves  to  ac- 
quire it.  A  revolution  was  effected  in 
mind  as  well  as  in  manners.  As  soon 
as  circumstances  assume  new  aspects, 
thought  assumes  a  new  form.  The 
Renaissance  is  ended,  the  Classic  Age 
begins,  and  the  artist  makes  room  for 
the  author.  Man  is  returned  from  his 
first  voyage  round  the  world  of  facts  ; 
enthusiasm,  the  labor  of  a  troubled 
imagination,  the  tumultuous  crowding 
of  new  ideas,  all  the  faculties  which  a 
first  discovery  calls  into  play,  have  be- 
come satiated,  then  depressed.  The 
incentive  is  blunted,  because  the  work 
is  done.  The  eccentricities,  the  far 
vistas,  the  unbridled  originality,  the  all- 
powerful  flights  of  genius  aimed  at  the 
centre  of  truth  through  the  extremes  of 
folly,  all  the  characteristics  of  grand 
inventive  genius  have  disappeared. 
The  imagination  is  tempered;  the 
mind  is  disciplined  :  it  retraces  its 
steps ;  it  walks  its  own  domain  once 
more  with  a  satisfied  curiosity,  an  ac- 
quired experience.  Judgment,  as  it 


were,  chews  the  cud  and  corrects  itself. 
It  finds  a  religion,  an  art,  a  philosophy, 
to  reform  or  to  form  anew.  It  is  no 
longer  the  minister  of  inspired  intui 
tion,  but  of  a  regular  process  of  do 
composition.  It  no  longer  feels  01 
looks  for  generalities ;  it  handles  and 
observes  specialties.  It  selects  and 
classifies  ;  it  refines  and  regulates.  It 
ceases  to  be  a  creator,  and  becomes  a 
discourser.  It  quits  the  province  of 
invention  and  settles  down  into  criti- 
cism. It  enters  upon  that  magnificent 
and  confused  aggregate  of  dogmas  and 
forms,  in  which  the  preceding  age  has 
gathered  up  indiscriminately  its  dreams 
and  discoveries ;  it  draws  thence  the 
ideas  which  it  modifies  and  verifies. 
It  arranges  them  in  long  chains  of  sim- 
ple ratiocination,  which  descend  link 
by  link  to  the  vulgar  apprehension. 
It  expresses  them  in  exact  terms,  which 
present  a  graduated  series,  step  by 
step,  to  the  vulgar  reasoning  power. 
It  marks  out  in  the  entire  field  of 
thought  a  series  of  compartments  and 
a  network  of  passages,  which,  ex- 
cluding all  error  and  digression,  lead 
gradually  every  mind  to  every  object. 
It  becomes  at  last  clear,  convenient, 
charming.  And  the  world  lends  its 
aid ;  contingent  circumstances  finish 
the  natural  revolution  ;  the  taste  be- 
comes changed  through  a  declivity  of 
its  own,  but  also  through  the  influence 
of  the  court.  When  conversation  be- 
comes the  chief  business  of  life,  it  mod- 
ifies style  after  its  own  image,  and  ac- 
cording to  its  peculiar  needs.  It  repu- 
diates digression,  excessive  metaphor, 
impassioned  exclamations,  all  loose 
and  overstrained  ways.  We  cannot 
bawl,  gesticulate,  dream  aloud,  in  a 
drawing-room;  we  restrain  ourselves  ; 
we  criticise  and  keep  watch  over  our- 
selves ;  we  pass  the  time  in  narration 
and  discussion  ;  we  stand  in  need  of 
concise  expression,  exact  language, 
clear  and  connected  reasoning  ;  other- 
wise we  cannot  fence  or  comprehend 
each  other.  Correct  style,  good  lan- 
guage, conversation,  are  self-generated, 
and  very  quickly  perfected ;  for  re- 
finement is  the  aim  of  the  man  of  trie 
world  :  he  studies  to  render  every  thing 
more  becoming  and  more  serviceable, 
his  furniture  and  his  speech,  his  periods 
and  his  dress.  Art  and  artifice  are 


332 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


there  the  distinguishing  mark.  People 
pride  themselves  on  being  perfect  in 
their  mother  tongue,  never  to  miss  the 
correct  sense  of .  any  word,  to  avoid 
vulgar  expressions,  to  string  together 
their  antitheses,  to  develop  their 
thoughts,  to  employ  rhetoric.  Noth- 
ing is  more  marked  than  the  contrast 
of  the  conversations  of  Shakspeare 
and  Fletcher  with  those  of  Wycherley 
and  Congreve.  In  Shakspeare  the 
dialogue  resembles  an  assault  of  arms  ; 
we  could  imagine  men  of  skill  fencing 
with  words  and  gestures  as  it  were  in 
a  fencing-school.  They  play  the  buf- 
foon, sing,  think  aloud,  burst  out  into 
a  laugh,  into  puns,  into  fishwomen's 
talk  and  into  poet's  talk,  into  quaint 
whimsicalities  ;  they  have  a  taste  for 
the  ridiculous,  the  sparkling ;  one  of 
them  dances  while  he  speaks ;  they 
would  willingly  walk  on  their  hands  ; 
there  is  not  one  grain  of  calculation  to 
more  than  three  grains  of  folly  in  their 
heads.  In  Wycherley,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  characters  are  steady ;  they 
reason  and  dispute  ;  ratiocination  is 
the  basis  of  their  style;  they  are  so 
perfect  that  the  thing  is  overdone,  and 
we  see  through  it  all  the  author  string- 
ing his  phrases.  They  arrange  a  tab- 
leau, multiply  ingenious  comparisons, 
balance  well -ordered  periods.  One 
character  delivers  a  satire,  another 
serves  up  a  little  essay  on  morality. 
We  might  draw  from  the  comedies  of 
the  time  a  volume  of  sentences ;  they 
are  charged  with  literary  morsels  which 
foreshadow  the  Spectator*  They  hunt 
for  clever  and  suitable  expressions, 
they  clothe  indecent  circumstances 
with  decent  words ;  they  glide  swiftly 
over  the  fragile  ice  of  decorum,  and 
scratch  the  surface  without  breaking  it. 
I  see  gentlemen,  seated  in  gilt  arm- 
chairs, of  quiet  wit  and  studied  speech, 
cool  in  observation,  eloquent  skeptics, 
expert  in  the  fashions,  lovers  of  ele- 
gance, liking  fine  talk  as  much  from 
vanity  as  from  taste,  who,  while  con- 
versing between  a  compliment  and  a 
reverence,  will  no  more  neglect  their 
good  style  than  their  neat  gloves  or 
their  hat 

III. 

Amongst  the  best  and  most  agreeable 
*  Take,   for    example,    Farquhar's    Beaux 
Stratagem,  ii.  i. 


specimens  of  this  new  refinement,  ap 
pears  Sir  William  Temple,  a  diploma- 
tist and  man  of  the  world,  cautious, 
prudent,  and  polite,  gifted  with  tact  in 
conversation  and  in  business,  expert  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  times,  and  in  the 
art  of  not  compromising  himself,  adroit 
in  pressing  forward  and  in  standing 
aside,  who  knew  how  to  attract  to  him- 
self the  favor  and  the  expectations  of 
England,  to  obtain  the  eulogies  of  men 
of  letters,  of  savants,  of  politicians,  of 
the  people,  to  gain  a  European  reputa- 
tion, to  win  all  the  crowns  appropriated 
to  science,  patriotism,  virtue,  genius, 
without  having  too  much  of  science, 
patriotism,  genius,  or  virtue.  Such  a 
life  is  the  masterpiece  of  that  age  :  fine 
externals  on  a  foundation  not  so  fine ; 
this  is  its  abstract.  His  manner  as  an 
author  agrees  with  his  maxims  as  a 
politician.  His  principles  and  style  are 
homogeneous ;  a  genuine  diplomatist, 
such  as  one  meets  in  the  drawing-rooms, 
having  probed  Europe  and  touched 
everywhere  the  bottom  of  things  ;  tired 
of  every  thing,  specially  of  enthusiasm, 
admirable  in  an  arm-chair  or  at  a  levee, 
a  good  story-teller,  waggish  if  need 
were,  but  in  moderation,  accomplished 
in  the  art  of  maintaining  the  dignity  of 
his  station  and  of  enjoying  himself.  In 
his  retreat  at  Sheen,  afterwards  at 
Moor  Park,  he  employs  his  leisure  in 
writing ;  and  he  writes  as  a  man  of  his 
rank  would  speak,  very  well,  that  is  to 
say,  with  dignity  and  facility,  particu- 
larly when  he  writes  of  the  countries  he 
has  visited,  of  the  incidents  he  has  seen, 
the  noble  amusements  which  serve  to 
pass  his  time.*  He  has  an  income  of 
fifteen  hundred  a  year,  and  a  nice  sine- 
cure in  Ireland.  He  retired  from  pub- 
lic life  during  momentous  struggles, 
siding  neither  with  the  king  nor  against 
him,  resolved,  as  he  tells  us  himself, 
not  to  set  himself  against  the  current 
when  the  current  is  irresistible.  He  lives 

:eacefully  in  the  country  with  his  wife, 
is  sister,  his  secretary,  his  dependants, 
receiving  the  visits  of  strangers,  who  are 
anxious  to  see  the  negotiator  of  theTriple 
Alliance, and.sometimes  of  the  new  King 
William,  who  unable  to  obtain  his  servi- 
ces, comes  occasionally  to  seek  his  coun- 

*  Consult  especially,  Observations  upon  the 
United  Provinces  of  the  Netherlands  ;  OJ 
Gardening. 


I'- 
ll l 


CHAP.  IJ 


THE  RESTORATION. 


333 


sel.  He  plants  and  gardens,  in  a  fertile 
soil,  in  a  country  the  climate  of  which 
agrees  with  him,  amongst  regular  flower- 
beds, by  the  side  of  a  very  straight  canal, 
bordered  by  a  straight  terrace  ;  and  he 
lauds  himself  in  set  terms,  and  with 
suitable  discreetness,  for  the  character 
he  possesses  and  the  part  he  has  cho- 
sen : — "  I  have  often  wondered  how 
such  sharp  and  violent  invectives  come 
to  be  made  so  generally  against  Epi- 
curus, by  the  ages  that  followed  him, 
whose  admirable  wit,  felicity  of  expres- 
sion, excellence  of  nature,  sweetness  of 
conversation,  temperance  of  life  and 
constancy  of  death  made  him  so  beloved 
by  his  friends,  admired  by  his  scholars, 
and  honored  by  the  Athenians."  *  He 
does  well  to  defend  Epicurus,  because 
he  has  followed  his  precepts,  avoiding 
every  great  confusion  of  the  mind, 
and  installing  himself,  like  one  of  Lucre- 
tius' gods,  in  the  interspace  of  worlds ; 
as  he  says  :  "  Where  factions  were 
once  entered  and  rooted  in  a  state,  they 
thought  it  madness  for  good  men  to 
meddle  with  public  affairs."  And 
again  :  "  The  true  service  of  the  public 
is  a  business  of  so  much  labor  and  so 
much  care,  that  though  a  good  and  wise 
man  may  not  refuse  it,  if  he  be  called 
to  it  by  his  prince  or  his  country,  and 
thinks  he  may  be  of  more  than  vulgar 
use,  yet  he  will  seldom  or  never  seek  it ; 
but  leaves  it  commonly  to  men  who, 
under  the  disguise  of  public  good,  pur- 
sue their  own  designs  of  wealth,  power, 
and  such  bastard  honors  as  usually 
attend  them,  not  that  which  is  the  true, 
and  only  true,  reward  of  virtue."  t  This 
is  how  he  ushers  himself  in.  Thus 
presented  to  us,  he  goes  on  to  talk  of  the 
gardening  which  he  practises,  and  first 
ot  the  six  grand  Epicureans  who  have 
illustrated  the  doctrine  of  their  master 
— Caesar,  Atticus,  Lucretius,  Horace, 
Maecenas,  Virgil  ;  then  of  the  various 
sorts  of  gardens  which  have  a  name  in 
the  world,  from  the  garden  of  Eden 
and  the  garden  of  Alcinous,  to  those 
of  Holland  and  Italy ;  and  all  this  at 
seme  length,  like  a  man  who  listens 
to  himself  and  is  listened  to  by  others, 
who  does  rather  profusely  the  honors 
of  his  house  and  of  his  wit  to  his 
guests,  but  does  them  with  grace  and 

*  Temple's  Works:  Of  Gardening,  ii.  100. 
t  Ibid.  184. 


dignity,  not  dogmatically  nor  haugh- 
tily, but  in  varied  tones,  aptly  modu- 
lating his  voice  and  gestures.  He  re- 
counts the  four  kinds  of  grapes  which 
he  has  introduced  into  England,  and 
confesses  that  he  has  been  extravagant 
yet  does  not  regret  it ;  for  five  years  he 
has  not  once  wished  to  see  London.  He 
intersperses  technical  advice  with  anec- 
dotes ;  whereof  one  relates  to  Charles 
II.,  who  praised  the  English  climate 
above  all  others,  saying  :  "  He  thought 
that  was  the  best  climate,  where  he 
could  be  abroad  in  the  air  with  pleas- 
ure, or  at  least  without  trouble  or  in- 
convenience, most  days  of  the  year,  and 
most  hours  of  the  day."  Another 
about  the  Bishop  of  Munster,  who,  un- 
able to  grow  any  thing  but  cherries  in 
his  orchard,  had  collected  all  varieties, 
and  so  perfected  the  trees  that  he  had 
fruit  from  May  to  September.  The 
reader  feels  an  inward  gratification 
when  he  hears  an  eyewitness  relate 
minute  details  of  such  great  men.  Our 
attention  is  aroused  immediately  ;  we 
in  consequence  imagine  ourselves  deni- 
zens of  the  court,  and  smile  complacent- 
ly ;  no  matter  if  the  details  be  slender, 
they  serve  passably  well,  they  consti- 
tute "  a  half  hour  with  the  aristocracy." 
like  a  lordly  way  of  taking  snutf,  or 
shaking  the  lace  of  one's  ruffles.  Such 
is  the  interest  of  courtly  conversation  ; 
it  can  be  held  about  nothing  ;  the  ex- 
cellence of  the  manner  lends  this  no- 
thing a  peculiar  charm ;  you  hear  the 
sound  of  the  voice,  you  are  amused  by 
the  half  smile,  abandon  yourself  to  the 
fluent  stream,  forget  that  these  are 
ordinary  ideas ;  you  observe  the  nar- 
rator, his  peculiar  breeches,  the  cane 
he  toys  with,  the  be-ribboned  shoes,  his 
easy  walk  over  the  smooth  gravel  of 
his  garden  paths  between  the  faultless 
hedges;  the  ear,  the  mind  even  is  charm- 
ed, captivated  by  the  appropriateness 
of  his  diction,  by  the  abundance  of  his 
ornate  periods,  by  the  dignity  and  ful- 
ness of  a  style  which  is  involuntarily 
regular,  which,  at  first  artificial,  like 
good  breeding,  ends,  like  true  good 
breeding,  by  being  changed  into  a  reaj 
necessity  and  a  natural  talent. 

Unfortunately,  this  talent  occasionally 
leads  to  blunders  ;  when  a  man  speaks 
well  about  every  thing,  he  thinks  he  has 
a  right  to  speak  of  every  thing.  He 


334 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


plays  the  philosopher,  the  critic,  even 
the  man  of  learning ;  and  indeed  be- 
comes so  actually,  at  4east  with  the 
ladies.  Such  a  man  writes,  like  Tem- 
ple, Essays  on  the  Nature  of  Government, 
on  Heroic  Virtue,  *  on  Poetry  ;  that  is, 
little  treatises  on  society,  on  the  beauti- 
ful, on  the  philosophy  of  history.  He 
is  the  Locke,  the  Herder,  the  Bentley 
of  the  drawing-room,  and  nothing  else. 
Now  and  then,  doubtless,  his  mother 
wit  leads  him  to  fair  original  judgments. 
Temple  was  the  first  to  discover  a 
Pindaric  glow  in  the  old  chant  of  Rag- 
nai  Lodbrog,  and  to  place  Don  Quix- 
ote in  the  first  rank  of  modern  fictions ; 
moreover,  when  he  handles  a  subject 
within  his  range,  like  the  causes  of  the 
power  and  decline  of  the  Turks,  his 
reasoning  is  admirable.  But  otherwise 
he  is  simply  a  tyro  ;  nay,  in  him  the 
pedant  crops  out,  and  the  worst  of 
pedants,  who,  being  ignorant,  wishes  to 
seem  wise,  who  quotes  the  history  of 
every  land,  hauling  in  Jupiter,  Saturn, 
Osiris,  Fo-hi,  Confucius,  Manco-Capac, 
Mahomet,  and  discourses  on  all  these 
obscure  and  unknown  civilizations,  as  if 
he  had  laboriously  studied  them,  at  the 
fountain  head  and  not  at  second  hand, 
through  the  extracts  of  his  secretary,  or 
the  books  of  others.  One  day  he  came 
to  grief ;  having  plunged  into  a  liter- 
ary dispute,  and  claimed  superiority 
for  the  ancients  over  the  moderns, 
he  imagined  himself  a  Hellenist,  an 
antiquarian,  related  the  voyages  of 
Pythagoras,  the  education  of  Orpheus, 
and  remarked  that  the  Greek  sages 
"  were  commonly  excellent  poets,  and 
great  physicians  :  they  were  so  learned 
in  natural  philosophy,  that  they  fore- 
told not  only  eclipses  in  the  heavens, 
)ut  earthquakes  at  land  and  storms  at 
sea,  great  droughts  and  great  plagues, 
much  plenty  or  much  scarcity  of  cer- 
tain sorts  of  fruits  or  grain;  not  to 
mention  the  magical  powers  attributed 
to  several  of  them,  to  allay  storms,  to 
raise  gales,  to  appease  commotions  of 
people,  to  make  plagues  cease."  t  Ad- 
mirable faculties,  which  we  no  longer 
possess.  Again  he  regretted  the  decay 

*  Compare  this  essay  with  that  of  Carlyle,  on 
Heroes  and  Hero-Worship  ;  the  title  and  sub- 
ject are  similar  ;  it  is  curious  to  note  the  differ- 
ence of  the  two  centuries. 

t  Temple's  Works,  ii. :  An  Essay  upon  the 
Ancient  and  Modern  Learning,  155. 


of  music,  "  by  which  men  and  beasts, 
ishes,  fowls,  and  serpents,  were  so  fre« 
quenlly  enchanted,  and  their  very  na- 
;ures  changed ;  by  which  the  passions 
of  men  were  raised  to  the  greatest 
weight  and  violence,  and  then  as  sud- 
denly appeased,  so  as  they  might  be  just- 
y  said  to  be  turned  into  lions  or  lambs, 
nto  wolves  or  into  harts,  by  the  pow- 
ers and  charms  of  this  admirable  art."  * 
Eie  wished  to  enumerate  the  greatest 
nodern  writers,  and  forgot  to  mention 
n  his  catalogue,  "  amongst  the  Italians, 
Dante,  Petrarch,  Ariosto,  and  Tasso ;  in 
lis  list  of  French,  Pascal,  Bossuet, 
Moliere,  Corneille,  Racine,  and  Boi- 
eau  ;  in  his  list  of  Spaniards,  Lope  and 
Calderon ;  and  in  his  list  of  English, 
Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakspeare,  and 
Milton  ;"  t  though,  by  way  of  compen- 
sation, he  inserted  the  names  of  Pa- 
olo Sarpi,  Guevara,  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
Selden,  Voiture,  and  Bussy-Rabutin, 
"  author  of  the  Histoire  amoureuse  ties 
Gatiles"  To  cap  all,  he  declared  the 
fables  of  yEsop,  which  are  a  dull  Byzan- 
tine compilation,  and  the  letters  of 
Phalaris,  a  wretched  sophistical  for- 
gery, to  be  admirable  and  authentic  : — 
"  It  may  perhaps  be  further  affirmed, 
in  favor  of  the  ancients,  that  the  old- 
est books  we  have  are  still  in  their 
kind  the  best.  The  two  most  ancient 
that  I  know  of  in  prose,  ajnong  those 
we  call  profane  authors,  are  ^Esop's 
Fables  and  Phalaris'  Epistles,  both  liv- 
ing near  the  same  time,  which  was  that 
of  Cyrus  and  Pythagoras.  As  the  first 
has  been  agreed  by  all  ages  since  for 
the  greatest  master  in  his  kind,  and  all 
others  of  that  sort  have  been  but  imita- 
tions of  his  original :  so  I  think  the 
Epistles  of  Phalaris  to  have  more  grace, 
more  spirit,  more  force  of  wit  and  ge- 
nius, than  any  others  I  have  ever  seen, 
either  ancient  or  modern."  And  then, 
in  order  to  commit  himself  beyond 
remedy,  he  gravely  remarked :  "I 
know  several  learned  men  (or  that 
usually  pass  for  such,  under  the  name 
of  critics),  have  not  esteemed  them 
genuine,  and  Politian  with  some  others 
have  attributed  them  to.  Lucian  ;  but  I 
think  he  must  have  little  skill  in  paint- 
ing that  cannot  find  out  this  to  be  an 

*  Ibid.  165. 

t  Macaulay's  Works,  vi.  319:  Essay  on  Sil 
William  TempU. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


335 


original :  such  diversity  of  passions, 
upon  such  variety  of  actions  and  pas- 
sages of  life  and  government,  such 
freedom  of  thought,  such  boldness  of 
expression,  such  bounty  to  his  friends, 
such  scorn  of  his  enemies,  such  honor 
of  learned  men,  such  esteem  of  good, 
such  knowledge  of  life,  such  contempt 
ol  death,  with  such  fierceness  of  nature 
and  cruelty  of  revenge,  could  never  be 
represented  but  by  him  that  possessed 
them  ;  and  I  esteem  Lucian  to  have 
been  no  more  capable  of  writing  than 
uf  acting  what  Phalaris  did.  In  all 
one  writ,  you  find  the  scholar  or  the 
sophist ;  and  in  all  the  other,  the  ty- 
rant and  the  commander."  * 

Fine  rhetoric  truly ;  it  is  sad  that 
a  passage  so  aptly  turned  should  cover 
so  many  stupidities.  All  this  appeared 
very  triumphant ;  and  the  universal  ap- 
plause with  which  this  fine  oratorical 
bombast  was  greeted  demonstrates  the 
taste  and  the  culture,  the  hollowness 
and  the  politeness,  of  the  elegant  world 
of  which  Temple  was  the  marvel,  and 
which,  like  Temple,  loved  only  the  var- 
nish of  truth. 

IV. 

Such  were  the  ornate  and  polished 
manners  which  gradually  pierce  through 
debauchery  and  assume  the  ascend- 
ant. Gradually  the  current  grows 
clearer,  and  marks  out  its  course,  like 
a  stream,  which,  forcibly  entering  a 
new  bed,  moves  with  difficulty  at  first 
through  a  heap  of  mud,  then  pushes 
forward  its  still  murky  waters,  which 
are  purified  little  by  little.  These  de- 
bauchees try  to  be  men  of  the  world, 
and  sometimes  succeed  in  it.  Wycher- 
ley  writes  well,  very  clearly,  without  the 
least  trace  of  euphuism,  almost  in  the 
French  manner.  He  makes  Dapper- 
wit  say  of  Lucy,  in  measured  phrase, 
"She  is  beautiful  without  affectation, 
amorous  without  impertinence,  .  .  .  . 
(rolic  without  rudeness."  t  When  he 
wishes  it  he  is  ingenious,  and  his  gentle- 
men exchange  happy  comparisons. 
"  Mistresses, "  says  one,  "  are  like 
books  :  if  you  pore  upon  them  too  much, 
they  doze  you,  and  make  you  unfit  for 
company  ;  but  if  used  discreetly,  you 
are  the  fitter  for  conversation  by  'em." 

*  An  Essay  upon  the  A ncient  and  Modern 
Learning,  173.  \  Love  in  a  Wood,  iii.  2. 


"  Yes,  "  says  another,  "  a  mistress 
should  be  like  a  little  country  retreat  near 
the  town ;  not  to  dwell  in  constantly, 
but  only  for  a  night  and  away,  to  taste 
the  town  better  when  a  man  returns."  * 
These  folk  have  style,  even  out  of 
place,  often  not  in  accordance  with  the 
situation  or  condition  of  the  persons. 
A  shoemaker  in  one  of  Etherege's 
plays  says  :  "  There  is  never  a  man  in 
the  town  lives  more  like  a  gentleman 
with  his  wife  than  I  do.  I  never  mind 
her  motions  ;  she  never  inquires  into 
mine.  We  speak  to  one  another  civil- 
ly, hate  one  another  heartily."  There 
is  perfect  art  in  this  little  speech ; 
every  thing  is  complete,  even  to  the 
symmetrical  antithesis  of  words,  ideas, 
sounds  :  what  a  fine  talker  is  this  same 
satirical  shoemaker  !  After  a  satire,  a 
madrigal.  In  one  place  a  certain  char- 
acter exclaims,  in  the  very  middle  of  a 
dialogue,  and  in  sober  prose,  "  Pretty 
pouting  lips,  with  a  little  moisture 
hanging  on  them,  that  look  like  the 
Provence  rose  fresh  on  the  bush,  ere 
the  morning  sun  has  quite  drawn  up 
the  dew."  Is  not  this  the  graceful 
gallantry  of  the  court  ?  Rochester 
himself  sometimes  might  furnish  a 
parallel.  Two  or  three  of  his  songs 
are  still  to  be  found  in  the  expurgated 
books  of  extracts  in  use  amongst  mod- 
est young  girls.  It  matters  nothing 
that  such  men  are  really  scamps ,  they 
must  be  every  moment  using  compli- 
ments and  salutations :  before  women 
whom  they  wish  to  seduce  they  are 
compelled  to  warble  tender  words  and 
insipidities  :  they  acknowledge  but  one 
check,  the  necessity  to  appear  well- 
bred  ;  yet  this  check  suffices  to  restrain 
them.  Rochester  is  correct  even  in  the 
midst  of  his  filth  ;  if  he  talks  lewdly, 
it  is  the  able  and  exact  manner  of  Boi- 
leau.  All  these  roisterers  aim  at  be- 
ing wits  and  men  of  the  world.  Sir 
Charles  Sedley  ruins  and  pollutes  him- 
self, but  Charles  II.  calls  him  "  the 
viceroy  of  Apollo."  Buckingham  ex- 
tols "the  magic  of  his  style."  He  is 
the  most  charming,  the  most  sought- 
after  of  talkers  ;  he  makes  puns  and 
verses,  always  agreeable,  sometimes 
refined ;  he  handles  dexterously  the 
pretty  jargon  of  mythology;  he  insinu- 
ates into  his  airy,  flowing  verses  all  the 
*  The  Country  Wife,  i.  i. 


336 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


dainty  and  somewhat  affected  pretti 
nesses  of  the  drawing-room.  He  sing 
thus  to  Chloris : 

"  My  passion  with  your  "beauty  grew, 

While  Cupid  at  my  heart, 
Still  as  his  mother  favour' d  you, 
Threw  a  new  naming  dart." 

And  then  sums  up  : 

"  Each  gloried  in  their  wanton  part: 

To  make  a  lover,  he 
Employ'd  the  utmost  of  his  art ; 
To  make  a  beauty,  she."  * 

There  is  no  love  whatever  in  these 
I  retty  things ;  they  are  received  as 
they  are  presented,  with  a  smile  ;  they 
form  part  of  the  conventional  language 
the  polite  attentions  due  from  gentle- 
men to  ladies.  I  suppose  they  woulc 
send  them  in  the  morning  with  a  nose 
gay,  or  a  box  of  preserved  fruits.  Ros 
common  indites  some  verses  on  a  deac 
lapdog,  on  a  young  lady's  cold;  this 
naughty  cold  prevents  her  singing — 
cursed  be  the  winter !  And  hereupon 
he  takes  the  winter  to  task,  abuses  it 
at  length.  Here  you  have  the  literary 
amusements  of  the  worldling.  They 
first  treat  love,  then  danger,  most  air- 
ily and  gayly.  On  the  eve  of  a  naval 
contest,  Dorset,  at  sea,  amidst  the  pitch- 
ing of  his  vessel,  addresses  a  celebrated 
song  to  the  , ladies.  There  is  nothing 
weighty  in  it,  either  sentiment  or  wit ; 
people  hum  the  couplets  as  they  pass  ; 
they  ejmit  a  gleam  of  gayety  ;  the  next 
mornfcnt  they  are  forgotten.  Dorset  at 
sea  writes  to  the  ladies,  on  the  night 
before  an  engagement  : 

"  Let's  hear  of  no  inconstancy, 
We  have  too  much  of  that  at  sea." 

And  again : 

"  Should  foggy  Opdam  chance  to  know 

Our  sad  and  dismal  story, 
The  Dutch  would  scorn  so  weak  a  foe, 

And  quit  their  fort  at  Goree. 
For  what  resistance  can  they  find 
From  men  who've  left  their  hearts  behind  ?" 

Then  comes  jests  too  much  in  the  Eng- 
Uh  style : 

'  Then  if  we  write  not  by  each  post, 
Think  not  we  are  unkind  ;  .  .  . 
Our  tears  we'll  send  a  speedier  way  ; 
The  tide  shall  bring  them  twice  a  day." 

Such   tears  can  hardly  flow  from  sor- 
row;   the   lady   regards   them   as   the 

*  Sir  Charles  SedleVs  Works,  ed.  Briscoe, 
1778,  2  vols. :   The  Mulberry  Garden,  ii. 


lover  sheds  them,  good-naturedly.  She 
is  "at  a  play  "  (he  thinks  so  and  tells 
her  so)  : 

"  Whilst  you,  regardless  of  our  woe, 

Sit  careless  at  a  play, 
Perhaps  permit  some  happier  man 
To  kiss  your  hand,  or  flirt  your  fan."  * 

Dorset  hardly  troubles  himself  about 
it,  plays  with  poetry  without  excess  or 
assiduity,  just  as  it  flows,  writing  to-day 
a  verse  against  Dorinda,  to-morrow  a 
satire  against  Mr,  Howard,  always 
easily  and  without  study,  like  a  true 
gentleman.  He  is  an  earl,  lord-cham- 
berlain, and  rich;  he  pensions  and 
patronizes  poets  as  he  would  flirts— to 
amuse  himself,  without  binding  him- 
self. The  Duke  of  Buckingham  does 
the  same,  and  also  the  contrary ;  ca- 
resses one  poet,  parodies  another  ;  is 
flattered,  mocked,  and  ends  by  having 
his  portrait  taken  by  Dryden— a  chef- 
cTceuvre,  but  not  flattering.  We  have 
seen  such  pastimes  and  such  bickerings 
in  France ;  we  find  here  the  same 
manners  and  the  same  literature,  be- 
cause we  find  here  also  the  same  socie- 
ty and  the  same  spirit. 

Among  these  poets,  and  in  the  front 
rank,  is  Edmund  Waller,  who  lived 
and  wrote  in  this  manner  to  his  eighty- 
second  year :  a  man  of  wit  and  fash- 
on,  well-bred,  familiar  from  his  youth 
with  great  people,  endued  with  tact 
and  foresight,  quick  at  repartee,  not 
easy  to  put  out  of  countenance,  but 
selfish,  with  hardly  any  feelings,  hav- 
ng  changed  sides  more  than  once,  and 
)earing  very  well  the  memory  of  his 
ergiversations ;  in  short,  a  good  model 
3f  the  worldling  and  the  courtier.  It 
was  he  who,  having  once  praised  Crom- 
vell,  and  afterwards  Charles  II.,  but 
he  latter  more  feebly  than  the  former, 
aid  by  way  of  excuse  ;  "  Poets,  your 
Majesty,  succeed  better  in  fiction  than 
n  truth."  In  this  kind  of  existence, 
hree-quarters  of  the  poetry  is  written 
or  the  occasion  ;  it  is  the  small  change 
f  conversation  or  flattery;  it  resem- 
les the  little  events  or  the  little  senti- 
ments from  which  it  sprang.  One 
)iece  is  written  "  Of  Tea/'  another  on 
be  queen's  portrait ;  it  is  necessary  to 
ay  court ;  moreover  "  His  Majesty 
as  requested  some  verses."  One  lady 

*  Works  of  the  Earls  of  Rochester,  Roscoit* 
non,  and  Dorset,  z  vols.,  1731,  ii.  54. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


337 


makes  him  a  present  of  a  silver  pen, 
straight  he  throws  his  gratitude  into 
rhyme ;  another  has  the  power  of 
sleeping  at  will,  straight  a  sportive 
stanza;  a  false  report  is  spread  of  her 
being  painted,  straight  a  copy  of  verses 
on  this  grave  affair.  A  little  further 
on  there  are  verses  to  the  Countess  of 
Carlisle  on  her  chamber,  condolences 
to  my  Lord  of  Northumberland  on  the 
death  of  his  wife,  a  pretty  thing  on  a 
lady  "  passing  through  a  crowd  of  peo- 
ple," an  answer,  verse  for  verse,  to 
some  rhymes  of  Sir  John  Suckling. 
He  seizes  any  thing  frivolous,  new,  or 
becoming  on  the  wing ;  and  his  poetry 
is  only  a  written  conversation, — I  mean 
the  conversation  which  goes  on  at  a 
ball,  when  people  speak  for  the  sake 
of  speaking,  lifting  a  lock  of  one's  wig, 
or  twisting  about  a  glove.  Gallantry 
holds  the  chief  place  here,  as  it  ought 
to  do,  and  we  may  be  pretty  certain 
that  the  love  is  not  over-sincere.  In 
reality,  Waller  sighs  on  purpose  (Sac- 
harissa  had  a  fine  dowry),  or  at  least 
for  the  sake  of  good  manners  :  that 
which  is  most  evident  in  his  tender 
poems  is,  that  he  aims  at  a  flowing 
style  and  good  rhymes.  He  is  affected, 
he  exaggerates,  he  strains  after  wit,  he 
is  always  an  author.  Not  venturing 
to  address  Sacharissa  herself,  he  ad- 
dresses Mrs.  Braughton,  her  attendant, 
"  his  fellow-servant :  " 

"  So,  in  those  nations  which  the  Sun  adore, 
Some  modest  Persian,   or  some  weak-eyed 

Moor, 

No  higher  dares  advance  his  dazzled  sight 
Than  to  some  gilded  cloud,  which  near  the 

light 

Of  their  ascending  god  adorns  the  east, 
And,  graced  with   his   beam,  outshines  the 

rest."  * 

A  fine  comparison !  That  is  a  well- 
made  courtesy ;  I  hope  Sacharissa  re- 
sponds with  one  equally  correct.  His 
despairs  bear  the  same  flavor;  he 
r  ierces  the  groves  of  Penshurst  with 
his  cries,  "  reports  his  flame  to  the 
baches,"  and  the  well-bred  beeches 
"  DOW  their  heads,  as  if  they  felt  the 
same."  t  It  is  probable  that,  in  these 
mournful  walks,  his  greatest  care  was 
lest  he  should  wet  the  soles  of  his 
high-heeled  shoes.  These  transports 

*  The  English  Poets,  ed.  A.  Chalmers,  21 
vols.,  1810 ;  Waller,  vol.  viii.  44.  f  Ibid. 


of  love  bring  in  the  classical  machin- 
ery, Apollo  and  the  Muses.  Apollo  is 
annoyed  that  one  of  his  servants  is  ill- 
treated,  and  bids  him  depart,  and  he 
departs,  telling  Sacharissa  that  she  is 
harder  than  an  oak,  and  that  she  was 
certainly  produced  from  a  rock.* 

There  is  one  genuine  reality  in  all 
this — sensuality  ;  not  ardent,  but  light 
and  gay.  There  is  a  certain  piece, 
"The  Fall,"  which  an  abbe  of  the 
court  of  Louis  XV.  might  have  written: 

"  Then  blush  not,  Fair  I  or  on  him  frown, . . 
How  could  the  youth,  alas  !  but  bend 
When  his  whole  Heav'n  upon  him  lean'd  ; 
If  aught  by  him  amiss  were  done, 
'Twas  that  he  let  you  rise  so  soon."  t 

Other  pieces  smack  of  their  surround- 
ings, and  are  not  so  polished  : 

"  Amoret !  as  sweet  as  good, 
As  the  most  delicious  rood, 
Which  but  tasted  does  impart 
Life  and  gladness  to  the  heart."  % 

I  should  not  be  pleased, were  I  a  woman, 
to  be  compared  to  a  beef-steak,  though 
that  be  appetizing ;  nor  should  I  like 
any  more  to  find  myself,  like  Sacha- 
rissa, placed  on  a  level  with  good  wine, 
which  flies  to  the  head  : 

"  Sacharissa's  beauty's  wine, 
Which  to  madness  doth  incline  ; 
Such  a  liquor  as  no  brain 
That  is  mortal  can  sustain."  § 

This  is  too  much  honor  for  port  wine 
and  meat.  The  English  background 
crops  up  here  and  elsewhere  ;  for  ex- 
ample, the  beautiful  Sacharissa,  having 
ceased  to  be  beautiful,  asked  Waller  if 

*  "  While  in   this  park  I  sing,  the  list'ning 

deer 

Attend  my  passion,  and  forget  to  fear  ; 
When  to  the  beeches  I  report  my  flame, 
They  bow  their  heads,  as  if  they  felt  the 

same. 
To  gods  appealing,  when   I   reach   their 

bow'rs 
With  loud  complaints,  they  answer  me  in 

showers. 

To  thee  a  wild  and  cruel  soul  is  giv'n, 
More  deaf  than  trees,  and  prouder  than 

the  heav'n  1 

.  .  .  The  rock, 

That  cloven  rock,  produc'd  thee.  .  .  . 
This  last  complaint  th'  indulgent  ears  did 

pierce 

Of  just  Apollo,  president  of  verse  ; 
Highly  concerned  that  the  Muse  should 

bring 
Damage  to  one  whom  he  had  taught  to 

sing." — Ibid.  p.  44-5. 
t  Ibid.  viii.  32.          %  Ibid.  45.          §  Ibid. 
IS 


333 


he  would  again  write  verses  for  her  : 
he  answered,  "  Yes,  madame,  when 
you  are  once  more  as  young  and  as 
nandsome  as  you  were."  Here  is 
something  to  shock  a  Frenchman. 
Nevertheless  Waller  is  usually  amia- 
ble ;  a  sort  of  brilliant  light  floats  like 
a  halo  round  his  verses ;  he  is  always 
elegant,  often  graceful.  His  graceful- 
ness is  like  the  perfume  exhaled  from 
the  world  ;  fresh  toilettes,  ornamented 
drawing-rooms,  the  abundance  and  the 
pursuit  of  all  those  refined  and  delicate 
comforts  give  to  the  mind  a  sort  of 
sweetness  which  is  breathed  forth  in 
obliging  compliments  and  smiles. 
Waller  has  many  of  these  compliments 
and  smiles,  and  those  most  flattering, 
apropos  of  a  bud,  a  girdle,  a  rose.  Such 
bouquets  become  his  hands  and  his 
art  He  pays  an  excellent  compli- 
ment "  To  young  Lady  Lucy  Sidney  " 
on  her  age.  And  what  could  be  more 
attractive  for  a  frequenter  of  drawing- 
rooms,  than  this  bud  of  still  unopened 
youth,  but  which  blushes  already,  and 
is  on  the  point  of  expanding  ? 

"  Yet,  fairest  blossom  !  do  not  slight 
That  age  which  you  may  know  so  soon. 
The  rosy  morn  resigns  her  light 
And  milder  glory  to  the  noon."  * 

All  his  verses  flow  with  a  continuous 
harmony,  clearness,  facility,  though 
his  voice  is  never  raised,  or  out  of 
tune,  or  rough,  nor  loses  its  true  ac- 
cent, except  by  the  worldling's  affecta- 
tion, which  regularly  changes  all  tones 
in  order  to  soften  them.  His  poetry 
resembles  one  of  those  pretty,  affected, 
bedizened  women,  busy  in  inclining 
their  head  on  one  side,  and  murmuring 
with  a  soft  voice  commonplace  things 
which  they  can  hardly  be  said  to  think, 
yet  agreeable  in  their  be-ribboned 
dress,  and  who  would  please  altogether 
if  they  c"d  not  dream  of  always  pleas- 
ing. 

It  &  not  that  these  men  cannot  han- 
dle grave  subjects;  but  they  handle 
them  in  their  own  fashion,  without 
gravity  or  depth.  What  the  courtier 
most  lacks  is  the  genuine  sentiment  of 
a  true  and  original  idea.  That  which 
interests  him  most  is  the  correctness 
of  the  adornment,  and  the  perfection 
of  external  form.  They  care  little  for 
the  matter  itself,  much  for  the  outward 
*  English  Poets,  Waller,  viii.  45. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


FBooK  III 


shape.  In  fact,  it  is  form  which  they 
take  for  their  subject  in  nearly  all  thdr 
serious  poetry  ;  they  are  critics,  they 
lay  down  precepts,  they  compose  Aits 
of  Poetry.  Denham  in  his  "  Preface  to 
the  Destruction  of  Troy""  lays  down 
rules  for  translating,  whilst  Roscom- 
mon  teaches  in  a  complete  poem,  an 
Essay  on  translated  Verse,  the  art  of 
translating  poetry  well.  The  Duke  of 
Buckinghamshire  versified  an  Ess.iy  on 
Poetry  and  an  Essay  on  Satire.  Dryden 
is  in  the  first  rank  of  these  peda- 
gogues. Like  Dryden  again,  they  turn 
translators,  amplifiers.  Roscommon 
translated  the  Ars  Poetica  of  Horace  ; 
Waller  the  first  act  of  Pompee,  a  trag- 
edy by  Corneille ;  Denham  some  frag- 
ments of  Homer  and  Virgil,  and  two 
poems,  one  of  Prudence  and  another  of 
Justice.  Rochester  composed  a  satire 
against  Mankind,  in  the  style  of  Boi- 
leau,  and  also  an  epistle  upon  Nothing ; 
the  amorous  Waller  wrote  a  didactic 
poem  on  The  Fear  of  God,  and  another 
in  six  cantos  on  Divine  Love.  These 
are  exercises  of  style.  They  take  a 
theological  thesis,  a  commonplace  sub- 
ject of  philosophy,  a  poetic  maxim,  and 
develop  it  in  jointed  prose,  furnished 
with  rhymes ;  invent  nothing,  feel  lit- 
tle, and  only  aim  at  expressing  good 
arguments  in  classical  metaphors,  in 
noble  terms,  after  a  conventional  mod- 
el. Most  of  their  verses  consist  of 
two  nouns,  furnished  with  epithets,  and 
connected  by  a  verb,  like  college  Latin 
verses.  The  epithet  is  good:  they  had 
to  hunt  through  the  Gradus  for  it,  or, 
as  Boileau  wills  it,  they  had  to  carry 
the  line  unfinished  in  their  heads,  and 
had  to  think  about  it  an  hour  in  the 
open  air,  until  at  last,  at  the  corner  of 
a  wood,  they  found  the  right  word 
which  they  could  not  hit  upon  before. 
I  yawn,  but  applaud.  After  so  much 
trouble  a  generation  ends  by  forming 
the  sustained  style  which  is  necessary 
to  support,  make  public,  and  demon- 
strate grand  things.  Meanwhile,  with 
their  ornate,  official  diction,  and  their 
borrowed  thought  they  are  like  formal 
chamberlains,  in  embroidered  coats 
present  at  a  royal  marriage  or  an  im- 
perial baptism,  empty  of  head,  grave 
in  manner,  admirable  for  dignity  and 
bearing,  with  the  punctilio  and  the 
ideas  of  a  dummy. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORA  TION. 


339 


V. 


One  of  them  only  (Dryden  always 
excepted)  showed  talent,  Sir  John 
Denham,  Charles  the  First's  secretary. 
He  was  employed  in  public  affairs,  and 
atter  a  dissolute  youth,  turned  to 
serious  habits  ;  and  leaving  behind  him 
satiric  verse  and  party  broad-jokes,  at- 
tained in  riper  years  a  lofty  oratorical 
style.  His  best  poem,  Cooper  s  Hill,  is 
the  description  of  a  hill  and  its  sur- 
roundings, blended  with  the  historical 
ideas  which  the  sight  recalls,  and  the 
moral  reflections  which  its  appearance 
naturally  suggests.  All  these  subjects 
are  in  accordance  with  the  nobility  and 
the  limitation  of  the  classical  spirit, 
and  display  his  vigor  without  betraying 
his  weaknesses ;  the  poet  could  show 
off  his  whole  talent  without  forcing 
it.  His  fine  language  exhibits  all  its 
beauty,  because  it  is  sincere.  We  find 
pleasure  in  following  the  regular  pro- 
gress of  those  copious  phrases  in  which 
his  ideas,  opposed  or  combined,  attain 
for  the  first  time  their  definite  place 
and  full  clearness,  where  symmetry 
only  brings  out  the  argument  more 
clearly,  expansion  only  completes 
thought,  antithesis  and  repetition  do 
not  induce  trifling  and  affectation, 
where  the  music  of  verse,  adding  the 
breadth  of  sound  to  the  fulness  of 
sense,  conducts  the  chain  of  ideas, 
without  effort  or  disorder,  by  an  appro- 
priate measure  to  a  becoming  order 
and  movement.  Gratification  is  united 
with  solidity ;  the  author  of  <;  Cooper's 
Hill,"  knows  how  to  please  as  well  as 
to  impress.  His  poem  is  like  a  king's 
park,  dignified  and  level  without  doubt, 
but  arranged  to  please  the  eye,  and 
full  of  choice  prospects.  It  leads  us 
by  easy  digressions  across  a  multitude 
of  varied  thoughts.  It  shows  us  here 
a  mountain,  yonder  a  memorial  of  the 
nymphs,  a  classic  memorial,  like  a  por- 
tico filled  with  statues,  further  on  a 
broad  stream,  and  by  its  side  the  ruins 
of  an  abbey  ;  each  page  of  the  poem  is 
like  a  distinct  alley,  with  its  distinct  per- 
spective. Further  on,  our  thoughts  are 
turned  to  the  superstitions  of  the  igno- 
rant middle  ages,  and  to  the  excesses  of 
the  recent  revolution  ;  then  comes  the 
picture  of  a  royal  hunt;  we  see  the 
trembling  stag  make  his  retreat  to  some 

ark  covert : 


He  calls  to  mind  his  strength,  and  then  hia 

speed, 

His  winged  heels,  and  then  his  armed  head  ; 
With  these  t'  avoid,  with  that  his  fate  to 

meet ; 

But  fear  prevails,  and  bids  him  trust  his  feet. 
So  fast  he  flies,  that  his  reviewing  eye 
Has  lost  the  chasers,  and  1 .  s  ear  the  cry."  * 

,  These  are  the  worthy  spectacles  and 
|  the  studied  diversity  of  the  grounds  of 
|  a  nobleman.     Every  object,  moreover, 
!  receives  here,  as  in  a  king's  palace,  all 
1  the  adornment  which  can  be   given  to 
j  it ;  elegant  epithets  are  introduced  to 
embellish    a  feeble   substantive ;    the 
,  decorations  of  art   transform  the  com- 
|  monplace    of     nature  :     vessels     are 
',  "  floating    towers ; "     the    Thames    is 
j  "  the  most  loved   of  all   the    Ocean's 
I  sons  ;  "    the   airy   mountain  hides   its 
!  proud  head  among  the  clouds,  whilst  a 
:  shady  mantle  clothes  its  sides.  Among 
|  different  kinds  of  ideas,  there   is  one 
j  kingly,  full  of  stately  and  magnificent 
!  ceremonies      of      self-contained     and 
I  studied  gestures,  of  correct  yet  com- 
I  manding  figures,  uniform  and  imposing 
like   the   appointments    of   a    palace ; 
hence  the  classic  writers,  and  Denham 
i  amongst  them,  draw  all   their   poetic 
I  tints.      From   this   every    object    and 
i  event  takes  its  coloring,  because  con- 
i  strained  to  come  into  contact  with  it. 
Here  the  object  and  events  are  com- 
pelled to  traverse  other  things.     Den- 
ham is  not  a  mere   courtier,  he  is  an 
Englishman ;  that  is,  preoccupied  by 
moral  emotions.     He   often   quits   his 
landscape    to   enter   into   some   grave 
reflection ;    politics,    religion,     disturb 
the  enjoyment  of  his  eyes  ;  in  reference 
to  a  hill  or  a  forest,  he  meditates  upon 
i  man ;  externals  lead  him  inward ;  im- 
pressions of  the  senses  to  contempla- 
j  tions   of  the  soul.     The  men  of  this 
i  race  are  by  nature  and  custom  esoteric. 
!  When    he   sees    the    Thames    throw 
itself  into  the  sea,  he  compares  it  with 
"  mortal  life  hasting  to  meet  eternity." 
The  "  lofty  forehead  "  of  a  mountain, 
beaten  by  storms,  reminds  him  of  "  the 
common  fate    of    all    that's    high   or 
great."     The  course  of  the  river  sug- 
gests to  him  ideas  of  inner  reformation : 

"  O    could   I   flow  like  thee !  and  make  thy 

stream 

My  great  example,  as  it  is  my  theme ! 
Though  deep,  yet  clear,  though  gentle  yet  not 

dull  ; 


*  English  Poets,  vii.  237. 


340 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


Strong    without   rage,    without   o'erflowing, 
full. 

But  his  proud  head  the  airy  mountain  hides 
Among  the   clouds ;    his   shoulders  and  his 

sides 

\  bnacly  mantle  clothes  ;  his  curled  brows 
Frown  on  the  gentle  stream,  which  calmly 

flows  ; 
While  winds  and  storms  his  lofty  forehead 

beat, 
The  common  fate  of  all  that's  high  or  great."* 

There  is  in  the  English  mind  an  in- 
destructible store  of  moral  instincts, 
and  grand  melancholy;  and  it  is  the 
greatest  confirmation  of  this,  that  we 
can  discover  such  a  stock  at  the  court 
of  Charles  II. 

These  are,  however,  but  rare  open- 
ings, and  as  it  were  croppings  up  of 
the  original  rock.  The  habits  of  the 
worldling  are  as  a  thick  layer  which 
cover  it  throughout.  Manners,  con- 
versation, style,  the  stage,  taste,  all  is 
French,  or  tries  to  be  ;  they  imitate 
France  as  well  as  they  are  able,  and  go 
there  to  mould  themselves.  Many 
cavaliers  went  there,  driven  away  by 
Cromwell.  Denham,  Waller,  Ros- 
common,  and  Rochester  resided  there  ; 
the  Duchess  of  Newcastle,  a  poetess  of 
the  time,  was  married  at  Paris  ;  the 
Duke  of  Buckinghamshire  served  for  a 
short  time  under  Turenne  ;  Wycherley 
was  sent  to  France  by  his  father,  who 
wished  to  rescue  him  from  the  con- 
tagion of  Puritan  opinions  ;  Vanbrugh, 
one  of  the  best  comic  playwrights, 
went  thither  to  contract  a  polish.  The 
two  courts  were  allied  almost  always  in 
fact,  and  always  at  heart,  by  a  com- 
munity of  interests,  and  of  religious 
and  monarchical  ideas.  Charles  II. 
accepted  from  Louis  XIV.  a  pension,  a 
mistress,  counsels,  and  examples  ;  the 
nobility  followed  their  prince,  and 
France  was  the  model  of  the  English 
court.  Her  literature  and  manners, 
the  finest  of  the  classic  age,  led  the 
fashion.  We  perceive  in  English 
writings  that  French  authors  are  their 
masters,  and  that  they  were  in  the 
hands  of  all  well-educated  people. 
They  consulted  Bossuet,  translated 
Corneille,  imitated  Moliere,  respected 
Boileau.  It  went  so  far,  that  the  great- 
est gallants  of  them  tried  to  be  alto- 
gether French,  to  mix  some  scraps  of 
French  in  every  phrase.  "  It  is  as  ill- 

*  English  Poets,  vii.  236-7. 


breeding  now  to  speak  good  English,' 
says  Wycherley,  "  as  to  write  good 
English,  good  sense,  or  a  good  hand/' 
These  Frenchified  coxcombs  *  are  com- 
pliment-mongers, always  powdered*, 
perfumed,  "eminent  for  being  bien 
gantes"  They  affect  delicacy,  they 
are  fastidious;  they  find  Englishmen 
coarse,  gloomy,  stiff;  they  try  to  be 
giddly  and  thoughtless ;  they  giggle 
and  prate  at  random,  placing  the  repu- 
tation of  man  in  the  perfection  of  his 
wig  and  his  bows.  The  theatre,  which 
ridicules  these  imitators,  is  an  imitator 
after  their  fashion.  French  comedy, 
like  French  politeness,  becomes  their 
model.  They  copy  both,  altering  with- 
out equalling  them;  for  monarchical 
and  classic  France  is  amongst  all  na- 
tions, the  best  fitted  from  its  instincts 
and  institutions  for  the  modes  of 
worldly  life,  and  the  works  of  an  orator- 
ical mind.  England  follows  it  in  this 
course,  being  carried  away  by  the  uni- 
versal current  of  the  age,  but  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  drawn  aside  by  its  national 
peculiarities.  It  is  this  common  direc- 
tion and  this  particular  deviation  which 
the  society  and  its  poetry  have  pro- 
claimed, and  which  the  stage  and  its 
characters  will  display. 

VI. 

Four  principal  writers  established 
this  comedy —  Wycherley,  Congreve, 
Vanbrugh,  Farquhar  :  t  the  first  gross, 
and  in  the  pristine  irruption  of  vice ; 
the  others  more  sedate,  possessing 
more  a  taste  for  urbanity  than  debauch- 
ery ;  yet  all  men  of  the  world,  and 
priding  themselves  on  their  good 
breeding,  on  passing  their  days  at 
court  or  in  fine  company,  on  having 
the  tastes  and  bearing  of  gentlemen. 
"  I  am  not  a  literary  man,"  said  Con- 
greve to  Voltaire,  "  1  am  a  gentleman." 
In  fact,  as  Pope  said,  he  lived  more 
like  a  man  of  quality  than  a  man  of 
letters,  was  noted  for  his  successes 
with  the  fair,  and  passed  his  latter 
years  in  the  house  of  the  Duchess  of 
Marlboiough.  I  have  said  that  Wych- 
erley, under  Charles  II.,  was  one  of 
the  most  fashionable  courtiers.  He 
served  in  the  army  for  some  time,  as 

*  Etherepe's  Sir  FopHng  Flutter ;  Wycher- 
ley's  The  Gentleman  Dancing-master,  i.  2. 

t  From  1672  to  1726, 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


341 


did  also  Vanbrugh  and  Farquhar ; 
nothing  is  more  gallant  than  the  name 
of  Captain  which  they  employed,  the 
military  stories  they  brought  back,  and 
the  feather  they  stuck  in  their  hats. 
They  all  wrote  comedies  on  the  same 
worldly  and  classical  model,  made  up 
of  probable  incidents  such  as  we  ob- 
serve around  us  every  day,  of  well- 
bred  characters  such  as  we  commonly 
meet  in  a  drawing-room,  correct  and 
elegant  conversations  such  as  well- 
bred  men  can  carry  on.  This  theatre, 
wanting  in  poetry,  fancy,  and  adven- 
tures, imitative  and  discursive,  was 
formed  at  the  same  time  as  that  of 
Moliere,  by  the  same  causes,  and  on 
his  mocLel,  so  that  in  order  to  compre- 
hend it  we  must  compare  it  with  that 
of  Moliere. 

"Moliere  belongs  to  no  nation," 
said  a  great  English  actor  (Kemble); 
"  one  day  the  god  of  comedy,  wishing 
to  write,  became  a  man,  and  happened 
to  fall  into  France."  I  accept  this 
saying  ;  but  in  becoming  man  he  found 
himself,  at  the  same  time,  a  man  of  the 
seventeenth  century  and  a  Frenchman, 
and  that  is  how  he  was  the  god  of 
comedy.  "  To  amuse  respectable  peo- 
ple," said  Moliere,  "what  a  strange 
task ! "  Only  the  French  art  of  the 
seventeenth  century  could  succeed  in 
that ;  for  it  consists  in  leading  by  an 
agreeable  path  to  general  notions  ;  and 
the  taste  for  these  notions,  as  well  as 
the  custom  of  treading  this  path,  is  the 
peculiar  mark  of  respectable  people. 
Moliere,  like  Racine,  expands  and  cre- 
ates. Open  any  one  of  his  plays  that 
comes  to  hand,  and  the  first  scene  in 
it,  chosen  at  random;  after  three  re- 
plies you  are  carried  away,  or  rather 
led  away.  The  second  continues  the 
first,  the  third  carries  out  the  second, 
the  fourth  completes  all ;  a  current  is 
created  which  bears  us  on,  which  bears 
us  away,  which  does  not  release  us 
until  it  is  exhausted.  There  is  no 
check,  no  digression,  no  episodes  to 
distract  our  attention.  To  prevent  the 
lapses  of  an  absent  mind,  a  secondary 
character  intervenes,  a  lackey,  a  lady's- 
maid,  a  wife,  who,  couplet  by  couplet, 
repeat  in  a  different  fashion  the  reply 
of  the  principal  character,  and  by 
means  of  symmetry  and  contrast  keep 
us  in  the  path  laid  down.  Arrived  at 


the  end,  a  second  current  seizes  us  and 
acts  like  the  first.  It  is  composed  like 
the  other,  and  with  reference  to  the 
other.  It  throws  it  out  by  contrast,  or 
strengthens  it  by  reseml  lance.  Here 
the  valets  repeat  the  dispute,  then  the 
reconciliation  of  their  masters.  In  one 
place,  Alceste,  drawn  in  one  direction 
through  three  pages  by  anger,  is  drawn 
in  a  contrary  direction,  and  through 
three  pages,  by  love.  Further  on, 
tradesmen,  professors,  relatives,  do 
mestics,  relieve  each  other  scene  J.fter 
scene,  in  order  to  bring  out  hi  clearer 
light  the  pretentiousness  and  gullibilit5 
of  M.  Jourdain.  Every  scene,  evc.ry 
act,  brings  out  in  greater  relief,  com- 
pletes, or  prepares  another.  Every 
thing  is  united,  and  every  thing  is  sim- 
ple; the  action  progresses,  and  pro- 
gresses only  to  carry  on  the  idea  ;  there 
is  no  complication,  no  incidents.  One 
comic  event  suffices  for  the  story.  A 
dozen  conversations  make  up  the  play 
of  the  Misanthrope.  The  same  situ- 
ation, five  or  six  times  renewed,  is  the 
whole  of  I'Ecole  des  Femmes.  These 
pieces  are  made  out  of  nothing.  They 
have  no  need  of  incidents,  they  find 
ample  space  in  the  compass  of  one 
room  and  one  day,  without  surprises, 
without  decoration,  with  an  arras  and 
four  arm-chairs.  This  paucity  of  mat- 
ter throws  out  the  ideas  more  clearly 
and  quickly ;  in  fact,  their  whole  aim 
is  to  bring  those  ideas  prominently 
forward;  the  simplicity  of  the  subject, 
the  progress  of  the  action,  the  linking 
together  of  the  scenes, — to  this  every 
thing  tends.  At  every  step  clearness 
increases,  the  impression  is  deepened, 
vice  stands  out :  ridicule  is  piled  up, 
until,  before  so  many  apt  and  united 
appeals,  laughter  forces  its  way  and 
breaks  forth.  And  this  laughter  is  not 
a  mere  outburst  of  physical  amuse- 
ment ;  it  is  the  judgment  which  incites 
it.  The  writer  is  a  philosopher,  who 
brings  us  into  contact  with  a  universal 
truth  by  a  particular  example.  We 
understand  through  him,  as  through 
La  Bruyere  or  Nicole,  the  force  of  prej- 
udice, the  obstinacy  of  conventionality, 
the  blindness  of  love.  The  couplets  of 
his  dialogue,  like  the  arguments  of 
their  treatises,  are  but  the  worked  out 
proof  and  the  logical  justification  of  a 
preconceived  conclusion.  We  philos- 


342 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


ophize  with  him  on  humanity;  we 
think  because  he  has  thought  And 
he  has  only  thought  thus  in  the  char- 
acter of  a  Frenchman,  for  an  audience 
of  French  men  of  the  world.  In  him 
we  taste  a  national  pleasure.  French 
refined  and  systematic  intelligence,  the 
most  exact  in  seizing  on  the  subordi- 
nation of  ideas,  the  most  ready  in 
separating  ideas  from  matter,  the  most 
fond  of  clear  and  tangible  ideas,  finds 
in  him  its  nourishment  and  its  echo. 
None  who  has  sought  to  show  us  man- 
kind, has  led  us  by  a  straighter  and 
easier  mode  to  a  more  distinct  and 
speaking  portrait.  I  will  add,  to  a 
more  pfeasing  portrait, — and  this  is  the 
main  talent  of  comedy :  it  consists  in 
keeping  back  what  is  hateful ;  and  ob- 
serve that  which  is  hateful  abounds  in 
the  world.  As  soon  as  you  will  paint 
the  world  truly,  philosophically,  you 
meet  with  vice,  injustice,  and  every- 
where indignation ;  amusement  flees 
before  anger  and  morality.  Consider 
the  basis  of  Tartuffe ;  an  obscene 
pedant,  a  red-faced  hypocritical  wretch, 
who,  palming  himself  off  on  a  decent 
and  refined  family,  tries  to  drive  the 
son  away,  marry  the  daughter,  corrupt 
the  wife,'  ruin  and  imprison  the  father, 
and  almost  succeeds  in  it,  not  by  clever 
plots,  but  by  vulgar  mummery,  and  by 
the  coarse  audacity  of  his  caddish  dis- 
position. What  could  be  more  repel- 
ling ?  And  how  is  amusement  to  be 
drawn  from  such  a  subject,  where 
Beaumarchais  and  La  Bruyere  failed  ?* 
Similarly,  in  the  Misanthrope,  is  not 
the  spectacle  of  a  loyally  sincere  and 
honest  man,  very  much  in  love,  whom 
his  virtue  finally  overwhelms  with  rid- 
icule and  drives  from  society,  a  sad 
sight  to  see  ?  Rousseau  was  annoyed 
that  it  should  produce  laughter ;  and  if 
we  were  to  look  upon  the  subject,  not 
in  Moliere,  but  in  itself,  we  should  find 
enough  to  revolt  our  natural  generos- 
ity. Recall  his  other  plots ;  Georges 
Dandin  mystified,  Geronte  beaten,  Ar- 
nolphe  duped,  Harpagon  plundered, 
Sganarelle  married,  girls  seduced,  louts 
thrashed,  simpletons  turned  financiers. 
There  are  sorrows  here,  and  deep 
ones ;  many  would  rather  weep  than 

*  Onuflhre,  in  La  Bruy&re's  Caractires,  ch. 
xiii.  de  la  Mode  ;  Beggars,  in  Beaumarchais 
la  Mkre  Coupabk. 


laugh  at  them.  Arnolphe,  Dandin. 
Harpagon,  are  almost  tragic  charac- 
ters ;  and  when  we  see  them  in  the 
world  instead  of  the  theatre,  we  are 
not  disposed  to  sarcasm,  but  to  pity. 
Picture  to  yourself  the  originals  from 
whom  Moliere  has  taken  his  doctors. 
Consider  this  venturesome  experimen- 
talist, who,  in  the  interest  of  science, 
tries  a  new  saw,  or  inoculates  a  virus  ; 
think  of  his  long  nights  at  the  hospital, 
the  wan  patient  carried  on  a  mattress 
to  the  operating  table,  and  stretching 
out  his  leg  to  the  knife  ;  or  again  im- 
agine the  peasant's  bed  of  straw  in  the 
damp  cottage,  where  an  old  dropsic?,! 
mother  lies  choking,  *  while  her  chil- 
dren grudgingly  count  up  the  crowns 
she  has  already  cost  them.  You  quit 
such  scenes  deeply  moved,  filled  with 
sympathy  for  human  misery ;  you  dis- 
cover that  life,  seen  near  and  face  to 
face,  is  a  mass  of  trivial  harshnesses 
and  of  grievous  passions ;  you  are 
tempted,  if  you  wish  to  depict  it,  to 
enter  into  the  mire  of  sorrows  whereon 
Balzac  and  Shakspeare  have  built : 
you  see  in  it  no  other  poetry  than  that 
audacious  reasoning  power  which  from 
such  a  confusion  abstracts  the  master- 
forces,  or  the  light  of  genius  which 
flickers  over  the  swarm  and  the  falls 
of  so  many  polluted  and  wounded 
wretches.  How  every  thing  changes 
under  the  hand  of  a  mercurial  French- 
man !  how  all  this  human  ugliness  is 
blotted  out !  how  amusing  is  the  spec- 
tacle which  Moliere  has  arranged  for 
us  !  how  we  ought  to  thank  the  great 
artist  for  having  transformed  his  sub- 
ject so  well !  At  last  we  have  a  cheer- 
ful word,  on  canvas  at  least ;  we  could 
not  have  it  otherwise,  but  this  we  have. 
How  pleasant  it  is  to  forget  truth  ! 
what  an  art  is  that  which  divests  us  of 
ourselves  !  what  a  point  of  view  which 
converts  the  contortions  of  suffering 
into  funny  grimaces !  Gayety  has 
come  upon  us,  the  dearest  possession 
of  a  Frenchman.  The  soldiers  of  Vil- 
lars  used  to  dance  that  they  might  for- 
get they  had  no  longer  any  bread.  Of 
all  French  possessions,  too,  it  -is  the 
best.  This  gift  does  not  destroy 
thought,  but  it  masks  it.  In  Moliere, 
truth  is  at  the  bottom,  but  concealed  ; 

*  Consultations  of  Sganarelle  in  the  Medecin 
malgrt  lui. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


343 


he  has  heard  the  sobs  of  human  trag- 
edy, but  he  prefers  not  to  re-echo  them. 
It  is  quite  enough  to  feel  our  wounds 
smart ;  let  us  not  go  to  the  theatre  to 
see  them  again.  Philosophy,  while  it 
reveals  them,  advises  us  not  to  think 
of  them  too  much.  Let  us  enliven  our 
condition  with  the  gayety  of  easy  con- 
versation and  light  wit,  as  we  would 
the  chamber  of  sickness.  Let  us  cover 
Tartuffe,  Harpagon,  the  doctors,  with 
outrageous  ridicule  :  ridicule  will  make 
us  forget  their  vices ;  they  will  afford 
us  amusement  instead  of  causing  hor- 
ror. Let  Alceste  be  grumpy  and  awk- 
ward. It  is  in  the  first  place  true, 
because  our  more  valiant  virtues  are 
only  the  outbreaks  of  a  temper  out  of 
harmony  with  circumstances ;  but,  in 
addition,  it  will  be  amusing.  His  mis- 
haps will  cease  to  make  him  the  mar- 
tyr of  justice ;  they  will  only  be  the 
consequences  of  a  cross-grained  char- 
acter. As  to  the  mystifications  of  hus- 
bands, tutors,  and  fathers,  I  fancy  that 
we  are  not  to  see  in  them  a  concerted 
attack  on  society  or  morality.  We  are 
only  entertaining  ourselves  for  one 
evening,  nothing  more.  The  syringes 
and  thrashings,  the  masquerades  and 
dances,  prove  that  it  is  a  sheer  piece 
of  buffoonery.  Do  not  be  afraid  that 
philosophy  will  perish  in  a  pantomime  ; 
it  is  present  even  in  the  Mar iage  force, 
even  in  the  Malade  imaginaire.  It  is 
the  mark  of  a  Frenchman  and  a  man 
of  the  world  to  clothe  every  thing,  even 
that  which  is  serious,  in  laughter. 
When  he  is  thinking,  he  does  not 
always  wish  to  show  it.  In  his  most 
violent  moments  he  is  still  the  master 
of  the  house,  the  polite  host ;  he  con- 
ceals from  you  his  thoughts  or  his 
suffering.  Mirabeau,  when  in  agony, 
said  to  one  of  his  friends  with  a  smile, 
"  Come,  you  who  take  an  interest  in 
plucky  deaths,  you  shall  see  mine  !  " 
The  French  talk  in  this  style  when 
they  are  depicting  life  ;  no  other  nation 
knows  how  to  philosophize  smartly, 
and  die  with  good  taste. 

This  is  the  reason  why  in  no  other 
nation  comedy,  while  it  continues 
comic,  affords  a  moral ;  Moliere  is  the 
only  man  who  gives  us  models  without 
getting  pedantic,  without  trenching  on 
the  tragic,  without  growing  solemn. 
This  model  1*3  the  "  respectable  man," 


as  the  phrase  was,  Philinte,  Arisfe, 
Clitandre,  Eraste  ;  *  there  is  no  othei 
who  can  at  the  same  time  instruct  and 
amuse  us.  His  talent  has  reflection  foi 
its  basis,  but  it  is  cultivated  by  the 
world.  His  character  has  honesty  foi 
its  basis,  but  it  is  in  harmony  with  thv 
world.  You  may  imitate  him  without 
transgressing  either  reason  or  duty  ;  he 
is  neither  a  coxcomb  nor  a  roisterer. 
You  can  imitate  him  without  neglect- 
ing your  interests  or  making  yourself 
ridiculous  ;  he  is  neither  an  ignoramus 
nor  unmannerly.  He  has  read  and 
understands  the  jargon  of  Trissotin 
and  Lycidas,  but  in  order  to  pierce 
them  through  and  through,  to  beat 
them  with  their  own  arguments,  to  set 
the  gallery  in  a  roar  at  their  expense. 
He  will  discuss  even  morality  and  re- 
ligion, but  in  a  style  so  natural,  with 
proofs  so  clear,  with  warmth  so  genu- 
ine, that  he  interests  women,  and  is 
listened  to  by  men  of  the  world.  He 
knows  man,  and  reasons  about  him, 
but  in  such  brief  sentences,  such  living 
delineations,  such  pungent  humor,  that 
his  philosophy  is  the  best  of  entertain- 
ments. He  is  faithful  to  his  ruined 
mistress,  his  calumniated  friend,  but 
gracefully,  without  fuss.  All  his  actions, 
even  noble  ones,  have  an  easy  way 
about  them  which  adorns  them ;  he 
does  nothing  without  pleasantness. 
His  great  talent  is  knowledge  of  the 
world;  he  shows  it  not  only  in  the 
trivial  circumstances  of  every-day  life, 
but  in  the  most  passionate  scenes,  the 
most  embarrassing  positions.  A  noble 
swordsman  wants  to  take  Philinte,  the 
"  respectable  man,"  as  his  second  in  a 
duel ;  he  reflects  a  moment,  excuses 
himself  in  a  score  of  phrases,  and 
"  without  playing  the  Hector,"  leaves 
the  bystanders  convinced  that  he  is  no 
coward.  Armande  insults  him,  then 
throws  herself  in  his  arms ;  he  politely 
averts  the  storm,  declines  the  recon- 
ciliation with  the  most  loyal  frankness, 
and  without  employing  a  single  false- 
hood, leaves  the  spectators  convinced 
that  he  is  no  boor.  When  he  loves 
Eliante,!  who  prefers  Alceste,  and 
whom  Alceste  may  possibly  marry,  he 

*  Amongst  women,  Eliante,  Henrietta,  Elise, 
Uranie,  Elmire. 

t  Compare  the  admirable  tact  and  coolness  ol 
Eliante,  Henriette,  and  Elmire. 


344 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BooK  III. 


proposes  to  her  with  a  complete  deli- 
cacy, and  dignity,  without  lowering 
himself,  without  recrimination,  with- 
out wronging  himself  or  his  friend. 
When  Oronte  reads  him  a  sonnet,  he 
does  not  assume  in  the  fop  a  nature 
which  he  has  not,  but  praises  the  con- 
ventional verses  in  conventional  lan- 
guage, and  is  not  so  clumsy  as  to  dis- 
play a  poetical  judgment  which  would 
\.t  out  of  place.  He  takes  at  once  his 
:one  from  the  circumstances  ;  he  per- 
ceives instantly  what  he  must  say  and 
what  be  silent  about,  in  what  degree 
and  in  what  gradations,  what  exact  ex- 
pedient will  reconcile  truth  and  con- 
ventional propriety,  how  far  he  ought 
to  go  or  where  to  take  his  stand,  what 
faint  line  separates  decorum  from  flat- 
tery, truth  from  awkwardness.  On  this 
narrow  path  he  proceeds  free  from  em- 
barrassment or  mistakes,  never  put 
out  of  his  way  by  the  shocks  or  changes 
of  circumstance,  never  allowing  the 
calm  smile  of  politeness  to  quit  his 
lips,  never  omitting  to  receive  with  a 
laugh  of  good  humor  the  nonsense  of 
his  neighbor.  This  cleverness,  entirely 
French,  reconciles  in  him  fundamental 
honesty  and  worldly  breeding  ;  without 
it,  he  would  be  altogether  on  the  one 
side  or  the  other.  In  this  way  comedy 
finds  its  hero  half-way  between  the  roue 
and  the  preacher. 

Such  a  theatre  depicts  a  race  and  an 
age.  This  mixture  of  solidity  and 
elegance  belongs  to  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  belongs  to  France.  The 
world  does  not  deprave,  it  develops 
Frenchmen  ;  it  polished  then  not  only 
their  manners  and  their  homes,  but 
also  their  sentiments  and  ideas.  Con- 
versation provoked  thought ;  it  was  no 
mere  talk,  but  an  inquiry;  with  the 
exchange  of  news,  it  called  forth  the 
interchange  of  reflections.  Theology 
and  philosophy  entered  into  it ;  mor- 
als, and  the  observation  of  the  heart, 
formed  its  daily  pabulum.  Science 
kept  up  its  vitality,  and  lost  only  its 
aridity.  Pleasantness  cloaked  reason, 
but  did  not  smother  it.  Frenchmen 
never  think  better  than  in  society ;  the 
play  of  features  excites  them;  their 
ready  ideas  flash  into  lightning,  in  their 
shock  with  the  ideas  of  others.  The 
varied  current  of  conversation  suits 
their  fits  and  starts;  the  frequent 


change  of  subject  fosters  their  inven- 
tion ;  the  pi  ngency  of  piquant  speeches 
reduces  truth  to  small  but  precious 
coin,  suitable  to  the  lightness  of  their 
hands.  And  the  heart  is  no  more  taint- 
ed by  it  than  the  intelligence.  The 
Frenchman  is  of  a  sober  temperament, 
with  little  taste  for  the  brutishness  of 
the  drunkard,  for  violent  joviality,  for 
the  riot  of  loose  suppers ;  he  is  more- 
over gentle,  obliging,  always  ready  to 
please ;  in  order  to  set  him  at  ease  he 
needs  that  flow  of  goodwill  and  ele- 
gance which  polite  society  creates  and 
cherishes.  And  in  accordance  there- 
with, he  shapes  his  temperate  and 
amiable  inclinations  into  maxims  ;  it  is 
a  point  of  honor  with  him  to  be  ser- 
viceable and  refined.  Such  is  the  gen- 
tleman, the  product  of  society  in  a 
sociable  race.  It  was  not  so  with  the 
English.  Their  ideas  do  not  spring 
up  in  chance  conversation,  but  by 
the  concentration  of  solitary  thought ; 
this  is  the  reason  why  ideas  were  then 
wanting.  Their  gentlemanly  feelings 
are  not  the  fruit  of  sociable  instincts, 
but  of  personal  reflection ;  that  is  why 
gentlemanly  feelings  were  then  at  a 
discount.  The  brutish  foundation  re- 
mained; the  outside  alone  was  smooth. 
Manners  were  gentle,  sentiments  harsh ; 
speech  was  studied,  ideas  frivolous. 
Thought  and  refinement  of  soul  were 
rare,  talent  and  fluent  wit  abundant. 
There  was  politeness  of  manner,  not 
of  heart ;  they  had  only  the  set  rules 
and  the  conventionalities  of  life,  its 
giddiness  and  heedlessness. 

VII. 

The  English  comedy-writers  pa:nt 
these  vices,  and  possess  them.  Their 
talent  and  their  stage  are  tainted  by 
them.  Art  and  philosophy  are  absent. 
The  authors  do  not  advance  upon  a 
general  idea,  and  they  do  not  proceed 
by  the  most  direct  method.  They  put 
together  ill,  and  are  embarrassed  by 
materials.  Their  pieces  have  generally 
two  intermingled  plots,  manifestly  dis- 
tinct,* combined  in  order  to  multiply 
incidents,  and  because  the  public  de- 
mands a  multitude  of  characters  and 
facts.  A  strong  current  of  boisterous 

*  Dryden  boasts  of  this.  With  him,  we  al« 
ways  find  a  complete  comedy  grossly  amalga- 
mated with  a  complete  tragedy. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORA  TION. 


345 


action  is  necessary  to  stir  up  their  dense 
appreciation  ;  they  do  as  the  Romans 
did,  who  packed  several  Greek  plays 
into  one.  They  grew  tired  of  the 
French  simplicity  of  action,  because 
they  had  not  the  French  refined  taste. 
The  two  series  of  actions  mingle  and 
jostle  one  with  another.  We  cannot 
see  where  we  are  going  ;  every  mo- 
ment we  are  turned  out  of  our  path. 
The  scenes  are  ill  connected ;  they 
:hange  twenty  times  from  place  to 
place.  When  one  scene  begins  to  de- 
velop itself,  a  deluge  of  incidents  in- 
terrupts. An  irrelevant  dialogue  drags 
on  between  the  incidents,  suggesting  a 
book  with  the  notes  introduced  pro- 
miscuously into  the  text.  There  is  no 
plan  carefully  conceived  and  rigorously 
carried  out ;  they  took,  as  it  were,  a 
plan,  and  wrote  out  the  scenes  one  after 
another,  pretty  much  as  they  came 
into  their  head.  Probability  is  not  well 
cared  for.  There  are  poorly  arranged 
disguises,  ill  simulated  folly,  mock 
marriages,  and  attacks  by  robbers 
worthy  of  the  comic  opera.  In  order 
to  obtain  a  sequence  of  ideas  and  prob- 
ability, we  must  set  out  from  some  gen- 
eral idea.  The  conception  of  avarice, 
hypocrisy,  the  education  of  women,  ill- 
assorted  marriages,  arranges  and  binds 
together  by  its  individual  power  inci- 
dents which  are  to  reveal  it.  But  in 
the  English  comedy  we  look  in  vain 
for  such  a  conception.  Congreve, 
Farquhar,  Vanbrugh,  are  only  men,  of 
wit,  not  thinkers.  They  skim  the 
surface  of  things,  but  do  not  penetrate. 
They  play  with  their  characters.  They 
aim  at  success,  at  amusement.  They 
sketch  caricatures,  they  spin  out  in 
lively  fashion  a  vain  and  bantering  con- 
versation ;  they  make  answers  clash 
with  one  another,  fling  forth  paradoxes  ; 
their  nimble  fingers  manipulate  and 
juggle  with  the  incidents  in  a  hundred 
ingenious  and  unlooked-for  ways.  They 
have  animation,  they  abound  in  gesture 
and  repartee  ;  the  constant  bustle  of 
the  stage  and  its  lively  spirit  surround 
them  with  continual  excitement.  But 
the  pleasure  is  only  skin-deep  ;  we  have 
seen  nothing  of  the  eternal  foundation 
and  the  real  nature  of  mankind ;  we 
carry  no  thought  away ;  we  have  pass- 
ed an  hour,  and  that  is  all ;  the  amuse- 
ment teaches  us  nothing,  and  serves 


only  to  fill  up  the  evenings  of  coquette? 
and  coxcombs. 

Moreover,  this  pleasure  is  not  real 
it  has  no  resemblance  to  the  hearty 
laughter  of  Moliere.  In  English  com- 
edy there  is  always  an  undercurrent  of 
tartness.  We  have  seen  this,  and  more 
in  Wycherley  ;  the  others  though  less 
cruel,  joke  sourly.  Their  characters  in 
a  joke  say  harsh  things  to  one  another ; 
they  amuse  themselves  by  hurting  each 
other  ;  a  Frenchman  is  pained  to  hear 
this  interchange  of  mock  politeness  ; 
he  does  not  go  to  blows  by  way  of  fun. 
Their  dialogue  turns  naturally  to  viru- 
lent satire  ;  instead  of  covering  vice,  it 
makes  it  prominent  ;  instead  of  making 
it  ridiculous,  it  makes  it  odious  ; 

Clarissa.  Prithee,  tell  me  how  you  have 
passed  the  night  ?  •  .  . 

Araminta-  Why,  I  have  been  studying  all 
the  ways  my  brain  could  produce  to  plague  my 
husband. 

Cl.  No  wonder  indeed  you  look  so  fresh  this 
morning,  after  the  satisfaction  of  such  pleasing 
ideas  all  night."  * 

These  women  are  really  wicked,  and 
that  too  openly.  Throughout  vice  is 
crude,  pushed  to  extremes,  served  up 
with  material  adjuncts.  Lady  Fidget 
says :  "  Our  virtue  is  like  the  states- 
man's religion,  the  quaker's  word,  the 
gamester's  oath,  and  the  great  man's 
honor  ;  but  to  cheat  those  that  trust 
us."  t  Or  again  :  "  If  you'll  consult 
the  widows  of  this  town,"  says  a  young 
lady  who  does  not  wish  to  marry  again, 
"  they'll  tell  you,  you  should  never  take 
a  lease  of  a  house  you  can  hire  for  a 
quarter's  warning."  f  Or  again  :  "  My 
heart  cut  a  caper  up  to  my  mouth," 
says  a  young  heir,  "  when  I  heard  my 
father  was  shot  through  the  head."§ 
The  gentlemen  collar  each  other  on  the 
stage,  treat  the  ladies  roughly  before 
spectators,  contrive  an  adultery  not  far 
off  between  the  wings.  Base  or  fero- 
cious parts  abound.  There  are  furies 
like  Mrs.  Loveit  and  Lady  Touchwood. 
There  are  swine  like  parson  Bull  and 
the  go-between  Coupler.  Lady  Touch- 
wood wants  to  stab  her  lover  on  the 
stage.  ||  Coupler,  on  the  stage,  uses 

*  Vanbrugh,  Confederacy,  ii.  i. 
t  Wycherley,  The  Country  Wife,  v.  4. 
%  Vanbrugh,  Relapse,  ii.  end.  §  Tbia. 

||  She  says  to   Maskwell,  her  lover :  "  You 


want  but  leisure  to  invent  fresh  falsehood,  and 
soothe  me 
but  I  will  i 


soothe  me  to  a  fond  belief  of  all  your  fictions  ; 
tab  the  lie  that's  forming  in  your 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


gestures  which  recall  the  court  of 
Henry  III.  of  France.  Wretches  like 
Fainall  as  Maskwell  are  unmitigated 
scoundrels,  and  their  hatefulness  is  not 
even  cloaked  by  the  grotesque.  Even 
honest  women  like  Silvia  and  Mrs. 
Sullen  are  plunged  into  the  most  shock- 
ing situations.  Nothing  shocked  the 
English  public  of  those  days  ;  they  had 
no  real  education,  but  only  its  varnish. 
There  is  a  forced  connection  between 
the  mind  of  a  writer,  the  world  which 
surrounds  him,  and  the  characters 
which  he  produces  ;  for  it  is  from  this 
world  that  he  draws  the  materials  out 
of  which  he  composes  them.  The  senti- 
ments which  he  contemplates  in  others 
and  feels  himself  are  gradually  arranged 
into  characters ;  he  can  only  invent 
after  his  given  model  and  his  acquired 
experience  ;  and  his  characters  only 
manifest  what  he  is,  or  abridge  what  he 
has  seen.  Two  features  are  prominent 
in  this  world  ;  they  are  prominent  also 
on  this  stage.  All  the  successful 
characters  can  be  reduced  to  two  classes 
— natural  beings  on  the  one  part,  and 
artificial  on  the  other  ;  the  first  with 
the  coarseness  and  shamelessness  of 
their  primitive  inclinations,  the  second 
with  the  frivolities  and  vices  of  worldly 
habits  :  the  first  uncultivated,  their 
simplicity  revealing  nothing  but  their 
innate  baseness  ;  the  second  cultivated, 
their  refinement  instilling  into  them 
nothing  but  a  new  corruption.  And  the 
talent  of  the  writers  is  suited  to  the 
painting  of  these  two  groups :  they  pos- 
sess the  grand  English  faculty,  which 
is  the  knowledge  of  exact  detail  and 
real  sentiments  ;  they  see  gestures,  sur- 
roundings,dresses;  they  hear  the  sounds 
of  voices,  and  they  have  the  courage  to 
exhibit  them  ;  they  have  inherited,  very 
little,  and  at  a  great  distance,and  in  spite 
of  themselves,  still  they  have  inherited 
from  Shakspeare ;  they  manipulate 
freely,  and  without  any  softening  the 
coarse  harsh  red  color  which  alone  can 
bring  out  the  figures  of  their  brutes.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  have  animation 
and  a  good  style  ;  they  can  express  the 
thoughtless  chatter,  the  frolicsome  af- 
fectations, the  inexhaustible  and  capri- 
cious abundance  of  drawing-room  stu- 
pidities ;  they  have  as  much  liveliness 

heart,  and  save  a  sin,  in  pity  to  your  soul." — 
Congreve,  Vouble  Dealer,  V.  17. 


as  the  maddest  and  at  the  same  time 
they  speak  as  well  as  the  best  instruct- 
ed ;  they  can  give  the  model  of  witty 
conversation  ;  they  have  lightness  of 
touch,  brilliancy,  and  also  facility,  ex- 
actness, without  which  you  cannot  draw 
the  portrait  of  a  man  of  the  world.  They 
find  naturally  on  their  palette  the  strong 
colors  which  suit  their  barbarians,  and 
the  pretty  tints  which  suit  their  exquis- 
ites. 

VIII. 

First  there  is  the  blockhead,  Squire 
Sullen,  a  low  kind  of  sot,  of  whom  his 
wife  speaks  in  this  fashion  :  "  After  his 
man  and  he  had  rolled  about  the  room, 
like  sick  passengers  in  a  storm,  he 
comes  flounce  into  bed,  dead  as  a  sal- 
mon into  a  fishmonger's  basket ;  his 
feet  cold  as  ice,  his  breath  hot  as  a 
furnace,  and  his  hands  and  his  face  as 
greasy  as  his  flannel  nightcap.  O 
matrimony  !  He  tosses  up  the  clothes 
with  a  barbarous  swing  over  his  shoul- 
ders, disorders  the  whole  economy  of 
my  bed,  leaves  me  half  naked,  and  my 
whole  night's  comfort  is  the  tuneable 
serenade  of  that  wakeful  nightingale, 
his  nose  !  "  *  Sir  John  Brute  says  : 
What  the  plague  did  I  marry  her  (his 
ife)  for  ?  I  knew  she  did  not  like  me ; 
if  she  had,  she  would  have  lain  with 
me."  t  He  turns  his  drawing-room 
into  a  stable,  smokes  it  foul  to  drive 
the  women  away,  throws  his  pipe  at 
their  heads,  drinks,  swears,  and  curses. 
Coarse  words  and  oaths  flow  through 
his  conversation  like  filth  through  a 
gutter.  He  gets  drunk  at  the  tavern, 
and  howls  out,  "  Damn  morality  !  and 
damn  the  watch  !  and  let  the  constable 
be  married."  f  He  cries  out  that  he  is 
a  free-born  Englishman  ;  he  wants  to  go 
out  and  break  every  thing.  He  k  avea 
the  inn  with  other  besotted  scamps, 
and  attacks  the  women  in  the  street 
He  robs  a  tailor  who  was  carrying  a 
doctor's  gown,  puts  it  on,  thrashes  the 
guard.  He  is  seized  and  taken  by  the 
constable  ;  on  the  road  he  breaks  out 
into  abuse,  and  ends  by  proposing  to 
him,  amid  the  hiccups  and  stupid  reit- 
erations of  a  drunken  man,  to  go  and 
find  out  somewhere  a  bottle  and  a  girl, 

*  Farquhar,  The  Beaux  Stratagem,  ii.  i. 
t  Vanbrugh,  Provoked  Wife,  v.  6. 
\  Ibid.  iii.  2. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORA  TION. 


He  returns  home  at  last,  covered  with 
blood  and  mud,  growling  like  a  dog, 
with  red  swollen  eyes,  calling  his  wife 
a  slut  and  a  liar.  He  goes  to  her,  forci- 
bly embraces  her,  and  as  she  turns  away, 
cries,  "  I  see  it  goes  damnably  against 
your  stomach — and  therefore — kiss  me 
again.  (Kisses  and  tumbles  her.}  So, 
now  you  being  as  dirty  and  as  nasty 
as  myself,  we  may  go  pig  together."  * 
He  wants  to  get  a  cup  of  cold  tea  out 
of  the  closet,  kicks  open  the  door,  and 
discovers  his  wife's  and  niece's  gallants. 
He  storms,  raves  madly  with  his  clam- 
my tongue,  then  suddenly  falls  asleep. 
His  valet  comes  and  takes  the  insensi- 
ble burden  on  his  shoulders. t  It  is  the 
portrait  of  a  mere  animal,  and  I  fancy 
it  is  not  a  nice  one. 

That  is  the  husband  ;  let  us  look  at 
the  father,  Sir  Tunbelly  Clumsey,  a 
country  gentleman,  elegant,  if  any  of 
them  were.  Tom  Fashion  knocks  at 
the  door  of  the  mansion,  which  looks 
like  "  Noah's  ark,"  and  where  they  re- 
ceive people  as  in  a  besieged  city.  A 
servant  appears  at  a  window  with  a 
blunderbuss  in  his  hand,  who  is  at  last 
with  great  difficulty  persuaded  that  he 
ought  to  let  his  master  know  that  some- 
body wishes  to  see  him.  "  Ralph,  go  thy 
weas,  and  ask  Sir  Tunbelly  if  he  pleas- 
es to  be  waited  upon.  And  dost  hear? 
call  to  nurse  that  she  may  lock  up  Miss 
Hoyden  before  the  geat's  open/'  f 
Please  to  observe  that  in  this  house 
they  keep  a  watch  over  the  girls.  Sir 
Tunbelly  comes  up  with  his  people, 
armed  with  guns,  pitchforks,  scythes, 
and  clubs,  in  no  amiable  mood,  and 
wants  to  know  the  name  of  his  visitor. 
"  Till  I  know  your  name,  I  shall  not 
ask  you  to  come  into  my  house  ;  and 
when  I  know  your  name — 'tis  six  to 
four  I  don't  ask  you  neither."  §  He 
is  like  a  watch-dog  growling  and  look- 
ing at  the  calves  of  an  intruder.  But 
he  presently  learns  that  this  intruder  is 
his  future  son-in-law  ;  he  utters  some 
exclamations,  and  makes  his  excuses. 
"  Cod's  my  life  !  I  ask  your  lordship's 
pardon  ten  thousand  time.  (  To  a  ser- 
vant.) IIere,run  in  a  doors  quickly.  Get 

*  Vanbrugh,  Provoked  l^t/e^  v.  2. 

t  The  valet  Rasor  says  to  his  master :  "  Come 
to  your  kennel,  you  cuckoldy  drunken  sot  you." 
—Ibid. 

t  Vanbrugh's  Relapse^  iii.  3.  §  Ibid. 


34) 

a  Scotch-coal  fire  in  the  great  parlor  j 
set  all  the  Turkey-work  chairs  in  their 
places  ;  get  the  great  brass  candlesticks 
out  and  be  sure  stick  the  sockets  full  of 
laurel.  Run  !  .  .  .  And  do  you  hear, 
run  away  to  nurse,  bid  her  let  Miss 
Hoyden  loose  again,  and  if  it  was  not 
shifting-day,  let  her  put  on  a  clean 
tucker,  quick  !  "  *  The  pretended  son- 
in-law  wants  to  marry  Hoyden  straight 
off.  "  Not  so  soon  neither  !  that's 
shooting  my  girl  before  you  bid  her 
stand.  .  .  .  Besides,  my  wench's  wed- 
ding-gown is  not  come  home  yet."  t 
The  other  suggests  that  a  speedy  mar- 
riage will  save  money.  Spare  m<  ney  ? 
says  the  father,  "  Udswoons,  I'll  give 
my  wench  a  wedding  dinner,  though  I 
go  to  grass  with  the  king  of  Assyria 
for't.  ...  Ah  !  poor  girl,  she'll  be 
scared  out  of  her  wits  on  her  wedding- 
night  ;  for,  honestly  speaking,  she  does 
not  know  a  man  from  a  woman  but  by 
his  beard  and  his  breeches."  $  Fop- 
pington,  the  real  son-in-law,  arrives. 
Si/Tunbelly,  taking  him  for  an  impos- 
tor, calls  him  a  dog  ;  Hoyden  proposes 
to  drag  him  in  the  horse-pond  ;  they 
bind  him  hand  and  foot,  and  thrust  him 
into  the  dog-kennel  ;  Sir  Tunbelly  puts 
his  fist  under  his  nose,  and  threatens  to 
knock  his  teeth  down  his  throat.  After- 
wards, having  discovered  the  impostor, 
he  says,  "  My  lord,  will  you  cut  his 
throat  ?  or  shall  I  ?  .  .  .  Here,  give  me 
my  dog-whip.  .  .  .  Here,  here,  here, 
let  me  beat  out  his  brains,  and  that  will 
decide  all."  He  raves,  and  wants  to 
fall  upon  Tom  Fashion  with  his  fists. 
Such  is  the  country  gentleman,  of  high 
birth  and  a  farmer,  boxer  and  drinker, 
brawler  and  beast.  There  steams  up 
from  all  these  scenes  a  smell  of  cook- 
ing, the  noise  of  riot,  the  odor  of  a  dung- 
hill. § 

Like  father  like  child.  What  a  can- 
did creature  is  Miss  Hoyden  !  She 
grumbles  to  herself,  "  It's  wt  11  I  have  a 
husband  a-coming,  or,  ecod,  I'd  marry 
the  baker;  I  would  so!  Nobody  can 
knock  at  the  gate,  but  presently  I  must 
be  locked  up  ;  and  here's  the  young 
greyhound  bitch  can  .run  loose  about 
the  house  all  the  day  long,  she  can  ; 
'tis  very  well."  ||  When  the  nurse  tells 
her  her  future  husband  has  arrived, 


*  Ibid.  t  Ibid.  iii.  5- 

$  Ibid.  v.  5.  ||  Ibid.  iii.  4. 


348 

she  leaps  for  joy,  and  kisses  the  old 
woman.  "  O  Lord  !  I'll  go  put  on  my 
laced  smock,  though  I'm  whipped  till 
the  blood  run  down  my  heels  for't."* 
Tom  comes  himself,  and  asks  her  if 
she  will  be  his  wife.  "  Sir,  I  never 
disobey  my  father  in  any  thing  but  eat- 
ing of  green  gooseberries."  But  your 
father  wants  to  wait  ...  "a  whole 
week."  "  A  week  !— Why  I  shall  be 
an  old  woman  by  that  time."  f  I  can- 
not give  all  her  answers.  There  is  the 
spirit  of  a  goat  behind  her  kitchen- 
talk.  She  marries  Tom  secretly  on  the 
spot,  and  the  chaplain  wishes  them  many 
children.  "  Ecod,"  she  says,  "  with  all 
my  heart !  the  more  the  merrier,  I  say  ; 
ha !  nurse  !  "  }  But  Lord  Foppington, 
her  real  intended,  turns  up  and  Tom 
makes  off.  Instantly  her  plan  is  for- 
med. She  bids  the  nurse  and  chap- 
lain hold  their  tongues.  "  If  you  two 
will  be  sure  to  hold  your  tongues,  and 
not  say  a  word  of  what's  past,  I'll  e'en 
marry  this  lord  too."  "  What,"  says 
nurse,  "  two  husbands,  my  dear  ?  " 
"  Why,  you  had  three,  good  nurse,  you 
may  hold  your  tongue."  §  She  never- 
theless takes  a  dislike  to  the  lord,  and 
very  soon  ;  he  is  not  well  made,  he 
hardly  gives  her  any  pocket-money ; 
she  hesitates  between  the  two.  "  If  I 
leave  my  lord,  I  must  leave  my  lady 
too ;  and  when  I  rattle  about  the 
streets  in  my  coach,  they'll  only  say, 
There  goes  mistress — mistress — mis- 
tress what  ?  What's  this  man's  name 
I  have  married,  nurse  ? "  "  Squire 
l-ishion."  "Squire  Fashion  is  it? — 
Well,  'Squire,  that's  better  than  noth- 
ing. ||  .  .  .  Love  him!  why  do  you 
think  I  love  him,  nurse  ?  ecod,  I  would 
not  care  if  he  were  hanged,  so  I  were 
but  once  married  to  him  ! — No — that 
which  pleases  me,  is  to  think  what  work 
I'll  make  when  I  get  to  London ;  for 

*  Vanbrugh's  Relapse,  iii.  4.       t  Ibid.  iv.  i. 

t  Ibid.  iv.  4.  The  character  of  the  nurse 
is  excellent.  Tom  Fashion  thanks  her  for  the 
training  she  has  given  Hoyden:  "Alas,  all 
I  can  boast  of  is,  I  gave  her  pure  good  milk, 
and  so  your  honour  would  have  said,  an  you 
had  seen  how  the  poor  thing  sucked  it.  — 
Eh!  God's  blessing  on  the  sweet  face  on't! 
how  it  used  to  hang  at  this  poor  teat,  and  suck 
*nd  squeeze,  and  kick  and  sprawl  it  would,  till 
the  belly  on't  was  so  full,  it  would  drop  off  like 
a  leech."  This  is  good,  even  after  Juliet's 
anise  in  Shakspeare. 

§  Ibid,  iv.  6.  II  Ibid.  v.  5. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


when  I  am  a  wife  md  a  lady  both, 
nurse,  ecod,  I'll  flaunt  it  with  the  best 
of  'em."  *  But  she  is  cautious  all  the 
same.  She  knows  that  her  father  has 
his  dog's  whip  handy,  and  that  he  will 
give  her  a  good  shake.  "But,  d'ye 
hear  ?  "  she  says  to  the  nurse.  "  Pray 
take  care  of  one  thi  ig  :  when  the  busi- 
ness comes  to  break  out,  be  sure  you 
get  between  me  and  my  father,  for  you 
know  his  tricks:  he'll  knock  me 
down."  t  Here  is  your  true  moral 
ascendency.  For  such  a  character, 
there  is  no  other,  and  Sir  Tunbelly 
dues  well  to  keep  her  tied  up,  and  to 
let  her  taste  a  discipline  of  daily 
stripes.  J 

IX. 

Let  us  accompany  this  modest  char- 
acter to  town,  and  place  her  with  her 
equals  in  fine  society.  All  these  art- 
less ladies  do  wonders  there,  both  in 
the  way  of  actions  and  maxims. 
Wycherley's  Country  Wife  gives  us  the 
tone.  When  one  of  them  happens  to 
be  partly  honest,  §  she  has  the  man- 
ners and" the  boldness  of  a  hussar  in 
petticoats.  Others  seem  born  with 
the  souls  of  courtesans  and  procuresses. 
"  If  I  marry  my  lord  Aimwell,"  says 
Dorinda,  "there  will  be  title,  place, 
and  precedence,  the  Park,  the  play, 
and  the  drawing-room,  splendor, 
equipage,  noise  and  flambeaux. — Hey, 
my  lady  Aimwell's  servants  there ! 
Lights,  lights  to  the  stairs  !  My  lady 
Aimwell's  coach  put  forward  !  Stand 
by,  make  room  for  her  ladyship  ! — Are 
not  these  things  moving  ? "  ||  She  is 
candid,  and  so  are  others — Corinna, 
Miss  Betty,  Belinda,  for  example.  Be- 
linda says  to  her  aunt,  whose  virtue  is 
tottering  :  "  The  sooner  you  capitulate 
the  better. "If  Further  on,  when  she 
has  decided  to  marry  Heartfree,  to 
save  her  aunt  who  is  compromised,  she 
makes  a  confession  of  faith  which 
promises  well  for  the  future  of  her  new 
spouse ;  "  Were't  not  for  your  affair 
in  the  balance,  I  should  go  near  to 

*  Ibid.  iv.  i.  t  Ibid.  v.  5. 

$  See  also  the  character  of  a  young  stupid 
blockhead,  Squire  Humphrey.  (Vanbrugh's 
Jcnirney  t(  London.)  He  has  only  a  single 
idea,  to  be  always  eating. 

§  Wycherley's  Hippolita  ;  Farquhar's  Sil- 
via. 

I!  Farquhar's  Beaux  Stratagem,  iv.  i. 

H  Vanbrugh's  Provoked  Wife,  iii.  3. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


349 


pick  up  some  odious  man  of  quality 
yet,  and  only  take  poor  Heartfree  for 
a  gallant."  *  These  young  ladies  are 
clever,  and  in  all  cases  apt  to  follow 
good  instruction.  Listen  to  Miss 
Prue  :  "  Look  you  here,  madam,  then, 
what  Mr.  Tattle  has  given  me. — Look 
you  here,  cousin,  here's  a  snuff-box: 
nay,  there's  snuff  in't ;  here,  will  you 
have  any  ? — Oh,  good  !  how  sweet  it 
is  ! — Mr.  Tattle  is  all  over  sweet ;  his 
peruke  is  sweet,  and  his  gloves  are 
sweet,  and  his  handkerchief  is  sweet, 
pure  sweet,  sweeter  than  roses. — Smell 
him,  mother,  madam,  I  mean. — He 
gave  me  this  ring  for  a  kiss. . .  .  Smell, 
cousin  ;  he  says,  he'll  give  me  some- 
thing that  will  make  my  smocks  smell 
this  way.  Is  not  it  pure  ? — It's  better 
than  lavender,  mun. —  I'm  resolved 
I  won't  let  nurse  put  any  more  lavender 
among  my  smocks — ha,  cousin  ?  "  t 
It  is  the  silly  chatter  of  a  young  magpie, 
who  flies  for  the  first  time.  Tattle, 
alone  with  her,  tells  her  he  is  going 
to  make  love  : 

"  Miss  Prue.  Well ;  and  how  will  you  make 
love  to  me?  come,  I  long  to  have  you  begin. 
Must  I  make  love  too?  you  must  tell  me  how. 

Tattle.  You  must  let  me  speak,  miss,  you 
must  not  speak  first ;  I  must  ask  you  questions, 
and  you  must  answer. 

Miss  P.  What,  is  it  like  the  catechism?— 
come,  then,  ask  me. 

T.  D'ye  think  you  can  love  me? 

Miss  P.  Yes. 

T.  Pooh!  pox!  you  must  not  say  yes  al- 
ready ;  I  shan't  care  a  farthing  for  you  then  in 
a  twinkling. 

Miss  P.  What  must  I  say  then  ? 

T.  Why,  you  must  say  no,  or  you  believe 
not,  or  you  can't  tell. 

Miss  P.  Why,  must  I  tell  a  lie  then  ? 

T.  Yes,  if  you'd  be  well-bred  ;— all  well-bred 
Dersons  lie. — Besides,  you  are  a  woman,  you 
must  never  speak  what  you  think  :  your  words 
must  contradict  your  thoughts ;  but  your  ac- 
tions may  contradict  your  words.  So,  when  I 
ask  you,  if  you  can  love  me,  you  must  say  no, 
but  you  must  love  me  too.  If  I  tell  you  you 
are  handsome,  you  must  deny  it,  and  say  I  flat- 
ter you.  But  you  must  think  yourself  more 
rharming  than  I  speak  you :  and  like  me,  for 
the  beauty  which  I  say  you  have,  as  much  as  if 
I  had  it  myself.  If  I  ask  you  to  kiss  me,  you 
must  be  angry,  but  you  must  not  refuse  me. . .  . 

Miss  P.  O  Lord,  I  swear  this  is  pure! — I 
like  it  better  than  our'  old-fashioned  country 
way  of  speaking  one's  mind  ; — and  must  not 
you  lie  too  ? 

T.  Hum!— Yes;  but  you  must  believe  I 
speak  truth. 


*  Vanbrugh's  Provoked  Wife.,  v.  2. 
t  Congreve's  Love  for  Love,  ii.  10. 


Miss  P.  O  Gemini !  well,  I  always  had  a 
great  mind  to  tell  lies  ;  but  they  frighted  me, 
and  said  it  was  a  sin. 

T.  Well,  my  pretty  creature  ;  will  you  maka 
me  happy  by  giving  me  a  kiss  ? 

Miss  P.  No,  indeed  ;  I'm  angry  at  you. 
(Rtins  and  kisses  him.) 

T.  Hold,  hold,  that's  pretty  well  ;— but  you 
should  not  have  given  it  me,  but  have  suffered 
me  to  have  taken  it. 

Miss  P.  Well,  we'll  do  it  again. 

T.  With  all  my  heart.  Now,  then,  my  little 
angel.  (Kisses  her.) 

Miss  P.  Pish ! 

T.  That's  right — again,  my  charmer !  (Kisset 
again.) 

Miss  P.  O  fy !  nay,  now  I  can't  abide  you. 

T.  Admirable  !  that  was  as  well  as  it  vou 
had  been  born  and  bred  in  Covent  Garden.  '  * 

She  makes  such  rapid  progress,  that 
we  must  stop  the  quotation  forthwith. 
And  mark,  what  is  bred  in  the  bone 
will  come  out  in  the  flesh.  All  these 
charming  characters  soon  employ  the 
language  of  kitchen-maids.  When  Ben, 
the  dolt  of  a  sailor,  wants  to  mike  love 
to  Miss  Prue,  she  sends  him  orf  with  a 
flea  in  his  ear,  raves,  lets  loose  a  string 
of  cries  and  coarse  expressions,  calls 
him  a  "  great  sea-calf."  "  What  does 
father  mean,"  he  says,  "  to  leave  me 
alone,  as  soon  as  I  come  home,  with 
such  a  dirty  dowdy  ?  Sea-calf  !  I 
an't  calf  enough  to  lick  your  chalked 
face,  you  cheese-curd,  you."  Moved 
by  these  amenities,  she  breaks  out  into 
a  rage,  weeps,  calls  him  a  "  stinking 
tar-barrell."  t  People  come  and  put  a 
stop  to  this  first  essay  at  gallantry. 
She  fires  up,  declares  she  will  marry 
Tattle,  or  the  butler,  if  she  cannot  get 
a  better  man.  Her  father  says,  "  Hus- 
sy, you  shall  have  a  rod."  She  an- 
swers, "  A  fiddle  of  a  rod !  I'll  have  a 
husband  :  and  if  you  won't  get  me  one, 
I'll  get  one  for  myself.  I'll  marry  our 
Robin  the  butler."  \  Here  are  pretty 
and  prancing  mares  if  you  like;  but 

*  Ibid.  ii.  ii. 

t  "  Miss  Prue.  Well,  and  there's  a  hand 
some  gentleman,  and  a  fine  gentleman,  and  a 
sweet  gentleman,  that  was  here,  that  loves  me, 
and  I  love  him  ;  and  if  he  sees  you  speak  to  me 
any  more,  he'll  thrash  your  jacket  for  you,  he 
will ;  you  great  sea-calf. 

Ben.  What !  do  you  mean  that  fair-weather 
spark  that  was  here  just  now  ?  Will  he  thrash 
my  jacket?  Let'n,  let'n,  let'n— but  an  he  comes 
near  me,  mayhap  I  may  give  him  a  salt-eel  for's 
supper,  for  all  that.  What  does  father  mean,  to 
leave  me  alone,  as  soon  as  I  come  home,  with 
such  a  dirty  dowdy?  Sea-calf!  I  an't  cali 
enough  to  lick  yo:ir  chalked  face,  you  cheese- 
curd  you." — Ibid*  iii.  7.  t  Ibid.  v.  6» 


35° 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


BOOK  III.] 


decidedly,  in  these  authors'  hands,  the  ' 
natural  man  becomes  nothing  but  a 
waif  from  the  stable  or  the  kennel. 

Will  you  be  better  pleased  by  the 
educated  man  ?  The  worldly  life  which 
they  depict  is  a  regular  carnival,  and 
the  heads  of  their  heroines  are  full  of 
wild  imaginations  and  unchecked  gos- 
sip. You  may  see  in  Congreve  how 
they  chatter,  with  what  a  flow  of  words 
and  affectations,  with  what  a  shrill 
ind  modulated  voice,  with  what  ges- 
tures, what  twisting  of  arms  and  neck, 
what  looks  raised  to  heaven,  what  gen- 
teel airs,  what  grimaces.  Lady  Wish- 
fort  speaks : 

"  But  art  thou  sure  Sir  Rowland  will  not  fail  to 
come  ?  or  will  he  not  fail  when  he  does  come  ? 
Will  he  be  importunate,  Foible,  and  push  ?  For 
if  he  should  not  be  importunate,  I  shall  never 
break  decorums : — I  shall  die  with  confusion,  if 
I  am  forced  to  advance. — Oh  no,  I  can  never 
advance! — I  shall  swoon,  if  he  should  expect 
advances.  No,  I  hope  Sir  Rowland  is  better 
bred  than  to  put  a  lady  to  the  necessity  of 
breaking  her  forms.  I  won't  be  too  coy  neither 
— I  won't  give  him  despair — but  a  little  disdain 
is  not  amiss  ;  a  little  scorn  is  alluring. 

Foible.  A  little  scorn  becomes  your  ladyship. 

Lady  Wishfort.  Yes,  but  tenderness  be- 
comes me  best — a  sort  of  dyingness — you  see 
that  picture  has  a  sort  of  a — ha,  Foible!  a 
swimmingness  in  the  eye — yes,  I'll  look  so — 
my  niece  affects  it ;  but  she  wants  features.  Is 
Sir  Rowland  handsome  ?  Let  my  toilet  be  re- 
moved— I'll  dress  above.  I'll  receive  Sir  Row- 
land here.  Is  he  handsome?  Don't  answer 
me.  I  won't  know :  I'll  be  surprised,  I'll  be 
taken  by  surprise.*  .  .  .  And  how  do  I  look, 
Foible  ? 

F.  Most  killing  well,  madam. 

Lady  W.  Well,  and  how  shall  I  receive 
him?  in  what  figure  shall  I  give  his  heart  the 
first  impression  ?  .  .  .  Shall  I  sit? — no,  I  won't 
sit — I'll  walk — ay,  I'll  walk  from  the  door  upon 
his  entrance  ;  and  then  turn  full  upon  him — no, 
that  will  be  too  sudden.  I'll  lie — ay,  I'll  lie 
down — I'll  receive  him  in  my  little  dressing- 
room  ;  there's  a  couch — yes,  yes,  I'll  give  the 
first  impression  on  a  couch.  I  won't  lie  neither  ; 
but  loll  and  lean  upon  one  elbow:  with  one 
foot  a  little  dangling  off,  jogging  in  a  thought- 
ful way — yes — and  then  as  soon  as  he  appears, 
start,  ay,  start,  and  be  surprised,  and  rise  to 
meet  him  in  a  pretty  disorder."  t 

These  hesitations  of  a  finished  co- 
quette become  still  more  vehement  at 
the  critical  moment.  Lady  Plyant 
thinks  herself  beloved  by  Mellefont, 
who  does  not  love  her  at  all,  and  tries 
in  vain  to  undeceive  her. 

"  Mellefont.  For  heaven's  sake,  madam. 
Lady  Plyant.  O,  name  it  no  more! — Bless 


*  Congreve,  The  Way  of  the  World,  iii.  5. 
t  Ibid.  iv. 


me,  how  can  you  talk  of  heaven  !  and  rave  so 
much  wickedness  in  your  heart?  May  be  you 
don't  think  it  a  sin.— They  say  some  of  you  gen- 
:lemen  don't  think  it  a  sin.— May  be  it  is  no  sinto 
:hem  that  don't  think  it  so  ;  indeed,  if  I  did  not 
ihink  it  a  sin— but  still  my  honour,  if  it  were 
no  sin. — But  then,  to  marry  my  daughter,  for 
the  conveniency  of  frequent  opportunities,  I'll 
never  consent  to  that  ;  as  sure  as  can  be  I'L 
Dreak  the  match. 

Mel.  Death  and  amazement.— Madam,  upon 
my  knees. 

Lady  P.  Nay,  nay,  rise  up  ;  come,  you  sh-ul 
see  my  good  nature.  I  know  love  is  powerful, 
and  nobody  can  help  his  passion:  'tis  not  your 
fault  ;  nor  I  swear  it  is  not  mine.  How  can  I 
help  it,  if  I  have  charms  ?  and  how  can  you 
help  it  if  you  are  made  a  captive?  I  swear  it 
is  pity  it  should  be  a  fault.  But  my  honour,— 
well,  but  your  honour  too — but  the  sin  ! — well, 
but  the  necessity— O  Lord,  here  is  somebody 
coming,  I  dare  not  stay.  Well,  you  must  con- 
sider of  your  crime  ;  and  strive  as  much  as  can 
be  against  it, — strive,  be  sure — but  don't  be 
melancholic,  don't  despair.— But  never  think 
that  I'll  grant  you  anything;  O  Lord,  no.— 
But  be  sure  you  lay  aside  all  thoughts  of  the 
marriage :  for  though  I  know  you  don't  love 
Cynthia,  only  as  a  blind  to  your  passion  for  me, 
yet  it  will  make  me  jealous. — O  Lord,  what  did 
I  say  ?  jealous !  no,  no  ;  I  can't  be  jealous,  for 
I  must  not  love  you — therefore  don't  hope,— 
but  don't  despair  neither.— O,  they're  coming! 
I  must  fly."  * 

She  escapes  and  we  will  not  follow 
her. 

This  giddiness,  this  volubility,  this 
pretty  corruption,  these  reckless  and 
affected  airs,  are  collected  in  the  most 
brilliant,  the  most  worldly  portrait  of 
the  stage  we  are  discussing,  that  of 
Mrs.  Millamant,  "a  fine  lady,"  as  the 
Dramatis  Personas  say.f  She  enters, 
"  with  her  fan  spread  and  her  streamers 
out,"  dragging  a  train  of  furbelows  and 
ribbons,  passing  through  a  crowd  of 
laced  and  bedizened  fops,  in  splendid 
perukes,  who  flutter  about  her  path, 
haughty  and  wanton,  witty  and  scorn- 
ful, toying  with  gallantries,  petulant, 
with  a  horror  of  every  grave  word  and 
all  nobility  of  action,  falling  in  only 
with  change  and  pleasure.  She  laughs 
at  the  sermons  of  Mirabell,  her  suitor: 
"  Sententious  Mirabell ! — Prithee  don't 
look  with  that  violent  and  inflexible 
wise  face,  like  Solomon  at  the  dividing 
of  the  child  in  an  old  tapestry-hang- 
ing.} •  •  •  Ha!  ha!  ha! — pardon  me, 
dear  creature,  though  I  grant  you  'tis 
a  little  barbarous,  ha  !  ha !  ha  !  "  § 

She  breaks  out  into  laughter,  then 

*  Congreve,  The  Double-dealer,  ii.  5. 
t  Congreve,  The  Way  of  the  World. 
$  Ibid.  ii.  6.  §  Ibid.  iii.  n« 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORA  TION. 


35* 


gets  into  a  rage,  then  banters,  then 
sings,  then  makes  faces,  and  changes 
at  every  motion  while  we  look  at  her. 
It  is  a  regular  whirlpool;  all  turns 
round  in  her  brain  as  in  a  clock  when 
the  mainspring  is  broken.  Nothing 
can  be  prettier  than  her  fashion  of  en- 
tering on  matrimony : 

"MHlamant.  Ah!  I'll  never  marry  unless  I 
am  first  made  sure  of  my  will  and  pleasure  !  . . . 
My  dear  liberty,  shall  I  leave  thee  ?  my  faithful 
solitude,  my  darling  contemplation,  must  I  bid 
you  then  adieu  ?  Ay — h — adieu — my  morning 
thoughts,  agreeable  wakings,  indolent  slumbers, 
all  ye  douceurs  ye  sommeils  du  matin  adieu  ? 
— I  can't  do  it ;  'tis  more  than  impossible — pos- 
itively, Mirabell,  I'll  he  a-bed  in  a  morning  as 
long  as  I  please. 

Mirabell.  Then  I'll  get  up  in  a  morning  as 
early  as  I  please. 

Mill.  Ah !  idle  creature,  get  up  when  you  will 
— and  d'ye  hear,  I  won't  be  called  names  after 
I'm  married;  positively  I  won't  be  called 
names. 

Mir.  Names ! 

Mill.  Ay,  as  wife,  spouse,  my  dear,  joy, 
jewel,  love,  sweet  heart,  and  the  rest  of  that 
nauseous  cant,  in  which  men  and  their  wives 
are  so  fulsomely  familiar — I  shall  never  bear 
that — good  Mirabell,  don't  let  us  be  familiar  or 
fond,  nor  kiss  before  folks,  like  my  Lady  Fad- 
ler,  and  Sir  Francis.  .  .  .  Let  us  never  visit 
together,  nor  go  to  a  play  together  ;  but  let  us  be 
very  strange  and  well-bred  :  let  us  be  as  strange 
as  if  we  had  been  married  a  great  while  ;  and 
as  well  bred  as  if  we  were  not  married  at 
all.  .  .  . 

Mir.  Shall  I  kiss  your  hand  upon  the  con- 
tract ?  * 

Mill.  Fainall,  what  shall  I  do  ?  shall  I  have 
him  ?  I  think  I  must  have  him. 

Fainall.  Ay,  ay,  take  him.  What  should 
you  do  ? 

Mill.  Well  then— I'll  take  my  death  I'm  in  a 
horrid  fright — Fainall,  I  shall  never  say  it — 
well — I  think — I'll  endure  you. 

Fain.  Fy!  fy!  have  him,  have  him,  and  tell 
him  so  in  plain  terms  :  for  I  am  sure  you  have 
a  nrnd  to  him. 

^  Mill.  Are  you?  I  think  I  have— and  the  hor- 
rid man  looks  as  if  he  thought  so  too — well,  you 
ridiculous  thing  you,  I'll  have  you — I  won't  be 
kissed,  nor  I  won't  be  thanked — here  kiss  my 
hand  though. — So,  hold  your  tongue  now,  don't 
say  a  word."  t 

The  agreement  is  complete.  I  should 
like  to  see  one  more  article  to  it — a 
divorce  "#  mertsd  etthoro  :  "  this  would 
be  the  genuine  marriage  of  the  world- 
lings, that  is  a  decent  divorce.  And  I 
am  sure  that  in  two  years  Mirabell  and 
Millamant  will  come  to  this.  Hither 
tends  the  whole  of  this  theatre  ;  for, 
with  regard  to  the  women,  but  particu- 
larly with  regard  to  the  mar  ried  women, 

*  Congreve,  The  Way  of  the  World,  iv.  5. 
t  Ibid.  6. 


I  have  only  presented  their  most  amia- 
ble aspects.  Deeper  down  it  is  all 
gloomy,  bitter,  above  all,  pernicious. 
It  represents  a  household  as  a  prison, 
marriage  as  a  warfare,  woman  as  a 
rebel,  adultery  as  the  result  looked  for, 
irregularity  as  a  right,  extravagance  as 
pleasure.*  A  woman  of  fashion  goes 
to  bed  in  the  morning,  rises  at  mid-day, 
curses  her  husband,  listens  to  obsceni- 
ties, frequents  balls,  haunts  the  plays, 
ruins  reputations,  turns  hei  home  into 
a  gambling-house,  borrows  money,  al- 
lures men,  associates  her  honor  and 
fortune  with  debts  and  assignations. 
"  We  are  as  wicked  (as  men),"  says 
Lady  Brute,  "but  our  vices  lie  another 
way.  Men  have  more  courage  than 
we,  so  they  commit  more  bold  impu- 
dent sins.  They  quarrel,  fight,  swear, 
drink,  blaspheme,  and  the  like  ;  where- 
as we  being  cowards,  only  backbite, 
tell  lies,  cheat  at  cards;  and  so  forth."  t 
An  admirable  resume,  in  which  the 
gentlemen  are  included  and  the  ladies 
too  !  The  world  has  done  nothing  but 
provide  them  with  correct  phrases  and 
elegant  dresses.  In  Congreve  especial- 
ly they  talk  in  the  best  style ;  above  all 
they  know  how  to  hand  ladies  about 
and  entertain  them  with  news;  they 
are  expert  in  the  fence  of  retorts  and 
replies  ;  they  are  never  out  of  counte- 

*"  Amanda.  How  did  you  live  together? 
Berinthia.  Like  man  and  wife,  asunder. — He 
loved  the  country,  I  the  town.  He  hawks  and 
hounds,  I  coaches  and  equipage.  He  eating 
and  drinking,  I  carding  and  playing.  He  the 
sound  of  a  horn,  I  the  squeak  of  a  fiddle.  We 
were  dull  company  at  table,  worse  a-bed. 
Whenever  we  met,  we  gave  one  another  the 
spleen  ;  and  never  agreed  but  once,  which  was 
about  lying  alone." — Vanbrugh,  Relapse,  Act 
iii.  ad  fin. 

Compare  Vanbrugh,  A  Journey  to  London. 
Rarely  has  the  repulsiveness  and  corruption  of 
the  brutish  or  worldly  nature  been  more  vividly 
displayed.  Little  Betty  and  her  brother,  Squire 
Humphry,  deserve  hanging. 

Again.  "  Mrs.  Foresight.  Do  you  think 
any  woman  honest  ?  Scandal.  Yes,  several 
very  honest;  they'll  cheat  a  little  at  cards, 
sometimes ;  but  that's  nothing.  Mrs.  F. 
Pshaw!  but  virtuous,  I  mean.  S.  Yes,  faith  ; 
I  believe  some  women  are  virtuous  too ;  but 
'tis  as  I  believe  some  men  are  valiant,  through 
fear.  For  why  should  a  man  court  danger  or  a 
woman  shun  pleasure  ?  " — Congreve,  Love  for 
Love,  iii.  14. 

t  Vanbrugh,  Provoked  Wife,  v.  2.  Com- 
pare also  in  this  piece  the  character  of  Mu  ie- 
moiselle,  the  French  chambermaid.  They  rep- 
resent French  vice  as  even  more  shameless 
than  English  rice. 


352 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


nance,  find  means  to  make  the  most 
ticklish  notions  understood  ;  they  dis- 
cuss very  well,  speak  excellently,  make 
their  bow  still  better  ;  but  to  sum  up, 
they  are  blackguards,  systematical  epi- 
cureans, professed  seducers.  They  set 
forth  immorality  in  maxims,  and  rea- 
son out  their  vice.  "  Give  me,"  says 
one,  "  a  man  that  keeps  his  five  senses 
keen  and  bright  as  his  sword,  that  has 
'em  always  drawn  out  in  their  just  or- 
der and  strength,  with  his  reason,  as 
commander  at  the  head  of  'em,  that 
detaches  'em  by  turns  upon  whatever 
party  of  pleasure  agreeably  offers,  and 
commands  'em  to  retreat  upon  the 
least  appearance  of  disadvantage  or 
danger.  ...  I  love  a  fine  house,  but 
let  another  keep  it ;  and  just  so  I  love 
a  fine  woman."*  One  deliberately  se- 
duces his  friend's  wife  ;  another  under 
a  false  name  gets  possession  of  his 
brother's  intended.  A  third  hires 
false  witnesses  to  secure  a  dowry.  I 
must  ask  the  reader  to  consult  for  him- 
self the  fine  stratagems  of  Worthy, 
Mirabell,  and  others.  They  are  cold- 
blooded rascals  who  forge,  commit 
adultery,  swindle,  as  if  they  had  done 
nothing  else  all  their  lives.  They  are 
represented  here  as  men  of  fashion ; 
they  are  theatrical  lovers,  heroes,  and 
as  such  they  manage  to  get  hold  of  an 
heiress.  We  must  go  to  Mirabell  for 
an  example  of  this  medley  of  corrup- 
tion and  elegance.  Mrs.  Fainall,  his 
former  mistress,  married  by  him  to  a 
common  friend,  a  miserable  wretch, 
complains  to  him  of  this  hateful  mar- 
riage. He  appeases  her,  gives  her 
advice,  shows  her  the  precise  mode, 
the  true  expedient  for  setting  things  on 
a  comfortable  footing.  "  You  should 
have  just  so  much  disgust  for  your 
husband,  as  may  be  sufficient  to  make 
you  relish  your  lover."  She  cries  in 
despair,  "  Why  did  you  make  me 
marry  this  man  ?  "  He  smiles  calmly, 
"  Why  do  we  daily  commit  disagree- 
able and  dangerous  actions  ?  to  save 
that  idol,  reputation."  How  tender 

*  Farquhar's  The  Beaux  Stratagem^  i.  i  ; 
and  in  the  same  piece  here  is  the  catechism  of 
love:  "  What  are  the  objects  of  that  passion  ? 
• — youth,  beauty,  and  clean  linen."  And  from 
the  Mock  Astrologer  of  Dryden  :  "  As  I  am  a 
gentleman,  a  man  about  town,  one  that  wears 
good  cloths,  eats,  drinks,  and  wenches  suffi- 
ciently." 


is  this  argument !  How  can  a  man 
better  console  a  woman  whom  he 
has  plunged  into  bitter  unhappiness  ! 
What  a  touching  logic  in  the  insinua 
tion  which  follows  :  "  If  the  familiari- 
ties of  our  loves  had  produced  that 
consequence  of  which  you  were  appre- 
hensive, where  could  you  have  fixed  a 
father's  name  with  credit,  but  on  a 
husband  ?  "  He  continues  his  reason- 
ing in  an  excellent  style  ;  listen  to  the 
dilemma  of  a  man  of  feeling  :  "  A  bet- 
ter man  ought  not  to  have  been  sacri- 
ficed to  the  occasion ;  a  worse  had  not 
answered  to  the  purpose.  When  you 
are  weary  of  him,  you  know  your  reme- 
dy." *  Thus  are  a  woman's  feelings 
to  be  considered,  especially  a  woman 
whom  we  have  loved.  To  cap  all,  this 
delicate  conversation  is  meant  to  force 
the  poor  deserted  Mrs.  Fainall  into  a 
low  intrigue  which  shall  obtain  for 
Mirabell  a  pretty  wife  and  a  good  dowry. 
Certainly  this  gentleman  knows  the 
world ;  no  one  could  better  employ  a 
former  mistress.  Such  are  the  culti- 
vated characters  of  this  theatre,  as  dis- 
honest as  the  uncultivated  ones  :  hav- 
ing transformed  their  evil  instincts  into 
systematic  vices,  lust  into  debauchery, 
brutality  into  cynicism,  perversity  into 
depravity,  deliberate  egotists,  calcula- 
ting sensualists,  with  rules  for  their  im- 
morality, reducing  feeling  to  self-inter- 
est, honor  to  decorum,  happiness  to 
pleasure,  v 

The  English  Restoration  altogether 
was  one  of  those  great  crises  which, 
while  warping  the  development  of  a 
society  and  a  literature,  show  the  in- 
ward spirit  which  they  modify,  but 
which  contradicts  them.  Society  did 
not  lack  vigor,  nor  literature  talent; 
men  of  the  world  were  polished,  wri- 
ters inventive.  There  was  a  court, 
drawing-rooms,  conversation,  worldly 
life,  a  taste  for  letters,  the  example  of 
France,  peace,  leisure,  the  influence  of 
the  sciences,  of  politics,  of  theology, 
— in  short,  all  the  happy  circumstances 
which  can  elevate  the  mind  and  civilize 
manners.  There  was  the  vigorous 
satire  of  Wycherley,  the  sparkling  dia- 
logue and  delicate  raillery  of  Congreve, 
the  frank  nature  and  animation  of  Van- 
brugh,  the  manifold  invention  of  Far- 
quhar,  in  short,  all  the  resources  which 

*  Congreve,  The  Way  of  the  World,  ii.  4. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


353 


might  nourish  the  comic  element,  and 
offer  a  genuine  theatre  to  the  best  con- 
structions of  human  intelligence.  Noth- 
ing came  to  a  head  ;  all  was  abortive. 
Their  age  left  nothing  behind  but  the 
memory  of  corruption  ;  their  comedy 
remains  a  repertory  of  viciousness  ; 
society  had  only  a  solid  elegance,  litera- 
ture a  frigid  wit.  Their  manners  are 
gross  and  trivial  ;  their  ideas  are  futile 
or  incomplete.  Through  disgust  and 
reaction,  a  revolution  was  at  hand  in 
literary  feeling  and  moral  habits,  as  well 
as  in  general  beliefs  and  political  institu- 
tions. Man  was  to  change  altogether, 
and  to  turn  completely  round  at  once. 
The  same  repugnance  and  the  same 
experience  were  to  detach  him  from 
every  aspect  of  his  old  condition.  The 
Englishman  discovered  that  he  was 
not  monarchical,  Papistical,  nor  skep- 
tical, but  liberal,  Protestant,  and  a 
believer.  lie  came  to  understand  that 
he  was  not  a  roisterer  nor  a  worldling, 
but  reflective  and  introspective.  He 
possesses  a  current  of  animal  life  too 
violent  to  suffer  him  without  danger  to 
abandon  himself  to  enjoyment ;  he 
needs  a  barrier  of  moral  reasoning  to 
repress  his  outbreaks.  There  is  in  him 
a  current  of  attention  and  will  too 
strong  to  suffer  himself  to  rest  content 
with  trifles  ;  he  needs  some  weighty 
and  serviceable  labor  on  which  to  ex- 
pend his  power.  He  needs  a  barrier 
and  an  employment.  He  needs  a  con- 
stitution and  a  religion  which  shall 
restrain  him  by  duties  which  must  be 
performed,  and  which  shall  occupy 
him  by  rights  which  must  be  defend- 
ed. He  is  content  only  in  a  serious 
and  orderly  life ;  there  he  finds  the 
natural  groove  and  the  necessary  out- 
let for  his  faculties  and  his  passions. 
From  this  time  he  enters  upon  it,  and 
this  theatre  itself  exhibits  the  impress 
of  it.  It  undoes  and  transforms  itself. 
Collier  threw  discredit  upon  it ;  Addi- 
son  condemned  it.  National  sentiment 
awoke  on  the  stage ;  French  manners 
are  jeered  at ;  the  prologues  celebrate 
the  defeats  of  Louis  XIV. ;  the  license, 
elegance,  religion  of  his  court,  are 
presented  under  a  ridiculous  or  odious 
light.*  Immorality  gradually  dimin- 

*  The  part  of  Chaplain  Foigardin  Farquhar's 
Beaux  Stratagem  ;  of  Mademoiselle,  and  gen- 
erally of  all  the  French  people. 


ishes,  marriage  is  more  respected,  the 
heroines  go  no  further  than  to  the 
verge  of  adultery ;  *  the  roisterers  are 
pulled  up  at  the  critical  moment ;  one 
of  them  suddenly  declares  himself 
purified,  and  speaks  in  verse,  the  bet- 
ter to  mark  his  enthusiasm ;  another 
praises  marriage  ;  t  some  aspire  in  the 
fifth  act  to  an  orderly  life.  We  shall 
soon  see  Steele  writing  a  moral  treatise 
called  The  Christian  Hero.  Hence- 
forth comedy  declines  and  literary 
talent  flows  into  another  channel.  Es- 
say, novel,  pamphlet,  dissertation,  take 
the  place  of  the  drama ;  and  the  Eng- 
lish classical  spirit,  abandoning  the 
kinds  of  writing  which  are  foreign  to 
its  nature,  enters  upon  the  great  works 
which  are  destined  to  immortalize  it 
and  give  it  expression.  )( 

X. 

Nevertheless,  in  this  continuous  de- 
cline of  dramatic  invention,  and  in  the 
great  change  of  literary  vitality,  some 
shoots  strike  out  at  distant  intervals 
towards  comedy  ;  for  mankind  always 
seeks  for  entertainment,  and  the  theatre 
is  always  a  place  of  entertainment.  The 
tree  once  planted  grows,  feebly  no 
doubt,  with  long  intervals  of  almost  to- 
tal dryness  and  almost  constant  barren- 
ness, yet  subject  to  imperfect  renewals 
of  life,  to  transitory  partial  blossomings, 
sometimes  to  an  inferior  fruitage  burst- 
ing forth  from  the  lowest  branches. 
Even  when  the  great  subjects  are  worn 
out,  there  is  still  room  here  and  there 
for  a  happy  idea.  Let  a  wit,  clever 
and  experienced,  take  it  in  hand,  he 
will  catch  up  a  few  oddities  on  his  way, 
he  will  introduce  on  the  scene  soirie 
vice  or  fault  of  his  time  ;  the  public 
will  come  in  crowds,  and  ask  no  better 
than  to  recognize  itself  and  laugh. 
There  was  one  of  these  successes  when 
Gay,  in  the  Beggars'  Opera,  brought 
out  the  rascaldom  of  the  great  world, 
and  avenged  the  public  on  Walpole 

*  The  part  of  Amanda  in  Vanbrugh's  Re~ 
lapse ;  of  Mrs.  Sullen  ;  the  conversion  of  two 
roisterers,  in  the  Beaux  Stratagem. 

t  "  Though  marriage  be  a  lottery  in  which 
there  are  a  wondrous  many  blanks,  yet  there  is 
one  inestimable  lot,  in  which  the  only  heaveu 
upon  earth  is  written." 

"  To  be  capable  of  loving  one,  doubtless,  is 
better  than  to  possess  a  thousand." — VAN« 

BRUGH. 


354 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


and  the  court;  another,  when  Gold- 
smith, inventing  a  series  of  mistakes, 
led  his  hero  and  his  audience  through 
five  acts  of  blunders.*  After  all,  if 
true  comedy  can  only  exist  in  certain 
ages,  ordinary  comedy  can  exist  in  any 
age.  It  is  too  akin  to  the  pamphlet, 
novels,  satire,  not  to  raise  itself  occa- 
sionally by  its  propinquity.  If  I  have 
an  enemy,  instead  of  attacking  him  in 
a  brochure,  I  can  take  rny  fling  at  him 
on  the  stage.  If  I  am  capable  of  paint- 
ing a  character  in  a  story,  I  am  not  far 
from  having  the  talent  to  bring  out  the 
pith  of  this  same  character  in  a  few 
turns  of  a  dialogue.  If  I  can  quietly 
ridicule  a  vice  in  a  copy  of  verses,  I 
shall  easily  arrive  at  making  this  vice 
speak  out  from  the  mouth  of  an  actor. 
At  least  I  shall  be  tempted  to  try  it ;  I 
shall  be  seduced  by  the  wonderful  eclat 
which  the  footlights,  declamation, 
scenery  give  to  an  idea ;  I  shall  try  and 
bring  my  own  into  this  strong  light ;  I 
shall  go  in  for  it  even  when  it  is  neces- 
sary that  my  talent  be  a  little  or  a 
good  deal  forced  for  the  occasion.  If 
need  be,  I  shall  delude  myself,  sub- 
stitute expedients  for  artless  originality 
and  true  comic  genius.  If  on  a  few 
points  I  am  inferior  to  the  great  mas- 
ters, on  some,  it  may  be,  I  surpass 
them  ;  I  can  work  up  my  style,  refine 
upon  it,  discover  happier  words,  more 
striking  jokes,  a  brisker  exchange  of 
brilliant  repartees,  newer  images,  more 
picturesque  comparisons  ;  I  can  take 
from  this  one  a  character,  from  the 
other  a  situation,  borrow  of  a  neigh- 
boring nation,  out  of  old  plays,  good 
novels,  biting  pamphlets,  polished  sa- 
tires, and  petty  newspapers  ;  I  can  ac- 
cumulate effects,  serve  up  to  the  public 
a  stronger  and  more  appetizing  stew  ; 
above  all,  I  can  perfect  my  machine, 
oil  thi  wheels,  plan  the  surprises,  the 
stage  effects,  the  see-saw  of  the  plot, 
like  a  consummate  playwright.  The 
art  of  constructing  plays  is  as  capable 
of  development  as  the  art  of  clock- 
making.  The  farce-writer  of  to-day 
sees  that  the  catastrophe  of  half  of 
Moliere's  plays  is  ridiculous ;  nay, 
many  of  them  can  produce  catastrophes 
better  than  Moliere ;  in  the  long  run, 
they  succeed  in  stripping  the  theatre  of 
all  awkwardness  and  circumlocution. 
*  SJu  Stoofs  to  Conquer* 


A  piquant  style,  and  perfect  machinery 
pungency  in  all  the  words,  and  anima- 
tion in  all  the  scenes ;  a  superabund- 
ance of  wit,  and  marvels  of  ingenuity ; 
over  all  this,  a  true  physical  activity, 
and  the  secret  pleasure  of  depicting  and 
justifying  oneself,  of  public  self-glorifi- 
cation :  here  is  the  foundation  of  the 
School  for  Scandal,  here  the  source  of  the 
talent  and  the  success  of  Sheridan. 

Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  was  the 
contemporary  of  Beaumarchais,  and 
resembled  him  in  his  talent  and  in  his 
life.  The  two  epochs,  the  two  dra- 
matic schools,  the  two  characters,  cor- 
respond. Like  Beaumarchais,  he  was 
a  lucky  adventurer,  clever,  amiable,  and 
generous,  reaching  success  through 
scandal,  who  flashed  up  in  a  moment, 
dazzled  everybody,  scaled  with  a  rush 
the  empyrean  of  politics  and  literature, 
settled  himself,  as  it  were,  among  the 
constellations,  and,  like  a  brilliant 
rocket,  presently  went  out  completely 
exhausted.  Nothing  failed  him  ;  he  at- 
tained all  at  the  first  attempt,  without 
apparent  effort,  like  a  prince  who  need 
only  show  himself  to  win  his  place.  He 
took  as  his  birthright  every  thing  that 
was  most  surpassing  in  happiness, 
most  brilliant  in  art,  most  exalted  in 
worldly  position.  The  poor  unknown 
youth,  the  wretched  translator  of 
an  unreadable  Greek  sophist,  who 
at  twenty  walked  about  Bath  in  a 
red  waistcoat  and  a  cocked  hat,  desti- 
tute of  hope,  and  ever  conscious  of  the 
emptiness  of  his  pockets,  had  gained 
the  heart  of  the  most  admired  beauty 
and  musician  of  her  time,  had  carried 
her  off  from  ten  rich,  elegant,  titled 
adorers",  had  fought  with  the  best-hoax- 
ed of  the  ten,  beaten  him,  had  carried 
by  storm  the  curiosity  and  attention  of 
the  public.  Then,  challenging  glory 
and  wealth,  he  placed  successively  on 
the  stage  the  most  diverse  and  tho 
most  applauded  dramas,  comediest 
farce,  opera,  serious  verse  ;  he  bought 
and  worked  a  large  theatre  without  a 
farthing,  inaugurated  a  reign  of  success- 
es and  pecuniary  advantages,  and  led 
a  life  of  elegance  amid  the  enjoyments 
of  social  and  domestic  joys,  surrounded 
by  universal  admiration  and  wonder. 
Thence,  aspiring  yet  higher,  he  con- 
quered power,  entered  the  House  of 
Commons,  showed  himself  a  match  f of 


CHAP.  L] 


THE  RESTORA  TIOM 


355 


the  first  orators,  opposed  Pitt,  accused 
Warren  Hastings,  supported  Fox, 
jeered  at  Burke  ;  sustained  with  bril- 
liancy, disinterestedness,  and  constancy, 
A  most  difficult  and  liberal  part ;  be- 
came one  of  the  three  or  four  most 
noted  men  in  England,  an  equal  of  the 
greatest  lords,  the  friend  of  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  in  the  end  even  Receiver- 
General  of  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall, 
treasurer  to  the  fleet.  In  every  career 
he  took  the  lead.  As  Byron  said  of 
him  :  "  Whatsoever  Sheridan  has  done 
or  chosen  to  do  has  been,/«r  excellence, 
always  the  best  of  its  kind.  He  has 
written  the  best  comedy  ( l^he  School  for 
Scandal],  the  best  drama  (in  my  mind 
far  before  that  St.  Giles  lampoon  The 
Beggar's  Opera],  the  best  farce  (The 
Critic — it  is  only  too  good  for  a  farce), 
and  the  best  Address  (Monologue  <?;z 
Garrick],  and,  to  crown  all,  delivered 
the  very  best  oration  (the  famous  Be- 
gum Speech)  ever  conceived  or  heard 
in  this  country."  * 

All  ordinary  rules  were  reversed  in 
his  favor.  He  was  forty-four  years 
old,  debts  began  to  accumulate  ;  he 
had  supped  and  drunk  to  excess  ;  his 
cheeks  were  purple,  his  nose  red. 
In  this  state  he  met  at  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire's  a  charming  young  lady 
with  whom  he  fell  in  love.  At  the 
first  sight  she  exclaimed,  "  What  an 
ugly  man,  a  regular  monster ! "  He 
spoke  to  her ;  she  confessed  that  he 
was  very  ugly,  but  that  he  had  a  good 
deal  of  wit.  He  spoke  again,  and 
she  found  him  very  amiable.  He  spoke 
yet  again,  and  she  loved  him,  and  re- 
solved at  all  hazard  to  marry  him.  The 
father,  a  prudent  man,  wishing  to  end 
the  affair,  gave  out  that  his  future  son- 
in-law  must  provide  a  dowry  of  fifteen 
thousand  pounds ;  the  fifteen  thousand 
pounds  were  deposited  as  by  magic  in 
the  hands  of  a  banker;  the  young 
couple  set  off  into  the  country;  and 
Sheridan,  meeting  his  son,  a  fine  strap- 
ping fellow,  not  very  satisfied  with  the 
marriage,  persuaded  him  that  it  was 
the  most  sensible  thing  a  father  could 
do,  and  the  most  fortunate  event  that  a 
son  could  rejoice  over.  Whatever  the 
business,  whoever  the  man,  he  per- 

*  The  Works  of  Lord  Byron,  18  vols.,  ed. 
Moore,  1832,  ii.  p.  303. 


suaded ;    none   withstood    him,   everj 
one  fell  under  his  charm. 

What  is  more  difficult  than  for  an 
ugly  man  to  make  a  young  girl  forget 
his  ugliness  ?  There  is  one  thing  more 
difficult,  and  that  is  to  make  a  creditor 
forget  you  owe  him  money.  There  is 
something  more  difficult  still,  and  that 
is,  to  borrow  money  from  a  creditor 
who  has  come  to  dun  you.  One  day 
one  of  his  friends  was  arrested  for 
debt ;  Sheridan  sends  for  Mr.  Herder- 
son,  the  crabbed  tradesman,  coaxes 
him,  interests  him,  moves  him  to  tears, 
works  upon  his  feelings,  hedges  him 
in  with  general  considerations  and 
lofty  eloquence,  so  that  Mr.  Hender- 
son offers  his  purse,  actually  wants  to 
lend  two  hundred  pounds,  insists,  and 
finally,  to  his  great  joy,  obtains  per- 
mission to  lend  it.  No  one  was  ever 
more  amiable,  quicker  to  win  confi- 
dence than  Sheridan  ;  rarely  has  the 
sympathetic,  affectionate,  and  fascina- 
ting character  been  more  fully  display- 
ed ;  he  was  literally  seductive.  In  the 
morning,  creditors  and  visitors  filled 
the  rooms  in  which  he  lived  ;  he  came 
in  smiling  with  an  easy  manner,  with 
so  much  loftiness  and  grace,  that  the 
people  forgot  their  wants  and  their 
claims,  and  looked  as  if  they  had  only 
come  to  see  him.  His  animation  was 
irresistible ;  no  one  had  a  more  daz- 
zling wit ;  he  had  an  inexhaustible 
fund  of  puns,  contrivances,  saliies,  nov- 
el ideas.  Lord  Byron,  who  was  a  good 
judge,  said  that  he  had  never  heard 
nor  conceived  of  a  more  extraor- 
dinary power  of  conversation.  Men 
spent  nights  in  listening  to  him;  no 
one  equalled  him  during  a  supper ; 
even  when  drunk  he  retained  his  wit. 
One  morning  he  was  picked  up  by  the 
watch,  and  they  asked  him  his  name  ; 
he  gravely  answered,  "  Wilberforce." 
With  strangers  and  inferiors  he  had 
no  arrogance  or  stiffness;  he  possess- 
ed in  an  eminent  degree  that  unre- 
served character  which  always  exhibits 
itself  complete,  which  holds  back  none 
of  its  light,  which  abandons  and  gives 
itself  up ;  he  wept  when  he  received 
a  sincere  eulogy  from  Lord  Byron,  or 
in  recounting  his  miseries  as  a  plebeian 
parvenu.  Nothing  is  more  charming 
than  this  openness  of  heart ;  it  at  once 
sets  people  on  a  footing  of  peace  and 


356 

amity ;  men  suddenly  desert  their  de- 
fensive and  cautious  attitude  ;  they  per- 
ceive that  a  man  is  giving  himself  up 
to  them,  and  they  give  themselves  up 
to  him  ;  the  outpouring  of  his  inner- 
most feelings  invites  the  outpouring  of 
theirs.  A  minute  later,  Sheridan's  im- 
petuous and  sparkling  individuality 
flashes  out ;  his  wit  explodes,  rattles 
like  a  discharge  of  fire-arms ;  he  takes 
the  conversation  to  himself,  with  a  sus- 
tained brilliancy,  a  variety,  an  inex- 
haustible vigor,  till  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Against  such  a  necessity  for 
launching  out  in  unconsidered  speech, 
of  indulgence,  of  self-outpouring,  a 
man  had  need  be  well  on  his  guard  ; 
life  cannot  be  passed  like  a  holiday  ; 
it  is  a  strife  against  others  and  against 
oneself ;  people  must  think  of  the  fu- 
ture, mistrust  themselves,  make  pro- 
vision ;  there  is  no  subsisting  without 
the  precaution  of  a  shopkeeper,  the 
calculation  of  a  tradesman.  If  we 
sup  too  often,  we  will  end  by  not  hav- 
ing wherewithal  to  dine  upon  ;  when 
our  pockets  have  holes  in  them,  the 
shillings  will  fall  out ;  nothing  is  more 
of  a  truism,  but  it  is  true.  Sheridan's 
debts  accumulated,  his  digestion  failed. 
He  lost  his  seat  in  Parliament,  his 
theatre  was  burned ;  sheriff's  officer 
succeeded  sheriff's  officer,  and  they 
had  long  been  in  possession  of  his 
house.  At  last,  a  bailiff  arrested  the 
dying  man  in  his  bed,  and  was  for  tak- 
ing him  off  in  his  blankets  ;  nor  would 
he  let  him  go  until  threatened  with  a 
lawsuit,  the  doctor  having  declared 
that  the  sick  man  would  die  on  the 
road.  A  certain  newspaper  (the  Ex- 
aminer] cried  shame  on  the  great  lords 
who  suffered  such  a  man  to  end  so 
miserably :  they  hastened  to  leave  their 
cards  at  his  door.  In  the  funeral  pro- 
cession, two  brothers  of  the  king, 
dukes,  earls,  bishops,  the  first  men  in 
England,  carried  or  followed  the  body. 
A  singular  contrast,  picturing  in  ab- 
stract all  his  talent,  and  all  his  life  ; 
lords  at  his  funeral  and  bailiffs  at  his 
death-bed. 

His  theatre  was  in  accordance  with 
his  life  ;  all  was  brilliant,  but  the  metal 
was  not  all  his  own,  nor  was  it  of  the 
best  quality.  His  comedies  were  come- 
dies of  society,  the  most  amusing  ever 
Written,  but  merely  comedies  of  society. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  1IL 


Imagine  the  exaggerated  caricatures 
artists  are  wont  to  improvise,  in  the 
drawing-room  of  a  house  where  they  are 
intimate,  about  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
evening.  His  first  play,  The  Rivals, 
and  afterwards  his  Duenna,  and  The 
Critic,  are  filled  with  these,  and  scarce 
any  thing  else.  There  is  Mrs.  Malaprop, 
a  silly  pretentious  woman,  who  uses 
grand  words  higgledy-piggledy,  delight- 
ed with  herself,  in  "  a  nice  derangement 
of  epitaj.  as "  before  her  nouns,  and 
declaring  that  her  niece  is  "  as  heac- 
strong  as  an  allegory  on  the  banks  cf 
the  Nile/'  There  is  Bob  Acres,  who 
suddenly  becomes  a  hero,  gets  engaged 
in  a  duel,  and  being  led  on  the  ground, 
calculates  the  effect  of  the  balls,  thinks 
of  his  will,  burial,  embalmment,  and 
wishes  he  were  at  home.  There  is  an- 
other caricature  in  the  person  of  a  clum- 
sy and  cowardly  servant,  of  an  irascible 
and  brawling  father,  of  a  sentimental 
and  romantic  young  lady,  of  a  touchy 
Irish  duellist.  All  this  jogs  and  jostles 
on,  without  much  order,  amid  the  sur- 
prises of  a  twofold  plot,  by  aid  of  ap- 
pliances and  rencontres,  without  the 
full  and  regular  control  of  a  dominating 
idea.  But  in  vain  we  perceive  it  is  a 
patchwork  ;  the  high  spirit  carries  off 
every  thing  :  we  laugh  heartily  ;  every 
single  scene  has  its  facetious  and  rapid 
movement ;  we  forget  that  the  clumsy 
valet  makes  remarks  as  witty  as  Sheri- 
dan himself,*  and  that  the  irascible 
gentleman  speaks  as  well  as  the  most 
elegant  of  writers.!  The  playwright  is 
also  a  man  of  letters  ;  if,  through  mere 
animal  and  social  spirit,  he  wished  to 
amuse  others  and  to  amuse  himself,  he 
does  not  forget  the  interests  of  his  talent 
and  the  care  for  his  reputation.  He 

*  A  cres.  Odds  blades !  David,  n"  gentleman 
will  ever  risk  the  loss  of  his  honour . 

David.  I  say,  then,  it  would  be  but  civil  in 
honour  never  to  risk  the  loss  of  a  gentleman. — 
Look  ye,  master,  this  honour  seems  to  me  to  be 
a  marvellous  false  friend  ;  ay,  truly,  a  very 
'courtier-like  servant. —  The  Dramatic  Works 
of  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan,  1828:  The 
Rivals,  iv.  i« 

t  Sir  Anthony.  Nay,  but  Jack,  such  eyes  I 
so  innocently  wild!  so  bashfully  irresorate  I 
Not  a  glance  but  speaks  and  kindles  some 
thought  of  love  !  Then,  Jack,  her  cheeks!  so 
deeply  blushing  at  the  insinuations  of  her  tell- 
tale eyes!  Then,  Jack,  her  lips!  O  Jack, 
lips,  smiling  at  their  own  discretion  !  and  if  not 
smiling,  more  sweetly  pouting,  more  lovely  in 
sullenness  ! — The  Rivals,  iii,  i. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  RESTORATION. 


357 


has  taste,  he  appreciates  the  refinements 
of  style,  the  worth  of  a  new  image,  of 
a  striking  contrast,  of  a  witty  and  well- 
considered  insinuation.  He  has,  above 
all,  wit,  a  wonderful  conversational  wit, 
the  art  of  rousing  and  sustaining  the 
attention,  of  being  biting,  varied,  of 
taking  his  hearers  unawares,  of  throw- 
ing in  a  repartee,  of  setting  folly  in  re- 
lief, of  accumulating  one  after  another 
witticisms  and  happy  phrases.  He 
brought  himself  to  perfection  subse- 
quently to  his  first  play  having  acquired 
theatrical  experience,  writing  and  eras- 
ing ;  trying  various  scenes,  recasting, 
arranging  them  ;  his  desire  was  that 
nothing  should  arrest  the  interest,  no 
improbability  shock  the  spectator;  that 
his  comedy  might  glide  on  with  the 
precision,  certainty,  uniformity  of  a  good 
machine.  He  invents  jests,  replaces 
them  by  better  ones  ;  he  whets  his  jokes, 
binds  them  up  like  a  sheaf  of  arrows, 
and  writes  at  the  bottom  of  the  last 
page,  "  Finished,  thank  God.— Amen." 
He  is  right,  for  the  work  costs  him 
some  pains  ;  he  will  not  write  a  second. 
This  kind  of  writing,  artificial  and  con- 
densed as  the  satires  of  La  Bruyere,  is 
like  a  cut  phial,  into  whick  the  author 
has  distilled  all  his  reflections,  his  read- 
ing, his  wit,  without  keeping  any  thing 
for  himself. 

What  is  there  in  this  celebrated 
School  for  Scandal  ?  And  how  is  it  that 
it  has  cast  upon  English  comedy,  which 
day  by  day  was  being  more  and  more 
forgotten,  the  radiance  of  a  last  suc- 
cess? Sheridan  took  two  characters 
from  Fielding,  Blifil,  and  Tom  Jones  ; 
two  plays  of  Moliere,  Le  Misanthrope 
and  Tartuffe ;  and  from  these  puissant 
materials,'  condensed  with  admirable 
cleverness,  he  has  constructed  the  most 
brilliant  firework  imaginable.  Moliere 
ha*  only  one  female  slanderer,  Celi- 
me  le  ;  the  other  characters  serve  only 
ti>  give  her  a  cue  :  there  is  quite  enough 
of  such  a  jeering  woman  ;  she  rails  on 
within  certain  bounds,  without  hurry, 
like  a  true  queen  of  the  drawing-room, 
who  has  time  to  converse,  who  knows 
that  she  is  listened  to,  who  listens  to 
herself  :  she  is  a  woman  of  society, 
who  preserves  the  tone  of  refined  con- 
versation ;  and  in  order  to  smooth 
down  the  harshness,  her  slanders  are 
interrupted  by  the  calm  reason  and 


sensible  discourse  of  the  amiable  Eli- 
ante.  Moliere  represents  the  malice 
of  the  world  without  exaggeration  ;  but 
in  Sheridan  they  are  rather  caricatured 
than  depicted.  "  Ladies,  your  servant," 
says  Sir  Peter  ;  "  mercy  upon  me  1  the 
whole  set — a  character  dead  at  every 
sentence."  *  In  fact,  they  are  ferocious  : 
it  is  a  regular  quarry  ;  they  even  befoul 
one  another,  to  deepen  the  outrage. 
Mrs.  Candour  remarks  :  "  Yesterday 
Miss  Prim  assured  me,  that  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Honeymoon  are  now  become  mere 
man  and  wife,  like  the  rest  of  their 
acquaintance.  She  likewise  hinted, 
that  a  certain  widow  in  the  next  street 
had  got  rid  of  her  dropsy,  and  recover- 
ed her  shape  in  a  most  surprising  man 
ner.  ...  I  was  informed,  too,  that 
Lord  Flimsy  caught  his  wife  at  a  house 
of  no  extraordinary  fame  ;  and  that 
Tom  Saunter  and  Sir  Harry  Idle  were 
to  measure  swords  on  a  similar  occa- 
sion." t  Their  animosity  is  so  bitter 
that  they  lower  themselves  to  play  the 
part  of  buffoons.  The  most  elegant 
person  in  the  room,  Lady  Teazle,  shows 
her  teeth  to  ape  a  ridiculous  lady,  draws 
her  mouth  on  one  side,  and  makes  faces. 
There  is  no  pause,  no  softening  ;  sar- 
casms fly  about  like  pistol-shots.  The 
author  had  laid  in  a  stock,  he  had  to 
use  them  up.  He  himself  is  speaking 
through  the  mouth  of  each  of  his  char- 
acters ;  he  gives  them  all  the  same 
wit,  that  is  his  own,  his  irony,  his  harsh- 
ness, his  picturesque  vigor  ;  whatever 
they  are,  clowns,  fops,  old  maids,  no 
matter,  the  author's  main  business  is  to 
break  out  into  twenty  explosions  in  a 
minute  : 

"  Mrs.  Candour.  ^Well,  I  will  never  join  in 
the  ridicule  of  a  friend  ;  so  I  tell  my  cousin 
Ogle,  and  ye  all  know  what  pretensions  she 
has  to  beauty. 

Crab.  She  has  the  oddest  countenance — a 
collection  of  features  from  all  the  corners  of 
the  globe. 

Sir  Benjamin.  She  has,  indeed,  an  Irish 
front. 

Crab.  Caledonian  locks. 

Sir  B.  Dutch  nose. 

Crab.  Austrian  lips. 

Sir  B.  The  complexion  of  a  Spaniard. 

Crab.  And  teeth  a  la  Chinoise. 

Sir  B.  In  short,  her  face  resembles  a  table 
d'hote  at  Spa,  where  no  two  guests  are  of  a 
nation. 

Crab.  Or  a  congress  at  the  close  of  a  gen- 


*  The  School  for  Scandal,  ii.  2. 
t  Ibid.  i.  L 


358 


era!  war,  where  every  member  seems  to  have  a 
different  interest,  and  the  nose  and  chin  are  the 
only  parties  likely  to  join  issue."  * 

Or  again  : 

"  Crab.  Sad  news  upon  his  arrival,  to  hear 
how  your  brother  has  gone  on  ! 

Joseph  Surface.  I  hope  no  busy  people 
have  already  prejudiced  his  uncle  against  him 
—  he  may  reform. 

Sir  Benjamin.  True,  he  may  ;  for  my  part, 
I  never  thought  him  so  utterly  void  of  princi- 
ple as  people  say,  and  though  he  has  lost  all 
his  friends,  I  am  told  nobody  is  better  spoken 
of  amongst  the  Jews. 

Crab.  Foregad,  if  the  old  Jewry  was  a  ward, 
Charles  would  be  an  alderman,  for  he  pays  as 
many  annuities  as  the  Irish  Tontine  ;  and 
when  he  is  sick,  they  have  prayers  for  his  re- 
covery in  all  the  Synagogues. 
-  Sir  B.  Yet  no  man  lives  in  greater  splen- 
dor. —  They  tell  me,  when  he  entertains  his 
friends,  he  can  sit  down  to  dinner  with  a  dozen 
of  his  own  securities,  have  a  score  of  trades- 
men waiting  in  the  anti-chamber,  and  an  officer 
behind  every  guest's  chair."  f 

And  again  : 

"  Sir  B.  Mr.  Surface,  I  did  not  mean  to 
hurt  you,  but  depend  on't,  your  brother  is  ut- 
terly undone. 

Crab.  Oh  !  undone  as  ever  man  was-^-can't 
raise  a  guinea. 

Sir  B.  Everything  is  sold,  I  am  told,  that 
was  moveable. 

Crab.  Not  a  moveable  left,  except  some  old 
bottles  and  some  pictures,  and  they  seem  to  be 
framed  in  the  wainscot,  egad. 

Sir  B.  I  am  sorry  to  hear  also  some  bad 
stories  of  him. 

Crab.  Oh  !  he  has  done  many  mean  things, 
that's  certain. 

Sir  B.  But,  however,  he's  your  brother. 

Crab.  Ay  !  as  he  is  your  brother—  we'll  tell 
you  more  another  opportunity."  $ 

In  this  manner  has  he  pointed,  multi- 
plied, driven  in  to  the  quick  the  meas- 
ured epigrams  of  Moliere.  And  yet  is 
it  possible  to  grow  weary  of  such  a 
well-sustained  discharge  of  malice  and 
witticisms  ? 

Observe  also  the  change  which  the 
hypocrite  undergoes  under  Sheridan's 
treatment  Doubtless  all  the  grandeur 
disappears  from  the  part.  Joseph 
Surface  does  not  uphold,  like  Tartuffe, 
the  interest  of  the  comedy  ;  he  does 
not  possess,  like  his  ancestor,  the  na- 
ture of  a  cad,  the  boldness  of  a  man  of 
action,  the  manners  of  a  beadle,  the 
neck  and  shoulders  of  a  monk.  He  is 
merely  selfish  and  cautious  ;  if  he  is  en- 
caged in  an  intrigue,  it  is  rather  against 
his  will  ;  he  is  only  half-hearted  in  the 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


*  The  School  for  Scandal^  ii.  2. 
t  Ibid.  i.  i. 


Ibid. 


matter,  like  a  correct  young  man,  well 
dressed,  with  a  fair  income,  timorous 
and  fastidious  by  nature,  discreet  in 
manners,  and  without  violent  passions  ; 
all  about  him  is  soft  and  polished,  he 
takes  his  tone  from  the  times,  he  makes 
no  display  of  religion,  though  he  does 
of  morality ;  he  is  a  man  of  measured 
speech,  of  lofty  sentiments,  a  disciple  of 
Dr.  Johnson  or  of  Rousseau,  a  dealer  in 
set  phrases.  There  is  nothing  on  which 
to  construct  a  drama  in  this  common- 
place person;  and  the  fine  situations 
which  Sheridan  takes  from  Moliere  lose 
half  their  force  through  depending  on 
such  pitiful  support.  But  how  this  in- 
sufficiency is  covered  by  the  quickness, 
abundance,naturalness  of  the  incidents  1 
how  skill  makes  up  for  every  thing ! 
how  it  seems  capable  of  supplying 
every  thing !  even  genius  !  how"  the 
spectator  laughs  to  see  Joseph  caught 
in  his  sanctuary  like  a  fox  in  his  hole  ; 
obliged  to  hide  the  wife,  then  to  con- 
ceal the  husband  ;  forced  to  run  from 
the  one  to  the  other  ;  busy  in  hiding 
the  one  behind  the  screen,  and  the 
other  in  his  closet ;  reduced,  in  casting 
himself  into  his  own  snares,  in  justify- 
ing those  whom  he  wished  to  ruin,  the 
husband  in  the  eyes  of  the  wife,  the 
nephew  in  the  eyes  of  the  uncle,  to 
ruin  the  only  man  whom  he  wished  to 
justify,  namely,  the  precious  and  im- 
maculate Joseph  Surface  ;  to  turn  out 
in  the  end  ridiculous,  odious,  baffled, 
confounded,  in  spite  of  his  adroitness, 
even  by  reason  of  his  adroitness, 
step  by  step,  without  quarter  or  rem- 
edy ;  to  sneak  off,  poor  fox,  with  his 
tail  between  his  legs,  his  skin  spoiled, 
amid  hootings  and  laughter !  And 
how,  at  the  same  time,  side  by  side 
with  this,  the  naggings  of  Sir  Peter  and 
his  wife,  the  suppers,  songs,  the  picture 
sale  at  the  spendthrift's  house,  weave  a 
comedy  in  a  comedy,  and  renew  the 
interest  by  renewing  the  attention !  We 
cease  to  think  of  the  meagreness  of 
the  characters,  as  we  cease  to  think  of 
the  deviation  from  truth  ;  we  are  wil- 
lingly carried  away  by  the  vivacity  of 
the  action,  dazzled  by  the  brilliancy  of 
the  dialogue;  we  are  charmed,  ap- 
plaud ;  admit  that,  after  all,  next  to 
great  inventive  faculty,  animation  and 
wit  are  the  most  agreeable  gifts  in  the 
world :  we  appreciate  them  in  their 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDRN. 


359 


season,  and  find  that  they  also  have 
their  place  in  the  literary  banquet ; 
and  that  if  they  are  not  worth  as  much 
as  the  substantial  joints,  the  natural 
and  generous  wines  of  the  first  course, 
at  least  they  furnish  the  dessert. 

The  dessert  over,  we  must  leave  the 
table.  After  Sheridan,  we  leave  it 
forthwith.  Henceforth  comedy  lan- 
guishes, fails  ;  there  is  nothing  left  but 
farce,  such  as  Townley's  High  Life 
Below  Stairs,  the  burlesques  of  George 
Colman,  a  tutor,  an  old  maid,  country- 
men and  their  dialect ;  caricature  suc- 
ceeds painting ;  Punch  raises  a  laugh 
when  the  days  of  Reynolds  and  Gains- 
borough are  over.  There  is  nowhere 
in  Europe,  at  the  present  time,  a  more 
barren  stage  ;  the  higher  classes  aban- 
don it  to  the  people.  This  is  because 
the  form  of  society  and  of  intellect 
whicli  had  called  it  into  being,  have 
disappeared.  Vivacity,  and  the  abund- 
ance of  original  conceptions,  had 
peopled  the  stage  of  the  Renaissance 
in  England, — a  surfeit  which,  unable  to 
display  itself  in  systematic  argument, 
or  to  express  itself  in  philosophical 
ideas,  found  its  natural  outlet  only  in 
mimic  action  and  talking  characters. 
The  wants  of  polished  society  had 
nourished  the  English  comedy  of  the 
seventeenth  century, — a  society  which, 
accustomed  to  the  representations  of 
the  court  and  the  displays  of  the  world, 
sought  on  the  stage  a  copy  of  its  con- 
versation and  its  drawing-rooms. 
With  the  decline  of  the  court  and  the 
check  of  mimic  invention,  the  genuine 
drama  and  the  genuine  comedy  dis- 
appeared ;  they  passed  from  the  stage 
into  books.  The  reason  of  it  is,  that 
people  no  longer  live  in  public,  like  the 
embroidered  dukes  of  Louis  XIV.  and 
Charles  II.,  but  in  their  families,  or  at 
the  writing-table  ;  the  novel  replaces 
the  theatre  at  the  same  time  that  citi- 
zen life  replaces  the  life  of  the  court. 


CHAPTER  II. 


COMEDY  has  led  us  a  long  way  ;  we 
must  return  on  our  stf  ps  and  consid- 
er other  kind  of  writings.  A  higher 


spirit  moves  in  the  iridst  of  the  great 
current.  In  the  history  of  this  talent 
we  shall  find  the  history  of  the  English 
classical  spirit,  its  structure,  its  gaps, 
and  its  powers,  its  formation  and  its 
development. 


The  subject  of  the  following  lines  is 
a  young  man,  Lord  Hastings,  who  died 
of  smallpox  at  the  age  of  nineteen : 

"  His  body  was  an  orb,  his  sublime  soul 
Did  move  on  virtue's  and  on  learning's  po.e  } 
.  .  .  Come,  learned  Ptolemy,  and  trial  make 
If  thou  this  hero's  altitude  canst  take. 
.    .    .    Blisters    with    pride    swell'd,    which 

through's  flesh  did  sprout 
Like  rose-buds,  stuck  i'  the  lily  skin  about. 
Each  little  pimple  had  a  tear  in  it, 
To  wail  the  fault  its  rising  did  commit.   .  .  . 
Or  were  these  gems  sent  to  adorn  his  skin, 
The  cabinet  of  a  richer  soul  within  ? 
No  comet  need  foretel  his  change  drew  on 
Whose  corpse  might  seem  a  constellation."  * 

With  such  a  pretty  morsel,  Dryden, 
the  greatest  poet  of  the  classical  age, 
makes  his  debut. 

Such  enormities  indicate  the  close 
of  a  literary  age.  Excess  of  folly  in 
poetry,  as  excess  of  injustice  in  politi- 
cal matters,  lead  up  to  and  foretell 
revolutions.  The  Renaissance,  un- 
checked and  original,  abandoned  the 
minds  of  men  to  the  excitement  and 
caprice  of  imagination,  the  eccentrici- 
ties, curiosities,  outbreaks  of  a  fancy 
which  -only  cares  to  content  itself, 
breaks  out  into  singularities,  has  need 
of  novelties,  and  loves  audacity  and  ex- 
travagance, as  reason  loves  justice  and 
truth.  After  the  extinction  of  genius 
folly  remained ;  after  the  removal  of 
inspiration  nothing  was  left  but  absurd- 
ity. Formerly  disorder  and  internal 
enthusiasm  produced  and  excused  -en* 
cetti  and  wild  flights  ;  thenceforth  men 
threw  them  out  in  cold  blood,  by  cal- 
culation and  without  excuse.  Formerly 
they  expressed  the  state  of  the  mind, 
now  they  belie  it.  So  are  liteiary 
revolutions  accomplished.  The  form, 
no  longer  original  or  spontaneous,  but 
'mitated  and  passed  from  hand  to  hand, 
outlives  the  old  spirit  which  had  cre- 
ated it,  and  is  in  opposition  to  the  new 
spirit  which  destroys  it.  This  prelim- 
inary strife  and  progressive  transfer- 

*  Dryden's  Works,  ed.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  2d 
ed.,  1 8  vols.,  1821,  xi.  94. 


360 


mation  make  up  the  life  of  Dryden, 
and  account  for  his  impotence  and  his 
failures,  his  talent  and  his  success. 

II. 

Dryden's  beginnings  are  in  striking 
contrast  with  those  of  the  poets  of  the 
Renaissance,  actors,  vagabonds,  sol- 
diers, who  were  tossed  about  from  the 
fii  st  in  all  the  contrasts  and  miseries  of 
active  life.  He  was  born  in  1631,  of  a 
good  family  ;  his  grandfather  and  uncle 
were  baronets  ;  Sir  Gilbert  Pickering, 
his  first  c«usin,  was  created  a  baronet 
i/y  Charles  the  First,  was  a  member  of 
Parliament,  chamberlain  to  the  Pro- 
tector, and  one  of  his  Peers.  Dryden 
was  brought  up  in  an  excellent  school, 
under  Dr.  Busby,  then  in  high  repute"; 
after  which  he  passed  four  years  at 
Cambridge.  Having  inherited  by  his 
father's  death  a  small  estate,  he  used 
his  liberty  and  fortune  only  to  remain 
in  his  studious  life,  and  continued  in  se- 
clusion at  the  University  for  three  years 
more.  These  are  the  regular  habits 
of  an  honorable  and  well-to-do  family, 
the  discipline  of  a  connected  and  solid 
education,  the  taste  for  classical  and 
complete  studies.  Such  circumstan- 
ces announce  and  prepare,  not  an  artist, 
but  a  man  of  letters. 

I  find  the  same  inclination  and  the 
same  signs  in  the  remainder  of  his  life, 
private  or  public.  He  regularly  spends 
his  mornings  in  writing  or  reading, 
then  dines  with  his  family.  His  read- 
ing was  that  of  a  man  of  culture  and  a 
critical  mind,  who  does  not  think  of 
amusing  or  exciting  himself,  but  who 
learns  and  judges.  Virgil,  Ovid,  Hor- 
ace, Juvenal,  and  Persius  were  his  fa- 
vorite authors ;  he  translated  several ; 
their  names  were  always  on  his  pen; 
he  discusses  their  opinions  and  their 
merits,  feeding  himself  on  that  reason- 
ing which  oratorical  customs  had  im- 
printed on  all  the  works  of  the  Roman 
mind.  He  is  familiar  with  the  new 
French  literature,  the  heir  of  the  Latin, 
with  Corneille  and  Racine,  Boileau, 
Rapin,  and  Bossu ;  *  he  reasons  with 
them,  often  in  their  spirit,  writes 

*  Rapin  (1621-1687),  *  French  Jesuit,  a  mod- 
ern Latin  poet  and  literary  critic.  Bossu,  or 
properly  Lebossu  (1631-1680),  wrote  a  Traitt 
du  Polme  ipique,  which  had  a  great  success  in 
its  day.  Both  critics  are  now  completely  for- 
gotten.—TR. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


[  thoughtfully,  seldom  fails  to  arrange 
some  good  theory  to  justify  each  of  his 
new  works.  He  knew  very  well  the  lit- 
erature of  his  own  country,  though  some- 
times not  very  accurately,  gave  to  au- 
thors their  due  rank,  classified  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  writing,  went  back  as  far  as 
old  Chaucer,  whom  he  translated  and 
put  into  a  modern  dress.  His  mind  thus 
filled,  he  would  go  in  the  afternoon  to 
Will's  coffee-house,  the  great  literary 
rendezvous :  young  poets,  students 
fresh  from  the  University,  literary 
dilettante  crowded  round  his  chair, 
carefully  placed  in  summer  on  the  bal- 
con> ,  in  winter  by  the  fire,  thinking  them- 
selves  fortunate  to  listen  to  him,  or  to 
extract  a  pinch  of  snuff  respectfully  from 
his  learned  snuff-box.  For  indeed  he 
was  the  monarch  of  taste  and  the  umpire 
of  letters  ;  he  criticised  novelties — Ra- 
cine's last  tragedy,  Blackmore's  heavy 
epic,  Swift's  first  poems  ;  slightly  vain, 
praising  his  own  writings,  to  the  ex- 
tent of  saying  that  "  no  one  had  ever 
composed  or  will  ever  compose  a  finer 
ode  "  than  his  own  Alexander's  Feast ; 
but  full  of  information,  fond  of  that  in- 
terchange of  ideas  which  discussion 
never  fails  to  produce,  capable  of  en- 
during contradiction,  and  admitting  his 
adversary  to  be  in  the  right.  These 
manners  show  that  literature  had  be- 
come a  matter  of  study  rather  than  of 
inspiration,  an  employment  for  taste 
rather  than  for  enthusiasm,  a  source  of 
amusement  rather  than  of  emotion. 

His  audience,  his  friendship,  his  ac- 
tions, his  quarrels,  had  the  same  ten- 
dency. He  lived  amongst  great  men 
and  courtiers,  in  a  society  of  artificial 
manners  and  measured  language.  He 
had  married  the  daughter  of  Thomas, 
Earl  of  Berkshire  ;  he  was  historiogra- 
pher-royal and  poet-laureate.  He  of- 
ten saw  the  king  and  the  princes. 
He  dedicated  each  of  his  works  to 
some  lord,  in  a  laudatory,  flunkeyish 
preface,  bearing  witness  to  his  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  great.  He  re- 
ceived a  purse  of  gold  for  each  dedica- 
tion, went  to  return  thanks  ;  introduces 
some  of  these  Lords  under  pseudo- 
nyms in  \\\?>  Essay  on  the  Dramatic  Art ; 
wrote  introductions  for  the  works  of 
others,  called  them  Maecenas,  Tibullus, 
or  Pollio  ;  discussed  with  them  literary 
works  and  opinions.  The  re-establish 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN.  361 


me:it  of  the  court  had  brought  back  the 
art  of  conversation,  vanity,  the  necessi- 
ty for  appearing  to  be  a  man  of  letters 
and  of  possessing  good  taste,  all  the 
company- manners  which  are  the  source 
of  classical  literature,  and  which  teach 
men  the  art  of  speaking  well.*  On 
the  other  hand,  literature,  brought  un- 
der the  influence  of  society,  entered 
into  society's  interests,  and  first  of  all 
in  petty  private  quarrels.  Whilst  men 
of  letters  learned  etiquette,  courtiers 
learned  how  to  write.  They  soon  be- 
came jumbled  together,  and  naturally 
fell  to  blows.  The  Duke  of  Buckingham 
wrote  a  parody  on  Dryden,  The  Rehear- 
sal, and  took  infinite  pains  to  teach  the 
chief  actor  Dryden's  tone  and  gestures. 
Later,  Rochester  took  up  the  cudgels 
against  the  poet,  supported  a  cabal  in 
favor  of  Settle  against  him,  and  hired 
a  band  of  ruffians  to  cudgel  him.  Be- 
sides this,  Dryden  had  quarrels  with 
Shadwell  and  a  crowd  of  others,  and 
finally  with  Blackmore  and  Jeremy 
Collier.  To  crown  all,  he  entered  into 
the  strife  of  political  parties  and  relig- 
ious sects,  fought  for  the  Tories  and 
Anglicans,  then  for  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics ;  wrote  The  Medal,  Absalom  and 
Achitophel  against  the  Whigs:  Religio 
Laid  against  Dissenters  and  Papists  ; 
then  The  Hind  and  Panther  for  J  ames 
II.,  with  the  logic  of  controversy  and 
the  bitterness  of  party.  It  is  a  long 
way  from  this  combative  and  argumen- 
tative existence 'to  the  reveries  and  se- 
clusion of  the  true  poet.  Such  circum- 
stances teach  the  art  of  writing  clearly 
and  soundly,  methodical  and  connected 
discussion,  strong  and  exact  style,  ban- 
ter and  refutation,  eloquence  and  sa- 
tire ;  these  gifts  are  necessary  to  make 
a  man  of  letters  heard  or  believed,  and 
the  mind  enters  compulsorily  upon  a 
track  when  it  is  the  only  one  that  can 
conduct  it  to  its  goal.  Dryden  entered 
upon  it  spontaneously.  In  his  second 
production,  f  the  abundance  of  well- 
ordered  ideas,  the  energy  and  oratori- 
cal harmony,  the  simplicity,  the  gravi- 

*  In  his  Defence  of  the  Epilogue  of  the  Sec- 
ond Part  of  the  Conquest  of  Granada^  iv. 
226,  Dryden  says :  "  Now,  if  they  ask  me, 
whence  it  is  that  our  conversation  is  so  much 
refined  ?  I  must  freely,  and  without  flattery, 
ascribe  it  to  the  court. 

t  Heroic  stanzas  to  the  memory  of  Oliver 
Cromwell. 


ty,  the  heroic  and  Roman  spirit,  an- 
nounce a  classic  genius,  the  relative  not 
of  Shakspeare,  but  of  Corneille,  capa- 
ble not  of  dramas,  but  of  discussions. 

III. 

And  yet,  at  first,  he  devoted  himself 
to  the  drama :  he  wrote  twenty- seven 
pieces,  and  signed  an  agreement  with  the 
actors  of  the  King's  Theatre  to  supply 
them  with  three  every  year.  The  thea- 
tre, forbidden  under  the  Common- 
wealth, had  just  re-opened  with  extraor- 
dinary magnificence  and  success.  The 
rich  scenes  made  movable,  the  women's 
parts  no  longer  played  by  boys,  but  by 
women,  the  novel  and  splendid  wax- 
lights,  the  machinery,  the  recent  popu- 
larity of  actors  who  had  become  heroes 
of  fashion,  the  scandalous  importance 
of  the  actresses,  who  were  mistresses 
of  the  aristocracy  and  of  the  king,  the 
example  of  the  court  and  the  imitation 
of  France,  drew  spectators  in  crowds. 
The  thirst  for  pleasure,  long  repressed, 
knew  no  bounds.  Men  indemnified 
themselves  for  the  long  abstinence  im- 
posed by  fanatical  Puritans  ;  eyes  and 
ear,  disgusted  with  gloomy  faces,  nasal 
pronunciation,  official  ejaculations  on 
sin  and  damnation,  satiated  themselves 
with  sweet  singing,  sparkling  dress,  the 
seduction  of  voluptuous  dances.  They 
wished  to  enjoy  life,  and  that  in  a  new 
fashion ;  for  a  new  world,  that  of  the 
courtiers  and  the  idle,  had  been  formed. 
The  abolition  of  feudal  tenures,  the 
vast  increase  of  commerce  and  wealth, 
the  concourse  of  landed  proprietors, 
who  let  their  lands  and  came  to  Lon- 
don to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  the  town 
and  to  court  the  favors  of  the  king,  had 
installed  on  the  summit  of  society,  in 
England  as  well  as  in  France,  rank, 
authority,  the  manners  and  tastes  of 
the  world  of  fashion,  of  the  idle,  the 
drawing-room  frequenters,  lovers  of 
pleasure,  conversation,  wit,  and  polish, 
occupied  with  the  piece  in  vogue,  less 
to  amuse  themselves  than  to  criticise  it. 
Thus  was  Dryden's  drama  built  up  ; 
the  poet,  greedy  of  glory  and  pressed 
for  money,  found  here  both  money  and 
glory,  and  was  half  an  innovator,  with 
a  large  reinforcement  of  theories  and 
prefaces,  diverging  from  the  old  English 
drama,  approaching  the  new  French 
tragedy,  attempting  a  compromise  be- 
16 


3fe 

tween  classical  eloquence  and  romantic 
truth,  accommodating  himself  as  well 
as  he  could  to  the  new  public,  which 
paid  and  applauded  him. 

"The  language,  wit,  and  conversation  of 
our  age,  are  improved  and  refined  above  the 
Jast.  .  .  .  Let  us  consider  in  what  the  refine- 
ment of  a  language  principally  consists  ;  that 
is,  *  either  in  rejecting  such  old  words,  or 
phrases,  which  are  ill-sounding  or  improper  ; 
or  in  admitting  new,  which  are  more  proper, 
more  sounding,  and  more  significant.'  .  .  . 
Let  any  man,  who  understands  English,  read 
diligently  the  works  of  Shakspeare  and  Fletch- 
er, and  I  dare  undertake,  that  he  will  find  in 
eveiypage  either  some  solecism  of  speech,  or 
some  notorious  flaw  in  sense.  •  .  .  Many  of 
(their  plots)  were  made  up  of  some  ridiculous 
incoherent  story,  which  in  one  play  many 
times  took  up  the  business  of  an  age.  I  sup- 
pose I  need  not  name  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre, 
nor  the  historical  plays  of  Shakspeare  ;  besides 
man}'  of  the  rest,  as  the  Winter's  Tale,  Love's 
Labour's  Lost,  Measure  for  Measure,  which 
were  either  grounded  ^  on  impossibilities,  or  at 
least  so  meanly  written,  that  the  comedy 
neither  caused  your  mirth,  nor  the  serious  part 
your  concernment.  ...  I  could  easily  demon- 
strate, that  our  admired  Fletcher  neither  un- 
derstood correct  plotting,  nor  that  which  they 
call  the  decorum  of  the  stage.  .  .  .  The  reader 
will  see  Philaster  wounding  his  mistress,  and 
afterwards  his  boy,  to  save  himself.  .  .  .  And 
for  his  shepherd  he  falls  twice  into  the  former 
indecency  of  wounding  women."  * 

Fletcher  nowhere  permits  kings  to  re- 
tain a  dignity  suited  to  kings.  More- 
over, the  action  of  these  authors'  plays 
is  always  barbarous.  They  introduce 
battles  on  the  stage  ;  they  transport 
the  scene  in  a  moment  to  a  distance  of 
twenty  years  or  five  hundred  leagues, 
and  a  score  of  times  consecutively  in 
one  act ;  they  jumble  together  three 
or  four  different  actions,  especially  in 
the  historical  dramas.  But  they  sin 
most  in  style  Dryden  says  of  Shak- 
speare  : — "  Many  of  his  words,  and 
more  of  his  phrases,  are  scarce  intelli- 
gible. And  of  those  which  we  under- 
stand, some  are  ungrammatical,  oth- 
ers coarse  ;  and  his  whole  style  is 
so  pestered  with  figurative  expres- 
sions, that  it  is  as  affected  as  it  is  ob- 
sci  re."  t  Ben  Jonson  himself  often 
has  bad  plots,  redundancies,  barbar- 
isms :  "  Well-placing  of  words,  for  the 
sweetness  of  pronunciation,  was  not 
known  till  Mr.  Waller  introduced  it."  \ 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


. 

t  Defence  of  tJte  Epilogue  of  the  Conquest 
of  Granada,  iv.  219. 


All,  in  short,  descend  to  quibbles,  low 
and  common  expressions  :  "  In  the  age 
wherein  those  poets  lived,  there  was 
less  of  gallantry  than  in  ours.  .  .  . 
Besides  the  want  of  education  and 
learning,  they  wanted  the  benefit  of  con- 
verse. .  .  .  Gentlemen  will  now  be  en- 
tertained with  the  follies  of  each  other  ; 
and,  though  they  allow  Cob  and  Tibb 
to  speak  properly,  yet  they  are  not 
much  pleased  with  their  tankard,  or 
with  their  rags."  *  For  these  gentle 
men  we  must  now  write,  and  especially 
for  "  reasonable  men ; "  for  it  is  not 
enough  to  have  wit  or  to  love  tragedy, 
in  order  to  be  a  good  critic :  we  must 
possess  sound  knowledge  and  a  lofty 
reason,  know  Aristotle,  Horace,  Lon 
ginus,  and  pronounce  judgment  accord- 
ing to  their  rules,  t  These  rules,  based 
upon  observation  and  logic,  prescribe 
unity  of  action  ;  that  this  action  should 
have  a  beginning,  middle,  and  end; 
that  its  parts  should  proceed  naturally 
one  from  the  other ;  that  it  should  ex- 
cite terror  and  pity,  so  as  to  instruct 
and  improve  us  ;  that  the  characters 
should  be  distinct,  harmonious,  con- 
formable with  tradition  or  the  design  of 
the  poet.  Such,  says  Dryden,  will  be 
the  new  tragedy,  closely  allied,  it  seems, 
to  the  French,  especially  as  he  quotes 
Bossu  and  Rapin,  as  if  he  took  them 
for  instructors. 

Yet  it  differs  from  it,  and  Dryden 
enumerates  all  that  an  English  pit  can 
blame  on  the  French  stage.  He  says  : 

"  The  beauties  of  the  French  poesy  are  the 
beauties  of  a  statue,  but  not  of  a  man,  because 
not  animated  with  the  soul  of  poesy,  which  is 
imitation  of  humour  and  passions.  .  .  .  He 
who  will  look  upon  their  plays  which  have 
been  written  till  these  last  ten  years,  or  there- 
abouts, will  find  it  an  hard  matter  to  pick  out 
two  or  three  passable  humours  amongst  them. 
Corneille  himself,  their  arch-poet,  what  has  he 
produced  except  the  Liar?  and  you  know  ho-* 
it  was  cried  up  in  France  ;  but  when  it  came 
upon  the  English  stage,  though  well  translated, 
.  .  .  the  most  favourable  to  it  would  not  put  it 
in  competition  with  many  of  Fletcher's  or  Ben 
Jonson's.  .  .  .  Their  verses  are  to  me  the 
coldest  I  have  ever  read,  .  .  .  their  speeches 
being  so  many  declamations.  When  the 
French  stage  came  to  be  reformed  by  Cardinal 
Richelieu,  those  long  harangues  were  intru- 
duced,  to  comply  with  the  gravity  of  a  church- 
man. Look  upon  the  Cinna  and  the  Pompey  ; 
they  are  not  so  properly  to  be  called  plays  as 
long  discourses  of  reasons  of  state  ;  and  Po* 

*  Ibid.  225-228. 

t  Preface  to  All  for  Love,  v.  306. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN. 


lieitcte,  in  matters  of  religion  is  as  solemn  as 
the  long  stops  upon  our  organs.  Since  that 
time  it  is  grown  into  a  custom,  and  their  ac- 
tors speak  by  the  hour-glass,  like  our  parsons. 
...  I  deny  not  but  this  may  suit  well  enough 
with  the  French  ;  for  as  we  who  are  a  more 
sullen  people,  come  to  be  diverted  at  our  plays, 
so  they,  who  are  of  an  airy  and  gay  temper, 
come  thither  to  make  themselves  more  seri- 
ous." * 

As  for  the  tumults  and  combats  which 
the  French  relegate  behind  the  scenes, 
"  nature  has  so  formed  our  countrymen 
to  fierceness,  .  .  .  they  will  scarcely 
suffer  combats  and  other  objects  of 
horror  to  be  taken  from  them."  t  Thus 
the  French,  by  fettering  themselves 
with  these  scruples,  \  and  confining 
themselves  in  their  unities  and  their 
rules,  have  removed  action  from  their 
stage,  and  bi ought  themselves  down 
to  unbearable  monotony  and  dryness. 
they  lack  originality,  naturalness,  vari- 
ety, fulness. 

*'  .  .  .  Contented  to  be  thinly  regular :  .  .  . 
Their  tongue,  enfeebled,  is  refined  too  much, 
And,  like  pure  gold,  it  bends  at  every  touch. 
Our  sturdy  Teuton  yet  will  art  obey, 
More  fit  for  manly  thought,  and  strength- 
ened with  allay."  § 

Let  them  laugh  as  much  as  they  like 
at  Fletcher  and  Shakspeare  ;  there  is 
in  them  "  a  more  masculine  fancy  and 
greater  spirit  in  the  writing  than  there 
is  in  any  of  the  French." 

*  An  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  xv.  337- 
34*- 

t  Ibid.  343- 

\  In  the  preface  of  All  for  Lore,  v.  308, 
Dryden  says ;  "  In  this  nicety  of  manners  does 
the  excellency  of  French  poetry  consist.  Their 
herpes  are  the  most  civil  people  breathing,  but 
their  good  breeding  seldom  extends  to  a  word 
of  sense  ;  all  their  wit  is  in  their  ceremony  ; 
they  want  the  genius  which  animates  our  stage. 
.  .  .  Thus,  their  Hippolytus  is  so  scrupulous 
in  point  of  decency,  that  he  will  rather  expose 
himself  to  death  than  accuse  his  step-mother 
to  his  father ;  and  my  critics,  I  am  sure,  will 
commend  him  for  it :  But  we  of  grosser  appre- 
hensions are  apt  to  think  that  this  excess  of 
generosity  is  not  practicable  but  with  fools  and 
madmen.  .  .  .  But  take  Hippolytus  out  of  his 
poetic  fit,  and  I  suppose  he  would  think  it  a 
wiser  part  to  set  the  saddle  on  the  right  horse, 
and  chuse  rather  to  live  with  the  reputation  of 
i  plain-spoken  honest  man,  than  to  die  with 
the  infamy  of  an  incestuous  villain.  .  .  .  (The 
poet)  has  chosen  to  give  him  the  turn  of  gal- 
lantry, sent  him  to  travel  from  Athens  to  Paris, 
taught  him  to  make  love,  and  transformed  the 
Hippolytus  of  Euripides  into  Monsieur  Hippo- 
lite/'  This  criticism  shows  in  a  small  compass 
all  the  common  sense  and  freedom  of  thought 
of  Dryden ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  all  the 
coarseness  of  his  education  and  of  his  age. 

§  Epistle  xiv.,  to  Mr.  Motteux,  xi.  70. 


Though  exaggerated,  this  criticism 
is  good ;  and  because  it  is  good,  I  mis- 
trust the  works  which  the  writer  is  to 
produce.  It  is  dangerous  for  an  artist 
to  be  excellent  in  theory ;  the  creative 
spirit  is  hardly  consonant  with  the 
criticizing  spirit:  he  who,  quietly  seat- 
ed on  the  shore,  discusses  and  com- 
pares, is  hardly  capable  of  plunging 
straight  and  boldly  into  the  stormy  sea 
of  invention.  Moreover,  Dryden  holds 
himself  too  evenly  poised  betwixt  the 
moods  ;  original  artists  love  exclusive- 
ly and  unjustly  a  certain  idea  and  a 
certain  world ;  the  rest  disappears 
from  their  eyes  ;  confined  to  one  re- 
gion of  art,  they  deny  or  scorn  the 
other  ;  it  is  because  they  are  limited 
that  they  are  strong.  We  see  before- 
hand that  Dryden,  pushed  one  way  by 
his  English  mind,  will  be  drawn  anoth- 
er by  his  French  rules ;  that  he  will 
alternately  venture  and  partly  restrain 
himself;  that  he  will  attain  mediocrity, 
that  is,  platitude ;  that  his  faults  will 
be  incongruities,  that  is,  absurdities. 
All  original  art  is  self-regulated,  and  no 
original  art  can  be  regulated  from 
without:  it  carries  its  own  counter- 
poise, and  does  not  receive  it  from 
elsewhere;  it  constitutes  an  inviolable 
whole  ;  it  is  an  animated  existence, 
which  lives  on  its  own  blood,  and 
which  languishes  or  dies  if  deprived  of 
some  of  its  blood  and  supplied  from 
the  veins  of  another.  Shakspeare's 
imagination  cannot  be  guided  by 
Racine's  reason,  nor  Racine's  reason 
be  exalted  by  Shakspeare's  imagina- 
tion ;  each  is  good  in  itself,  and  ex- 
cludes its  rival ;  to  unite  them  would 
be  to  produce  a  bastard,  a  weakling, 
and  a  monster.  Disorder,  violent  and 
sudden  action,  harsh  words,  horror, 
depth,  truth,  exact  imitation  of  reality, 
and  the  lawless  outbursts  of  mad  pas- 
sions,— these  features  of  Shakspeare  be- 
come each  other.  Order,  measure,  elo- 
quence, aristocratic  refinement,  world- 
ly urbanity,  exquisite  painting  of  deli- 
cacy and  virtue,  all  Racine's  features 
suit  each  other.  It  would  destroy  the 
one  to  attenuate,  the  other  to  inflame 
him.  Their  whole  being  and  beauty 
consist  in  the  agreement  of  their  parts : 
to  mar  this  agreement  would  be  to 
abolish  their  being  and  their  beauty. 
In  order  to  produce,  we  must  invent  a 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


364 


personal  and  harmonious  conception  : 
we  must  not  mingle  two  strange  and 
opposite  ones.  Dryden  has  left  un- 
done what  he  should  have  done,  and 
has  done  what  he  should  not  have 
done. 

He  had,  moreover,  the  worst  of  audi- 
ences, debauched  and  frivolous,  void 
of  individual  taste,  floundering  amid 
confused  recollections  of  the  national 
literature  and  deformed  imitations  of 
foreign  literature,  expecting  nothing 
from  the  stage  but  the  pleasure  of  the 
senses  or  the  gratification  of  curiosity. 
In  reality,  the  drama,  like  every  work 
of  art,  only  gives  life  and  truth  to  a 
profound  ideal  of  man  and  of  existence  ; 
there  is  a  hidden  philosophy  under  its 
circumvolutions  and  violences,  and  the 
public  ought  to  be  capable  of  compre- 
hending it,  as  the  poet  is  of  conceiving 
it.  The  audience  must  have  reflected 
or  felt  with  energy  or  refinement,  in 
order  to  take  in  energetic  or  refined 
thoughts  ;  Hamlet  and  Iphigenie  will 
never  move  a  vulgar  roisterer  or  a  lover 
of  money.  The  character  who  weeps 
on  the  stage  only  rehearses  our  own 
tears  ;  our  interest  is  but  sympathy ; 
and  the  drama  is  like  an  external  con- 
science, which  shows  us  what  we  are, 
what  we  love,  what  we  have  felt. 
What  could  the  drama  teach  to  game- 
sters like  St.  Albans,  drunkards  like 
Rochester,prostitutes  like  Castlemaine, 
old  boys  like  Charles  II.  ?  What  spec- 
tators were  those  coarse  epicureans, 
incapable  even  of  an  assumed  decency, 
lovers  of  brutal  pleasures,  barbarians 
in  their  sports,  obscene  in  words,  void 
of  honor,  humanity,  politeness,  who 
made  the  court  a  house  of  ill  fame  !  The 
splendid  decorations,  change  of  scenes, 
the  patter  of  long  verse  and  forced 
sentiments,  the  observance  of  a  few 
rules  imported  from  Paris,— such  was 
the  natural  food  of  their  vanity  and 
folly,  and  such  the  theatre  of  the  Eng- 
lish Restoration. 

I  take  one  of  Dryden's  tragedies, 
very  celebrated  in  time  past,  Tyrannic 
Love,  or  the  Royal  Martyr;  —  a  fine 
title,  and  fit  to  make  a  stir.  The  roy- 
al martyr  is  St.  Catharine,  a  princess 
of  royal  blood  as  it  appears,  who  is 
orought  before  the  tyrant  Maximin. 
She  confesses  her  faith,  and  a  pagan 
philosopher,  Apollonius,  is  set  loose 


[BooK  III 


against  her,  to  refute  her.  Maximin 
says  : 

"  War  is    my  province  ! — Priest,   why  stand 

you  mute  ? 

You  gain  by  heaven,  and,  therefore,  should 
dispute/' 

Thus  encouraged,  the  priest  argues ; 
but  St.  Catharine  replies  in  the  follow- 
ing words : 

"  .  .  .  Reason  with  your  fond  religion  fights, 
For  many  gods  are  many  infinites  ; 
This  to  the  first  philosophers  was  known, 
Who,    under   various     names,    ador'd    but 
one."  * 

Apollonius  scratches  his  ear  a  little, 
and  then  answers  that  there  are  great 
truths  and  good  moral  rules  in  pagan- 
ism. The  pious  logician  immediately 
replies : 

"  Then  let  the  whole  dispute  concluded  be 
Betwixt  these  rules,  and  Christianity."  t 

Being  nonplussed,  Apollonius  is  con- 
verted on  the  spot,  insults  the  prince, 
who,  finding  St.  Catharine  very  beauti- 
ful, JDecomes  suddenly  enamored,  and 
makes  jokes : 

"  Absent,  I  may  her  martyrdom  decree, 
But  one  look  more  will  make  that  martyr 
me."  t 

In  this  dilemma  he  sends  Placidius,  "  a 
great  officer,"  to  St.  Catharine  ;  the 
great  officer  quotes  and  praises  the 
gods  of  Epicurus ;  forthwith  the  lady 
propounds  the  doctrine  of  final  causes, 
which  upsets  that  of  atoms.  Maximin 
comes  himself,  and  says  : 

"  Since  you  neglect  to  answer  my  desires, 
Know,   princess,   you    shall  burn  in   other 
fires."  § 

Thereupon  she  beards  and  defies  him, 
calls  him  a  slave,  and  walks  off. 
Touched  by  these  delicate  manners,  he 
wishes  to  marry  her  lawfully,  and  to  re- 
pudiate his  wife.  Still,  to  omit  no  ex- 
pedient, he  employs  a  magician,  who 
utters  invocations  (on  the  stage),  sum- 
mons the  infernal  spirits,  and  brings  up 
a  troop  of  spirits  ;  these  dance  and 
sing  voluptuous  songs  about  the  bed  of 

*  Tyrannic  Lovet  iii.  2.  i. 

t  Ibid.  *  Ibid. 

§  Ibid.  3.  i.  This  Maximin  has  a  turn  for 
jokes.  Porphyrius,  to  whom  he  offers  his 
daughter  in  marriage,  says  that  "  the  distance 
was  so  vast ;  "  whereupon  Maximin  replies : 
"Yet  heaven  and  earth,  which  so  remote  ap- 
pear, are  bv  the  air,  which  flows  betwixt  them, 
near  "  (2.  i). 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN.  365 


St.  Catharine.  Her  guardian-angel 
comes  and  drives  them  away.  As  a 
last  resource,  Maximin  has  a  wheel 
brought  on  the  stage,  on  which  to  ex- 
pose St.  Catharine  and  her  mother. 
Whilst  the  executioners  are  going  to 
strip  the  saint,  a  modest  angel  descends 
in  the  nick  of  time,  and  breaks  the 
wheel  ;  after  which  the  ladies  are  car- 
ried off,  and  their  throats  are  cut  behind 
the  wings.  Add  to  these  pretty  inven- 
tions a  twofold  intrigue,  the  love  of 
Maximin's  daughter,  Valeria,  for  Por- 
phyrius,  captain  of  the  Praetorian 
bands,  and  that  of  Porphyrius  for 
Berenice,  Maximin's  wife ;  then  a 
sudden  catastrophe,  three  deaths,  and 
the  triumph  of  the  good  people,  who 
get  married  and  interchange  polite 
phrases.  Such  is  this  tragedy,  which 
is  called  French-like  ;  and  most  of  the 
others  are  like  it.  In  Secret  Love,  in 
Marriage  a  la  Mode,  in  Aureng-Zebe,  in 
the  Indian  Emperor,  and  especially  in 
the  Conquest  of  Granada,  every  thing  is 
extravagant.  People  cut  one  another 
to  pieces,  take  towns,  stab  each  other, 
shout  lustily.  These  dramas  have  just 
the  truth  and  naturalness  of  the 
libretto  of  an  opera.  Incantations 
abound  ;  a  spirit  appears  in  the  Indian 
Emperor,  and  declares  that  the  Indian 
gods  "are  driven  to  exile  from  their 
native  lands."  Ballets  are  also  there  ; 
Vasquez  and  Pizarro,  seated  in  "  a 
pleasant  grotto,"  watch  like  conquerors 
the  dances  of  the  Indian  girls,  who 
gambol  voluptuously  about  them. 
Scenes  worthy  of  Lulli  *  are  not  want- 
ing ;  Almeria,  like  Armide,  comes  to 
slay  Cortez  in  his  sleep,  and  suddenly 
falls  in  love  with  him.  Yet  the  libretti 
of  the  opera  have  no  incongruities ; 
they  avoid  all  which  might  shock  the 
imagination  or  the  eyes;  they  are 
written  for  men  of  taste,  who  shun 
ugliness  and  heaviness  of  any  sort. 
Would  you  believe  it  ?  In  the  Indian 
Emperor,  Montezuma  is  tortured  on  the 
stage,  and  to  cap  all,  a  priest  tries  to 
convert  him  in  the  meanwhile. t  I 

*  Lulli  (1633-1687),  a  renowned  Italian  com- 
poser.    A  rmide  is  one  of  his  chief  works. — 
TR. 
t  Christian  Priest.  But  we  by  martyrdom 

our  faith  avow, 
Montezuma.  You  do  no  more  than  I  for 

ours  do  now. 
To  prove  religion  true. 


recognize  in  this  frightful  pedantry  the 
handsome  cavaliers  of  the  time,  lo- 
gicians and  hangmen,  who  fed  on  con- 
troversy, and  for  the  sake  of  amuse* 
ment  went  to  look  at  the  tortures  of 
the  Puritans.  I  recognize  behind  these 
heaps  of  improbabilities  and  adven- 
tures the  puerile  and  worn-out  court- 
iers, who,  sodden  with  wine,  were  past 
seeing  incongruities,  and  whose  nerves 
were  only  stirred  by  startling  iur- 
prises  and  barbarous  events. 

Let  us  go  still  further.  Dryden 
would  set  up  on  his  stage  the  beauties 
of  French  tragedy,  and  in  the  first  place 
its  nobility  of  sentiment.  Is  it  enough 
to  copy,  as  he  does,  phrases  of 
chivalry  ?  He  would  need  a  whole 
world,  for  a  whole  world  is  necessary 
to  form  noble  souls.  Virtue,  in  the 
French  tragic  poets,  is  based  on  reason, 
religion,  education,  philosophy.  Their 
characters  have  that  uprightness  of 
mind,  that  clearness  of  logic,  that  lofty 
judgment,  which  plant  in  a  man  settled 
maxims  and  self-government.  We  per- 
ceive in  their  company  the  doctrines  of 
Bossuet  and  Descartes  ;  with  them,  re- 
flection aids  conscience ;  the  habits  of 
society  add  tact  and  finesse.  The 
avoidance  of  violent  actions  and  physi- 
cal horrors,  the  meed  and  order  of  the 
fable,  the  art  of  disguising  or  shunning 
coarse  or  low  persons,  the  continuous 
perfection  of  the  most  measured  and 
noble  style,  every  thing  contributes  to 
raise  the  stage  to  a  sublime  region,  and 
we  believe  in  higher  souls  by  seeing 
them  in  a  purer  air.  Can  we  believe  in 
them  in  Dryden  ?  Frightful  or  in- 
famous characters  every  instant  drag 
us  down  by  their  coarse  expressions  in 
their  own  mire.  Maximin,  having 
stabbed  Placidius,  sits  on  his  body, 
stabs  him  twice  more,  and  says  to  the 
guards : 

If  either  wit  or  sufferings  would  suffice. 
All  faiths  afford  the  constant  and  the  wise, 
And  yet  even  they,  by  education  sway'd, 
In  age  defend  what  infancy  obeyed. 
Christian  Priest.    Since    age    by  erring 

childhood  is  misled, 
Refer  yourself  to  our  unerring  head. 
Montezuma.  Man,  and  not  err!  what  rea« 

son  can  you  give  ? 
Christian  Priest.    Renounce   that  carnal 

reason,  and  believe.  .  .  . 
Pizarro.  Increase  their  pains,  the  cords 
are  yet  too  slack. 

—The  Indian  Emperor^  v.  a. 


366 

"'  Bring    me    Porphyrius    and    my    empress 

dead  : — 

I.  would  brave  heaven,  in  my  each  hand  a 
head."  * 

Nourmahal,  repulsed  by  her  husband's 
son,  insists  four  times,  using  such  in- 
decent and  pedantic  words  as  the 
following : 

"  And  why  this    niceness    to    that    pleasure 

shown, 

Where  nature  sums  up  all  her  joys  in  one.  .. 
Promiscuous  love  is  nature's  general  law  ; 
For  whosoever  the  first  lovers  were, 
Brother  and  sister  made  the  second  pair, 
And  doubled  by  their  love  their  piety.  .  .  . 
Vou  must  be   mine,  that  you  may  learn  to 

live."  t 

Illusion  vanishes  at  once  ;  instead  of 
being  in  a  room  with  noble  characters, 
we  meet  with  a  mad  prostitute  and  a 
drunken  savage.  When  we  lift  the 
masks  the  others  are  little  better. 
Almeria,  to  whom  a  crown  is  offered, 
says  insolently : 

"  I  take  this  garland,  not  as  given  by  you, 
But  as  my  merit,  and  my  beauty's  due."  t 

Indamora,  to  whom  an  old  courtier 
makes  love,  settles  him  with  the  boast- 
fulness  of  an  upstart  and  the  coarse- 
ness of  a  kitchen-maid  : 

"  Were  I  no  queen,  did  you  my  beauty  weigh, 
My  youth  in  bloom,  your  age  in  its  decay."  § 

None  of  these  heroines  know  how  to 

*  Tyrannic  Love,  iii.  5.  i.  When  dying 
Maximin  says  :  "  And  shoving  back  this  earth 
on  which  I  sit,  I'll  mount,  and  scatter  all  the 
Gods  I  hit." 

t  Aureng-Zebe,  v.  4.  i.    Dryden  thought  he 
was  imitating  Racine,  when  six  lines  further  on 
he  makes  Nourmahal  say  : 
"  I  am  not  changed,  I  love  my  husband  still  ; 

But  love  him  as  he  was,  when  youthful  grace 

And  the  first  down  began  to  shade  his  face  : 

That  image  does  my  virgin-flames  renew, 

And  all  your  father  shines  more  bright  in 

you. 

Racine's    Phedre   (2.    5)   thinks  her  husband 
Theseus  dead,  and  says  to  her  stepson   Hip- 
poiytus : 
"  Oui,  prince,  je  languis,  je  brule  pour  The'se'e: 

Je  1'aime  .  .  . 

Mais  fidele,   mais    fier,   et    meme    un    peu 
farouche, 

Charmant,  jeune,   trainant  tous  les   cceurs 
apres  soi, 

Tel  qu'on  depeint  nos  dieux,  ou  tel  que  je 
vous  voi. 

II  avail  votre  port,  vos  yeux,  votre  langage  ; 

Cette  noble  pudeur  colorait  son  visage." 
According  to  a  note  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  edi- 
tion of  Dryden's  works,  Langbaine  traces  this 
speech  also  to  Seneca's  Hipnolytus. — TR. 

\  The  Indian  Emperor,  i.  2. 

§  Aureng-Ztbet  v,  2,  i. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK   III. 


conduct  themselves ;  they  look  on  im- 
pertinence as  dignity,  sensuality  as 
tenderness  ;  they  have  the  recklessness 
of  the  courtesan,  the  jealousies  of  the 
grisette,  the  pettiness  of  a  chapman's 
wife,  the  billingsgate  of  a  fishwoman 
The  heroes  are  the  most  unpleasant  of 
swashbucklers.  Leonidas,  first  recog- 
nized as  hereditary  prince,  then  sudden- 
ly forsaken,  consoles  himself  with  this 
modest  reflection : 

"  'Tis  true  I  am  alone. 

So  was  the  godhead,  ere  he  made  the  wor.d. 
And  better  served  himself  than  served  by 

nature. 

...  I  have  scene  enough  within    • 
To  exercise  my  virtue."  * 

Shall  I  speak  of  that  great  trumpet- 
blower  Almanzor,  painted,  as  Dryden 
confesses,  after  Artaban,t  a  redresser 
of  wrongs,  a  battalion-smiter,  a  de- 
stroyer of  kingdoms  ?  \  We  find 
nothing  but  overcharged  sentiments, 
sudden  devotedness,  exaggerated  gen- 
erosities, high-sounding  bathos  of  a 
clumsy  chivalry;  at  bottom  the  charac- 
ters are  clods  and  barbarians,  who 
have  tried  to  deck  themselves  in  French 
honor  and  fashionable  politeness.  And 
such,  in  fact,  was  the  English  court :  it 
imitated  that  of  Louis  XIV.  as  a  sign- 
painter  imitates  an  artist.  It  had 
neither  taste  nor  refinement,  and  wished 
to  appear  as  if  it  possessed  them. 
Panders  and  licentious  women,  ruffian- 
ly or  butchering  courtiers,  who  went  to 
see  Harrison  drawn,  or  to  mutilate 
Coventry,  maids  of  honor  who  have 
awkward  accidents  at  a  ball,§  or  sell  to 
the  planters  the  convicts  presented  to 
them,  a  palace  full  of  baying  dogs  and 
bawling  gamesters,  a  king  who  would 
bandy  obscenities  in  public  with  his 

*  Marriage  a  la  Mode,  iv.  3.  i. 
t  "The  first  image  I  had  of  him  was  from  the 
Achilles  of  Homer,  the  next  from  Tassc's 
Rinaldo,  and  the  third  from  the  Artaban  of 
Monsieur  Calpranede." — Preface  to  Al- 
manzor. 

\  "  The  Moors  have  heaven,  and  me,  to  as- 
sist their  cause  "  (i.  r). 
"  I'll  whistle  thy  tame  fortune  after  me  " 

(3.  i). 

He  falls  in  love,  and  speaks  thus 
"  'Tis  he  ;  I  feel  him  now  in  every  part ? 
Like  a  new  lord  he  vaunts  about  my  heart* 
Surveys  in  state  each  corner  of  my  breast, 
While   poor  fierce   I,  that  was,  am  dispos* 

sess'd  "  (3.  i). 
§  See  vol.  ii.  341. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN.  367 


half-naked  mistresses,  * — such  was  this 
illustrious  society  ;  from  French  modes 
they  took  but  dress,  from  French  noble 
sentiments  but  high-sounding  words. 

IV. 

The  second  point  worthy  of  imita- 
tion in  classical  tragedy  is  the  style. 
Dryden,  in  fact,  purifies  his  own,  and 
renders  it  more  clear,  by  introducing 
close  reasoning  and  precise  words.  He 
has  oratorical  discussions  like  Cor- 
neille,  well-delivered  retorts,  symmetri- 
cal, like  carefully  parried  arguments. 
He  has  maxims  vigorously  enclosed  in 
the  compass  of  a  single  line,  distinc- 
tions, developments,  and  the  whole  art 
ef  special  pleading.  He  has  happy 
antitheses,  ornamental  epithets,  finely- 
wrought  comparisons,  and  all  the 
artifices  of  the  literary  mind.  What  is 
most  striking  is,  that  he  abandons  that 
kind  of  verse  specially  appropriated  to 
the  English  drama  which  is  without 
rhyme,  and  the  mixture  of  prose  and 
verse  common  to  the  old  authors,  for  a 
rhymed  tragedy  like  the  French,  fancy- 
ing that  he  is  thus  inventing  a  new 
species,  which  he  calls  heroic  play. 
But  in  this  transformation  the  good 
perished,  the  bad  remains.  For  rhyme 
differs  in  different  races.  To  an 
Englishman  it  resembles  a  song,  and 
transports  him  at  once  to  an  ideal  and 
fairy  world.  To  a  Frenchman  it  is  only 
a  conventionalism  or  an  expediency, 
and  transports  him  at  once  to  an  ante- 
chamber or  a  drawing-room  ;  to  him  it 
is  an  ornamental  dress  and  nothing 
more ;  if  it  mars  prose,  it  ennobles  it ; 
it  imposes  respect,  not  enthusiasm,  and 
changes  a  vulgar  into  a  high-bred 
style.  Moreover,  in  French  aristocratic 
verse  every  thing  is  connected  ;  pedan- 
try, logical  machinery  of  every  kind,  is 
excluded  from  it ;  there  is  nothing 
more  disagreeable  to  well-bred  and  re- 
fined persons  than  the  scholastic  rust. 
Images  are  rare,  but  always  well  kept 
up ;  bold  poesy,  real  fantasy,  have  no 
i  lace  in  it ;  their  brilliancy  and  diver- 
gencies would  derange  the  politeness 
and  regular  flow  of  the  social  world. 
The  right  word,  the  prominence  of  free 
expressions,  are  not  to  be  met  with  in 

*  Compare  the  song  of  the  Zambra  dance  in 
the  first  part  of  Almanzor  and  Almakide, 
3.  i. 


it ;  general  terms,  always  rather  thread- 
bare, suit  best  the  caution  and  niceties 
of  select  society.  Dryden  sins  heavil, 
against  all  these  rules.  His  rhymes,  to 
an  Englishman's  ear,  scatter  at  once  the 
whole  illusion  of  the  stage ;  they  see 
that  the  characters  who  speak  thus  are 
but  squeaking  puppets  ;  he  himself  ad 
mits  that  his  heroic  tragedy  is  only  fit 
to  represent  on  the  stage  chivalric 
poems  like  those  of  Ariosto  and 
Spenser. 

Poetic  dash  gives  the  finishing  stroke 
to  all  likelihood.  Would  we  recognize 
the  dramatic  accent  in  this  epic  com- 
parison ? 

"  As  some  fair  tulip,  by  a  storm  oppress' d 
Shrinks  up,  and  folds  its  silken  arms  to  rest ; 
And,  bending  to  the  blast,  all  pale  and  dead, 
Hears,  from  within,  the  wind  sing  round  its  . 

head,— 

So,  shrouded  up,  your  beauty  disappears  : 
Unveil,  my  love,  and  lay  aside  your  fears, 
The  storm,  that  caused  your  fright,  is  pass'd 

and  done."  * 

What  a  singular  triumphal  song  are 
these  concetti  of  Cortez  as  he  lands  : 

"  On  what  new  happy  climate  are  we  thrown, 
So  long  kept  secret,  and  so  lately  known? 
As  if  our  old  world  modestly  withdrew, 
And    here   in  private   had  brought  forth  a 
new."  t 

Think  how  these  patches  of  color 
would  contrast  with  the  sober  design 
of  French  dissertation.  Here  lovers 
vie  with  each  other  in  metaphors  ;  there 
a  wooer,  in  order  to  magnify  the 
beauties  of  his  mistress,  says  that 
"  bloody  hearts  lie  panting  in  her 
hand."  In  every  page  harsh  or  vulgar 
words  spoil  the  regularity  of  a  noble 
style.  Ponderous  logic  is  broadly  dis- 
played in  the  speeches  of  princesses. 
"  Two  ifs,"  says  Lyndaraxa,  "  scarce 
make  one  possibility."  \  Dryden  sets 
his  college  cap  on  the  heads  of  these 
poor  women.  Neither  he  nor  his 
characters  are  well  brought  up  ;  they 
have  taken  from  the  French  but  the 
outer  garb  of  the  bar  and  the  schools  ; 

*  The  first  part  of  A  Imanzor  and  A  Imahide^ 
iv.  5.  2. 

t  The  Indian  Emperor,  ii.  i.  i. 

J  The  first  part  of  A  Imanzor  and  A  hnahide^ 
iv.  2.  i.  This  same  Lyndaraxa  says  also  to 
Abdalla  (4.  2),  "  Poor  women's  thoughts  are  all 
extempore"  These  logical  ladies  can  be  very 
coarse  ;  for  example,  this  same  damsel  says  in 
act  2.  i,  to  the  same  lover,  who  entreats  her  to 
make  him  "  happy,"  "  If  I  make  you  so,  you 
shall  pay  my  price." 


368 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  Itt 


I 


they  have  left  behind  symmetrical  elo 

[uence,  measured  diction,  elegance  and 
elicacy.  A  while  before,  the  licentious 
coarseness  of  the  Restoration  pierced 
the  mask  of  the  fine  sentiments  with 
which  it  was  covered;  now  the  rude 
English  imagination  breaks  the  orator- 
ical mould  in  which  it  tried  to  enclose 
itself. 

Let  us  look  at  the  other  side  of  the 
picture.  Dryden  would  keep  the  foun- 
dation of  the  old  English  drama,  and 
retains  the  abundance  of  events,  the 
variety  of  plot,  the  unforeseen  ac- 
cidents, and  the  physical  represen- 
tation of  bloody  or  violent  action. 
He  kills  as  many  people  as  Shak- 
speare.  Unfortunately,  all  poets  are 
not  justified  in  killing.  When  they 
take  their  spectators  among  murders 
and  sudden  accidents,  they  ought  to 
have  a  hundred  hidden  preparations. 
Fancy  a  sort  of  rapture  and  romantic 
folly,  a  most  daring  style,  eccentric  and 
poetical,  songs,  pictures,  reveries  spo- 
ken aloud,  frank  scorn  of  all  verisimil- 
itude, a  mixture  of  tenderness,  philos- 
ophy, and  mockery,  all  the  retiring 
charms  of  varied  feelings,  all  the  whims 
of  nimble  fancy ;  the  truth  of  events 
matters  little.  No  one  who  ever  saw 
Cymbeline  or  As  you  Like  it  looked  at 
these  plays  with  the  eyes  of  a  politi- 
cian or  a  historian ;  no  one  took  these 
military  processions,  these  accessions 
of  princes,  seriously;  the  spectators 
were  present  at  dissolving  views. 
They  did  not  demand  that  things 
should  proceed  after  the  laws  of  na- 
ture ;  on  the  contrary,  they  willingly 
did  require  that  they  should  proceed 
against  the  laws  of  nature.  The  irra- 
tionality is  the  charm.  That  new 
world  must  be  all  imagination;  if  it 
was  only  so  by  halves,  no  one  would 
care  to  rise  to  it.  This  is  why  we  do 
not  rise  to  Dryden's.  A  queen  de- 
throned, then  suddenly  set  up  again ; 
a  tyrant  who  finds  his  lost  son,  is  de- 
ceived, adopts  a  girl  in  his  place  ;  a 
young  prince  led  to  punishment,  who 
matches  the  sword  of  a  guard,  and 
recovers  his  crown  :  such  are  the  ro- 
mances which  constitute  the  Maiden 
Queen  and  the  Marriage  a  la  Alode. 
We  can  imagine  what  a  display  clas- 
sical dissertations  make  in  this  med- 
ley; solid  leason  beats  down  imagina- 


tion, stroke  after  stroke,  to  the  ground 
We  cannot  tell  if  the  matter  be  a  true 
portrait  or  a  fancy  painting ;  we  remain 
suspended  between  truth  and  fancy; 
we  should  like  either  to  get  up  to 
heaven  or  down  to  earth,  and  we  jump 
down  as  quick  as  possible  from  the 
clumsy  scaffolding  where  the  poet 
would  perch  us. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  Shakspeare 
wishes  to  impress  a  doctrine,  not  raise 
a  dream,  he  attunes  us  to  it  before- 
hand, but  after  another  fashion.  We 
naturally  remain  in  doubt  before  a 
cruel  action :  we  divine  that  the  red 
irons  which  are  about  to  put  out  the 
eyes  of  little  Arthur  are  painted  sticks, 
and  that  the  six  rascals  who  besiege 
Rome,  are  supernumeraries  hired  at  a 
shilling  a  night.  To  conquer  this  mis- 
trust we  must  employ  the  most  natural 
style,  circumstantial  and  rude  imita- 
tion of  the  manners  of  the  guardroom 
and  of  the  alehouse ;  I  can  only  believe 
in  Jack  Cade's  sedition  on  hearing  the 
dirty  words  of  bestial  lewdness  and 
mobbish  stupidity.  You  must  let  me 
have  the  jests,  the  coarse  laughter, 
drunkenness,  the  manners  of  butchers 
and  tanners,  to  make  me  imagine  a 
mob  or  an  election.  So  in  murders, 
let  me  feel  the  fire  of  bubbling  passion, 
the  accumulation  of  despair  or  hate 
which  have  unchained  the  will  and 
nerved  the  hand.  When  the  uncheck- 
ed words,  the  fits  of  rage,  the  convul- 
sive ejaculations  of  exasperated  desire, 
have  brought  me  in  contact  with  all  the 
links  of  the  inward  necessity  which  has 
moulded  the  man  and  guided  the  crime, 
I  no  longer  think  whether  the  knife  is 
bloody,  because  I  feel  with  inner  trem- 
bling the  passion  which  has  handled  it. 
Have  I  to  see  if  Shakspeare's  Cleopa- 
tra be  really  dead  ?  The  strange  laugh 
that  bursts  from  her  when  the  basket 
of  asps  is  brought,  the  sudden  tension 
of  nerves,  the  flow  of  feverish  words, 
the  fitful  gayety,  the  coarse  language, 
the  torrent  of  ideas  with  which  she 
overflows,  have  already  made  me  sound 
all  the  depths  of  suicide,*  and  I  have 

*  "  He  words  me,  girls  ,*  he  words  me,  that  I 

should  not 

Be  noble  to  myself  ;  but  hark  thee  Chai- 
mian.  .  .  . 

Now;  Iras,  what  think'st  thou? 
Thou,  an  Egyptian  puppet  shalt  be  shown 
In  Rome,  as  well  as  I :  mechanic  slaves- 


CHAP.  II.] 


foreseen  it  as  soon  as  she  came  on 
the  stage.  This  madness  of  the  im- 
agination, incited  by  climate  and  des- 
potic power;  these  woman's,  queen's, 
prostitute's  nerves ;  this  marvellous  self- 
adandonment  to  all  the  fire  of  invention 
and  desire — these  cries,  tears,  foam  on 
the  lips,  tempest  of  insults,  actions, 
emotions  ;  this  promptitude  to  murder, 
announce  the  rage  with  which  she  would 
rush  against  the  least  obstacle  and  be 
dashed  to  pieces.  What  does  Dryden 
effect  in  this  matter  with  his  written 
phrases  ?  What  of  the  maid  speaking, 
in  the  author's  words,  who  bids  her 
half-mad  mistress  "  call  reason  to  as- 
sist you  ?  "  *  What  of  such  a  Cleopa- 
tra as  his,  designed  after  Lady  Castle- 
maine,  t  skilled  in  artifices  and  whim- 

With  greasy  aprons,  rules  and  hammers, 
shall 

Uplift  us  to  the  view.  .  .  . 
Saucy  lictors 

Will  catch  at  us,  like  strumpets  ;  and  scald 
rhymers 

Ballad  us  out  o'  tune  ;  the  quick  comedians 

Extemporally  will  stage  us,  and  present 

Our  Alexandrian  revels  ;  Antony 

Shall  be  brought  drunken  forth,  and  I  shall 
see 

Some  squeaking  Cleopatra  boy  my  great- 
ness 

I*  the  posture  of  a  whore.  .  .  . 
Husband,  I  come : 

Now  to  that  name  my  courage  prove  my 
title ! 

I  am  fire  and  air ;  my  other  elements 

I  give  to  baser  life.     So  ;  have  you  done  ? 

Come,  then,  and  take  the  last  warmth  of 


Farewell,  kind  Charmian  J  Iras,  long  fare- 
well. .  .  . 

Dost  thou  not  see  my  baby  at  my 

breast, 

That  sucks  the  nurse  asleep?" 
Shakspeare's  A  ntony  and  Cleopatra,  5.2. 
These  two  last  lines,  referring  to  the  asp,  are 
sublime  as  the  bitter  joke  of  a  courtesan  and  an 
artist. 
*  "  Iras.  Call  reason  to  assist  you. 

Cleopatra.  I  have  none, 
And  none  would  have  :  My  love's  a  noble 

madness 
Which  shews  the  cause  deserved  it :  Modest 

sorrow 

Fits  vulgar  love,  and  for  a  vulgar  man  ; 
But  I  have  loved  with  such  transcendant 

passion, 
I   spared,  at  first,   quite   out  of  reason's 

view, 
And  now  am  lost  above  it." — All  for  Love, 

V.  2.  I. 

t  "  Ckop.  Come  to  me,  come,  my  soldier,  to 

my  arms  ! 

You've  been  too  long  away  from  my  em- 
braces ; 
But,  when  I  have  you  fast,  and  all  my  own, 


DRYDEN.  369 

pering,  voluptuous  and  a  coquette, 
with  neither  the  nobleness  of  virtue, 
nor  the  greatness  of  crime  : 

"  Nature  meant  me 

A  wife  ;  a  silly,  harmless  household  dove? 
Fond  without  art,  and  kind  without  deceit."  * 

Nay,  Nature  meant  nothing  of  the  kind, 
or  otherwise  this  turtle-dove  would  not 
have  tamed  or  kept  an  Antony  ;  a  wo- 
man without  any  prejudices  alone  could 
do  it,  by  the  superiority  of  boldness 
and  the  fire  of  genius.  I  can  see  al- 
ready from  the  title  of  the  piece  why 
Dryden  has  softened  Shakspeare : 
All  for  Love  ;  or,  the  World  well  Lost. 
What  a  wretchedness,  to  reduce  such 
events  to  a  pastoral,  to  excuse  Anto- 
ny, to  praise  Charles  II.  indirectly,  to 
bleat  as  in  a  sheepfold!  And  such 
was  the  taste  of  his  contemporaries. 
When  Dryden  wrote  the  Tempest  after 
Shakspeare,  and  the  State  of  Innocence 
after  Milton,  he  again  spoiled  the 
ideas  of  his  masters :  he  turned  Eve 
and  Miranda  into  courtesans  ;  t  he  ex- 
tinguished everywhere,  under  conven- 
tionalism and  indecencies,  the  frank- 
ness, severity,  delicacy,  and  charm  of 
the  original  invention.  By  his  side, 
Settle,  Shadwell,  Sir  Robert  Howard 
did  worse.  The  Empress  of  Morocco, 
by  Settle,  was  so  admired,  that  the 
gentlemen  and  ladies  of  the  court  learn- 
ed it  by  heart,  to  play  at  Whitehall  be- 
fore the  king.  And  this  was  not  a  pass- 
ing fancy  ;  although  modified,  the  taste 
was  to  endure.  In  vain  poets  rejected 
a  part  of  the  French  alloy  wherewith 
they  had  mixed  their  native  metal ;  in 
vain  they  returned  to  the  old  unrhymed 
verses  of  Jonson  and  Shakspeare;  in 
vain  Dryden,  in  the  parts  of  Antony, 
Ventidius,  Octavia,  Don  Sebastian,  and 
Dorax,  recovered  a  portion  of  the  old 
naturalness  and  energy;  in  vain  Otway, 

With  broken  murmurs,  and  with  amourous 

sighs, 

I'll  say,  you  were  unkind,  and  punish  you, 
And  mark  you  red  with  many  an  eager 

kiss." — All  for  Love,  v.  3.  i. 
*  All  for  Love,  4.    i. 

t  Dryden's  Miranda,  says,  in  the  Tempest 
(2.  2) :  u  And  if  I  can  but  escape  with  life,  I  had 
rather  be  in  pain  nine  months,  as  my  father 
threatened,  than  lose  my  longing."  Miranda 
has  a  sister ;  they  quarrel,  are  jealous  of  each 
other,  and  so  on.  See  also  in  The  State  of  In- 
nocence, 3.  i,  the  description  which  Eve  gives 
of  her  happiness,  and  the  ideas  which  her  con- 
fidences suggest  to  Satan. 


370 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


who  had  real  dramatic  talent,  Lee  and 
Southern,  attained  a  true  or  touching 
accent,  so  that  once,  in  Venice  Preserved 

it  was  thought  that  the  drama  would 
be  regenerated.     The  drama  was  dead, 
and  tragedy  could    not  replace  it;  or 
rather  each  one  died  by  the  other  ;  and 
their   union,   which    robbed   them    of 
strength  in   Dryden's  time,  enervated 
them  also  in  the  time  of  his  successors. 
Literary  style  blunted  dramatic  truth  ; 
dramatic  truth   marred  literary  style  ; 
the  work  was  neither  sufficiently  vivid 
nor  sufficiently  well  written  ;  the  author 
was  too  little  of  a  poet  or  of  an  orator ; 
he  had  neither  Shakspeare's  fire  of  im- 
agination nor  Racine's  polish  and  art* 
He  strayed  on  the  boundaries  of  two 
dramas,   and  suited  neither  the  half- 
barbarous  men  of  art  nor  the  well-pol- 
ished men  of  the  court.     Such  indeed 
was  the  audience,  hesitating  between 
two  forms  of  thought,  fed  by  two  oppo- 
site civilizations.      They  had  no  longer 
the  freshness  of  feelings,  the  depth  of 
impression,  the  bold  originality  and  po- 
etic folly  of  the  cavaliers  and  adven- 
tures of  the  Renaissance ;  nor  will  they 
ever  acquire  the  aptness  of  speech,  gen- 
tleness of  manners,  courtly  habits,  and 
cultivation  of   sentiment  and  thought 
which  adorned  the  court  of  Louis  XIV. 
They  are  quitting  the  age  of   solitary 
imagination  and  invention,  which  suits 
their  race,  for  the  age  of  reasoning  and 
worldly  conversation,  which  does  not 
suit   their  race ;   they  lose  their   own 
merits,  and  do  not  acquire  the  merits 
of  others.      They  were  meagre  poets 
and  ill-bred  courtiers,  having  lost  the 
art  of  imagination  and  having  not  yet 
acquired  good  manners,  at  times  dull 
or  brutal,  at  times  emphatic  or   stiff. 
For  the  production  of  fine  poetry,  race 
and  age  must  concur.     This  race,  di- 
verging from  its  own  age,  and  fettered 
at    the    outset    by   foreign    imitation 
formed  its  classical  literature  but  slow- 
ly ;  it  will  only  attain  it  after  transform 
ing  its  religious  and  political  condition : 
the  age  will  be  that  of  English  reason 
Dryden    inaugurates   it   by   his   other 
works,  and  the  writers  who  appear  in 
the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  will  give  it  its 
completion,  its  authority,  and  its  splen 
dor. 

*  This  impotence  reminds  one  of  Casimi 
Delavigne. 


V. 


But  let  us  piuse  a  moment  longer  to 
nquire  whether,  amid  so  many  abor- 
ive  and  distorted  branches,  the  old 
heatrical  stock,  abandoned  by  chance 
o  itself,  will  not  produce  at  some  point 
a  sound  and  living  shoot.  When  a 
nan  like  Dryden,  so  gifted,  so  well  in- 
:ormed  and  experienced,  works  with  a 
will,  there  is  hope  that  he  will  some 
ime  succeed ;  and  once,  in  part  at 
east,  Dryden  did  succeed.  It  would 
)e  treating  him  unjustly  to  be  always 
comparing  him  with  Shakspeare  ;  but 
even  on  Shakspeare's  ground,  with  the 
same  materials,  it  is  possible  to  create 
a  fine  work  ;  only  the  reader  must  for- 
get for  a  while  the  great  inventor,  the 
nexhaustible  creator  of  vehement  and 
original  souls,  and  to  consider  the  imi- 
:ator  on  his  own  merits,  without  forc- 
ng  an  overwhelming  comparison. 

There  is  vigor  and  art  in  this  tragedy 
of  Dryden,  All  for  Love.  "  He  has  in- 
formed us,  that  this  was  the  only  play 
written  to  please  himself."  *  And  he 
had  really  composed  it  learnedly,  ac- 
cording to  history  and  logic.  And 
what  is  better  still,  he  wrote  it  in  a 
manly  style.  In  the  preface  he  says  : 
"The -fabric  of  the  play  is  regular 
enough,  as  to  the  inferior  parts  of  it  ; 
and  the  unities  of  time,  place,  and  ac- 
tion, more  exactly  observed,  than  per- 
haps the  English  theatre  requires.  Par- 
ticularly, the  action  is  so  much  one, 
that  it  is  the  only  of  the  kind  without 
episode,  or  underplot ;  every  scene  in 
the  tragedy  conducing  to  the  main  de- 
sign, and  every  act  concluding  with  a 
turn  of  it."t  He  did  more ;  he  aban- 
doned the  French  ornaments,  and  re- 
turned to  national  tradition  :  "  In  my 
style  I  have  professed  to  imitate  the 
divine  Shakspeare  ;  which  that  I  might 
perform  more  freely,  I  have  disincum 


bered  myself  from   rhyme. 


Yet,  I 


hope,  I  may  affirm,  and  without  vanity, 
that  by  imitating  him,  I  have  excelled 
myself  throughout  the  play ;  and  par- 
ticularly, that  I  prefer  the  scene  be- 
twixt Antony  and  Ventidius  in  the  first 
act,  to  anything  which  I  have  written 
in  this  kind."  \  Dryden  was  right  ;  if 
Cleopatra  is  weak,  if  this  feebleness 

*  See  the  introductory  notice,  by  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  of  All  for  Love>  v.  290. 
t  Ibid.  v.  307.  \  Ibid.  v.  319- 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN. 


37' 


of  conception  takes  away  the  interest 
and  mars  the  general  effect,  if  the  new 
rhetoric  and  the  old  emphasis  at  times 
suspend  the  emotion  and  destroy  the 
likelihood,  yet  on  the  whole  the  drama 
stands  erect,  and  what  is  more,  moves 
on.  The  poet  is  skilful ;  he  has  planned, 
he  knows  how  to  construct  a  scene,  to 
represent  the  internal  struggle  by  which 
two  passions  contend  for  a  human 
heart.  We  perceive  the  tragical  vicis- 
situde of  the  strife,  the  progress  of  a 
sentiment,  the  overthrow  of  obstacles, 
the  slow  growth  of  desire  or  wrath,  to 
the  very  instant  when  the  resolution, 
rising  up  of  itself  or  seduced  from 
without,  rushes  suddenly  in  one  groove. 
There  are  natural  words ;  the  poet 
thinks  and  writes  too  genuinely  not  to 
discover  them  at  need.  There  are 
manly  characters  :  he  himself  is  a  man  ; 
and  beneath  his  courtier's  pliability, 
his  affectations  as  a  fashionable  poet, 
he  has  retained  his  stern  and  energetic 
character.  Except  for  one  scene  of 
recrimination,  his  Octavia  is  a  Roman 
matron ;  and  when,  even  in  Alexan- 
dria, in  Cleopatra's  palace,  she  comes 
to  look  for  Antony,  she  does  it  with  a 
simplicity  and  nobility,  not  to  be  sur- 
passed. "Caesar's  sister,"  cries  out 
Antony,  accosting  her.  Octavia  an- 
swers ; 

"  That's  unkind. 

Had  I  been  nothing  more  than  Caesar's  sis- 
ter, 

Know,  I  had  still  remain'd  in  Caesar's  camp: 

But  your  Octavia, "your  much  injured  wife, 

Though  banish'd  from  your  bed,  driven  from 
your  house, 

In  spite  of  Caesar's  sister,  still  is  yours. 

'Tis  true,  I  have  a  heart  disdains  your  cold- 
ness, 

And  prompts  me  not  to  seek  what  you  should 
offer  ; 

But  a  wife's  virtue  still  surmounts  that  pride. 

I  come  to  claim  you  as  my  own  ;  to  show 

My  duty  first,  to  ask,  nay  beg,  your  kind- 
ness : 

Your  hand,  my  lord  ;  'tis  mine,  and  I  will 
have  it."  * 

Antony  humilitated,  refuses  the  par- 
don Octavia  has  brought  him,  and  tells 
her  : 

"  I  fear,  Octavia,  you  have  begg'd  my  life,  .  .  . 

Poorly  and  basely  begg'd  it  of  your  brother. 

Octavia.  Poorly  and  basely  I  could  never 

beg, 
Nor  could  my  brother  grant.  .  .  . 

*  All  for  Lo-ot)  v.  3.  i. 


My  hard  fortune 

Subjects  me  still  to  your  unkind  mistakes. 
But  the  conditions  I  have  brought  are  such, 
You  need  not  blush  to  take :  I  love  your 

honour, 

Because  'tis  mine  ;  it  never  shall  be  said 
Octavia's  husband  was  her  brother's  slave. 
Sir,  you  are  free  ;  free,  even  from  her  you 

loath  ; 
For,  though  my  brother  bargains  for  your 

love, 
Makes  me  the  price  and    cement  of  your 

peace, 

I  have  a  soul  like  yours  ;  I  cannot  take 
Your  love  as  alms,  nor  beg  what  I  deserve. 
I'll  tell  my  brother  we  are  reconciled  ; 
He  shall  draw  back  his  troops,  and  you  shall 

march 

To  rule  the  East :  I  maybe  dropt  at  Athens; 
No  matter  where.     I  never  will  complain, 
But  only  keep  the  barren  name  of  wife, 
And  rid  you  of  the  trouble."  * 

This  is  lofty ;  this  woman  has  a  proud 
heart,  and  also  a  wife's  heart :  she 
knows  how  to  give  and  how  to  bear ; 
and  better,  she  knows  how  to  sacrifice 
herself  without  self-assertion,  and  calm- 
ly ;  no  vulgar  mind  conceived  such  a 
soul  as  this.  And  Ventidius,  the  old 
general,  who  with  her  and  previous  to 
her,  comes  to  rescue  Antony  from  his 
illusion  and  servitude,  is  worthy  to 
speak  in  behalf  of  honor,  as  she  had 
spoken  for  duty.  Doubtless  he  was  a 
plebeian,  a  rude  and  plain-speaking 
soldier,  with  the  frankness  and  jests  of 
his  profession,  sometimes  clumsy,  such 
as  a  clever  eunuch  can  dupe,  "  a  thick- 
skulled  hero,"  who,  out  of  simplicity 
of  soul,  from  the  coarseness  of  his 
training,  unsuspectingly  brings  Antony 
back  to  the  meshes,  which  he  seemed 
to  be  breaking  through.  Falling  into 
a  trap,  he  tells  Antony  that  he  has 
seen  Cleopatra  unfaithful  with  Dola- 
bella: 

"  A  ntony.  My  Cleopatra  ? 

Ventidius.  Your  Cleopatra. 
Dolabella's  Cleopatra. 
Every  man's  Cleopatra. 

A  ntony.  Thou  liest. 

Vent^di^ls.  I  do  not  lie,  my  lord. 
Is  this  so  strange  ?     Should  mistresses  be  left, 
And  not  provide  against  a  time  of  change  ? 
You    know    she's   not   much    used  to   lonely 
nights."  t 

It  was  just  the  way  to  make  Antony 
jealous  and  bring  him  back  furious  to 
Cleopatra.  But  what  a  noble  heart 
has  this  Ventidius,  and  how  we  catch, 
when  he  is  alone  with  Antony,  the 
manly  voice,  the  deep  tones  which  had 
*  Ibid.  t  ibid.  4.  i. 


372 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BooK  III 


been  heard  on  the  battlefield  !  He 
loves  his  general  like  a  good  and  hon- 
est dog,  and  asks  no  better  than  to  die, 
so  it  be  at  his  master's  feet.  He  growls 
stealthily  on  seeing  him  cast  down, 
crouches  round  him,  and  suddenly 
weeps : 

"  Ventidius.  Look,  emperor,  this  is  no  com- 
mon dew.  \_Weeping. 
I  have  not  wept  this  forty  years  ;  but  now 
My  mother  comes  afresh  into  my  eyes, 
I  cannot  help  her  softness. 
Antony.  By  heaven,  he  weeps!  poor,  good 

old  man,  he  weeps ! 

The  big  round  drops  course  one  another  down 
The  furrcws  of  his  cheeks. — Stop  them,  Venti- 

dius, 

Or  I  shall  blush  to  death  :  they  set  my  shame, 
That  caused  them  full  before  me. 
Ventidius.  I'll  do  my  best. 
Antony.    Sure  there's  contagion  in  the  tears 

of  friends : 
See,  I   have  caught  it  too.     Believe  me,  'tis 

not 
For  my  own  grief,  but  thine.  Nay,  Father !  "  * 

As  we  hear  these  terrible  sobs,  we 
think  of  Tacitus'  veterans,  who  escap- 
ing from  the  marshes  of  Germany, 
with  scarred  breasts,  white  heads, 
limbs  stiff  with  service,  kissed  the 
hands  of  Drusus,  carried  his  fingers  to 
their  gums,  that  he  might  feel  their 
worn  and  loosened  teeth,  incapable  to 
bite  the  wretched  bread  which  was 
given  to  them : 

'  No ;  'tis  you  dream  ;  you  sleep  away  your 

hours 

In  desperate  sloth,  miscall'd  philosophy. 
Up,  up,  for  honour's  sake  ;  twelve  legions 

wait  you, 
And  long  to  call  you  chief :  By  painful  jour- 

nies, 

I  led  them,  patient  both  of  heat  and  hunger, 
Down    from   the   Parthian   marshes   to   the 

Nile. 
'Twill  do  you  good  to  see  their  sun-burnt 

faces, 
Their    scarred    cheeks,   and    chopt   hands  ; 

there's  virtue  in  them. 
They'll  sell  those  mangled  limbs  at  dearer 

rates 
Than  yon  trim  bands  can  buy."  t 

And  when  all  is  lost,  when  the  Egyp- 
tians have  turned  traitors,  and  there  is 
nothing  left  but  to  die  well,  Ventidius 
says, 

'  There  yet  remain 

Three  legions  in  the  town.     The  last  assaul 
Lopt  off  the  rest :  if  death  be  your  design, — 
As  I  must  wish  it  now, — these  are  sufficient 
To  make  a  heap  about  us  of  dead  foes, 
An  honest  pile  for  burial.  .  .  .  Chuse  your 
death  ; 


*  All  for  Love^  x.  i. 


Mbid. 


For,  I  have  seen  him  in  such  various  shapes^ 
I  care  not  which  I  take :  I'm  only  troubled. 
The  life  I  bear  is  worn  to  such  a  rag, 
'Tis  scarce  worth  giving.     I  could  wish,  in* 

deed, 

We  threw  it  fr  >m  us  with  a  better  grace  ; 
That,  like  two  lions  taken  in  the  toils, 
We  might  at  *east  thrust  out  our  paws,  and 

wound 
The  hunters  that  inclose  us."  *  ... 

Antony  begs  him  to  go,  but  he  refuses; 
and  then  he  entreats  Ventidius  to  kill 
him  : 

"  Antony.  Do  not  deny  me  twice. 

Ventidius.  By  Heaven  I  will  not. 
Let  it  not  be  to  outlive  you. 

A  ntony.  Kill  me  first, 

And  then  die  thou  ;  for  'tis  but  just  thou  serve 
Thy  friend,  before  thyself. 

Ventidius.  Give  me  your  hand. 
We  soon  shall  meet  again.   Now,  farewell,  em- 
peror !  \_Embrace* 
...  I  will  not  make  a  business  of  a  trifle  : 
And  yet  I  cannot  look  on  you,  and  kill  you. 
Pray,  turn  your  face. 

A  ntony.  I  do  :  strike  home,  be  sure. 

Ventidius*  Home,  as  my  sword  will  reach-"t 

And  with  one  blow  he  kills  himself. 
These  are  the  tragic,  stoical  manners 
of  a  military  monarchy,  the  great  pro- 
fusion of  murders  and  sacrifices  where- 
with the  men  of  this  overturned  and 
shattered  society  killed  and  died.  This 
Antony,  for  whom  so  much  has  been 
done,  is  not  undeserving  of  their  love  : 
he  has  been  one  of  Caesar's  heroes,  the 
first  soldier  of  the  van  ;  kindness  and 
generosity  breathe  from  him  to  the 
last ;  if  he  is  weak  against  a  woman, 
he  is  strong  against  men  ;  he  has  the 
muscles  and  heart,  the  wrath  and  pas- 
sions of  a  soldier ;  it  is  this  fever  heat 
of  blood,  this  too  quick  sentiment  of 
honor,  which  has  caused  his  ruin  ;  he 
cannot  forgive  his  own  crime ;  he 
possesses  not  that  lofty  genius  which, 
dwelling  in  a  region  superior  to  ordi- 
nary rules,  emancipates  a  man  from 
hesitation,  from  discouragement  and 
remorse  ;  he  is  only  a  soldier,  he  can- 
not forget  that  he  has  not  executed  the 
orders  given  to  him  : 

"  Ventidius.  Emperor ! 

A  ntony.  Emperor  ?  Why,  that's  the  style  o 

victory ; 

The  conquering  soldier,  red  with  unfelt  wound% 
Salutes  his  general  so  ;  but  never  more 
Shall  that  sound  reach  my  ears. 

Ventidius.  I  warrant  you. 

A  ntony.  Actium,  Actium  1     Oh 

Ventidius.  It  sits  too  near  you. 


*  Ibid.  5.  i. 


Mbid. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN. 


373 


Antony.  Here,  here  it  lies  ;  a  lump  of  lead 

by  day ; 

And  in  my  short,  distracted,  nightly  slumbers, 
The  hag  that  rides  my  dreams.  .  .  . 

Ventidius.  That's  my  royal  master  ; 
And.  shall  we  fight? 

A  ntony.  I  warrant  thee,  old  soldier. 
Thou  shalt  behold  me  once  again  in  iron ; 
And  at  the  head  of  our  old  troops,  that  beat 
The    Parthians,    cry    aloud,     '  Come,    follow 
me.'  "  * 

He  fancies  himself  on  the  battlefield, 
and  already  his  impetuosity  carries 
him  away.  Such  a  man  is  not  fit  to 
govern  men ;  we  cannot  master  f  ortune 
until  we  have  mastered  ourselves ;  this 
man  is  only  made  to  belie  and  destroy 
himself,  and  to  be  veered  round  alter- 
nately by  every  passion.  As  soon  as 
he  believes  Cleopatra  faithful,  honor, 
reputation,  empire,  every  thing  van- 
ishes : 

"  Ventidius.  And  what's  this  toy, 
In  balance  with  your  fortune,  honour,  fame? 
Antony.  What  is't,  Ventidius  ?  it  outweighs 

them  all. 
Why,  we   have    more  than  conquer'd   Caesar 

now. 

My  queen's  not  only  innocent,  but  loves  me. .  . 
Down  on  thy  knees,  blasphemer  as  thou  art, 
And  ask  forgiveness  of  wrong'd  innocence  ! 
Ventidius.  I'll  rather  die  than  take  it.     Will 

you  go? 

Antony.  Go!    Whither?    Go  from  all  that's 
excellent ! 

.  .  .  Give,  you  gods, 
Give  to  your  boy,  your  Caesar, 
This  rattle  of  a  globe  to  play  withal, 
This  gewgaw  world  ;  and  put  him  cheaply  off  : 
I'll  not  be  pleased  with  less  than  Cleopatra."  f 

Dejection  follows  excess  ;  these  souls 
are  only  tempered  against  fear ;  their 
courage  is  but  that  of  the  bull  and  the 
lion  ;  to  be  fully  themselves,  they  need 
bodily  action,  visible  danger ;  their 
temperament  sustains  them;  before 
great  moral  sufferings  they  give  way. 
When  Antony  thinks  himself  deceived, 
he  despairs,  and  has  nothing  left  but 
to  die : 

"  Let  him  (Caesar)  walk 
Alone  upon't.     I'm  weary  of  my  part. 
My    ftrch  is  out ;  and  the  world  stands  before 

me, 

L>e  a  black  desert  at  the  approach  of  night  ; 
I'll  lay  me  down,  and  stray  no  farther  on.  t 

Such  verses  remind  us  of  Othello's 
gloomy  dreams,  of  Macbeth's,  of  Ham- 
let's even  ;  beyond  the  pile  of  swelling 
tirades  and  characters  of  painted  card- 
board, it  is  as  though  the  poet  had 

*  All  for  Love,  i.  i.         t  Ibid.  2.  i,  end. 
t  Ibid.  5.  i. 


touched  the  ancient  drama,  and  brought 
its  emotion  away  with  him. 
.  By  his  side  another  also  has  felt  it,  a 
young  man,  a  poor  adventurer,  by  turns 
a  student,  actor,  officer,  always  wild 
and  always  poor,  who  lived  madly  and 
sadly  in  excess  and  misery,  like  the 
old  dramatists,  with  their  inspiration, 
their  fire,  and  who  died  at  the  age  of 
thirty-four,  according  to  some  of  a 
fever  caused  by  fatigue,  according  to 
others  of  a  prolonged  fast,  at  the  end 
of  which  he  swallowed  too  qi-cklya 
morsel  of  bread  bestowed  on  him  in 
charity.  Through  the  pompous  cloak 
of  the  new  rhetoric,  Thomas  Otway 
now  and  then  reached  the  passions  of 
the  other  age.  It  is  plain  that  the  times 
he  lived  in  marred  him,  that  he  blunt- 
ed himself  the  harshness  and  truth  of 
the  emotion  he  felt,  that  he  no  longer 
mastered  the  bold  words  he  needed, 
that  the  oratorical  style,  the  literary 
phrases,  the  classical  declamation,  the 
well-poised  antitheses,  buzzed  about 
him,  and  drowned  his  note  in  their  sus- 
tained and  monotonous  hum.  Had  he 
but  been  born  a  hundred  years  earlier ! 
In  his  Orphan  and  Venice  Preserved  we 
encounter  the  sombre  imaginations  of 
Webster,  Ford,  and  Shakspeare,  their 
gloomy  idea  of  life,  their  atrocities, 
murders,  pictures  of  irresistible  pas- 
sions, which  riot  blindly  like  a  herd 
of  savage  beasts,  and  make  a  chaos  of 
the  battlefield,  with  their  yells  and 
tumult,  leaving  behind  them  but  devas- 
tation and  heaps  of  dead.  Like  Shak- 
speare, he  represents  on  the  stage 
human  transports  and  rages — a  brother 
violating  his  brother's  wife,  a  husband 
perjuring  himself  for  his  wife;  Poly- 
dore,  Chamont,  Jaffier,  weak  and  vio- 
lent souls,  the  sport  of  chance,  the  prey 
of  temptation,  with  whom  transport  or 
crime,  like  poison  poured  into  the 
veins,  gradually  ascends,  envenoms  the 
whole  man,  is  communicated  to  all 
whom  he  touches,  and  contorts  and 
casts  them  down  together  in  a  convul- 
sive delirium.  Like  Shakspeare,  he 
has  found  poignant  and  living  words,* 
which  lay  bare  the  depths  of  humanity, 
the  strange  creaking  of  a  machine  which 
is  getting  out  of  order,  the  tension  of  the 

*  Monimia  says,  in  the  Orphan  (5,  end), 
when  dying,  "How  my  head  swims!  'Tia 
very  dark  ;  good  night." 


374 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  in. 


will  stretched  to  breaking-point,*  the 
simplicity  of  real  sacrifice,  the  humility 
of  exasperated  and  craving  passion, 
which  begs  to  the  end,  and  against  all 
hope,  for  its  fuel  and  its  gratification.t 
Like  Shakspeare,  he  has  conceived 
genuine  women,  J — Monimia,  above  all 
Belvidera,  who,  like  Imogen,  has  given 
herself  wholly,  and  is  lost  as  in  an  abyss 
of  adoration  for  him  whom  she  has 
chosen,  who  can  but  love,  obey,  weep, 
suffer,  and  who  dies  like  a  flower 
plucked  from  the  stalk,  when  her  arms 
are  torn  from  the  neck  around  which 
she  has  locked  them.  Like  Shakspeare 
again,  he  has  found,  at  least  once,  the 
grand  bitter  buffoonery,  the  harsh  sen- 
timent of  human  baseness  ;  and  he  has 
introduced  into  his  most  painful  trag- 
edy, an  impure  caricature,  an  old  sen- 
ator, who  unbends  from  his  official 
gravity  in  order  to  play  at  his  mistress' 
house  the  clown  or  the  valet.  How 
bitter  !  how  true  was  his  conception, 
in  making  the  busy  man  eager  to  leave 
his  robes  and  his  ceremonies !  how 
ready  the  man  is  to  abase  himself, 
when,  escaped  from  his  part,  he  comes 
to  his  real  self!  how  the  ape  and  -the 
dog  crop  up  in  him  !  The  senator 
Antonio  comes  to  his  Aquilina,  who 
insults  him  ;  he  is  amused;  hard  words 
are  a  relief  to  compliments  ;  he  speaks 
in  a  shrill  voice,  runs  into  a  falsetto 
like  a  zany  at  a  country  fair  : 

"Antonio.  Nacky,  Nacky,  Nacky, — how 
dost  do,  Nacky?  Hurry,  durry.  I  am  come, 
little  Nacky.  Past  eleven  o'clock,  a  late  hour  ; 
time  in  all  conscience  to  go  to  bed,  Nacky. — 
Nacky  did  I  say  ?  Ay,  Nacky,  Aquilina,  Una, 
lina,  quilina  ;  Aquilina,  Naquilina,  Acky, 
Nacky,  queen  Nacky.— Come,  let's  to  bed. — 
You  fubbs,  you  pug  you. — You  little  puss. — 
Purree  tuzzy — I  am  a  senator. 


*  See  the  death  of  Pierre  and  Jaffier  in  Ven- 
ice Preserved  ($,  last  scene).  Pierre,  stabbed 
once,  bursts  into  a  laugh. 

"  Jaffi*r.  Oh,  that  my  arms  were  riveted 
Thus  round  thee  ever  1     But  my  friends,  my 

oath! 
This,  and  no  more.  (Kisses  her.") 

Belvidera.  Another,  sure  another 
For  that  poor  little  one  you've  ta'en  such  care 

of; 

I'll  giv]t  him  truly."—  Venice  Preserved,$.i. 
There  is  jealousy  in  this  last  word. 
$  "  Oh,  thou  art  tender  all, 

Gentle  and  kind,  as  sympathizing  nature, 
Dove-like,  soft  and  kind.  .  .  . 
I'll  ever  live  your  most  obedient  wife, 
Nor  ever  any  privilege  pretend 
Beyond  your  will."— Orphan,  4.  i. 


Aquilina.  You  are  a  fool  I  am  sure. 

A  ntonio.  May  be  so  too,  sweet-heart.  Never 
the  worse  senator  for  all  that.  Come,  Nacky, 
Nacky  ;  let's  have  a  game  at  romp,  Nacky  I 
.  .  .  You  won't  sit  down  ?  Then  look  you 
now  ;  suppose  me  a  bull,  a  Basan-bull,  tne  bull 
of  bulls,  or  any  bull.  Thus  up  I  get,  and  with 
my  brows  thus  bent  —  I  broo  ;  I  say  I  broo,  I 
broo,  I  broo.  You  won't  sit  down,  will  you~- 
I  broo.  .  .  .  Now,  I'll  be  a  senator  again,  and 
thy  lover,  little  Nicky,  Nacky.  Ah,  toad,  toad, 
toad,  toad,  spit  in  my  face  a  little,  Nacky  ;  spit 
'  nver 


Now,  now  spit.  What,  you  won't  spit,  will 
you?  Then  I'll  be  a  dog. 

Aquilina.  A  dog,  my  lord  ! 

Antonio.  Ay,  a  dog,  and  I'll  give  thee  this 
t'other  purse  to  let  me  be  a  dog—  and  to  use  me 
like  a  dog  a  little.  Hurry  durry,  I  will  —  here 
'tis.  (Gives  the  purse?)  .  .  .  Now  bough 
waugh  waugh,  bough,  waugh. 

Aquilina.  Hold,  hold,  sir.  If  curs  bite, 
they  must  be  kicked,  sir.  Do  you  see,  kicked 
thus? 

A  ntonio.  Ay,  with  all  my  heart.  Do,  kick, 
kick  on,  now  I  am  under  the  table,  kick  again, 
—  kick  harder  —  harder  yet  —  bough,  waugh, 
waugh,  bough.  —  Odd,  I'll  have  a  snap  at  thy 
shins.—  Bough,  waugh,  waugh,  waugh,  bough 
--odd,  she  kicks  bravely."* 

At  last  she  takes  a  whip,  thrashes  him 
soundly,  and  turns  him  out  of  the 
house.  He  will  return,  we  may  be 
sure  of  that  ;  he  has  spent  a  pleasant 
evening  ;  he  rubs  his  back,  but  he  was 
amused.  In  short,  he  was  but  a  clown 
who  had  missed  his  vocation,  whom 
chance  has  given  an  embroidered  silk 
gown,  and  who  turns  out  at  so  much  an 
hour  political  harlequinades.  He  feels 
more  natural,  more  at  his  ease,  playing 
Punch  than  aping  a  statesman. 

These  are  but  gleams  :  for  the  most 
part  Otway  is  a  poet  of  his  time,  dull 
and  forced  in  color  ;  buried,  like  the 
rest,  in  the  heavy,  gray,  clouded  at- 
mosphere, half  English  and  half  French, 
in  which  the  bright  lights  brought  over 
from  France,  are  snuffed  out  by  the 
insular  fogs.  He  is  a  man  of  his  time  ; 
like  the  rest,  he  writes  obscene  com- 
edies, The  Soldier's  Fortune,  The  Athe- 
ist, Friendship  in  Fashion.  He  depicts 
coarse  and  vicious  cavaliers,  rogues  on 
principle,  as  harsh  and  corrupt  as  those 
of  Wycherley,  Beaugard,  who  vaunts 
and  practises  the  maxims  of  Hobbes  ; 

*  Venice  Preserved,  3.  i.  Antonio  is  meant 
as  a  copy  of  the  "  celebrated  Earl  of  Shaf  tes- 
bury,  the  lewdness  of  whose  latter  years,"  says 
Mr.  Thornton  in  his  edition  of  Otway's  Works, 
3  vols.  1815,  "was  a  subject  of  general  noto« 
riety."—  TR. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRY  DEN. 


375 


the  father,  an  old,  corrupt  rascal,  who 
brags  of  his  morality,  and  whom  his 
son  coldly  sends  to  the  dogs  with  a  bag 
of  crowns  :  Sir  Jolly  Jumble,  a  kind  of 
base  Fal staff,  a  pander  by  profession 
whom  the  courtesans  call "  papa,daddy,' 
who,  "  if  he  sits  but  at  the  table  with 
one,  he'll  be  making  nasty  figures  in  the 
napkins : "  *  Sir  Davy  Dunce,  a  disgust- 
ing animal,  "  who  has  such  a  breath, 
one  kiss  of  him  were  enough  to  cure 
the  fits  of  the  mother  ;  'tis  worse  than 
assafoetida.  Clean  linen,  he  says,  is 
unwholesome  .  .  .  ;  he  is  continually 
eating  of  garlic,  and  chewing  tobac- 
co ;  "  t  Polydore,  who,  enamored  of 
his  father's  ward,  tries  to  force  her  in 
the  first  scene,  envies  the  brutes,  and 
makes  up  his  mind  to  imitate  them  on 
the  next  occasion.  \  Otway  defiles 
even  his  heroines.  §  Truly  this  society 
sickens  us.  They  thought  to  cover  all 
their  filth  with  fine  correct  metaphors, 
neatly  ended  poetical  periods,  a  gar- 
ment of  harmonious  phrases  and  noble 
expressions.  They  thought  to  equal 
Racine  by  counterfeiting  his  style. 
They  did  not  know  that  in  this  style 
the  outward  elegance  conceals  an  ad- 
mirable propriety  of  thought ;  that  if  it 

*  The  Soldier's  Fortune,  i.  i.          t  Ibid. 
t  "  Who'd  be  that  sordid  foolish  thing  called 

man, 

To  cringe  thus,  fawn,  and  flatter  for  a  pleas- 
ure, 
Which  beaste  enjoy  so  very  much  above 

him  ? 

The  lusty  bull  ranges  thro'  all  the  field, 
And  from  the  herd  singling  his  female  out, 
Enjoys  her,  and  abandons  her  at  will. 
It  shall  be  so,  I'll  yet  possess  my  love, 
Wait  on,  and  watch  her  loose  unguarded 

hours  : 
Then,  when  her  roving  thoughts  have  been 

abroad, 
And  brought  in    wanton    wishes    to  her 

heart ; 

I'  th'  very  minute  when  her  virtue  nods, 
I'll  rush  upon  her  in  a  storm  of  love, 
Beat  down  her  guard  of  honour  all  before 

me, 

Surfeit  on  joys,  till  ev'n  desire  grew  sick  ; 
Then  by  long  absence  liberty  regain, 
And    quite    forget   the    pleasure  and  the 

pain." — The  Orphan,  i.  i. 
It  is  impossible  to  see   together  more  moral 
roguery  and  literary  correctness. 
§  "  Page  (to  Mommia).  In  the  morning  when 

you  call  me  to  you, 
And   by  your  bed   I  stand  and  tell   you 

stories, 

I  am  ashamed  to  see  your  swelling  breasts  ; 
It  makes  me  blush,  they  are  so  very  white. 
Monimia.  Oh  men,  for  flatt'ry  and  de- 
ceit renown'd!  "—The  Orphan,  i.  i. 


is  a  master-piece  of  art,  it  is  also  a 
picture  of  manners  ;  that  the  most  re 
fined  and  accomplished  in  society  alone 
could  speak  and  understand  it;  that  it 
paints  a  civilization,  as  Shakspeare's 
does ;  that  each  of  these  lines,  which 
appear  so  stiff,  has  its  inflection  and 
artifice ;  that  all  passions,  and  every 
shade  of  passion,  are  expressed  in  them, 
— not,  it  is  true,  wild  and  entire,  as  in 
Shakspeare,  but  pared  down  and  re- 
fined by  courtly  life ;  that  this  is  a 
spectacle  as  unique  as  the  other;  that 
nature  perfectly  polished  is  as  complex 
and  as  difficult  to  understand  as  nature 
perfectly  intact ;  that  as  for  the  dram- 
atists we  speak  of,  they  were  as  far 
below  the  one  as  below  the  other  ;  and 
that,  in  short,  their  characters  are  as 
much  like  Racine's  as  the  porter  of 
Mons.  de  Beauvilliers  or  the  cook  of 
Madame  de  Sevigne  were  like  Madame 
de  Sevigne  or  Mons.  de  Beauvilliers.  * 

VI. 

Let  us  then  leave  this  drama  in  the 
obscurity  which  it  deserves,  and  seek 
elsewhere,  in  studied  writings,  for  a 
happier  employment  of  a  fuller  talent. 

Pamphlets  and  dissertations  in  verse, 
letters,  satires,  translations  and  imita- 
tions; here  was  the  true  domain  of 
Dryclen  and  of  classical  reason  ;  this  is 
the  field  on  which  logical  faculties  and 
the  art  of  writing  find  their  best  occu- 
pation, t  Before  descending  into  it, 
and  observing  their  work,  it  will  be  as 
well  to  study  more  closely  the  man  who 
so  wielded  them. 

His  was  a  singularly  solid  and  judi- 
cious mind,  an  excellent  reasoner,  ac- 
customed to  mature  his  ideas,  armed 
with  good  long-meditated  proofs,  strong 
in  discussion,  asserting  principles,  es- 
tablishing his  subdivisions,  citing  au- 
thorities, drawing  inferences  ;  so  that, 
'f  we  read  his  prefaces  without  reading 
his  dramas,  we  might  take  him  for  one 
of  the  masters  of  the  dramatic  art.  He 
naturally  attains  a  prose  style,  definite 
*  Burns  said,  after  his  arrival  in  Edinburgh, 
;<  Between  the  man  of  rustic  life  and  the  polite 
world,  I  observed  little  difference.  .  .  .  But 
a  refined  and  accomplished  woman  was  a  being 
altogether  new  to  me,  and  of  which  I  had 
formed  but  a  very  inadequate  idea."— (Burns' 
Works,  ed.  Cunningham,  1832,  8  vols.,  i.  207.) 
t  Dryden  says,  in  his  Essay  on  Satire,  xiii. 
jo,  "  the  stage  to  which  my  genius  never  much 
nclined  me." 


376 


and  precise;  his  ideas  are  unfolded 
with  breadth  and  clearness  ;  his  style  is 
well  moulded,  exact  and  simple,  free 
from  the  affectations  and  ornaments 
with  which  Pope's  was  burdened  after- 
wards ;  his  expression  is,  like  that  of 
Corneille,  ample  and  full  ;  the  cause  of 
it  is  simply  to  be  found  in  the  inner 
arguments  which  unfold  and  sustain  it. 
We  can  see  that  he  thinks,  and  that  on 
his  own  behalf;  that  he  combines  and 
verifies  his  thoughts ;  that  besides  all 
this,  he  naturally  has  a  just  perception, 
and  that  with  his  method  he  has  good 
sense.  He  has  the  tastes  and  the  weak- 
nesses which  suit  his  cast  of  intellect. 
He  holds  in  the  highest  estimation 
"the  admirable  Boileau,  whose  num- 
bers are  excellent,  whose  expressions 
are  noble,  whose  thoughts  are  just, 
whose  language  is  pure,  whose  satire  is 
pointed,  and  whose  sense  is  close. 
What  he  borrows  from  the  ancients,  he 
repays  with  usury  of  his  own,  in  coin 
as  good,  and  almost  as  universally 
valuable."*  He  has  the  stiffness  of  the 
logician  poets,  too  strict  and  argumen- 
tative, blaming  Ariosto  "  who  neither 
designed  justly,  nor  observed  any  unity 
of  action,  or  compass  of  time,  or  moder- 
ation in  the  vastness  of  his  draught ; 
his  style  is  luxurious,  without  majesty 
or  decency,  and  his  adventures  without 
the  compass  of  nature  and  possibility.'^ 
He  understands  delicacy  no  better  than 
fancy.  Speaking  of  Horace,  he  finds 
that  "  his  wit  is  faint  and  his  salt  al- 
most insipid.  Juvenal  is  of  a  more 
vigorous  and  masculine  wit  ;  he  gives 
me  as  much  pleasure  as  I  can  bear."  } 
For  the  same  reason  he  depreciates  the 
French  style  :  "Their  language  is  not 
strung  with  sinews,  like  our  English ; 
it  has  the  nimbleness  of  a  grayhound, 
but  not  the  bulk  and  body  of  a  mastiff. 
.  .  .  They  have  set  up  purity  for  the 
standard  of  their  language  ;  and  a  mas- 
culine vigor  is  that  of  ours."  §  Two  or 
thr^e  such  words  depict  a  man ;  Dry- 
den  has  just  shown,  unwittingly,  the 
measure  and  quality  of  his  mind. 

This  mind,  as  we  may  imagine,  is 
heavy,  and  especially  so  in  flattery. 
Flattery  is  the  chief  art  in  a  monarchi- 
cal age.  Dryden  is  hardly  skilful  in 

*  Essay  on  Satire,  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of 
Dorset,  xiii.  16.  t  Ibid.  \  Ibid.  84. 

$  Dedication  of  the  &ne'is,  xiv.  204. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


it,  any  more  than  his  contemporaries. 
Across  the  Channel,  at  the  same  epoch, 
they  praised  just  as  much,  but  without 
cringing  too  low,  because  praise  was 
decked  out ;  now  disguised  or  relieved 
by  charm  of  style  ;  now  looking  as  if 
men  took  to  it  as  to  a  fashion.  Thus 
delicately  tempered,  people  are  able  to 
digest  it.  But  here,  far  from  the  fine 
aristocratic  kitchen,  it  weighs  like  an 
undigested  mass  upon  the  stomach.  I 
have  related  how  Lord  Clarendon, 
hearing  that  his  daughter  had  just  mar- 
ried the  Duke  of  York  in  secret,  begged 
the  king  to  have  her  instantly  behead- 
ed ;  *  how  the  Commons,  composed 
for  the  most  part  of  Presbyterians,  de- 
clared themselves  and  the  English  peo- 
ple rebels,  worthy  of  the  pnnishment 
of  death,  and  moreover  cast  themselves 
at  the  king's  feet,  with  contrite  air  to 
beg  him  to  pardon  the  House  and  the 
nation,  t  Dryden  is  no  more  delicate 
than  statesmen  and  legislators.  His 
dedications  are  as  a  rule  nauseous.  He 
says  to  the  Duchess  of  Monmouth : 
"  To  receive  the  blessings  and  prayers 
of  mankind,  you  need  only  be  seen  to- 
gether. We  are  ready  to  conclude, 
that  you  are  a  pair  of  angels  sent  below 
to  make  virtue  amiable  in  your  per- 
sons, or  to  sit  to  poets  when  they  would 
pleasantly  instruct  the  age,  by  drawing 
goodness  in  the  most  perfect  and  allur- 
ing shape  of  nature.  .  .  .  No  part  of 
Europe  can  afford  a  parallel  to  your 
noble  Lord  in  masculine  beauty,  and  in 
goodliness  of  shape."  J  Elsewhere  he 
says  to  the  Duke  of  Monmouth :  "  You 
have  all  the  advantages  of  mind  and 
body,  and  an  illustrious  birth  conspir- 
ing to  render  you  an  extraordinary  per- 
son. The  Achilles  and  the  Rinaldo 
are  present  in  you,  even  above  their 
originals  ;  you  only  want  a  Homer  or 
a  Tasso  to  make  you  equal  to  them. 
Youth,  beauty,  and  courage  (all  which 
you  possess  in  the  height  of  their  per- 
fection) are  the  most  desirable  gifts  of 
Heaven."  §  His  Grace  did  not  frown 
nor  hold  his  nose,  and  his  Grace  was 
right.  ||  Another  author,  Mrs.  Aphra 

*  See  ante,  p.  314.  t  See  ante,  p.  315. 

J  Dedication  of  The  Indian  Emperor,  ii. 
361. 

§  Dedication  of  Tyrannic  Love,  Hi.  347. 

II  He  also  says  in  the  same  epistle  dedica- 
tory :  "  All  men  will  join  me  in  the  adoration 
which  I  pay  you."  To  the  Earl  of  Rochestei 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN. 


377 


Behn,  burned  a  still  more  ill-savored 
incense  under  the  nose  of  Nell  Gwynne  : 
people's  nerves  were  strong  in  those 
days,  and  they  breathed  freely  where 
others  would  be  suffocated.  The  Earl 
of  Dorset  having  written  some  little 
songs  and  satires,  Dryden  swears  that 
in  his  way  he  equalled  Shakspeare, 
and  surpassed  all  the  ancients.  And 
these  barefaced  panegyrics  go  on  im- 
perturbably  for  a  score  of  pages,  the 
author  alternately  passing  in  review  the 
various  virtues  of  his  great  man,  al- 
ways rinding  that  the  last  is  the  finest ;  * 
after  which  he  receives  by  way  of  rec- 
ompense a  purse  of  gold.  Dryden  in 
taking  the  money,  is  not  more  a  flunkey 
than  others.  The  corporation  of  Hull, 
harangued  one  day  by  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth,  made  him  a  present  of  six 
broad  pieces,  which  were  presented  to 
Monmouth  by  Marvell,  the  member 
for  Hull.f  Modern  scruples  were  not 
yet  born.  I  can  believe  that  Dryden, 
with  all  his  prostrations,  lacked  spirit 
more  than  honor. 

A  second  talent,  perhaps  the  first  in 
carnival  time,  is  the  art  of  saying 
bioad  things,  and  the  Restoration  was 
a  carnival,  about  as  delicate  as  a  bar- 
gee's ball.  There  are  strange  songs 
and  rather  shameless  prologues  in 
Dryden's  plays.  His  Marriage  a  la 
Mode  opens  with  these  verses  sung  by 
a  married  woman  : 

"  Why  should  a  foolish  marriage  vow, 
Which  long  ago  was  made, 
Oblige  us  to  each  other  now, 
When  passion  is  decay' d? 
We  loved,  and  we  loved  as  long  as  we  could, 
'Till  our  love  was  loved  out  in  us  both. 
But  our  marriage  is  dead  when  the  pleasure 

is  fled ; 
'Twas  pleasure  first  made  it  an  oath."  J 

The  reader  may  read  the  rest  for  him- 
self in  Dryden's  plays  ;  it  cannot  be 
quoted.  Besides,  Dryden  does  not 
succeed  well ;  his  mind  is  on  too  solid 

he  writes  in  a  letter  (xviii,  90):  "I  find  it  is 
lot  for  me  to  contend  any  way  with  your  Lord- 
ship, who  can  write  better  on  the  meanest  sub- 
ject than  I  can  on  the  best.  .  .  .  You  are 
above  any  incense  I  can  give  you."  In  his 
dedication  of  the  Fables  (xi.  195)  he  compares 
the  Duke  of  Ormond  to  Joseph,  Ulysses,  Lu- 
cullus,  etc.  In  his  fourth  poetical  epistle  (xi. 
20)  he  compares  Lady  Castlemaine  to  Cato. 

*  Dedication  of  the  Essay  of  Dramatic 
Poesy,  xv.  286. 

t  See  Andrew  Marvell's  Works,  i.  210. 

t  Marriage  k  la  Mode,  iv.  245. 


a  basis  ;  his  mood  is  too  serious,  even 
reserved,  taciturn.  As  Sir  Walter 
Scott  justly  said,  "  his  indelicacy  was 
like  the  forced  impudence  of  a  bashful 
man."  *  He  wished  to  wear  the  fine 
exterior  of  a  Sedley  or  a  Rochester, 
made  himself  petulant  of  set  purpose, 
and  squatted  clumsily  in  the  filth  in 
which  others  simply  sported.  Nothing 
is  more  sickening  than  studied  lewd- 
ness,  and  Dryden  studies  every  thing, 
even  pleasantry  and  politeness.  He 
wrote  to  Dennis,  who  had  praised 
him:  "They  (the  commendations)  are 
no  more  mine  when  I  receive  them 
than  the  light  of  the  moon  can  be 
allowed  to  be  her  own,  who  shines 
but  by  the  reflexion  of  her  brother."  t 
He  wrote  to  his  cousin,  in  a  diverting 
narration,  these  details  of  a  fat  woman, 
with  whom  he  had  travelled  :  "  Her 
weight  made  the  horses  travel  very 
heavily ;  but,  to  give  them  a  breathing 
time,  she  would  often  stop  us,  .  .  and 
tell  us  we  were  all  flesh  and  blood."  J 
It  seems  that  these  were  the  sort  of 
jokes  which  would  then  amuse  a  lady. 
His  letters  are  made  up  of  heavy  offi- 
cial civilities,  vigorously  hewn  compli- 
ments, mathematical  salutes  ;  his  badi- 
nage is  a  dissertation,  he  props  up  his 
trifles  with  periods.  I  have  found  in 
his  works  some  beautiful  passages,  but 
never  agreeable  ones  ;  he  cannot  even 
argue  with  taste.  The  characters  in 
his  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy  think 
themselves  still  at  college,  learnedly 
quote  Paterculus,  and  in  Latin  too,  op- 
posing the  definition  of  the  other  side, 
and  observing  "  that  it  was  only  a  gen- 
ere  et  fine,  and  so  not  altogether  per- 
fect." §  In  one  of  his  prefaces  he 
says  in  a  professorial  tone :  "  It  is 
charged  upon  me  that  I  make  debauch- 
ed persons  my  protagonists,  or  the 
chief  persons  of  the  drama  ;  and  that 
I  make  them  happy  in  the  conclusion 
of  my  play ;  against  the  law  of  comedy, 
which  is  to  reward  virtue,  and  punish 
vice."  ||  Elsewhere  he  declares  :  "  It 
is  not  that  I  would  explode  the  use  o| 
metaphors  from  passion,  for  Longinua 
thinks  them  necessary  to  raise  it.' 

*  Scott's  Life  of  Dryden,  i.  447. 
t  Letter  2,   "  to   Mr.  John  Dennis,"  xviii 
114. 

J  Letter  29,  "to  Mrs.  Steward,"  xviii.  144. 
§  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy,  xv.  302. 
II  Preface  to  An  Evening'' s  Love,  iii.  225. 


378 


His  great  Essay  upon  Satire  swarms 
with  useless  or  long  protracted  pas- 
sages, with  the  inquiries  and  compari- 
sons of  a  commentator.  He  cannot 
get  rid  of  the  scholar,  the  logician,  the 
rhetorician,  and  show  the  plain  down- 
right man. 

But  his  true  manliness  was  often 
apparent ;  in  spite  of  several  falls  and 
many  slips,  he  shows  a  mind  constant- 
ly upright,  bending  rather  from  con- 
ventionality than  from  nature,  possess- 
ing enthusiasm  and  afflatus,  occupied 
with  grave  thoughts,  and  subjecting 
his  conduct  to  his  convictions.  He 
was  converted  loyally  and  by  conviction 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  creed,  perse- 
vered in  it  after  the  fall  of  James  II., 
lost  his  post  of  historiographer  and 
poet-laureate,  and  though  poor,  bur- 
dened with  a  family,  and  infirm,  re- 
fused to  dedicate  his  Virgil  to  King 
William.  He  wrote  to  his  sons  : ."  Dis- 
sembling, though  lawful  in  some  cases, 
is  not  my  talent  :  yet,  for  your  sake,  I 
will  struggle  with  the  plain  openness 
of  my  nature.  ...  In  the  mean  time,  I 
flatter  not  myself  with  any  manner  of 
hopes,  but  do  my  duty,  and  suffer  for 
God's  sake.  .  .  .  You  know  the  profits 
(of  Virgil]  might  have  been  more  ;  but 
neither  my  conscience  nor  my  honor 
would  suffer  me  to  take  them ;  but  I 
can  never  repent  of  my  constancy, 
since  I  am  thoroughly  persuaded  of  the 
justice  of  the  cause  for  which  I  suf- 
fer."* One  of  his  sons  having  been 
expelled  from  school,  he  wrote  to  the 
master,  Dr.  Busby,  his  own  former 
teacher,  with  extreme  gravity  and  no- 
bleness, asking  without  humiliation, 
disagreeing  without  giving  offence,  in  a 
sustained  and  proud  style,  which  is 
calculated  to  please,  seeking  again  his 
favor,  if  not  as  a  debt  to  the  father,  at 
least  as  a  gift  to  the  son,  and  conclud- 
ing, fc  I  have  done  something,  so  far  to 
conquer  my  own  spirit  as  to  ask  it" 
He  was  a  good  father  to  his  children, 
as  well  as  liberal,  and  sometimes  even 
generous,  to  the  tenant  of  his  little  es- 
tate.t  He  says  :  "  More  libels  have 
been  written  against  me  than  almost 
any  man  now  living.  ...  I  have  sel- 
dom answered  any  scurrilous  lampoon, 
.  .  .  and,  being  naturally  vindictive, 

*  Letter  23,  "  to  his  -sons  at  Rome,"  xviii. 
T33-  t  Scott's  Life  of  Dry  den,  i.  449. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


have  suffered  in  silence,  and  possessed 
my  soul  in  quiet."  *  Insulted  by  Col- 
lier as  a  corrupter  of  morals,  he  en- 
dured this  coarse  reproof,  and  nobly 
confessed  the  faults  of  his  youth:  "  I 
shall  say  the  less  of  Mr.  Collier,  be- 
cause in  many  things  he  has  taxed  in* 
justly;  and  I  have  pleaded  guilty  w 
all  thoughts  and  expressions  of  mine 
which  can  be  truly  argued  obscenity, 
profaneness,  or  immorality,  and  re- 
tract them.  If  he  be  my  enemy,  lee 
him  triumph  ;  if  he  be  my' friend,  as  I 
have  given  him  no  personal  occasion 
to  be  otherwise,  he  will  be  glad  of  my 
repentance."  t  There  is  some  wit  in 
what  follows:  "He  (Collier)  is  too 
much  given  to  horseplay  in  his  raillery, 
and  comes  to  battle  like  a  dictator 
from  the  plough.  I  will  not  say,  '  the 
zeal  of  God's  house  has  eaten  him  up/ 
but  I  am  sure  it  has  devoured  some 
part  of  his  good  manners  and  civility."J 
Such  a  repentance  raises  a  man  ;  when 
he  humbles  himself  thus,  he  must  be  a 
great  man.  He  was  so  in  mind  and 
in  heart,  full  of  solid  arguments  and 
individual  opinions,  above  the  petty 
mannerism  of  rhetoric  and  affectations 
of  style,  a  master  of  verse,  a  slave  to 
his  idea,  with  that  abundance  of  thought 
which  is  the  sign  of  true  genius : 
"  Thoughts  such  as  they  are,  come 
crowding  in  so  fast  upon  me,  that  my 
only  difficulty  is  to  chuse  or  to  reject, 
to  run  them  into  verses,  or  to  give  them 
the  other  harmony  of  prose  :  I  have  so 
long  studied  and  practised  both,  that 
they  are  grown  into  a  habit,  and  be- 
come familiar  to  me."  §  With  these 
powers  he  entered  upon  his  second  ca- 
reer; the  English  constitution  and 
genius  opened  it  to  him. 

VII. 

"  A  man,"  says  La  Bruyere,  "  born 
a  Frenchman  and  a  Christian  finds 
himself  constrained  in  satire;  great 
subjects  are  forbidden  to  him ;  he 
essays  them  sometimes,  and  then  turns 
aside  to  small  things,  which  he  ele- 
vates by  the  beauty  of  his  genius  and 
his  style."  It  was  not  so  in  England. 
Great  subjects  were  given  up  to  vehe« 
ment  discussion  ;  politics  and  religion, 

*  Essay  on  Satire,  xiii.  80. 

t  Preface  to  the  Fables,  xi.  238. 

t  Ibid.  §  Ibid.  xi.  209. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN. 


379 


like  two  arenas,  invited  every  talent 
and  every  passion  to  boldness  and  to 
battle.  The  king,  at  first  popular,  had 
roused  opposition  by  his  vices  and  er- 
rors, and  bent  before  public  discontent 
as  before  the  intrigue  of  parties.  It 
was  known  that  he  had  sold  the  inter- 
ests of  England  to  France  ;  it  was  be- 
lieved that  he  would  deliver  up  the 
consciences  of  Protestants  to  the  Pa- 
pists. The  lies  of  Gates,  the  murder  of 
the  magistrate  Godfrey,  his  corpse  sol- 
emnly paraded  in  the  streets  of  Lon- 
don, had  inflamed  the  imagination  and 
prejudices  of  the  people  ;  the  judges, 
blind  or  intimidated,  sent  innocent  Ro- 
man Catholics  to  the  scaffold,  and  the 
mob  received  with  insults  and  curses 
their  protestations  of  innocence.  The 
king's  brother  had  been  dismissed 
from  his  offices,  and  it  was  proposed 
to  exclude  him  from  the  throne.  The 
pulpit,  the  theatre,  the  press,  the  hust- 
ings, resounded  with  discussions  and 
recriminations.  The  names  of  Whigs 
and  Tories  arose,  and  the  loftiest  de- 
bates of  political  philosophy  were  car- 
ried on,  enlivened  by  the  feeling  of 
present  and  practical  interests,  embit- 
tered by  the  rancor  of  old  and  wound- 
ed passions.  Dryden  plunged  in  ;  and 
his  poem  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel  was 
a  political  pamphlet.  "  They  who  can 
criticise  so  weakly,"  he  says  in  the  pre- 
face, "  as  to  imagine  that  I  have  done  my 
worst,  may  be  convinced  at  their  own 
cost  that  I  can  write  severely  with 
more  ease  than  I  can  gently."  A  bib- 
lical allegory,  suited  to  the  taste  of  the 
time,  hardly  concealed  the  names,  and 
did  not  hide  the  men.  He  describes 
the  tranquil  old  age  and  incontestable 
right  of  King  David ;  *  the  charm, 
pliant  humor,  popularity  of  his  natural 
son  Absalom :  t  the  genius  and  treach- 
ery of  Achitophel,  \  who  stirs  up  the 

*  Charles  II.        t  The  Duke  of  Monmouth. 
t  The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  : 
"  Of  these  the  false  Achitophel  was  first, 
A  name  to  all  succeeding  ages  curst : 
For  close  designs  and  crooked  counsels  fit, 
Sagacious,  bold  and  turbulent  of  wit — 
Restless,  unfixed  in  principles  and  place, 
In  power  unpleased,  impatient  of  disgrace  ; 
A  fiery  soul,  which  working  out  its  way, 
Fretted  the  pigmy  body  to  decay 
And  o'er-informed  the  tenement  of  clay. 
A  daring  pilot  in  extremity, 
Pleased  with  the  danger,  when  the  waves 
went  high, 


son  against  the  father,  unites  the  clash- 
ing ambitions,  and  reanimates  the  con- 
quered factions.  There  is  hardly  any 
wit  here  ;  there  is  no  time  to  be  witty 
in  such  contests  ;  think  of  the  roused 
people  who  listened,  men  in  prison  or 
exile  who  are  waiting  ;  fortune,  liberty, 
life  was  at  stake.  The  thing  is  to 
strike  the  nail  on  the  head,  hard,  not 
gracefully.  The  public  must  recog- 
nize the  characters,  shout  their  names 
as  they  recognize  the  portraits,  ap- 
plaud the  attacks  which  are  made  upon 
them,  rail  at  them,  hurl  them  from  the 
high  rank  which  they  covet.  Dryden 
passes  them  all  in  review  : 

"  In  the  first  rank  of  these  did  Zimri  *  stand, 
A  man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind's  epitome  : 
Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong, 
Was  everything  by  starts  and  nothing  long  ; 
But  in  the  course  of  one  revolving  moon 
Was  chymist,  fiddler,   statesman,   and  buf- 
foon ; 
Then    all    for  women,    painting,    rhyming, 

drinking, 
Besides  ten   thousand  freaks    that    died  in 

thinking. 

Blest  madman,  who  could  every  hour  employ 
With  something  new  to  wish  or  to  enjoy! 
Railing  and  praising  were  his  usual  themes  ; 
And  both,   to   show  his  judgment,   in    ex- 
tremes : 

So  over-violent,  or  over-civil, 
That  every  man  with  him  was  God  or  devil. 
In  squandering  wealth  was  his  peculiar  art  J 
Nothing  went  unrewarded  but  desert. 
Beggared  by  fools  whom  still  he  found  toe 

late, 

He  had  his  jest,  and  they  had  his  estate. 
He  laugh'd  himself  from  Court ;  then  sought 

relief 

By  forming  parties,  but  could  ne'er  be  chief : 
For  spite  of  him,  the  weight  of  business  fell 
On  Absalom  and  wise  Achitophel ; 
Thus  wicked  but  in  will,  of  means  bereft, 
He  left  not  faction,  but  of  that  was  left.  .  .  . 

Shimei,t  whose    youth    did    early  promise 
bring 


He  sought  the  storms  ;  but,  for  a  calm  unfit, 
Would  steer  too  nigh  the  sands  to  boast  hia 

wit. 

Great  wits  are  sure  to  madness  near  allied 
And  thin  partitions  do  their  bounds  divide  ; 
Else,  why  should  he,  with  wealth  and  hon- 
our blest, 

Refuse  his  age  the  needful  hours  of  rest? 
Punish  a  body  which  he  could  not  please, 
Bankrupt  of  life,  yet  prodigal  of  ease  ? 
And  all  to  leave  what  with  his  toil  he  won, 
To  that  unfeathered  two-legged  thing,  a  son, 
Got,  while  his  soul  did  huddled  notions  try, 
And  born  a  shapeless  lump,  like  anarchy, 
In  friendship  false,  implacable  in  hate, 
Resolved  to  ruin  or  to  rule  the  state." 
*  The  Duke  of  Buckingham. 
t  Slingsby  Bethel. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


Of  zeal  to  God  and  hatred  to  his  King  ; 
Did  wisely  from  expensive  sins  refrain 
And  never  broke  the  Sabbath  but  for  gain  : 
Nor  ever  was  he  known  an  oath  to  vent, 
Or  curse,  unless  against  the  government." 

Against  these  attacks  their  chief 
Shaftesbury  made  a  stand:  when  ac- 
cused of  high  treason  he  was  declared 
not  guilty  by  the  grand  jury,  in  spite 
of  all  the  efforts  of  the  court,  amidst 
the  applause  of  a  great  crowd  ;  and  his 
partisans  caused  a  medal  to  be  struck, 
bearing  his  face,  and  boldly  showing 
on  the  reverse  London  Bridge  and  the 
Tower,  with  the  sun  rising  and  shining 
through  a  cloud.  Dryden  replied  by 
his  poem  of  the  Medal,  and  the  violent 
diatribe  overwhelmed  the  open  provo- 
cation : 

'*  Oh,  could  the  style  that  copied  every  grace 
Andplow'd  such  furrows  for  an  eunuch  face, 
Could  it  have  formed  his  ever-changing  will, 
The   various    piece   had  tired   the  graver's 

skill ! 

A  martial  hero  first,  with  early  care, 
Blown  like  a  pigmy  by  the  winds,  to  war  ; 
A  beardless  chief,  a  rebel  ere  a  man, 
So  young  his  hatred  to  his  Prince  began. 
Next  this  (how  wildly  will  ambition  steer  !) 
A  vermin  wriggling  in  the  usurper's  ear  ; 
Bartering  his  venal  wit  for  sums  of  gold, 
He  cast  himself  into  the  saint-like  mould, 
Groaned,  sighed,  and  prayed,  while  godli- 
ness was  gain, 

The    loudest    bag-pipe    of    the    squeaking 
train." 

The  same  bitterness  envenomed  relig- 
ious controversy.  Disputes  on  dogma, 
for  a  moment  cast  into  the  shade  by 
debauched  and  skeptical  manners,  had 
broken  out  again,  inflamed  by  the  big- 
oted Roman  Catholicism  of  the  prince, 
and  by  the  just  fears  of  the  nation. 
The  poet  who  in  Religio  Laid  was  still 
an  Anglican,  though  lukewarm  and 
hesitating,  drawn  on  gradually  by  his 
absolutist  inclinations,  had  become  a 
convert  to  Romanism,  and  in  his  poem 
of  The  Hind  and  the  Panther  fought 
for  his  new  creed.  "  The  nation,"  he 
says  in  the  preface,  "  is  in  too  high  a 
ferment  for  me  to  expect  either  fair 
war  or  even  so  much  as  fair  quarter 
from  a  reader  of  the  opposite  party." 
And  then,  making  use  of  mediaeval  al- 
legories, he  represents  all  the  heretical 
sects  as  beasts  of  prey,  worrying  a 
white  hind  of  heavenly  origin ;  he 
spares  neither  coarse  comparisons, 
gross  sarcasms,  nor  open  objurgations. 
The  argument  is  close  and  theological 


throughout.  His  hearers  were  not 
wits,  who  cared  to  see  how  a  dry  sub- 
ject could  be  adorned ;  they  were  not 
theologians,  only  by  accident  and  for  a 
moment,  animated  by  mistrustful  and 
cautious  feelings,  like  Boileau  in  his 
Amour  de  Dieu.  They  were  oppressed 
men,  barely  recovered  from  a  secular 
persecution,  attached  to  their  faith  by 
their  sufferings,  ill  at  ease  under  the 
visible  menaces  and  ominous  hatred  of 
their  restrained  foes.  Their  poet  must 
be  a  dialectician  and  a  schoolman  ;  he 
needs  all  the  sternness  of  logic;  he  is 
immeshed  in  it,  like  a  recent  convert, 
saturated  with  the  proofs  which  have 
separated  him  from  the  national  faith, 
and  which  support  him  against  pub- 
lic reprobation,  fertile  in  distinctions, 
pointing  with  his  finger  at  the  weak- 
nesses of  an  argument,  subdividing  re- 
plies, bringing  back  his  adversary  to 
the  question,  thorny  and  unpleasing  to 
a  modern  reader,  but  the  more  praised 
and  loved  in  his  own  time.  In  all 
English  minds  there  is  a  basis  of  grav- 
ity and  vehemence ;  hate  rises  tragic, 
with  a  gloomy  outbreak,  like  the  break- 
ers of  the  North  Sea.  In  the  midst  of 
his  public  strife  Dryden  attacks  a  pri- 
vate enemy,  Shadwell,  and  overwhelms 
him  with  immortal  scorn.*  A  great 
epic  style  and  solemn  rhyme  gave 
weight  to  his  sarcasm,  and  the  unlucky 
rhymester  was  drawn  in  a  ridiculous 
triumph  on  the  poetic  car,  whereon  the 
muse  sets  the  heroes  and  the  gods. 
Dryden  represented  the  Irishman  Mac 
Flecknoe,  an  old  king  of  folly,  deliber- 
ating on  the  choice  of  a  worthy  succes- 
sor, and  choosing  Shadwell  as  an  heir 
to  his  gabble,  a  propagator  of  non- 
sense, a  boastful  conqueror  of  common 
sense.  From  all  sides,  through  the 
streets  littered  with  paper,  the  nations 
assembled  to  look  upon  the  young 
hero,  standing  near  the  throne  of  his 
father,  his  brow  surrounded  with  thick 
fogs,  the  vacant  smile  of  satisfied  im- 
becility floating  over  his  countenance  : 

"  The  hoary  prince  in  majesty  appear'd, 
High  on  a  throne  of  his  own  labours  rear'd. 
At  his  right  hand  our  young  Ascanius  sate, 
Rome's  other  hope,  and  pillar  of  the  state  ; 
His   brows    thick  fogs    instead    of    glories 

grace, 
And  lambent  dulness  play'd  around  his  face- 


*  Mac  Flecknoe. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN.  381 


As  Hannibal  did  to  the  altars  come, 
Sworn  by  his  sire,  a  mortal  foe  to  Rome  J 
So  Shadwell  swore,  nor  should  his  vow  be 

vain, 
That    he,   till    death,    true    dulness    would 

maintain  ; 

And,  in   his  father's  right  and  realm's  de- 
fence, 
Ne'er  to  have  peace  with  wit  nor  truce  with 

sense. 

The  king  himself  the  sacred  unction  made, 
As  king  by  office  and  as  priest  by  trade. 
In  his  sinister  hand,  instead  of  ball, 
He  placed  a  mighty  mug  of  potent  ale." 

I  lis  father  blesses  him  : 

•  *  Heavens  bless  my  son  I    from  Ireland  let 

him  reign 

To  far  Barbadoes  on  the  western  main  ; 
Of  his  dominion  may  no  end  be  known, 
And  greater  than  his  father's  be  his  throne  ; 
Beyond  Love's  Kingdom  let  him  stretch  his 

pen!  ' 

He  paused,  and  all  the  people  cried  Amen. 
Then  thus  continued  he  :  '  My  son,  advance 
Still  in  new  impudence,  new  ignorance. 
Success  let  others  teach,  learn  thou  from  me, 
Pangs  without  birth  and  fruitless  industry. 
Let  Virtuosos  in  five  years  be  writ  ; 
Yet  not  one  thought  accuse  thy  toil  of  wit.... 
Let  them  be  all  by  thy  own  model  made 
Of  dulness  and  desire  no  foreign  aid, 
That  they  to  future  ages  may  be  known, 
Not  copies  drawn,  but  issue  of  thy  own  : 
Nay,  let  thy  men  of  wit  too  be  the  same, 
All  full  of  thee  and  differing  but  in  name. . .. 
Like  mine  thy  gentle  numbers  feebly  creep  ; 
Thy  tragic   Muse   gives   smiles,   thy  comic 

sleep. 
With  whate'er  gall    thou    setst    thyself    to 

write, 

Thy  inoffensive  satires  never  bite  ; 
In  thy  felonious  heart  though  venom  lies, 
It  does  but  touch  thy  Irish  pen,  and  dies. 
Thy  genius  calls  thee  not  to  purchase  fame 
In  keen  Iambics,  but  mild  Anagram. 
Leave  writing  plays,  and  choose  for  thy  com- 
mand 

Some  peaceful  province  in  Acrostic  land. 
There  thou  may'st  wings  display,  and  altars 

raise, 
And  torture  one  poor  word  ten   thousand 

ways  ; 

Or,  if  thou  wouldst  thy  different  talents  suit, 
Set  thy  own   songs,  and  sing  them  to  thy 

lute.' 
He  said,  but  his  last  words  were   scarcely 

heard, 

Foi    Bruce  and  Longville  had  a  trap  pre- 
pared, 

And  down  they  set  the  yet  declaiming  bard. 
Sinking  he  left  his  drugget  robe  behind, 
Borne  upwards  by  a  subterranean  wind. 
The  mantle  fell  to  the  young  prophet's  part, 
With  double  portion  of  his  father's  art."  * 

Thus  the  insulting  masquerade  goes 
on,  not  studied  and  polished  like 
Boileau's  I.utrin,  but  rude  and  pom- 
pous, inspired  by  a  coarse  poetical  af- 

*  Mac  Flecknoe. 


flatus,  as  you  may  see  a  great  ship 
enter  the  muddy  Thames,  with  spread 
canvas,  cleaving  the  waters. 

VIII. 

In  these  three  poems,  the  art  of 
writing,  the  mark  and  the  source  of 
classical  literature,  appeared  for  the 
first  time.  A  new  spirit  was  born  and 
renewed  this  art,  like  every  thing  else  ; 
thenceforth,  and  for  a  century  to  come, 
ideas  sprang  up  and  fell  into  their 
place  after  another  law  than  that  which 
had  hitherto  shaped  them.  Under 
Spenser  and  Shakspeare,  living  words, 
like  cries  or  music,  betrayed  the  inter- 
nal imagination  which  gave  them  forth. 
A  kind  of  vision  possessed  the  artist ; 
landscapes  and  events  were  unfolded 
in  his  mind  as  in  nature ;  he  concen- 
trated in  a  glance  all  the  details  and 
all  the  forces  which  make  up  a  being, 
and  this  image  acted  and  was  devel- 
oped within  him  like  the  external  ob- 
ject ;  he  imitated  his  characters  ;  he 
heard  their  words  ;  he  found  it  easier 
to  represent  them  with  every  pulsation 
than  to  relate  or  explain  their  feelings  ; 
he  did  not  judge,  he  saw ;  he  was  an 
involuntary  actor  and  mimic ;  drama 
was  his  natural  work,  because  in  it  the 
characters  speak,  and  not  the  author. 
Then  this  complex  and  imitative  con- 
ception changes  color  and  is  decom- 
posed :  man  sees  things  no  more  at  a 
glance,  but  in  detail ;  he  walks  leisure- 
ly round  them,  turning  his  ligh*  upon 
all  their  parts  in  succession.  The  fire 
which  revealed  them  by  a  single  illu- 
mination is  extinguished ;  he  observes 
qualities,  marks  aspects,  classifies 
groups  of  actions,  judges  and  reasons. 
Words,  before  animated,  and  as  it  were 
swelling  with  sap,  are  withered  and 
dried  up ;  they  become  abstractions ; 
they  cease  to  produce  in  him  figures 
and  landscapes ;  they  only  set  in  mo- 
tion the  relics  of  enfeebled  passions; 
they  barely  shed  a  few  flickering 
beams  on  the  uniform  texture  of  his 
dulled  conception ;  they  become  exact, 
almost  scientific,  like  numbers,  and  like 
numbers  they  are  arranged  in  a  series, 
allied  by  their  analogies, — the  first, 
more  simple,  leading  up  the  next,  more 
composite, — all  in  the  same  order,  so 
that  the  mind  which  enters  upon  a 


382 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III, 


track,  finds  it  level,  and  is  never 
obliged  to  quit  it.  Thenceforth  a  new 
career  is  opened ;  man  has  the  whole 
world  resubjected  to  his  thought ;  the 
change  in  his  thoughts  has  changed  all 
aspects,  and  every  thing  assumes  a  new 
form  in  his  metamorphosed  mind.  His 
task  is  to  explain  and  to  prove ;  this, 
in  short,  is  the  classical  style,  and  this 
is  the  style  of  Dryden. 

He  develops,  defines,  concludes  ;  he 
declares  his  thought,  then  takes  it  up 
again,  that  his  reader  may  receive  it 
prepared,  and  having  received,  may  re- 
tain it.  He  bounds  it  with  exact 
terms  justified  by  the  dictionary,  with 
simple  constructions  justified  by  gram- 
mar, that  the  reader  may  have  at 
every  step  a  method  of  verification  and 
a  source  of  clearness.  He  contrasts 
ideas  with  ideas,  phrases  with  phrases, 
so  that  the  reader,  guided  by  the  con- 
trast, may  not  deviate  from  the  route 
marked  out  for  him.  You  may  imagine 
the  possible  beauty  of  such  a  work. 
This  poesy  is  but  a  stronger  prose. 
Closer  ideas,  more  marked  contrasts, 
bolder  images,  only  add  weight  to  the 
argument.  Metre  and  rhyme  transform 
the  judgments  into  sentences.  The 
mind,  held  on  the  stretch  by  the  rhythm, 
studies  itself  more,  and  by  means  of 
reflection  arrives  at  a  noble  conclusion. 
The  judgments  are  enshrined  in  abbre- 
viative  images,  or  symmetrical  lines, 
which  give  them  the  solidity  and  pop- 
ular form  of  a  dogma.  General  truths 
acquire  the  definite  form  which  trans- 
mits them  to  posterity,  and  propagates 
them  in  the  human  race.  Such  is  the 
merit  of  these  poems ;  they  please  by 
their  good  expressions.*  In  a  full  and 

*  "  Strong  were  our  sires,  and  as  they  fought 
they  writ, 

Conquering  with  force  of  arms  and  dint  of 
wit: 

Theirs  was  the  giant  race  before  the  flood, 

And  thus,  when  Charles  return'd,  our  em- 
pire stood. 

Like  Janus,  he  the  stubborn  soil  manured, 

With  rules  of  husbandry  the  rankness 
cured ; 

Tamed  us  to  manners,  when  the  stage  was 
rude, 

And  boisterous  English  wit  with  art  en- 
dured. .  .  . 

But  what  we  gain'd  in  skill  we  lost  in 
strength, 

Our  builders  were  with  want  of  genius 
curst  ; 

The  second  temple  was  not  like  the  first." 
Epistle  12  to  Congreve)  xi.  59. 


solid  web  stand  out  cleverly  connected 
or  sparkling  threads.  Here  Dryden 
has  gathered  in  one  line  a  long  argu- 
ment ;  there  a  happy  metaphor  has 
opened  up  a  new  perspective  under  the 
principal  idea  ;*  further  on,  two  simi- 
lar wrords,  united  together,  have  struck 
the  mind  with  an  unforeseen  and  co- 
gent proof;  t  elsewhere  a  hidden  com- 
parison has  thrown  a  tinge  of  glory  or 
shame  on  the  person  who  least  ex- 
pected it.  These  are  all  artifices  or 
successes  of  a  calculated  style,  which 
chains  the  attention,  and  leaves  the 
mind  persuaded  or  convinced. 

IX. 

In  truth,  there  is  scarcely  any  other 
literary  merit.  If  Dryden  is  a  skilled 
politician,  a  trained  controversalist, 
well  armed  with  arguments,  knowing 
all  the  ins  and  outs  of  discussion,  versed 
in  the  history  of  men  and  parties,  this 
pamphleteering  aptitude,  practical  and 
English,  confines  him  to  the  low  re- 
gion of  everyday  and  personal  contro- 
versies, far  from  the  lofty  philosophy 
and  speculative  freedom  which  give 
endurance  and  greatness  to  the  classi- 
cal style  of  his  French  contemporaries. 
In  the  main,  in  this  age,  in  England, 
all  discussion  was  fundamentally  nar- 
row. Except  the  terrible  Hobbes,  they 
all  lack  grand  originality.  Dryden, 
like  the  rest,  is  confined  to  the  argu- 
ments and  insults  of  sect  and  fashion. 
Their  ideas  were  as  small  as  their  ha- 
tred was  strong  ;  no  general  doctrine 
opened  up  a  poetical  vista  beyond  the 
tumult  of  the  strife  ;  texts,  traditions, 
a  sad  train  of  rigid  reasoning,  such 
were  their  arms  ;  the  same  prejudices 
and  passions  exist  in  both  parties. 
This  is  why  the  subject-matter  fell  be- 
low the  art  of  writing.  Dryden  had 
no  personal  philosophy  to  develop  ;  he 
does  but  versify  themes  given  to  him 
by  others.  In  this  sterility  art  soon  is 
reduced  to  the  clothing  of  foreign  ideas, 

*  "  Held  up  the  buckler  of  the  people's  cause 
Against  the  crown,  and  skulk'd  against  tha 

laws.  .  .  . 

Desire  of  power,  on  earth  a  vicious  weed. 
Yet,    sprung    from    high,   is    of    celestial 
seed !  " 

A  bsalom  and  A  chitophel^  Part  i. 
t  "  Why  then  should  I,  encouraging  the  bad, 
Turn  rebel,  and  run  popularly  mad  ?  " 

A  bsalotn  and  A  chitophel)  Part  i. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN  383 


and  the  writer  becomes  an  antiquarian 
or  a  translator.  In  reality,  the  great- 
est part  of  Dryden's  poems  are  imita- 
tions, adaptations,  or  copies.  He  trans- 
lated Persius  and  Virgil,  with  parts  of 
Horace,  Theocritus,  Juvenal,  Lucretius, 
and  Homer,  and  put  into  modern  Eng- 
lish several  tales  of  Boccaccio  and 
Chaucer.  These  translations  then  ap- 
peared to  be  as  great  works  as  origi- 
nal compositions.  When  he  took  the 
^Eneid  in  hand,  the  nation,  as  Johnson 
tells  us,  appeared  to  think  its  honor  in- 
terested in  the  issue.  Addison  furnish- 
ed him  with  the  arguments  of  every 
book,  and  an  essay  on  the  Gcorgics  ; 
others  supplied  him  with  editions  and 
notes  ;  great  lords  vied  with  one  an- 
other in  offering  him  hospitality ;  sub- 
scriptions flowed  in.  They  said  that 
the  English  Virgil  was  to  give  England 
the  Virgil  of  Rome.  This  work  was 
long  considered  his  highest  glory. 
Even  so  at  Rome,  under  Cicero,  in  the 
early  dearth  of  national  poetry,  the 
translators  of  Greek  works  were  as 
highly  praised  as  the  original  authors. 

This  sterility  of  invention  alters  or 
depresses  the  taste.  For  taste  is  an 
instinctive  system,  and  leads  us  by 
internal  maxims,  which  we  ignore.  The 
mind,  guided  by  it,  perceives  connec- 
tions, shuns  discordances,  enjoys  or 
suffers,  chooses  or  rejects,  according 
to  general  conceptions  which  master  it, 
but  are  not  visible.  These  removed, 
we  see  the  tact,  which  they  engendered, 
disappear ;  the  writer  is  clumsy,  be- 
cause philosophy  fails  him.  Such  is 
the  imperfection  of  the  stories  handled 
by  Dryden,  from  Boccaccio  and  Chau- 
cer. Dryden  does  not  see  that  fairy 
tales  or  tales  of  chivalry  only  suit  a  poe- 
try in  its  infancy ;  that  ingenuous  sub- 
jects require  an  artless  style  ;  that  the 
talk  of  Reynard  and  Chanticleer,  the 
adventures  of  Palamon  and  Arcite,  the 
transformations,  tournaments,  appari- 
ti  Dns,  need  the  astonished  carelessness 
and  the  graceful  gossip  of  old  Chaucer. 
Vigorous  periods,  reflective  antitheses, 
here  oppress  these  amiable  ghosts; 
classical  phrases  embarrass  them  in 
their  too  stringent  embrace ;  they  are 
lost  to  our  sight ;  to  find  them  again 
we  must  go  to  their  first  parent,  quit  the 
too  harsh  light  of  a  learned  and  manly 
age ;  we  cannot  pursue  them  fairly  ex- 


cept in  their  first  style  in  the  dawn  of 
credulous  thought,  under  the  mist 
which  plays  about  their  vague  forms, 
with  all  the  blushes  and  smiles  of  morn- 
ing. Moreover,  when  Dryden  comes 
on  the  scene,  he  crushes  the  delicacies 
of  his  master,  hauling  in  tirades  or  rea- 
sonings, blotting  out  sincere  and  self- 
abandoning  tenderness.  What  a  dif- 
ference between  his  account  of  Arcite's 
death  and  Chaucer's  !  How  wretched 
are  all  his  fine  literary  words,  his  gal- 
lantry, his  symmetrical  phrases,  his 
cold  regrets,  compared  to  the  cries  of 
sorrow,  the  true  outpouring,  the  deep 
love  in  Chaucer  !  But  the  worst  fault 
is  that  almost  everywhere  he  is  a  copy- 
ist, and  retains  the  faults  like  a  literal 
translator,  with  eyes  glued  on  the  work, 
powerless  to  comprehend  and  recast  it, 
more  a  rhymester  than  a  poet.  When 
La  Fontaine  put  ^Esop  or  Boccaccio 
into  verse,  he  breathed  a  new  spirit 
into  them ;  he  took  their  matter  only  : 
the  new  soul,  which  constitutes  the 
value  of  his  work,  is  his,  and  only  his ; 
and  this  soul  befits  the  work.  In  place 
of  the  Ciceronian  periods  of  Boccaccio, 
we  find  slim,  little  lines,  full  of  delicate 
raillery,  dainty  voluptuousness,  feigned 
artlessness,  which  relish  the  forbidden 
fruit  because  it  is  fruit,  and  because  it  is 
forbidden.  The  tragic  departs,  the  rel- 
ics of  the  middle  ages  are  a  thousand 
leagues  away ;  there  remains  nothing 
but  the  invidious  gayety,  Gallic  and 
racy,  as  of  a  critic  and  an  epicurean. 
In  Dryden,  incongruities  abound ;  and 
our  author  is  so  little  shocked  by  them, 
that  he  imports  them  elsewhere,  in  his 
theological  poems,  representing  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  for  instance, 
as  a  hind,  and  the  heresies  by  various 
animals,  who  dispute  at  as  great  length 
and  as  learnedly  as  Oxford  graduates.* 
I  like  him  no  better  in  his  Epistles  ;  as 
a  rule,  they  are  but  flatteries,  almost 
always  awkward,  often  mythological, 
interspersed  with  somewhat  common- 
place sentences.  "  I  have  studied 
Horace,"  he  says,  "  and  hope  the  style 
of  his  Epistles  is  not  ill  imitated  here."  t 

*  "  Though  Huguenots  contemn  our  ordina- 
tion, 

Succession,  ministerial  vocation,"  etc. 
(The  Hind  and  the  Panther,  Part  ii.  x.  166), 
such  are  the  harsh  words  we  often  find  in  hi* 
books, 
t  Preface  to  the  Religio  Laici,  x.  32. 


3*4 


But  don't  believe  him.  Horace's  Epis- 
tles, though  in  verse,  are  genuine  let- 
ters, brisk,  unequal  in  movement,  al- 
ways unstudied,  natural.  Nothing  is 
further  from  Dryden  than  this  original 
and  thorough  man  of  the  world,  philo- 
sophical and  lewd,  *  this  most  refined 
and  most  nervous  of  epicureans,  this 
kinsman  (at  eighteen  centuries'  dis- 
tance) of  Alfred  de  Musset  and  Vol- 
taire. Like  Horace,  an  author  must 
be  a  thinker  and  a  man  of  the  world  to 
write  agreeable  morality,  and  Dryden 
was  no  more  than  his  contemporaries 
either  a  man  of  the  world  or  a  thinker. 
But  other  characteristics,  as  eminent- 
ly English,  sustain  him.  Suddenly,  in 
the  midst  of  the  yawns  which  these 
Epistles  occasioned,  our  eyes  are  ar- 
rested. A  true  accent,  new  ideas,  are 
brought  out.  Dryden,  writing  to  his 
cousin,  a  country  gentleman,  has  light- 
ed on  an  English  original  subject.  He 
depicts  the  life  of  a  rural  squire,  the 
referee  of  his  neighbors,  who  shuns  law- 
suits and  town  doctors,  who  keeps  him- 
self in  health  by  hunting  and  exercise. 
Here  is  his  portrait : 

"  How  bless' d  is  he,  who  leads  a  country  life, 
Unvex'd  with   anxious  cares,   and   void   of 

strife!  .  .  . 

With  crowds  attended  of  your  ancient  race, 
You  seek  the  champaign   sports,  or  sylvan 

chase  ; 
With  well-breathed  beagles  you  surround  the 

wood, 

Even  then  industrious  of  the  common  good  ; 
And  often  have  you  brought  the  wily  fox 
To  suffer  for  the  firstlings  of  the  flocks  ; 
Chased  even  amid  the   folds,  and  made  to 

bleed, 
Like  felons,  where  they  did  the  murderous 

deed. 

This  fiery  game   your  active   youth    main- 
tain'd  ; 
Not  yet   by  years  extinguish' d   though  re- 

stiain'd :  .  .  . 

A  patriot  both  the  king  and  country  serves  ; 
Prerogative  and  privilege  preserves : 
Of  each  our  laws  the  certain  limit  show ; 
One  must  not  ebb,  nor  t'other  overflow  ; 
Betwixt  the  prince  and  parliament  we  stand, 
The  carriers  of  the  state  on  either  hand  ; 
May  neither  overflow,  for  then  they  drown 

the  land. 
Wl  en  both   are   full,  they  feed  our  bless'd 

abode ; 
Like  those  that  water'd  once  the  paradise  of 

God. 
Some    overpoise    of    sway,    by  turns,   they 

share  ; 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  lit 


*  What    Augustus    says     about    Horace    is 
charming,  but  cannot  be  quoted,  even  in  Latin. 


In  peace  the  people,  and  the  prince  in  war : 
Consuls  of  moderate   power  in  calms  were 

made  ; 
When  the   Gauls  came,  one    sole    dictator 

sway'd. 

Patriots,  in  peace,  assert  the  people's  right, 
With  noble  stubbornness  resisting  might ; 
No  lawless  mandates  from  the  court  receive, 
Nor  lend  by  force,  but  in  a  body  give."  * 

This  serious  converse  shows  a  politi- 
cal mind,  fed  on  the  spectacle  of  affairs, 
having  in  the  matter  of  public  and  prac- 
tical debates  the  superiority  which  the 
French  have  in  speculative  discussions 
and  social  conversation.  So,  amidst 
the  dryness  of  polemics  break  forth 
sudden  splendors,  a  poetic  fount,  a 
prayer  from  the  heart's  depths  ;  the 
English  well  of  concentrated  passion 
is  on  a  sudden  opened  again  with  a 
flow  and  a  spirit  which  Dryden  does 
not  elsewhere  exhibit : 

"  Dim  as  the  borrow' d  beams  of  moon  and 

stars 

To  lonely,  weary,  wand'ring  travellers, 
Is  reason  to  the  soul :  and  as  on  high 
Those  rolling  fires  discover  but  the  sky, 
Not  light  us  here ;  so  Reason's  glimm'ring 

ray 

Was  lent,  not  to  assure  our  doubtful  way, 
But  guide  us  upward  to  a  better  day. 
And  as  those  nightly  tapers  disappear 
When  day's  bright  lord    ascends  our  hemi- 
sphere, 

So  pale  grows  Reason  at  Religion's  sight, 
So  dies,  and  so    dissolves  in   supernatural 
light,  "t 

"  But,  gracious  God !  how  well  dost  thou  pro- 
vide 

For  erring  judgments  an  unerring  guide  ! 

Thy  throne  is  darkness  in  th'  abyss  of  light, 

A  blaze  of  glory  that  forbids  the  sight. 

O  teach  me  to  believe  Thee  thus  conceal'd, 

And  search  no  farther  than  Thy  self  re- 
veal'd  ; 

But  her  alone  for  my  director  take, 

Whom  Thou  hast  promised  never  to  for- 
sake! 

My  thoughtless  youth  was  wing'd  with  vain 
desires  ; 

My  manhood,  long  misled  by  wandering 
fires, 

Follow' d  false  lights  ;  and  when  theirglimpse 
was  gone, 

My  pride  struck  out  new  sparkles  of  her  own. 

Such  was  I,  such  by  nature  still  I  am  ; 

Be  Thine  the  glory  and  be  mine  the  shame  ! 

Good  life  be  now  my  task ;  my  doubts  are 
done,"  J 

Such  is  the  poetry  of  these  serious 
minds.  After  having  strayed  in  the 
debaucheries  and  pomps  of  the  Res- 

*  Epistle  15,  xi.  75. 
t  Beginning  of  Religio  Laid,  x-  37. 
t  The  Hind  and  the  Panther,  Part  i.  /.  64- 
75,  x.  ia  i. 


CHAP.  II.] 


DRYDEN.  385 


toration,  Dryden  found  his  way  to  the 
grave  emotions  of  the  inner  life 
though  a  Romanist,  he  felt  like  a  Prot 
estant  the  wretchedness  of  man  anc 
the  presence  of  grace  :  he  was  capable 
of  enthusiasm.  Here  and  there  a 
manly  and  soul-stirring  verse  discloses 
in  the  midst  of  his  reasonings,  the 
power  of  conception  and  the  inspira- 
tion of  desire.  When  the  tragic  is 
met  with,  he  takes  to  it  as  to  his  own 
domain ;  at  need,  he  deals  in  the  hor 
lible.  He  has  described  the  infernal 
chase,  and  the  torture  of  the  young 
girl  worried  by  dogs,  with  the  savage 
energy  of  Milton.*  As  a  contrast, 
he  loved  nature :  this  taste  alway? 
endures  in  England ;  the  sombre,  re- 
flective passions  are  unstrung  in  the 
grand  peace  and  harmony  of  the  fields. 
Landscapes  are  to  be  met  with  amidst 
theological  disputation : 

"  New    blossoms    flourish    and    new   flowers 

arise, 

As  God  had  been  abroad,  and  walking  there 
Had  left  his  footsteps  and  reformed  the  year. 
The  sunny  hills  from  far  were  seen  to  glow 
With  glittering  beams,  and  in  the  meads  be- 
low 
The  burnished  brooks  appeared  with  liquid 

gold  to  flow. 

As  last  they  heard  the  foolish  Cuckoo  sing, 
Whose   note    proclaimed    the    holy  day  of 
spring."  f 

Under  his  regular  versification  the 
artist's  soul  is  brought  to  light ; 
though  contracted  by  habits  of  classi- 
.  cal  argument,  though  stiffened  by  con- 
troversy and  polemics,  though  unable 
to  create  souls  or  to  depict  artless  and 
delicate  sentiments,  he  is  a  genuine 
poet :  he  is  troubled,  raised  by  beau- 
tiful sounds  and  forms;  he  writes 
bo'dly  under  the  pressure  of  vehement 
id  as ;  he  surrounds  himself  willingly 
wi«.h  splendid  images  ;  he  is  moved  by 
the  buzzing  of  their  swarms,  the  glitter 
of  their  splendors;  he  is,  when  he 

*  Theodore  and  Honor ia,  xi.  435. 
t  The  Hind  and  the  Panther,  Part  iii.  /. 
553-560,  x.  214. 

t  "  For  her  the  weeping  heavens  become  se- 
rene, 
For  her  the  ground  is  clad  in  cheerful 

green, 

F  .T  her  the  nightingales  are  taught  to  sing, 
Aui    nature    for     her    has    delayed    the 

spring." 

These  charming  verses  on  the  Duchess  of 
York  remind  one  of  those  of  La  Fontaine  in  le 
Songe,  addressed  to  the  Princess  of  Conti. 


wishes  it,  a  musician  and  a  painter ; 
he  writes  stirring  airs,  which  shake  all 
the  senses,  even  if  they  do  not  sink 
deep  into  the  heart.  Such  is  his  Alex- 
ander's Feast,  an  ode  in  honor  of  St. 
Cecilia's  day,  an  admirable  trumpet- 
blast,  in  which  metre  and  sound  im- 
press upon  the  nerves  the  emotions  of 
the  mind,  a  master-piece  of  rapture 
and  of  art,  which  Victor  Hugo  alone 
has  come  up  to.*  Alexander  is  on  his 
throne  in  the  palace  of  Persepolis  ;  the 
lovely  Thais  sate  by  his  side ;  before 
him,  in  a  vast  hall,  his  glorious  cap- 
tains. And  Timotheus  sings : 

"  The  praise  of  Bacchus,  then,  the  sweet  musi- 
cian sung  ; 

Of  Bacchus  ever  fair,  and  ever  young. 
The  jolly  God  in  triumph  comes  ; 
Sound  the  trumpets,  beat  the  drums  J 
Flush'd  with  a  purle  grace, 
He  shews  his  honest  face. 
Now,  give  the  hautboys  breath ;  he  comes, 

he  comes. 

Bacchus  ever  fair  and  young, 
Drinking  joys  did  first  ordain  ; 
Bacchus'  blessings  are  a  treasure, 
Drinking  is  the  soldier's  pleasure : 
Rich  the  treasure, 
Sweet  the  pleasure  ; 
Sweet  is  pleasure  after  pain." 

And  at  the  stirring  sounds  the  king  is 
troubled  ;  his  cheeks  are  glowing  ;  his 
battles  return  to  his  memory  ;  he  defies 
heaven  and  earth.  Then  a  sad  song 
depresses  him.  Timotheus  mourns  the 
death  of  the  betrayed  Darius.  Then  a 
tender  song  softens  him  ;  Timotheus 
lauds  the  dazzling  beauty  of  Thais. 
Suddenly  he  strikes  the  lyre  again : 

"  A  louder  yet,  and  yet  a  louder  strain. 
Break  his  bands  of  sleep  asunder, 
And  rouse  him,  like  a  rattling  peal  of  thun- 
der. 

Hark,  hark  !  the  horrid  sound 
Has  raised  up  his  head  ; 
As  awaked  from  the  dead, 
And  amazed,  he  stares  around. 
Revenge,  revenge !  Timotheus  cries, 
See  the  furies  arise  ; 
See  the  snakes,  that  they  rear, 
How  they  hiss  in  their  hair  I 
And  the  sparkles  that  flash  from  their  eyes  I 
Behold  a  ghastly  band, 
Each  a  torch  in  his  hand ! 
Those  are  Grecian  ghosts,  that  in  battle  were 

slain, 

And  unburied  remain 
Inglorious  on  the  plain  : 
Give  the  vengeance  due 
To  the  valiant  crew. 

Behold  how  they  toss  their  torches  on  high, 
How  they  point  to  the  Persian  abodes, 


*  For  instance,  in  the  Chant  du  Cirque. 
17 


386 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


And  glittering  temples    of    their    hostile 

gods.— 

The  princes  applaud,  with  a  furious  joy. 
And  the  king  seized  a  flambeau  with  zeal  to 

destroy ; 

Thais  led  the  way, 
To  light  him  to  his  prey, 
And.    like    another    Helen,    fired    another 
Troy."  * 

Thus  formerly  music  softened,  exalted, 
mastered  men ;  Dryden's  verses  ac- 
quire again  its  power  in  describing  it. 

X. 

This  was  one  of  his  last  works ;  f 
brilliant  and  poetical,  it  was  born 
amidst  the  greatest  sadness.  The 
king  for  whom  he  had  written  was 
deposed  and  in  exile  ;  the  religion 
which  he  had  embraced  was  despised 
and  oppressed  ;  a  Roman  Catholic  and 
a  royalist,  he  was  bound  to  a  conquered 
party,  which  the  nation  resentfully  and 
distrustfully  considered  as  the  natural 
enemy  of  liberty  and  reason.  He  had 
lost  the  two  places  which  were  his  sup- 
port ;  he  lived  wretchedly,  burdened 
with  a  family,  obliged  to  support  his 
sons  abroad  ;  treated  as  a  hireling  by 
a  coarse  publisher  forced  to  ask  him 
for  money  to  pay  for  a  watch  which  he 
could  not  get  on  credit,  beseeching 
Lord  Bolingbroke  to  protect  him 
against  Tonson's  insults,  rated  by  this 
shopkeeper  when  the  promised  page 
was  not  finished  on  the  stated  day. 
His  enemies  persecuted  him  with  pam- 
phlets; the  severe  Collier  lashed  his 
comedies  unfeelingly  ;  he  was  damned 
without  pity,  but  conscientiously.  He 
had  long  been  in  ill  health,  crippled, 
constrained  to  write  much,  reduced  to 
exaggerate  flattery  in  order  to  earn 
from  the  great  the  indispensable  money 
which  the  publishers  would  not  give 
him :  J  "  What  Virgil  wrote  in  the 
vigor  of  his  age,  in  plenty  and  at  ease, 
I  have  undertaken  to  translate  in  my 
declining  years;  struggling  with  wants, 
oppressed  with  sickness,  curbed  in  my 

*  Alexander's  Feast,  xi.  183-188. 

t  Alexander's  Feast  was  written  in  1697, 
soon  after  the  publication  of  the  Virgil.  In 
1699  appeared  Dryden's  translated  tales  and 
original  poems,  generally  known  as  "  The  Fa- 
bles," in  which  the  portrait  of  the  English 
country-gentleman  (see  page  65)  is  to  be  found. 

t  He  was  paid  two  hundred  and  fifty  guineas 
for  ten  thousand  lines. 


fenius,  liable  to  be  misconstrued  in  all 
write ;  and  my  judges,  if  they  are 
not  very  equitable,  already  prejudiced 
against  me,  by  the  lying  character 
which  has  been  given  them  of  my  mor- 
als." *  Although  he  looked  at  his 
conduct  from  the  most  favorable  point 
of  view,  he  knew  that  it  had  not  always 
been  worthy,  and  that  all  his  writings 
would  not  endure.  Born  between  two 
epochs,  he  had  oscillated  between  two 
forms  of  life  and  two  forms  of  thought, 
having  reached  the  perfection  of  nei- 
ther, having  kept  the  faults  of  both ; 
having  discovered  in  surrounding  man- 
ners no  support  worthy  of  his  charac- 
ter, and  in  surrounding  ideas  no  subject 
worthy  of  his  talent.  If  he  had  founded 
criticism  and  good  style,  this  criticism 
had  only  its  scope  in  pedantic  treatises 
or  unconnected  prefaces ;  this  good 
style  continued  out  of  the  track  in  in- 
flated tragedies,  dispersed  over  multi- 
plied translations,  scattered  in  occa- 
sional pieces,  in  odes  written  to  order, 
in  party  poems,  meeting  only  here  and 
there  an  afflatus  capable  of  employing 
it,  and  a  subject  capable  of  sustaining 
it.  What  gigantic  efforts  to  end  in 
such  a  moderate  result !  This  is  the 
natural  condition  of  man.  The  end  of 
every  thing  is  pain  and  agony.  For  a 
long  time  gravel  and  gout  left  him  no 
peace ;  erysipelas  seized  one  of  his 
legs.  In  April  1700  he  tried  to  go 
out ;  "  a  slight  inflammation  in  one  of 
his  toes  became  from  neglect,  a  gan-  • 
grene ;  "  the  doctor  would  have  tried 
amputation,  but  Dryden  decided  that 
what  remained  to  him  of  health  and 
happiness  was  not  worth  the  pain. 
He  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-nine, 


CHAPTER  III. 


WITH  the  constitution  of  1688  a  new 
spirit  appears  in  England.  Slowly, 
gradually,  the  moral  revolution  accom- 
panies the  social  :  man  changes  with 
the  state,  in  the  same  sense  and  for  the 
same  causes  ;  character  moulds  itself 

*  Postscript  of  Virgil's  Works,  as  translated 
by  Dryden,  xv.  p.  187. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


to  the  situation  ;  and  little  by  little,  in 
manners  and  in  literature,  we  see  spring 
up  a  serious,  reflective,  moral  spirit, 
capable  of  discipline  and  independence, 
which  can  alone  maintain  and  give 
effect  to  a  constitution. 

II. 

This  was  not  achieved  without  diffi- 
culty, and  at  first  sight  it  seems  as 
though  England  had  gained  nothing  by 
this  revolution  of  which  she  is  so 
proud.  The  aspect  of  things  under 
William,  Anne,  and  the  first  two 
Georges,  is  repulsive.  We  are  tempted 
to  agree  with  Swift  in  his  judgment,  to 
say  that  if  he  has  depicted  a  Yahoo,  it 
is  because  he  has  seen  him  ;  naked  or 
drawn  in  his  carriage,  the  Yahoo  is  not 
beautiful.  We  see  but  corruption  in 
high  places,  brutality  in  low,  a  band  of 
intriguers  leading  a  mob  of  brutes.  The 
human  beast,  inflamed  by  political 
passions,  gives  vent  to  cries  and  vio- 
lence, burns  Admiral  Byng  in  effigy, 
demands  his  death,  would  destroy  his 
house  and  park,  sways  in  turns  from 
party  to  party,  seems  with  its  blind 
force  ready  to  annihilate  civil  society. 
When  Dr.  Sacheverell  was  tried,  the 
butcher  boys,  crossing-sweepers,  chim- 
ney-sweepers, costermongers,  drabs,  the 
entire  scum,  conceiving  the  Church  to 
be  in  danger,  follow  him  with  yells  of 
rage  and  enthusiasm,  and  in  the  even- 
ing set  to  work  to  burn  and  pillage  the 
dissenter's  chapels.  When  Lord  Bute, 
in  defiance  of  public  opinion,  was  set 
up  in  Pitt's  place,  he  was  assailed  with 
stones,  and  was  obliged  to  surround  his 
carriage  with  a  strong  guard.  At 
every  political  crisis  was  heard  a  riot- 
ous growl,  were  seen  disorder,  blows, 
broken  heads.  It  was  worse  when  the 
people's  own  interests  were  at  stake. 
Gin  had  been  discovered  in  1684,  and 
about  half  a  century  later  England  con- 
sumed seven  millions  of  gallons.*  The 
tavernkeepers  on  their  signboards  in- 
vited people  to  come  and  get  drunk  for 
a  penny  ;  for  twopence  they  might  get 
dead  drunk  ;  no  charge  for  straw ;  the 
landlord  dragged  those  who  succumbed 
into  a  cellar,  where  they  slept  off  their 
carouse.  A  man  could  not  walk  Lon- 
don streets  without  meeting  wretches, 

*  1742,  Report  of  Lord  Lonsdale. 


337 


incapable  of  motion  or  thought,  lying 
in  the  kennel,  whom  the  care  of  the 
passers-by  alone  could  prevent  from 
being  smothered  in  mud,  or  run  over 
by  carriage  wheels.  A  tax  was  imposed 
to  stop  this  madness  :  it  was  in  vain 
the  judges  dared  not  condemn,  the  in- 
formers were  assassinated.  The  House 
gave  way,  and  Walpole,  finding  himself 
threatened  with  a  riot,  withdrew  his 
law.*  All  these  bewigged  and  ermined 
lawyers,  these  bishops  in  lace,  these 
embroidered  and  gold-bedizened  lords, 
this  fine  government  so  cleverly  bal- 
anced, was  carried  on  the  back  of  a 
huge  and  formidable  brute,  which  as  a 
rule  would  tramp  peacefully  though 
growlingly  on,  but  which  on  a  sudden, 
for  a  mere  whim,  could  shake  and 
crush  it.  This  was  clearly  seen  in  1780, 
during  the  riots  of  Lord  George  Gor- 
don. Without  reason  or  guidance  at 
the  cry  of  No  Popery  the  excited  mob 
demolished  the  prisons,  let  loose  the 
criminals,  abused  the  Peers,  and  was 
for  three  days  master  of  London,  burn- 
ing, pillaging,  and  glutting  itself. 
Barrels  of  gin  were  staved  in  and  made 
rivers  in  the  streets.  Children  and 
women  on  their  knees  drank  themselves 
to  death.  Some  became  mad,  others 
fell  down  besotted,  and  the  burning 
and  falling  houses  killed  them,  and 
buried  them  under  their  ruins.  Eleven 
years  later,  at  Birmingham,  the  people 
sacked  and  gutted  the  houses  of  the 
Liberals  and  Dissenters,  and  were 
found  next  day  in  heaps,  dead  drunk, 
in  the  roads  and  ditches.  When  in- 
stinct rebels  in  this  over-strong  and 
well-fed  race  it  becomes  perilous.  John 
Bull  dashed  headlong  at  the  first  red 
rag  which  he  thought  he  saw. 

The  higher  ranks  were  even  less 
estimable  "than  the  lower.  If  there 
has  been  no  more  beneficial  revolution 
than  that  of  1688,  there  has  been  none 
that  was  launched  or  supported  by 
dirtier  means.  Treachery  was  every- 
where, not  simple,  but  double  and 
triple.  Under  William  and  Anne,  ad- 
mirals, ministers,  members  of  the 
Privy  Council,  favorites  of  the  ante- 
chamber, corresponded  and  conspired 

*  In  the  present  inflamed  temper  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  Act  could  not  be  carried  into  execu- 
tian  without  an  armed  force. — Speech  of  Sir 
Robert  Walpole. 


388 


with  the  same  Stuarts  whom  they  had 
sold,  only  to  sell  them  again,  with  a 
complication  of  bargains,  each  destroy- 
ing the  last,  and  a  complication  of  per- 
juries, each  surpassing  the  last,  until  in 
the  end  no  one  knew  who  had  bought 
I.im,  or  to  what  party  he  belonged. 
The  greatest  general  of  the  age,  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough,  is  one  of  the 
basest  rogues  in  history,  supported  by 
his  mistresses,  a  niggard  user  of  the 
pay  which  he  received  from  them, 
systematically  plundering  his  soldiers, 
trafficking  on  political  secrets,  a  traitor 
to  James  II.,  to  William,  to  England, 
betraying  to  James  the  intended  plan 
of  attacking  Brest,  and  even,  when  old 
and  infirm,  walking  from  the  public 
rooms  in  Bath  to  his  lodgings,  on  a  cold 
and  dark  night,  to  save  sixpence  in 
chair-hire.  Next  to  him  we  may  place 
Bolingbroke,  a  skeptic  and  cynic, 
minister  in  turn  to  Queen  and  Pretend- 
er, disloyal  alike  to  both,  a  trafficker 
in  consciences,marriages,  and  promises, 
who  had  squandered  his  talents  in  de- 
bauch and  intrigue,  to  end  in  disgrace, 
impotence,  and  scorn.*  Walpole,  who 
used  to  boast  that  "  every  man  had  his 
price,"  t  was  compelled  to  resign,  after 
having  been  prime  minister  for  twenty 
years.  Montesquieu  wrote  in  1729  :  J 
"  There  are  Scotch  members  who  have 
only  two  hundred  pounds  for  their 
vote,  and  sell  it  at  this  price.  English- 
men are  no  longer  worthy  of  their 
liberty.  They  sell  it  to  the  king  ;  and 
if  the  king  should  sell  it  back  to  them, 
they  would  sell  it  him  again."  We 
read  in  Bubb  Doddington's  Diary 
the  candid  fashion  and  pretty  contriv- 
ances of  this  great  traffic.  So  Dr. 
King  states:  "He  (Walpole)  wanted 
to  carry  a  question  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  to  which  he  knew  there 
would  be  great  opposition.  ...  As  he 
was  passing  through  the  Court  of  Re- 
quests, he  met  a  member  of  the  con- 
trary party,  whose  avarice,  he  imagined, 
would  not  reject  a  large  bribe.  He 
took  him  aside,  and  said,  '  Such  a 
question  comes  on  this  day;  give  me 
*  See  Walpole's  terrible  speech  against  him, 
1734- 

t  Sec,  for  the  truth  of  this  statement,  Me- 
fnoirs  of  Horace  Walpole,  2  vols.,  ed.  E. 
Warburton,  1851,  i.  381,  note. — TR. 

t  Notes  during  a  journey  in  England  made 
in  1729  with  Lord  Chesterfield. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


your  vote,  and  here  is  a  bank-bill  of  two 
thousand  pounds,'  which  he  put  into 
his  hands.  The  member  made  him  this 
answer :  '  Sir  Robert,  you  have  lately 
served  some  of  my  particular  friends  ; 
and  when  my  wife  was  last  at  court,  the 
King  was  very  gracious  to  her,  which 
must  have  happened  at  your  instance. 
I  should  therefore  think  myself  very 
ungrateful  (putting  the  bank-bill  into 
his  pocket)  if  I  were  to  refuse  the 
favor  you  are  now  pleased  to  ask 
me.'  "  *  This  is  how  a  man  of  the 
world  did  business.  Corruption  was 
so  firmly  established  in  public  man- 
ners and  in  politics,  that  after  the 
fall  of  Walpole,  Lord  Bute,  who 
had  denounced  him,  was  obliged 
to  practise  and  increase  it.  His  col- 
league Henry  Fox,  the  first  Lord 
Holland,  changed  the  pay-office  into  a 
market,  haggled  about  their  price  with 
hundreds  of  members,  distributed  in 
one  morning  twenty-five  thousand 
rounds.  Votes  were  only  to  be  had 
:or  cash  down,  and  yet  at  an  important 
crisis  these  mercenaries  threatened  to 
go  over  to  the  enemy,  struck  for  wages, 
and  demanded  more.  Nor  did  the 
leaders  miss  their  own  share.  They 
sold  themselves  for,  or  paid  themselves 
with,  titles,  dignities,  sinecures.  In 
order  to  get  a  place  vacant,  they  gave 
the  holder  a  pension  of  two,  three,  five, 
and  even  seven  thousand  a  year.  Pitt, 
the  most  upright  of  politicians,  the 
leader  of  those  who  were  called 
patriots,  gave  and  broke  his  word, 
attacked  or  defended  Walpole,  pro- 
posed war  or  peace,  all  to  become  or  to 
continue  a  minister.  Fox,  his  rival, 
was  a  sort  of  shameless  sink.  The 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  "whose  name 
was  perfidy,"  "  a  living,  moving,  talk- 
ing caricature,"  the  most  clumsy,  ig- 
norant, ridiculed  and  despised  of  the 
aristocracy,  was  in  the  Cabinet  for 
thirty  years  and  premier  for  ten  years, 
by  virtue  of  his  connections,  his  wealth, 
of  the  elections  which  he  managed,  and 
the  places  in  his  gift.  The  fall  of  the 
Stuarts  put  the  government  into  the 
hands  of  a  few  great  families  which,  by 
means  of  rotten  boroughs,  bought 
members  and  high-sounding  speeches, 
oppressed  the  king,  moulded  the  pas- 

*  Dr.  W.  King,  Political  and  Literary  Am> 
ecdoi.;s  of  his  own.  Times,  1818,  27. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


sions  of  the  mob,  intrigued,  lied, 
wrangled,  and  tried  to  swindle  each 
other  out  of  power. 

^ivate  manners  were  as  lovely  as 
public.  As  a  rule  the  reigning  king 
detested  his  son ;  this  son  got  into 
debt,  asked  Parliament  for  an  increased 
allowance,  allied  himself  with  his  fa- 
ther's enemies.  George  I.  kept  his  wife 
in  prison  thirty-two  years,  and  got 
drunk  every  night  with  his  two  ugly 
mistresses.  George  II.,  who  loved 
his  wife,  took  mistresses  to  keep  up 
appearances,  rejoiced  at  his  son's  death, 
upset  his  father's  will.  His  eldest  son 
cheated  at  cards,  *  and  one  day  at  Ken- 
sington, having  borrowed  five  thousand 
pounds  from  Bubb  Doddington,  said, 
when  he  saw  him  from  the  window  : 
"  That  man  is  reckoned  one  of  the  most 
sensible  men  in  England,  yet  with  all 
his  parts  I  have  just  nicked  him  out  of 
five  thousand  pounds."  t  George  IV. 
was  a  sort  of  coachman,  gamester, 
scandalous  roysterer,  unprincipled  bet- 
tirig-man,  whose  proceedings  all  but 
got  him  excluded  from  the  Jockey  Club. 
The  only  upright  man  was  George  III., 
a  poor  half-witted  dullard,  who  went 
mad,  and  whom  his  mother  had  kept 
locked  up  in  his  youth  as  though  in  a 
cloister.  She  gave  as  her  reason  the 
universal  corruption  of  men  of  quality. 
"The  young  men,"  she  said,  "were  all 
rakes;  the  young  women  made  love, 
instead  of  waiting  till  it  was  made  to 
them."  In  fact,  vice  was  in  fashion, 
not  delicate  vice  as  in  France  ;  "  Mon- 
ey," wrote  Montesquieu,  "  is  here  es- 
teemed above  every  thing,  honor  and 
virtue  not  much.  An  Englishman  must 
have  a  good  dinner,a  woman,and  money. 
As  he  does  not  go  much  into  society, 
and  limits  himself  to  this,  so,  as  soon  as 
his  fortune  is  gone,  and  he  can  no  longer 
have  these  things,  he  commits  suicide 
or  turns  robber."  The  young  men  had 
a  superabundance  of  coarse  energy, 
which  made  them  mistake  brutality 
for  pleasure.  The  most  celebrated 
called  themselves  Mohocks,  and  tyr- 
annized over  London  by  night.  They 
stopped  people,  and  made  them  dance 
by  pricking  their  legs  with  their  swords  ; 

*  Frederick  died  1751.  Memoirs  of  Horace 
Walpole,  \,  262. 

t  Wai  pole's  Mema'rs  of  George  II. ,  ed. 
Lord  Holland,  3  vols.  ad  ed.,  1847,  i.  77. 


389 


sometimes  they  would  put  a  woman  in 
a  tuo  and  set  her  rolling  down  a  hill ; 
others  would  place  her  on  her  head 
with  her  feet  in  the  air ;  some  would 
flatten  the  nose  of  the  wretch  whom 
they  had  caught,  and  press  his  eyes  out 
of  their  sockets.  Swift,  the  comic 
writers,  the  novelists,  have  painted  the 
baseness  of  this  gross  debauchery, 
craving  for  riot,  living  in  drunkenness, 
revelling  in  obscenity,  issuirg  in 
cruelty,  ending  by  irreligion  and  athe- 
ism.* This  violent  and  excessive  mood 
requires  to  occupy  itself  proudly  and 
daringly  in  the  destruction  of  what 
men  respect,  and  what  institutions 
protect.  These  men  attack  the  clergy 
by  the  same  instinct  which  leads  them 
to  beat  the  watch.  Collins,  Tindal, 
Bolingbroke,  are  their  teachers  ;  the 
corruption  of  manners,  the  frequent 
practice  of  treason,  the  warring  amongst 
sects,  the  freedom  of  speech,  the  prog- 
ress of  science,  and  the  fermentation 
of  ideas,  seemed  as  if  they  would  dis- 
solve Christianity.  "  There  is  no  re- 
ligion in  England,"  said  Montesquieu. 
"  Four  or  five  in  the  house  of  Commons 
go  to  prayers  or  to  the  parliamentary 
sermon.  ...  If  any  one  speaks  of  re- 
ligion, everybody  begins  to  laugh.  A 
man  happening  to  say,  '  I  believe  this 
like  an  article  of  faith*'  everybody  burst 
out  laughing."  In  fact  the  phrase  was 
provincial,and  smacked  of  antiquity,the 
main  thing  was  to  be  fashionable,  and 
it  is  amusing  to  see  from  Lord  Ches- 
terfield in  what  this  fashion  consisted. 
Of  justice  and  honor  he  only  speaks 
transiently,  and  for  form's  sake.  Be- 
fore all,  he  says  to  his  son,  "  have  man- 
ners, good  breeding,  and  the  graces." 
He  insists  upon  it  in  every  letter  with 
a  fulness  and  force  of  illustration  which 
form  an  odd  contrast :  "  Mon  cher 
ami,  comment  vont  les  graces,  les  ma- 
nieres,  les  agremens,  et  tous  ces  pet  is 
riens  si  necessaires  pour  rendre  un 
honime  amiable  ?  Les  prenez-vous  ? 
y  faites-vous  des  progres  ?  .  .  .  A  pro- 
pos,  on  m'assure  que  Madame  de  Blot 
sans  avoir  des  traits,  est  jolie  comme 
un  cceur,  et  que  nonobstant  cela,  elle 
s'enest  tenue  jusqu'ici  scrupuleusement 
a  son  mari,  quoi  qu'il  y  ait  deja  plus 
d'un  an  qu'elle  est  mariee.  Elle  n'y 

*  See  the  character  of  Birton  in  Voltaire'i 
Jenny. 


39° 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


pense  pas."  *  ..."  It  seems  ridiculous 
to  tell  you,  but  it  is  most  certainly  true, 
that  your  dancing-master  is  at  this  time 
the  mau  in  all  Europe  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  you."  t  •  .  .  "  In  your 
person  you  must  be  accurately  clean  ; 
and  your  teeth,  hands,  and  nails  should 
be  superlatively  so.  ...  Upon  no  ac- 
count whatever  put  your  fingers  in  your 
nose  or  ears.  J  What  says  Madame 
Dupin  to  you  ?  For  an  attachment  I 
should  prefer  her  to  la  petite  Blot.§ 
.  .  .  Pleasing  women  may  in  time  be  of 
service  to  you,  They  often  please  and 
govern  others."  || 

And  he  quotes  to  him  as  examples, 
Bolingbroke  and  Marlborough,  the  two 
worst  roues  of  the  age.  Thus  speaks 
a  serious  man,  once  Lord-Lieutenant 
of  Ireland,  an  ambassador  and  pleni- 
potentiary, and  finally  a  Secretary  of 
State,  an  authority  in  matters  of  educa- 
tion and  taste.  1  He  wishes  to  polish 
his  son,  to  give  him  a  French  air,  to 
add  to  solid  diplomatic  knowledge  and 
large  views  of  ambition  an  engaging, 
lively  and  frivolous  manner.  This  out- 
ward polish,  which  at  Paris  is  of  the 
true  color,  is  here  but  a  shocking  ve- 
neer. This  transplanted  politeness  is 
a  lie,  this  vivacity  is  want  of  sense,  this 
worldly  education  seems  fitted  only  to 
make  actors  and  rogues. 

So  thought  Gay  in  his  Beggars'  Opera, 
and  the  polished  society  applauded 
\v\thfurore  the  portrait  which  he  drew 
of  it.  Sixty-three  consecutive  nights 

*  The  original  letter  is  in  French.  Chester- 
field's Letters  to  his  Son,  ed.  Mahoii,  4  vols. 
1845  ;  ii.  April  15,  1751,  p.  127. 

t  Ibid.  ii.  Jan.  3,  1751,  p.  72. 

J  Chesterfield's  Letters  to  his  Son,  ed.  Ma- 
hon,  4  vols.,  1845  >  "•  Nov.  12,  1750,  p.  57. 

§  Ibid.  ii.  May  16,  1751,  p.  146. 

||  Ibid.  ii.  Jan.  2r,  1751,  p.  81. 

IT  "  They  (the  English)  are  commonly  twenty 
years  old  before  they  have  spoken  to  anybody 
above  their  schoolmaster  and  the  fellows  of 
their  college.  If  they  happen  to  have  learning, 
it  is  only  Greek  and  Latin,  but  not  one  word 
of  modern  history  or  modern  languages.  Thus 
prepared,  they  go  abroad,  as  they  call  it ;  but, 
in  truth,  they  stay  at  home  all  that  while  :  for, 
being  very  awkward,  confoundedly  ashamed, 
and  not  speaking  the  languages,  they  go  into 
no  foreign  company,  at  least  none  good  ;  but 
dine  and  sup  with  one  another  only  at  the 
tavern."  Ibid,  i.,  May  10,  O.  S.,  1748,  p.  136. 
"  I  could  wish  you  would  ask  him  (Mr.  Bur- 
rish)  for  some  letters  to  young  fellows  of  pleas- 
ure or  fashionable  coquettes,  that  you  may  be 
dans  Phonnete  debauche  de  Munich" — Ibid. 
ii.  Oct.  3,  1753,  P-  33i 


the  piece  ran  amidst  a  tempest  ol 
laughter;  the  ladies  had  the  songs 
written  on  their  fans,  and  the  principal 
actress  married  a  duke.  What  a  sa 
tire  !  Thieves  infested  London,  so  that 
in  1728  the  queen  herself  was  almost 
robbed  ;  they  formed  bands  with  offi- 
cers, a  treasury,  a  commander-in-chief, 
and  multiplied,  though  every  six  weeks 
they  were  sent  by  the  cartload  to  the 
gallows.  Such  was  the  society  which 
Gay  put  on  the  stage.  In  his  opinion, 
it  was  as  good  as  the  higher  society; 
it  was  hard  to  discriminate  between 
them;  the  manners,  wit,  conduct,  mo- 
rality in  both  were  alike.  "  Through 
the  whole  piece  you  may  observe  such 
a  similitude  of  manners  in  high  and  low 
life,  that  it  is  difficult  to  determine 
whether  (in  the  fashionable  vices)  the 
fine  gentlemen  imitate  the  gentlemen 
of  the  road,  or  the  gentlemen  of  the 
road  the  fine  gentlemen.* 

Wherein,  for  example,  is  Peachum 
different  from  a  great  minister  ?  Like 
him,  he  is  a  leader  of  a  gang  of  thieves ; 
like  him,  he  has  a  register  for  thefts ; 
like  him.  he  receives  money  with  both 
hands ;  like  him  he  contrives  to  have 
his  friends  caught  and  hung  when  they 
trouble  him ;  he  uses,  like  him,  parlia- 
mentary language  and  classical  com- 
parisons ;  he  has,  like  him,  gravity, 
steadiness,  and  is  eloquently  indignant 
when  his  honor  is  suspected.  It  is  true 
that  Peachum  quarrels  with  a  comrade 
about  the  plunder,  and  takes  him  by 
the  throat?  But  lately,  Sir  Robert 
Wai  pole  and  Lord  Townsend  had 
fought  with  each  other  on  a  similar 
question.  Listen  to  what  Mrs.  Peach- 
urn  says  of  her  daughter  :  "  Love  him ! 
(Macheath),  worse  and  worse!  I 
thought  the  girl  had  been  better  bred."t 
The  daughter  observes  :  "  A  woman 
knows  how  to  be  mercenary  though 
she  has  never  been  in  a  court  or  at  an 
assembly."  \  And  the  father  remarks  : 

My  daughter  to  me  should  be,  like  a 
court  lady  to  a  minister  of  state,  a  key 
to  the  whole  gang."  §  As  to  Macheath. 
he  is  a  fit  son-in-law  for  such  a  politi 
cian.  If  less  brilliant  in  council  than 
in  action,  that  only  suits  his  age.  Point 

*  Speech  of  the  Beggar  in  the  Epilogue  ol 
the  Beggars'  Opera. 

t  Gay's  Plays,  1772  ;   The  Beggars'  Opera> 
.  t  Ibid.  §  Ibid. 


:HAP.  in.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


39  * 


out  a  young  and  noble  officer  who  has 
a  better  address,  or  performs  finer  ac- 
tions. He  is  a  highwayman,  that  is  his 
bravery ;  he  shares  his  booty  with  his 
friends,  that  is  his  generosity:  "You 
see,  gentlemen,  I  am  not  a  mere  court- 
friend,  who  professes  every  thing  and 
will  do  nothing.  ....  But  we,  gentle- 
men, have  still  honor  enough  to  break 
through  the  corruptions  of  the  world."  * 
For  the  rest  he  is  gallant ;  he  has  half- 
a-dozen  wives,  a  dozen  children;  he 
frequents  stews,  he  is  amiable  towards 
the  beauties  whom  he  meets,  he  is 
easy  in  manners,  he  makes  elegant 
bows  to  every  one,  he  pays  compli- 
ments to  all :  "  Mistress  Slammekin  ! 
as  careless  and  genteel  as  ever  !  all  you 
fine  ladies,  who  know  your  own  beauty 
affect  undress.  ...  If  any  of  the  ladies 
chuse  gin,  I  hope  they  will  be  so  free 
as  to  call  for  it. — Indeed,  sir,  I  never 
drink  strong  waters,  but  when  I  have 
the  colic. — Just  the  excuse  of  the  fine 
ladies !  why,  a  lady  of  quality  is  never 
without  the  colic."  f  Is  this  not  the 
genuine  tone  of  good  society  ?  And 
does  anyone  doubt  that  Macheath  is  a 
man  of  quality  when  we  learn  that  he 
has  deserved  to  be  hung,  and  is  not  ? 
Every  thing  yields  to  such  a  proof.  If, 
however,  we  wish  for  another,  he  would 
add  that,  "As  to  conscience  and  musty 
morals,  I  have  as  few  drawbacks  upon 
my  pleasures  as  any  man  of  quality  in 
England;  in  those  I  am  not  at  least 
vulgar."  \  After  such  a  speech  a  man 
must  give  in.  Do  not  bring  up  the 
foulness  of  these  manners  ;  we  see  that 
there  is  nothing  repulsive  in  them,  be- 
cause fashionable  society  likes  them. 
These  interiors  of  prisons  and  stews, 
these  gambling-houses,  this  whiff  of 
gin,  this  pander-traffic,  and  these  pick- 
pockets' calculations,  by  no  means  dis- 
gust the  ladies,  who  applaud  from  the 
boxes.  They  sing  the  songs  of  Polly ; 
their  nerves  shrink  from  no  detail ; 
they  have  already  inhaled  the  filthy 
odors  from  the  highly  polished  pasto- 
rals of  the  amiable  poet.  §  They  laugh 

*  Gay's  Plays,  1772  ;  The  Beggars'  Opera, 
:ii.  2.  f  Ibid.  ii.  i. 

\  I  cannot  find  these  lines  in  the  edition  I 
have  consulted. — TR. 

§  In  these  Eclogues  the  ladies  explain  in 
good  style  that  their  friends  have  their  lackeys 
for  lovers:  "Her  favours  Sylvia  shares 
amongst  mankind  ;  such  gen'rous  Love  could 
never  be  confin'd."  Elsewhere  the  servant 


to  see  Lucy  show  her  pregnancy  to 
Macheath,  and  give  Polly  "  rat -bane. 
They  are  familiar  with  all  the  refine- 
ments of  the  gallows,  and  all  the  nice-, 
ties  of  medicine.  Mistress  Tapes  ex- 
pounds her  trade  before  them,  and 
complains  of  having  "  eleven  fine  cus- 
tomers now  down  under  the  surgeon's 
hands."  Mr.  P'ilch,  a  prison-prop,  uses 
words  which  cannot  even  be  quoted.  A 
cruel  keenness,  sharpened  by  a  stinging 
irony,  flows  through  the  work,  like  one 
of  those  London  streams  whose  corro- 
sive smells  Swift  and  Gay  have  de- 
scribed ;  more  than  a  hundred  years 
later  it  still  proclaims  the  dishonor  of 
the  society  which  is  bespattered  and 
befouled  with  its  mire. 
III. 

These  were  but  the  externals  ;  and 
close  observers,  like  Voltaire,  did  not 
misinterpret  them.  Betwixt  the  slime 
at  the  bottom  and  the  scum  on  the  sur- 
face rolled  the  great  national  river, 
which,  purified  by  its  own  motion,  al- 
ready at  intervals  gave  signs  of  its  true 
color,  soon  to  display  the  powerful  reg- 
ularity of  its  course  and  the  whole- 
some limpidity  of  its  waters.  It  ad- 
vanced in  its  native  bed  ;  every  nation 
has  one  of  its  own,  which  flows  down 
its  proper  slope.  It  is  this  slope  which 
pves  to  each  civilization  its  degree  and 
:orm,  and  it  is  this  which  we  must 
endeavor  to  describe  and  measure. 

To  this  end  we  have  only  to  follow 
the  travellers  from  the  two  countries 
who  at  this  time  crossed  the  Channel. 
Never  did  England  regard  and  imitate 
France  more,  nor  France  England.  To 
see  the  distinct  current  in  which  each 
nation  flowed,  we  have  but  to  open  our 
eyes.  Lord  Chesterfield  writes  to  his 
son  : 

"  It  must  be  owned,  that  the  polite  conver- 
sation of  the  men  and  women  at  Paris,  though 
not  always  very  deep,  is  much  less  futile  and 
frivolous  than  ours  here.  It  turns  at  least  upon 
some  subject,  something  of  taste,  some  point  of 
history,  criticism,  and  even  philosophy,  which, 
though  probably  not  quite  so  solid  as  Mr. 
Locke's,  is  however  better,  and  more  becom- 
ing rational  beings,  than  our  frivolous  disserta- 
tions upon  the  weather  or  upon  whist."  * 


girl  says   to  her   mistress  :     "  Have   you   not 
fancy'd,   in   his  frequent  kiss,    th'    ungrateful 
leavings  of  a  filthy  miss  ?  " 
*  Chesterfield's  Letters,  ii.  April  22,  O.  SM 
751,  p,  131.  See,  fora  contrast,  Swift's  Essay 
on  Polite  Conversation* 


392 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


In  fact,  the  French  became  civilized 
by  conversation  ;  not  so  the  English. 
As  soon  as  the  Frenchman  quits  me- 
chanical labor  and  coarse  material  life, 
even  before  he  quits  it,  he  converses  : 
this  is  his  goal  and  his  pleaiure.*  Bare 
ly  has  he  escaped  from  religious  wars 
and  feudal  isolation,  when  he  makes 
his  bow  and  has  his  say.  With  the 
Hotel  de  Rambouillet  we  get  the  fine 
drawing-room  talk,  which  is  to  last  two 
centuries  :  Germans,  English,  all  Eu 
rope,  either  novices  or  dullards,  listen 
to  France  open-mouthed,  and  from  time 
to  time  clumsily  attempt  an  imitation. 
How  amiable  are  French  talkers  ! 
What  discrimination  !  What  innate 
tact !  With  what  grace  and  dexterity 
they  can  persuade,  interest.amuse  stroke 
down  sickly  vanity,  rivet  the  diverted 
attention,  insinuate  dangerous  truth, 
ever  soaring  a  hundred  feet  above  the 
tedium-point  where  their  rivals  are 
floundering  with  all  their  native  heavi- 
ness. But,  above  all,  how  sharp  they 
soon  have  become  1  Instinctively  and 
without  effort  they  light  upon  easy 
gesture,  fluent  speech,  sustained  ele- 
gance, a  characteristic  piquancy,  a  per- 
fect clearness.  Their  phrases,  still  for- 
mal under  Guez  de  Balzac,  are  looser, 
lighter,  launch  out,  move  speedily, 
and  under  Voltaire  find  their  wings. 
Did  any  man  ever  see  such  a  desire, 
such  an  art  of  pleasing  ?  Pedantic 
sciences,  political  economy,  theology, 
the  sullen  denizens  of  the  Academy  and 
the  Sorbonne,  speak  but  in  epigrams. 
Montesquieu's  V Esprit  des  Lois  is  also 
"  r Esprit  sur  les  lois"  Rousseau's 
periods,  which  begat  a  revolution,  were 
balanced,  turned,  polished  for  eighteen 
hours  in  his  head.  Voltaire's  philoso- 
phy breaks  out  into  a  million  sparks. 
Every  idea  must  blossom  into  a  wit- 
ticism; people  only  have  flashes  of 
thought ;  all  truth,  the  most  intricate 
and  the  most  sacred,  becomes  a  pleas- 
ant drawing-room  conceit,  thrown  back- 
ward and  forward,  like  a  gilded  shut- 

*  Even  in  1826,  Sydney  Smith,  arriving  at 
Calais,  writes  (Life  and  Letter -s,  ii.  253,  254)  : 

What  pleases  me  is  the  taste  and  ingenuity 
displayed  in  the  shops,  and  the  good  manners 
and  politeness  of  the  people.  Such  is  the  state 
of  manners,  that  you  appear  almost  to  have 
quitted  a  land  of  barbarians.  I  have  not  seen  a 
cobbler  who  is  not  better  bred  than  an  English 
gentleman  " 


tlecock,  by  delicate  woman's  hands, 
without  sullying  the  lace  sleeves  from 
which  their  slim  arms  emerge,  or 
the  garlands  which  the  rosy  Cupids 
unfold  on  the  wainscoting.  Every 
thing  must  glitter,  sparkle,  or  smile. 
The  passions  are  deadened,  love  is 
rendered  insipid,  the  proprieties  are 
multiplied,  good  manners  are  exag- 
gerated. The  refined  man  becomes 
"  sensitive."  From  his  wadded  taffeta 
dressing-gown  he  keeps  plucking  his 
worked  handkerchief  to  whisk  away  the 
moist  omen  of  a  tear  ;  he  lays  his  hand 
on  his  heart,  he  grows  tender ;  he  has 
become  so  delicate  and  correct,  that  an 
Englishman  knows  not  whether  to  take 
him  for  an  hysterical  young  woman  or 
a  dancing-master.*  Take  a  near  view 
of  this  beribboned  puppy,  in  his  light- 
green  dress,  lisping  out  the  songs  of 
Florian.  The  genius  of  society  which 
has  led  him  to  these  fooleries  has  also 
led  him  elsewhere  ;  for  conversation  in 
France  at  least,  is  a  chase  after  ideas. 
To  this  day,  in  spite  of  modern  distrust 
and  sadness,  it  is  at  table,  after  dinner, 
over  the  coffee  especially,  that  deep 
politics  and  the  loftiest  philosophy  crop 
up.  To  think,  above  all  to  think  rapid- 
ly, is  a  recreation.  The  mind  finds  in 
it  a  sort  of  ball ;  think  how  eagerly  it 
hastens  thither.  This  is  the  source  of 
all  French  culture.  At  the  dawn  of 
the  century,  the  ladies,  between  a  cou- 
ple of  bows,  produced  studied  portraits 
and  subtle  dissertations  ;  they  under- 
stand Descartes,  appreciate  Nicole, 
approve  Bossuet.  Presently  little  sup- 
pers are  introduced,  and  during  the 
dessert  they  discuss  the  existence  of 
God.  Are  not  theology,  morality,  set 
forth  in  a  noble  or  piquant  style,  pleas- 
ures for  the  drawing-room  and  adorn- 
ments of  luxury  ?  Fancy  finds  place 

*  See  in  Evelina,  by  Miss  Burney,  3  vols. 
1784,  the  character  of  the  poor,  genteel  French, 
man,  M.  Dubois,  who  is  made  to  tremble  even 
whilst  lying  in  the  gutter.  These  very  correct 
young  ladies  go  to  see  Congreye's  Love  for 
Love  ;  their  parents  are  not  afraid  of  showing 
them  Miss  Prue.  See  also,  in  Evelina,  by  way 
of  contrast,  the  boorish  character  of  the  Eng- 
lish captain  ;  he  throws  Mrs.  Duval  twice  m 
the  mud  ;  he  says  to  his  daughter  Molly  :  "  I 
charge  you,  as  you  value  my  favour,  that  you'll 
never  again  be  so  impertinent  as  to  have  a 
taste  of  your  own  before  my  face"  (i.  190). 
The  change,  even  from  sixty  years  ago,  is  sur- 
prising. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


393 


amongst  them,  floats  about  and  sparkles 
like  a  light  flame  over  all  the  subjects 
on  which  it  feeds.  How  lofty  a  flight 
did  intelligence  take  during  this  eigh- 
teenth century !  Was  society  ever 
more  anxious  for  sublime  truths,  more 
bold  in  their  search,  more  quick  to  dis- 
cover, more  ardent  in  embracing  them  ? 
These  perfumed  marquises,  these  laced 
coxcombs,  all  these  pretty,  well-dressed, 
gallant,  frivolous  people,  crowd  to  hear 
philosophy  discussed,  as  they  go  to  hear 
an  opera.  The  origin  of  animated 
beings,  the  eels  of  Needham,*  the  ad- 
ventures of  Jacques  the  Fatalist,!  and 
the  question  of  freewill,  the  principles 
of  political  economy,  and  the  calcula- 
tions of  the  Man  with  Forty  Crowns,  J 
— all  is  to  them  a  matter  for  paradoxes 
and  discoveries.  All  the  heavy  rocks, 
which  the  men  who  had  made  it  their 
business,  were  hewing  and  undermining 
laboriously  in  solitude,  being  carried 
along  and  polished  in  the  public  torrent, 
roll  in  myriads,  mingled  together  with 
a  joyous  clatter,  hurried  onwards  with 
an  ever-increasing  rapidity.  There  was 
no  bar,  no  collision  ;  they  were  not 
checked  by  the  practicability  of  their 
plans  :  they  thought  for  thinking's 
sake  ;  theories  could  be  expanded  at 
ease.  In  fact,  this  is  .  how  in  France 
men  have  always  conversed.  They 
play  with  general  truths  ;  they  glean 
one  nimbly  from  the  heap  of  facts  in 
which  it  lay  concealed,  and  developed 
it  ;  they  hover  above  observation  in 
reason  and  rhetoric  ;  they  find  them- 
selves uncomfortable  and  commonplace 
when  they  are  not  in  the  region  of  pure 
ideas.  And  in  this  respect  the  eigh- 
teenth century  continues  the  seven- 
teenth. The  philosophers  had  described 
good  breeding,  flattery,  misanthropy, 
avarice  ;  they  now  instituted  inquiries 
into  liberty,  tyranny,  religion  ;  they  had 
stud'edman  in  himself  ;  they  now  study 
him  in  the  abstract.  Religious  and  mo- 
narchical writers  are  of  the  same  school 
as  impious  and  revolutionary  writers  ; 
Boileau  leads  up  to  Rousseau,  Racine 

*  Needham  (1713-1781),  a  learned  English 
naturalist,  made  and  published  microscopical 
discoveries  and  remarks  on  the  generation  of 
organic  bodies. — TR. 

t  The  title  of  a  philosophical  novel  by  Dide- 
rot.—TR. 

$  The  title  of  a  philosophical  tale  by  Vol- 
taire.—TR. 


to  Robespierre.  Oratorical  reasoning 
formed  the  regular  theatre  and  classical 
preaching  ;  it  also  produced  the  Dec- 
laration of  Rights  and  the  Contrat 
Social.  They  form  for  themselves  a 
certain  idea  of  man,  of  his  inclinations, 
faculties,  duties  ;  a  mutilated  idea,  but 
the  more  clear  as  it  was  the  more  re- 
duced. From  being  aristocratic  it  be- 
comes popular  ;  instead  of  being  an 
amusement,  it  is  a  faith  ;  from  delicate 
and  skeptical  hands  it  passes  to  coarse 
and  enthusiastic  hands.  From  the 
lustre  of  the  drawing-room  they  make 
a  brand  and  a  torch.  Such  is  the 
current  on  which  the  French  mind 
floated  for  two  centuries,  caressed  by 
the  refinements  of  an  exquisite  polite- 
ness, amused  by  a  swarm  of  brilliant 
ideas,  charmed  by  the  promises  of 
golden  theories,  until,  thinking  that  it 
touched  the  cloud-palace,  made  bright 
by  the  future,  it  suddenly  lost  its  foot- 
ing and  fell  in  the  storm  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. 

Altogether  different  is  the  path  which 
English  civilization  has  taken.  It  is 
not  the  spirit  of  society  which  has  made 
it,  but  moral  sense  ;  and  the  reason  is, 
that  in  England  man  is  not  as  he  is  in 
France.  The  Frenchmen  who  became 
acquainted  with  England  at  this  period 
were  struck  by  it.  "  In  France,"  says 
Montesquieu,  "  I  become  friendly  with 
everybody  ;  in  England  with  nobody. 
You  must  do  here  as  the  English  do, 
live  for  yourself,  care  for  no  one,  love 
no  one,  rely  on  no  one."  Englishmen 
were  of  a  singular  genius,  yet  "  soli- 
tary and  sad.  They  are  reserved,  live 
much  in  themselves  and  think  alone. 
Most  of  them  having  wit,  are  tormented 
by  their  very  wit.  Scorning  or  disgusted 
with  all  things,  they  are  unhappy  amid 
so  many  reasons  why  they  should  not 
be  so."  And  Voltaire,  like  Montes- 
quieu, continually  alludes  to  the  som- 
bre energy  of  the  English  character. 
He  says  that  in  London  there  are  days 
when  the  wind  is  in  the  east,  when  it  is 
customary  for  people  to  hang  them- 
selves ;  he  relates  shudderingly  how  a 
young  girl  cut  her  throat,  and  how 
her  lover  without  a  word  redeemed 
the  knife.  He  is  surprised  to  see  :<  so 
many  Timons,  so  many  splenetic  misan- 
thropes." Whither  will  they  go  ?  There 
was  one  path  which  grew  daily  wider 


394 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


The  Englishman,  naturally  serious, 
meditative,  and  sad,  did  not  regard  life 
as  a  game  or  a  pleasure  ;  his  eyes  were 
habitually  turned,  not  outward  to  smil- 
ing nature,  but  inward  to  the  life  of 
the  soul  ;  he  examines  himself,  ever  de- 
scends within  himself,  confines  himself 
to  the  moral  world,  and  at  last  sees  no 
other  beauty  but  that  which  shines  there; 
he  enthrones  justice  as  the  sole  and 
absolute  queen  of  humanity,  and  con- 
ceives the  plan  of  disposing  all  his  ac- 
tions according  to  a  ri^id  code.  He  has 
no  lack  of  force  in  this ;  for  his  pride 
comes  to  assist  his  conscience.  Having 
chosen  himself  and  by  himself  the  route, 
he  would  blush  to  quit  it ;  he  rejects 
temptations  as  his  enemies  ;  he  feels 
that  he  is  fighting  and  conquering,* 
that  he  is  doing  a  difficult  thing,  that  he 
is  worthy  of  admiration,  that  he  is  a  man. 
Moreover,  he  rescues  himself  from  his 
capital  foe.  tedium,  and  satisfies  his  crav- 
ing for  action  ;  understanding  his  duties, 
he  employs  his  faculties  and  he  has  a 
purpose  in  life,  and  this  gives  rise  to 
associations,  endowments,  preachings ; 
and  finding  more  steadfast  souls,  and 
nerves  more  tightly  strung,  it  sends  them 
forth  without  causing  them  too  much 
suffering,  too  long  strife,  through  ridi- 
cule and  danger.  The  reflective  charac- 
ter of  the  man  has  given  a  moral  rule  ; 
the  militant  character  now  gives  moral 
force.  The  mind,  thus  directed,  is  more 
apt  than  any  other  to  comprehend  duty  ; 
the  will,  thus  armed,  is  more  capable 
than  any  other  of  performing  its  duty. 
This  is  the  fundamental  faculty  which 
is  found  in  all  parts  of  public  life,  con- 
cealed but  present,  like  one  of  those 
deep  primeval  rocks,  which,  lying  far 
iiJand,  give  to  all  undulations  of  the 
soil  a  basis  and  a  support. 

IV. 

This  faculty  gives  first  a  basis  and  a 
support  to  Protestantism,  and  it  is 
from  this  structure  of  mind  that  the 
Englishman  is  religious.  Let  us  find 
our  way  through  the  knotty  and  unin- 
viting bark.  Voltaire  laughs  at  it,  and 
iests  about  the  ranting  of  the  preach- 
ers and  the  austerity  of  the  faithful. 

*  "The  consciousness  of  silent  endurance,  so 
dear  to  every  Englishman,  of  standing  out 
against  something  and  not  giving  in." — Tom 
Brown's  School  Days. 


"  There  is  no  opera,  no  comedy,  no 
concert  on  a  Sunday  in  London ;  cards 
even  are  expres  sly  forbidden,  so  that 
only  persons  of  quality,  and  those  who 
are  called  respectable  people,  play  on 
that  day."  He  amuses  himself  at  the 
expense  of  the  Anglicans,  "  so  scrupu- 
lous in  collecting  their  tithes ; "  the 
Presbyterians,  "  who  look  as  if  they 
were  angry,  and  preach  with  a  strong 
nasal  accent ;  "  the  Quakers,  "  who  go 
to  church  and  wait  for  inspiration  with 
their  hats  on  their  heads."  But  is 
there  nothing  to  be  observed  but  these 
externals  ?  And  do  we  suppose  that 
we  are  acquainted  with  a  religion  be- 
cause we  know  the  details  of  formulary 
and  vestment  ?  There  is  a  common 
faith  beneath  all  these  sectarian  differ- 
ences :  whatever  be  the  form  of  Pro- 
testantism, its  object  and  result  are  the 
culture  of  the  moral  sense ;  that  is  why 
it  is  popular  in  England:  principles 
and  dogmas  all  make  it  suitable  to  the 
instincts  of  the  nation.  The  sentiment 
which  in  the  Protestant  is  the  source  of 
every  thing,  is  qualms  of  conscience  ; 
he  pictures  perfect  justice,  and  feels 
that  his  uprightness,  however  great, 
cannot  stand  before  that.  He  thinks 
of  the  Day  of  Judgment,  and  tells  him- 
self that  he  will  be  damned.  He  is 
troubled,  and  prostrates  himself;  he 
prays  God  to  pardon  his  sins  and  re- 
new his  heart.  He  sees  that  neither 
by  his  desires,  nor  his  deeds,  nor  by  any 
ceremony  or  institution,  nor  by  him- 
self, nor  by  any  creature,  can  he  de- 
serve the  one  or  obtain  the  other.  He 
betakes  himself  to  Christ,  the  one 
Mediator ;  he  prays  to  him,  he  feels 
his  presence,  he  finds  himself  justified 
by  his  grace,  elect,  healed,  transformed, 
predestinated.  Thus  understood,  relig- 
ion is  a  moral  revolution  ;  thus  simpli- 
fied, religion  is  only  a  moral  revolution. 
Before  this  deep  emotion,  metaphysics 
and  theology,  ceremonies  and  disci- 
pline, all  is  blotted  out  or  subordinate, 
and  Christianity  is  simply  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  heart.  Look  now  at  these 
men,  dressed  in  sombre  colors,  speak- 
ing through  the  nose  on  Sundays,  in  a 
box  of  dark  wood,  whilst  a  man  in 
bands,  "with  the  air  of  a  Cato,"  reads 
a  psalm.  Is  there  nothing  in  their 
heart  but  theological  "trash"  or  me- 
chanical phrases  ?  There  is  a  deep 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


395 


sentiment — veneration.  This  bare  Dis- 
senters' meeting-house,  this  simple 
service  and  church  of  the  Anglicans, 
leave  them  open  to  the  impression  of 
what  they  read  and  hear.  For  they 
do  hear,  and  they  do  read ;  prayer  in 
the  vulgar  tongue,  psalms  translated 
into  the  vulgar  tongue,  can  penetrate 
through  their  senses  to  their  souls. 
They  do  penetrate  ;  and  this  is  why 
they  have  such  a  collected  mien.  For 
the  race  is  by  its  very  nature  capable 
of  deep  emotions,  disposed  by  the  ve- 
hemence of  its  imagination  to  compre- 
hend the  grand  and  tragic;  and  the 
Bible,  which  is  to  them  the  very  word 
of  eternal  God,  provides  it.  I  know 
that  to  Voltaire  it  is  only  emphatic, 
unconnected,  ridiculous  ;  the  senti- 
ments with  which  it  is  filled  are  out  of 
harmony  with  French  sentiments.  In 
England  the  hearers  are  on  the  level 
of  its  energy  and  harshness.  The  cries 
of  anguish  or  admiration  of  the  solitary 
Hebrew,  the  transports,  the  sudden 
outbursts  of  sublime  passion,  the  de- 
sire for  justice,  the  growling  of  the 
thunder  and  the  judgments  of  God, 
shake,  across  thirty  centuries,  these 
biblical  souls.  Their  other  books  as- 
sist it.  The  Prayer  Book,  which  is 
handed  down  as  an  heirloom  with  the 
old  family  Bible,  speaks  to  all,  to  the 
dullest  peasant,  or  the  miner,  the  sol- 
emn accent  of  true  prayer.  The  new- 
born poetry,  the  reviving  religion  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  have  impressed 
their  magnificent  gravity  upon  it ;  and 
we  feel  in  it,  as  in  Milton  himself,  the 
pulse  of  the  twofold  inspiration  which 
then  lifted  a  man  out  of  himself  and 
raised  him  to  heaven.  Their  knees 
bend  when  they  listen  to  it.  That 
Confession  of  Faith,  these  collects  for 
the  sick,  for  the  dying,  in  case  of  pub- 
lic misfortune  or  private  grief,  these 
lofty  sentences  of  impassioned  and  sus- 
tarned  eloquence,  transport  a  man  to 
some  unknown  and  august  world.  Let 
the  fine  gentlemen  yawn,  mock,  and 
succeed  in  not  understanding:  I  am 
sure  that,  of  the  others,  many  are 
moved.  The  idea  of  dark  death  and 
of  the  limitless  ocean,  to  which  the 
poor  weak  soul  must  descend,  the 
thought  of  this  invisible  justice,  every- 
where present,  ever  foreseeing,  on 
which  the  changing  show  of  visible 


things  depends,  enligl  ten  them  with 
unexpected  flashes.  The  physical  world 
and  its  laws  seem  to  them  but  a  phan- 
tom and  a  figure  ;  they  see  nothing 
more  real  than  justice  ;  it  is  the  sum  of 
humanity,  as  of  nature.  This  is  the 
deep  sentiment  which  on  Sunday  closes 
the  theatre,  discourages  pleasures,  fills 
the  churches  ;  this  it  is  which  pierces 
the  breastplate  of  the  positive  spirit 
and  of  corporeal  dulness.  This  shop- 
keeper, who  all  the  week  has  been 
counting  his  bales  or  drawing  up  col- 
umns of  figures;  this  cattle-breeding 
squire,  who  can  only  bawl,  drink,  jump 
a  fence  ;  these  yeomen,  these  cottagers, 
who  in  order  to  amuse  themselves  draw 
blood  whilst  boxing,  or  vie  with  each 
other  in  grinning  through  a  horse-col- 
lar,— all  these  uncultivated  souls,  im- 
mersed in  material  life,  receive  thus 
from  their  religion  a  moral  life.  They 
love  it;  we  hear  it  in  the  yells  of  a 
mob,  rising  like  a  thunderstorm,  when 
a  rash  hand  touches  or  seems  to  touch 
the  Church.  We  see  it  in  the  sale  of 
Protestant  devotional  books  ;  the  /¥/- 
grimes  Progress  and  The  Whole  Duty 
of  Man  are  alone  able  to  force  their 
way  to  the  window-ledge  of  the  yeoman 
and  squire,  where  four  volumes,  their 
whole  library,  rest  amid  the  fishing- 
tackle.  We  can  only  move  the  men 
of  this  race  by  moral  reflections  and 
religious  emotions.  The  cooled  Puri- 
tan spirit  still  broods  underground, 
and  is  drawn  in  the  only  direction 
where  fuel,  air,  fire,  and  action  are  to 
be  found. 

We  obtain  a  glimpse  of  it  when  we 
look  at  the  sects.  In  France  Jansen- 
ists  and  Jesuits  seem  to  be  puppets 
of  another  century,  fighting  for  the 
amusement  of  this  age.  Here  Qua- 
kers, Independents,  Baptists  exist,  seri- 
ous, honored,  recognized  by  the  State, 
distinguished  by  their  able  writers, 
their  deep  scholars,  their  men  of  worth, 
their  founders  of  nations.  *  Their 
piety  causes  their  disputes  ;  it  is  be- 
cause they  will  believe,  that  they  dif- 
fer in  belief:  the  only  men  without 
religion  are  those  who  do  not  care  for 
religion.  A  motionless  faith  is  soon  a 
dead  faith  ;  and  when  a  man  becomes 
a  sectarian,  it  is  because  he  is  fervent. 
This  Christianity  lives  because  it  is  de- 
*  William  Perm. 


396 


veloped ;  \ve  see  the  sap,  always  flow- 
ing from  the  Protestant  inquiry  and 
faith,  re-enter  the  old  dogmas,  dried 
up  for  fifteen  hundred  years.  Voltaire, 
when  he  came  to  England,  was  sur- 
prised to  find  Arians,  and  amongst 
them  the  first  thinkers  in  England — 
Clarke,  Newton  himself.  Not  only 
dogma,  but  feeling,  is  renewed ;  be- 
yond the  speculative  Arians  were  the 
practical  Methodists  ;  behind  Newton 
and  Clarke  came  Whitefield  and  Wes- 
ley. 

No  history  more  deeply  illustrates 
the  English  character  than  that  of 
these  two  men.  In  spite  of  Hume  and 
Voltaire,  they  founded  a  monastical 
and  convulsionary  sect,  and  triumph 
through  austerity,  and  exaggeration, 
which  would  have  ruined  them  in 
France.  Wesley  was  a  scholar,  an 
Oxford  student,  and  he  believed  in  the 
devil;  he  attributes  to  him  sickness, 
nightmare,  storms,  earthquakes.  His 
family  heard  supernatural  noises ;  his 
father  had  been  thrice  pushed  by  a 
ghost ;  he  himself  saw  the  hand  of  God 
in  the  commonest  events  of  life.  One 
day  at  Birmingham,  overtaken  by  a 
hailstorm,  he  felt  that  he  received  this 
warning,  because  at  table  he  had  not 
sufficiently  exhorted  the  people  who 
dined  with  him;  when  he  had  to  de- 
termine on  any  thing,  he  opened  the 
Bible  at  random  for  a  text,  in  order  to 
decide.  At  Oxford  he  fasted  and 
wearied  himself  until  he  spat  blood, 
and  almost  died ;  at  sea,  when  he  de- 
parted for  America,  he  only  ate  bread, 
and  slept  on  deck;  he  lived  the  life  of 
an  apostle,  giving  away  all  that  he 
earned,  travelling  and  preaching  all 
the  year,  and  every  year,  till  the  age  of 
eighty-eight ;  *  it  has  been  reckoned 
that  he  gave  away  thirty  thousand 
pounds,  travelled  about  a  hundred 
thousand  miles,  and  preached  forty 
thousand  sermons.  What  could  such 
a  man  have  done  in  France  in  the 
eighteenth  century?  Here  he  was 
listened  to  and  followed,  at  his  death 
he  had  eighty  thousand  disciples  ;  now 

*  On  one  tour  he  slept  three  weeks  on  the 
bare  boards.  One  day,  at  three  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  said  to  Nelson,  his  companion : 
"  Brother  Nelson,  let  us  be  of  good  cheer,  I 
have  one  whole  side  yet ;  for  the  skin  is  off  but 
on  one  side." — Southey's  Life  of  Wesley,  2 
vols.,  1820,  li.  ch.  xv.  54. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


he  has  a  million.  The  qualms  of  con 
science,  which  forced  him  in  this  direc« 
tion,  compelled  others  to  follow  in  his 
footsteps.  Nothing  is  more  striking 
than  the  confessions  of  his  pr  iachers, 
mostly  low-born  and  laymen.  George 
Story  had  the  spleen,  dreamed  and 
mused  gloomily;  took  to  slandering 
himself  and  the  occupations  of  men. 
Mark  Bond  thought  himself  damned, 
because  when  a  boy  he  had  once  ut- 
tered a  blasphemy  ;  he  read  and  prayed 
unceasingly  and  in  vain,  and  at  last  in 
despair  he  enlisted,  with  the  hope  of 
being  killed.  John  Haime  had  visions, 
howled,  and  thought  he  saw  the  devil. 
Another,  a  baker,  had  scruples  because 
his  master  continued  to  bake  on  Sun- 
day, wasted  away  with  anxiety,  and 
soon  was  nothing  but  a  skeleton. 
Such  are  the  timorous  and  impas- 
sioned souls  which  become  religious 
and  enthusiastic.  They  are  numerous 
in  this  land,  and  on  them  doctrine  took 
hold.  Wesley  declares  that  "  A  string 
of  opinions  is  no  more  Christian  faith 
than  a  string  of  beads  is  Christian 
holiness.  It  is  not  an  assent  to  any 
opinion,  or  any  number  of  opinions." 
"This  justifying  faith  implies  not  only 
the  personal  revelation,  the  inward 
evidence  of  Christianity,  but  likewise  a 
sure  and  firm  confidence  in  the  indi- 
vidual believer  that  Christ,  died  for  his 
sin,  loved  him,  and  gave  his  life  for 
him"  *  "  By  a  Christian,  I  mean  one 
who  so  believes  in  Christ,  as  that  sin 
hath  no  more  dominion  over  him."  t 

The  faithful  feels  in  himself  the  touch 
of  a  superior  hand,  and  the  birth  of  an 
unknown  being.  The  old  man  has  dis- 
appeared, the  new  man  has  taken  his 
place,  pardoned,  purified,  transfigured, 
steeped  in  joy  and  confidence,  inclined 
to  good  as  strongly  as  he  was  once 
drawn  to  evil.  A  miracle  has  been 
wrought,  and  it  can  be  wrought  at  any 
moment,  suddenly,  under  any  circum- 
stances, without  warning.  Some  sin- 
ner, the  oldest  and  most  hardened,  with- 
out wishing  it,  without  having  dreamed 
of  it,  falls  down  weeping,  his  heart 
melted  by  grace.  The  hidden  thoughts, 
which  fermented  long  in  these  gloomy 
imaginations,  break  out  suddenly  into 
storms,  and  the  dull  brutal  mood  ia 

*  Southey's  Life  of  Wesley,  ii.  176. 
t  Ibid.  i.  251. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


397 


shaken  by  nervous  fits  which  it  had  not 
known  before.  Wesley,  Whitefield, 
and  their  preachers  went  all  over  Eng- 
land preaching  to  the  poor,  the  peas- 
ants, the  workmen  in  the  open  air, 
sometimes  to  a  congregation  of  twenty 
thousand  people.  "  The  fire  is  kindled 
in  the  country."  There  was  sobbing 
and  crying.  At  Kingswood,  White- 
field,  having  collected  the  miners,  a 
savage  race,  "saw  the  white  gutters 
made  by  the  tears  which  plentifully  fell 
down  from  their  black  cheeks,  black 
as  they  came  out  from  their  coal-pits."  * 
Some  trembled  and  fell  ;  others  had 
transports  of  joy,  ecstasies.  Southey 
writes  thus  of  Thomas  Olivers :  "  His 
heart  was  broken,  nor  could  he  express 
the  strong  desires  which  he  felt  for 

righteousness He  describes  his 

feelings  during  a  Te  Deum  at  the  ca- 
thedral, as  if  he  had  done  with  earth, 
and  was  praising  God  before  His 
throne."  f  The  god  and  the  brute,which 
each  man  carries  in  himself,  were  let 
loose  ;  the  physical  machine  was  upset ; 
emotion  was  turned  into  madness,  and 
the  madness  became  contagious.  An 
eye-witness  says : 

"At  Everton  some  were  shrieking,  some 
roaring  aloud.  .  .  .  The  most  general  was  a 
loud  breathing,  like  that  of  people  half  strangled 
and  gasping  for  life  ;  and,  indeed,  almost  all 
the  cries  were  like  those  of  human  creatures 
dying  in  bitter  anguish.  Great  numbers  wept 
without  any  noise ;  others  fell  down  as  dead. 
...  I  stood  upon  the  pew-seat,  as  did  a  young 
man  in  the  opposite  pew,  an  able-bodied,  fresh, 
healthy,  countryman,  but  in  a  moment,  when 
he  seemed  to  think  of  nothing  else,  down  he 
dropt,  with  a  violence  inconceivable.  ...  I 
heard  the  stamping  of  his  feet,  ready  to  break 
the  boards,  as  he  lay  in  strong  convulsions  at 
the  bottom  of  the  pew.  ...  I  saw  a  sturdy 
boy,  about  eight  years  old,  who  roared  above 
his  fellows  ;  ...  his  face  was  red  as  scarlet ; 
and  almost  all  on  whom  God  laid  his  hand, 
turned  either  very  red  or  almost  black."  * 

Elsewhere,  a  woman,  disgusted  with 
Ihis  madness,  wished  to  leave,  but  had 
only  gone  a  few  steps  when  she  fell 
into  as  violent  fits  as  others.  Conver- 
sions followed  these  transports ;  the 
converted  paid  their  debts,  forswore 
drunkenness,  read  the  Bible,  prayed, and 
went  about  exhorting  others.  Wesley 
collected  them  into  societies,  formed 
"  classes  "  for  mutual  examination  and 
edification,  submitted  spiritual  life  to  a 

*  Southey' s  Life  of  Wesley,  i.  ch.  vi.  236. 
t  Ibid.  ii.  ch.  xvii.  in.          \  Ibid.  xxiv.  320. 


methodic  discipline,  built  chapels,  chose 
preachers,  founded  schools,  organized 
enthusiasm.  To  this  day  his  disciples 
spend  very  large  sums  every  year  in 
missions  to  all  parts  of  the  world,  and 
on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Ohio  their  shoutings  repeat  the 
violent  enthusiasm  and  the  conversions 
of  primitive  inspiration.  The  same  in- 
stinct is  still  revealed  by  the  same 
signs ;  the  doctrine  of  grace  survives 
in  uninterrupted  energy,  and  the  race, 
as  in  the  sixteenth  century,  puts  its  po- 
etry into  the  exaltation  of  the  moral 
sense. 

V. 

A  sort  of  theological  smoke  covers 
and  hides  this  glowing  hearth  which 
burns  in  silence.  A  stranger  who,  at 
this  time,  had  visited  the  country, 
would  see  in  this  religion  only  a  chok- 
ing vapor  of  arguments,  controversies, 
and  sermons.  All  those  celebrated  di- 
vines and  preachers,  Barrow,  Tillotson, 
South,  Stillingfleet,  Sherlock,  Burnet, 
Baxter,  Barclay,  preached,  says  Addi- 
son,  like  automatons,  monotonously, 
without  moving  their  arms.  For  a 
Frenchman,  for  Voltaire,  who  did  read 
them,  as  he  read  every  thing,  what  a 
strange  reading  !  Here  is  Tillotson 
first,  the  most  authoritative  of  all,  a 
kind  of  father  of  the  church,  so  much 
admired  that  Dryden  tells  us  that  he 
learned  from  him  the  art  of  writing  well, 
and  that  his  sermons,  the  only  property 
which  he  left  his  widow,  were  bought 
by  a  publisher  for  two  thousand  five 
hundred  guineas.  This  work  has,  in 
fact,  some  weight ;  there  are  three  folio 
volumes,  each  of  seven  hundred!  pages. 
To  open  them,  a  man  must  be  a  critic 
by  profession,  or  be  possessed  by  an 
absolute  desire  to  be  saved.  And  now 
let  us  open  them.  "  The  Wisdom  oi 
being  Religious/' — such  is  his  first  ser- 
mon, much  celebrated  in  his  time,  and 
the  foundation  of  his  success : 

"  These  words  consist  of  two  propositions, 
which  are  not  distinct  in  sense  ;  ...  So  that 
they  differ  only  as  cause  and  effect,  which  by  a 
metonymy,  used  in  all  sorts  of  authors,  are  fre- 
quently put  one  for  another."  * 

This  opening  makes  us  uneasy.  Is  this 
great  orator  a  teacher  of  grammar  ? 

*  Tillotson's  Sermons^  10  vols.,  1760,  i.  i. 


393 


"  Having  thus  explained  the  words,  I  come 
now  to  consider  the  proposition  contained  in 
them,  which  is  this : 

"  That  religion  is  the  best  knowledge  and 
wisdom. 

"  This  I  shall  endeavour  to  make  good  these 
three  ways : — 

"  ist.  By  a  direct  proof  of  it ; 

"2ii.  By  shewing  on  the  contrary  the  folly 
and  ignorance  of  irreligion  and  wickedness  ; 

"  3Jr/.  By  vindicating  religion  from  those  com- 
mon imputations  which  seem  to  charge  it  with 
ignorance  or  imprudence.  I  begin  with  the 
direct  proof  of  this."  *  .... 
Thereupon  he  gives  his  divisions. 
What  a  heavy  demonstrator  !  We  are 
tempted  to  turn  over  the  leaves  only, 
and  not  to  read  them.  Let  us  examine 
his  forty-second  sermon:  "Against 
Evil-speaking :  " 

"  Firstly :  I  shall  consider  the  nature  of 
this  vice,  and  wherein  it  consists. 

"  Secondly  :  I  shall  consider  the  due  extent 
of  this  prohibition,  To  speak  evil  of  no  man. 

"  Thirdly:  I  shall  show  the  evil  of  this 
practice,  both  in  the  causes  and  effects  of  it. 

"  Fourthly :  I  shall  add  some  further  con- 
siderations to  dissuade  men  from  it. 

"  Fifthly :  I  shall  give  some  rules  and  direc- 
tions for  the  prevention  and  cure  of  it."  t 

What  a  style  !  and  it  is  the  same 
throughout.  There  is  nothing  lifelike  ; 
it  is  a  skeleton,  with  all  its  joints  coarse- 
ly displayed.  All  the  ideas  are  ticketed 
and  numbered.  The  schoolmen  were 
not  worse.  Neither  rapture  nor  vehe- 
mence ;  no  wit,  no  imagination,  no 
original  and  brilliant  idea,  no  philoso- 
phy ;  nothing  but  quotations  of  mere 
scholarship,  and  enumerations  from  a 
handbook.  The  dull  argumentive  rea- 
son comes  with  its  pigeon-holed  classi- 
fications upon  a  great  truth  of  the 
heart  or  an  impassioned  word  from  the 
Bible,  examines  it  "  positively  and  nega- 
tively," draws  thence  "  a  lesson  and  an 
encouragement,"  arranges  each  part 
under  its  heading,  patiently,  indefati- 
gably,  so  that  sometimes  three  whole 
sermons  are  needed  to  complete  the 
division  and  the  proof,  and  each  of 
them  contains  in  its  exordium  the 
methodical  abstract  of  all  the  points 
treated  and  the  arguments  supplied. 
Just  so  were  the  discussions  of  the  Sor- 
bonne  carried  on.  At  the  court  of 
Louis  XIV.  Tillotson  would  have  been 
taken  for  a  man  who  had  run  away  from 
a  seminary ;  Voltaire  would  have  called 
him  a  village  cure.  He  has  all  that  is 
necessary  to  shock  men  of  the  world, 

*  Tillotson's  Sermons,  i.  5.       t  Ibid,  iii,  2. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


nothing  to  attract  them.  For  he  does 
not  address  men  of  the  world,  but 
Christians ;  his  hearers  neither  need 
nor  desire  to  be  goaded  or  amused; 
they  do  not  ask  for  analytical  refine* 
ments,  novelties  in  matters  of  feeling. 
They  come  to  have  Scripture  explained 
to  them,  and  morality  demonstrated. 
The  force  of  their  zeal  is  only  mani- 
fested by  the  gravity  of  their  attention. 
Let  others  have  a  text  as  a  mere  pre- 
text ;  as  for  them,  they  cling  to  it :  it 
is  the  very  word  of  God,  they  cannot 
dwell  on  it  too  much.  They  must  have 
the  sense  of  every  word  hunted  o'ut,  the 
passage  interpreted  phrase  by  phrase, 
in  itself,  by  the  context,  by  parallel  pas- 
sages, by  the  whole  doctrine.  They  are 
willing  to  have  the  different  readings, 
translations,  interpretations  expound- 
ed ;  they  like  to  see  the  orator  become  a 
grammarian,  a  Hellenist,  a  scholiast. 
They  are  not  repelled  by  all  this  dust 
of  scholarship,  which  rises  from  the 
folios  to  settle  upon  their  countenance 
And  the  precept  being  laid  down,  they 
demanded  an  enumeration  of  all  the 
reasons  which  support  it ;  they  wish  to 
be  convinced,  carry  away  in  their  heads 
a  provision  of  good  approved  motives 
to  last  the  week.  They  came  there 
seriously,  as  to  their  counting-house  or 
their  field,  not  to  amuse  themselves 
but  to  do  some  work,  to  toil  and  dig 
conscientiously  in  theology  and  logic, 
to  amend  and  better  themselves.  They 
would  be  angry  at  being  dazzled.  Their 
great  sense,  their  ordinary  common 
sense,  is  much  better  pleased  with  cold 
discussions  ;  they  want  inquiries  and 
methodical  reports  of  morality,  as  if  it 
was  a  subject  of  export  and  import  du- 
ties, and  treat  conscience  as  port  wine 
or  herrings. 

In  this  Tillotson  is  admirable.  Doubt- 
less he  is  pedantic,  as  Voltaire  called 
him ;  he  has  all  <c  the  bad  manners 
learned  at  the  university  ;  "  he  has  not 
been  "polished  by  association  with 
women ;  "  he  is  not  like  the  French 
preachers,  academicians,  elegant  dis- 
coursers,  who  by  courtly  air,  a  well- 
delivered  Advent  sermon,  the  refine- 
ments of  a  purified  style,  earn  the  first 
vacant  bishopric  and  the  favor  of  good 
society.  But  he  writes  like  a  perfectly 
honest  man  ;  we  can  see  that  he  is  not 
aiming  in  any  way  at  the  glory  of  an 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


399 


orator ;  he  wishes  to  persuade  soundly, 
nothing  more.  We  enjoy  this  clear- 
ness, this  naturalness,  this  preciseness, 
this  entire  loyalty.  In  one  of  his  ser- 
mons he  says  : 

"  Truth  and  reality  have  all  the  advantages 
of  appearance,  and  many  more.  If  the  show  of 
anything  be  good  for  anything,  I  am  sure  sin- 
cerity is  better  ;  for  why  does  any  man  dissem- 
ble, or  seem  to  be  that  which  he  is  not,  but  be- 
cause he  thinks  it  good  to  have  such  a  quality 
as  he  pretends  to?  For  to  counterfeit  and  dis- 
semble, is  to  put  on  the  appearance  of  some 
real  excellency.  Now,  the  best  way  in  the 
world  for  a  man  to  seem  to  be  anything,  is 
really  to  be  what  he  would  seem  to  be.  Be- 
sidrs,  that  it  is  many  times  as  troublesome  to 
make  good  the  pretence  of  a  good  quality,  as 
to  have  it ;  and  if  a  man  have  it  not,  it  is  ten  to 
one  but  he  is  discovered  to  want  it,  and^then 
all  his  pains  and  labour  to  seem  to  have  it  are 
lost.  There  is  something  unnatural  in  paint- 
ing, which  a  skilful  eye  will  easily  discern 
from  native  beauty  and  complexion. 

"  It  is  hard  to  personate  and  act  a  part  long  ; 
for  where  truth  is  not  at  the  bottom,  nature 
will  always  be  endeavouring  to  return,  and 
will  peep  out  and  betray  herself  one  time  or 
other.  Therefore,  if  any  man  think  it  conve- 
nient to  seem  good,  let  him  be  so  indeed,  and 
then  his  goodness  will  appear  to  everybody's 
satisfaction  ;  ...  so  that,  upon  all  accounts, 
sincerity  is  true  wisdom."  * 

We  are  led  to  believe  a  man  who  speaks 
thus  ;  we  say  to  ourselves,  "  This  is 
true,  he  is  right,  we  must  do  as  he 
says."  The  impression  received  is 
moral,  not  literary ;  the  sermon  is  effi- 
cacious, not  rhetorical ;  it  does  not 
please,  it  leads  to  action. 

In  this  great  manufactory  of  morality, 
where  every  loom  goes  on  as  regularly  as 
its  neighbor,  with  a  monotonous  noise, 
we  distinguish  two  which  sound  louder 
and  better  than  the  rest — Barrow  and 
South.  Not  that  they  were  free  from 
dulness.  Barrow  had'  all  the  air  of  a 
college  pedant,  and  dressed  so  badly, 
that  one  day  in  Loi.don,  before  an  au- 
dience who  did  not  know  him,  he  saw 
almost  the  whole  congregation  at  once 
leave  the  church.  He  explained  the 
word  ev^apio-reii/  in  the  pulpit  with  all 
the  charm  of  a  dictionary,  commenting, 
translating,  dividing,  subdividing  like 
the  most  formidable  of  scholiasts,  t 

*  Tillotson's  Sermons,  iv.   15-16 ;    Sermon 

55,  "Of  Sincerity  towards  God   and    Man," 
ohn  i.  47.  This  was  the  last  sermon  Tillotson 
preached  ;  July  29,  1694.— TR. 

f  Barrow's  Theological  Works,  6  yols.  Ox- 
ford, 1818,  i.  141-142;  Sermon  viii.  "The 
Duty  of  Thanksgiving,"  Eph.  v.  20. 

'*  These  words,  although  (as  the  very  syntax 


caring  no  more  for  the  public  than  for 
himself;  so  that  once,  when  he  had 
spoken  for  three  hours  and  a  half  be- 
fore the  Lord  Mayor,  he  replied  to 
those  who  asked  him  if  he  was  not 
tired,  "  I  did,  in  fact,  begin  to  be  weary 
of  standing  so  long."  But  the  heart 
and  mind  were  so  full  and  so  rich,  that 
his  faults  became  a  power.  He  had  a 
geometrical  method  and  clearness,  * 
an  inexhaustible  fertility,  extraordinary 
impetuosity  and  tenacity  of  logic,  wri- 
ting the  same  sermon  three  or  four 
times  over,  insatiable  in  his  craving  to 
explain  and  prove,  obstinately  confined 
to  his  already  overflowing  thoughts, 
with  a  minuteness  of  division,  an  ex- 
actness of  connection,  a  superfluity  of 
explanations,  so  astonishing  that  ths 
attention  of  the  hearer  at  last  gives 
way ;  and  yet  the  mind  turns  with  the 
vast  engine,  carried  away  and  doubled 
up  as  by  the  rolling  weight  of  a  flatten- 
ing machine. 

Let  us  listen  to  his  sermon,  "  Of  the 
Love  of  God."  Never  was  a  more  co- 
pious and  forcible  analysis  seen  in 
England,  so  penetrating,  and  unweary- 
ing a  decomposition  of  an  idea  into  all 
its  parts,  a  more  powerful  logic,  more 
rigorously  collecting  into  one  network 
all  the  threads  of  a  subject : 

"  Although  no  such  benefit  or  advantage  can 
accrue  to  God,  which  may  increase  his  essen- 
tial and  indefectible  happiness  ;  no  harm  of 
damage  can  arrive  that  may  impair  it  (for  he 
can  be  neither  really  more  or  less  rich,  or 
glorious,  or  joyful  than  he  is  ;  neither  have 
our  desire  or  our  fear,  our  delight  or  our  grief, 
our  designs  or  our  endeavours  any  object,  any 


doth  immediately  discover)  they  bear  a  relation 
to,  and  have  a  fit  coherence  with,  those  that 
precede,  may  yet  (especially  considering  St. 
Paul's  style  and  manner  of  expression  in  the 
preceptive  and  exhortative  parts  of  his  Epis- 
tles), without  any  violence  or  prejudice  on 
either  hand,  be  severed  from  the  context,  and 
considered  distinctly  by  themselves.  .  .  .First, 
then,  concerning  the  duty  itself,  to  give  thanks, 
or  rather  to  be  thankful  (for  eu^aptcrreii'  doth 
not  only  signify gratias  agere,  reddere,  dicere, 
to  give,  render,  or  declare  thanks,  but  also 
gratias  habere,  grate  affectum  esse,  to  be 
thankfully  disposed,  to  entertain  a  grateful  af- 
fection, sense,  or  memory.  ...  I  say,  con- 
cerning this  duty  itself  (abstractedly  consid- 
ered), as  it  involves  a  respect  to  benefits  or 
good  things  received  ;  so  in  its  employment 
about  them  it  imports,  requires,  or  supposes 
these  following  particulars. 

*  He  was  a  mathematician  of  the  highest  or- 
der, and  had  resigned  his  chair  to  Newton. 


400 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


ground  in  those  respects);  yet  hath  he  de- 
clared, that  there  be  certain  interests  and  con- 
cernments, which,  out  of  his  abundant  good- 
ness and  condescension,  he  doth  tender  and 
prosecute  as  his  own  ;  as  if  he  did  really  re- 
ceive advantage  by  the  good,  and  prejudice  by 
the  bad  success,  respectively  belonging  to 
them  ;  that  he  earnestly  desires  and  is  greatly 
delighted  with  some  things,  very  much  dis- 
likes and  is  grievously  displeased  with  other 
things  :  for  instance,  that  he  bears  a  fatherly 
affection  towards  his  creatures,  and  earnestly 
desires  their  welfare  ;  and  delights  to  see  them 
enjoy  the  good  he  designed  them  ;  as  also  dis- 
likes the  contrary  events ;  doth  commiserate 
and  condole  their  misery ;  that  he  is  conse- 
quently well  pleased  when  piety  and  justice, 
peace  and  order  (the  chief  means  conducing  to 
pur  welfare)  do  flourish  ;  and  displeased,  when 
impiety  and  iniquity,  dissension  and  disorder 
(those  certain  sources  of  mischief  to  us)  do 
prevail  ;  that  he  is  well  satisfied  with  our  ren- 
dering to  him  that  obedience,  honour,  and  re- 
spect, which  are  due  to  him ;  and  highly  of- 
fended with  our  injurious  and  disrespectful  be- 
haviour toward  him,  in  the  commission  of  sin 
and  violation  of  his  most  just  and  holy  com- 
mandments ;  so  that  there  wants  not  sufficient 
matter  of  our  exercising  good- will  both  in  af- 
fection and  action  toward  God ;  we  are  capa- 
ble both  of  wishing  and  (in  a  manner,  as  he 
will  interpret  and  accept  it)  of  doing  good  to 
him,  by  our  concurrence  with  him  in  promo- 
ting those  things  which  he  approves  and  de- 
lights in,  and  in  removing  the  contrary."  * 

This  entanglement  wearies  us,  but 
what  a  force  and  dash  is  there  in  this 
well  considered  and  complete  thought ! 
Truth  thus  supported  on  all  its  founda- 
tions can  never  be  shaken.  Rhetoric  is 
absent.  There  is  no  art  here ;  the 
whole  oratorical  art  consists  in  the  de- 
sire thoroughly  to  explain  and  prove 
what  he  has  to  say.  He  is  even  un- 
studied and  artless ;  and  it  is  just  this 
ingenuousness  which  raises  him  to  the 
antique  level.  We  may  meet  with  an 
image  in  his  writings  which  seems  to 
belong  to  the  finest  period  of  Latin 
simplicity  and  dignity : 

"  The  middle,  we  may  observe,  and  the 
safest,  and  the  fairest,  and  the  most  conspicu- 
ous places  in  cities  are  usually  deputed  for  the 
erections  of  statues  and  monuments  dedicated 
to  the  memory  of  worthy  men,  who  have  nobly 
deserved  of  their  countries.  In  like  manner 
should  we  in  the  heart  and  centre  of  our  soul, 
in  the  best  and  highest  apartments  thereof,  in 
*ie  places  most  exposed  to  ordinary  obser- 
vation, and  most  secure  from  the  invasions 
of  worldly  care,  erect  lively  representations 
of,  and  lasting  memorials  unto,  the  divine 
bounty."  t 


*  Barrow's  Theological  Works,  i.,  Sermon 
xxiii.  500-501. 

t  Ibid.  \.  145  ;  Sermon  viii.,  "  The  Duty  of 
Thanksgiving,"  Eph.  v.  20. 


There  is  here  a  sort  of  effusion  of  grat- 
itude ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  sermon, 
when  we  think  him  exhausted,,  the  ex- 
pansion becomes  more  copious  by  the 
enumeration  of  the  unlimited  blessings 
amidst  which  we  move  like  fishes  in 
the  sea,  not  perceiving  them,  because 
we  are  surrounded  and  submerged  by 
them.  During  ten  pages  the  idea 
overflows  in  a  continuous  and  similar 
phrase,  without  fear  of  crowding  or 
monotony,  in  spite  of  all  rules,  so 
loaded  are  the  heart  and  imagination, 
and  so  satisfied  are  they  to  bring  and 
collect  all  nature  as  a  single  offering  : 

"To  him,  the  excellent  quality,  the  noble 
end,  the  most  obliging  manner  of  whose  benefi- 
cence doth  surpass  the  matter  thereof  and 
hugely  augment  the  benefits  :  who,  not  com- 
pelled by  any  necessity,  not  obliged  by  any  law 
(or  previous  compact),  not  induced  by  any  ex- 
trinsic arguments,  not  inclined  by  our  merits, 
not  weaned  with  our  importunities,  not  in- 
stigated by  troublesome  passions  of  pity, 
shame,  or  fear  (as  we  are  wont  to  be),  not  flat- 
tered with  promises  of  recompense,  nor  bribed 
with  expectation  of  emolument,  thence  to  ac- 
crue unto  himself ;  but  being  absolute  master 
of  his  own  actions,  only  both  lawgiver  and 
counsellor  to  himself,  all-sufficient,  and  incapa- 
ble of  admitting  any  accession  to  his  perfect 
blissfulness  ;  most  willingly  and  freely,  out  of 
pure  bounty  and  good-will,  is  our  Friend  and 
Benefactor ;  preventing  not  only  our  desires, 
but  our  knowledge ;  surpassing  not  our  deserts 
only,  but  our  wishes,  yea,  even  our  conceits,  in 
the  dispensation  of  his  inestimable  and  unre- 
quitable benefits  ;  having  no  other  drift  in  the 
collation  of  them,  beside  our  real  good  and 
welfare,  our  profit  and  advantage,  our  pleasure 
and  content."  * 

Zealous  energy  and  lack  of  taste; 
such  are  the  features  common  to  all 
this  eloquence.  Let  us  leave  this  ma- 
thematician, this  man  of  the  closet,  this 
antique  man,  who  proves  too  much 
and  is  too  eager,  and  let  us  look  out 
amongst  the  men  of  the  world  him  who 
was  called  the  wittiest  of  ecclesiastics, 
Robert  South,  as  different  from  Bar- 
row in  his  character  and  life  as  in  his 
works  and  his  mind  ;  armed  for  war, 
an  impassioned  royalist,  a  partisan  of 
divine  right  and  passive  obedience,  an 
acrimonious  controversialist,  a  defamer 
of  the  dissenters,  a  foe  to  the  Act  of 
Toleration,  who  never  avoided  in  his 
enmities  the  license  of  an  insult  or  a 
foul  word.  By  his  side  Father  Bri- 
daine,t  who  seems  so  coarse  to  the 

*  Barrow's  Theological  Works,   i.   159-160, 
Sermon  viii. 
t  Jacques  Bridaine  (1701-1767),  a  celebrated 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION'. 


401 


French,  was  polished.  His  sermons 
are  like  a  conversation  of  that  time ; 
and  we  know  in  what  style  they  con- 
versed men  in  England.  South  is  not 
afraid  to  use  any  popular  and  impas- 
sioned image.  He  sets  forth  little  vul- 
gar facts,  with  their  low  and  striking 
details.  He  never  shrinks,  he  never 
minces  matters ;  he  speaks  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people.  His  style  is 
anecdotic,  striking,  abrupt,  with  change 
of  tone,  forcible  and  clownish  ges- 
tures, with  every  species  of  original- 
ity, vehemence,  and  boldness.  He 
sneers  in  the  pulpit,  he  rails,  he 
plays  the  mimic  and  comedian.  He 
paints  his  characters  as  if  he  had  them 
before  his  eyes.  The  audience  will 
recognize  the  originals  again  in  the 
streets  ;  they  could  put  the  names  to 
his  portraits.  Read  this  bit  on  hypo- 
crites : 

"  Suppose  a  man  infinitely  ambitious,  and 
equally  spiteful  and  malicious  ;  one  who  poisons 
the  ears  of  great  men  by  venomous  whispers, 
and  rises  by  the  fall  of  better  men  than  him- 
self \  yet  if  he  steps  forth  with  a  Friday  look 
and  a  Lenten  face,  with  a  blessed  Jesu !  and  a 
mournful  ditty  for  the  vices  of  the  times  ;  oh  ! 
then  he  is  a  saint  upon  earth  :  an  Ambrose  or 
an  Augustine  (I  mean  not  for  that  earthly 
trash  of  book-learning  ;  for,  alas !  such  are 
above  that,  or  at  least  that's  above  them),  but 
for  zeal  and  for  fasting,  for  a  devout  elevation 
of  the  eyes,  and  a  holy  rage  against  other 
men's  sins.  And  happy  those  ladies  and  re- 
ligious dames,  characterized  in  the  zd  of 
Timothy,  ch;  iii.  6,  who  can  have  such  self- 
denying,  thriving,  able  men  for  their  confes- 
sors! and  thrice  happy  those  families  where 
they  vouchsafe  to  take  their  Friday  night's  re- 
freshments! and  thereby  demonstrate  to  the 
world  what  Christian  abstinence,  and  what 

Erimitive,  self-mortifying  rigor  there  is  in  for- 
earing  a  dinner,  that  they  may  have  the  bet- 
ter stomach  to  their  supper.  In  fine,  the  whole 
world  stands  in  admiration  of  them  ;  fools  are 
fond  of  them,  and  wise  men  are  afraid  of  them  ; 
they  are  talked  of,  they  are  pointed  at ;  and,  as 
they  order  the  matter,  they  draw  the  eyes  of 
all  men  after  them,  and  generally  someth  ng 
else."  * 

A  man  so  frank  of  speech  was  sure  to 
commend  frankness ;  he  has  done  so 
with  the  bitter  irony  the  brutality  of  a 

and  zealous  French  preacher,  whose  sermons 
were  always  extempore,  and  hence  not  very 
cultivated  and  refined  in  style. — TR. 

*  South' s  Sermons,  1715,  n  vols.,  vi.  no. 
The  fourth  and  last  discourse  from  those 
words  in  Isaiah  v.  20,  "Woe  unto  them  that 
call  evil  good  and  good  evil  ;  that  put  dark- 
ness for  light,  and  light  for  darkness  ;  that 
put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  f&r  bitter!  "— - 


Wycherley.  The  pulpit  had  the  plain- 
dealing  and  coarseness  of  the  stage ; 
and  in  this  picture  of  forcible,  honest 
men,  whom  the  world  considers  as  bad 
characters,  we  find  the  pungent  famil- 
iarity of  the  Plain  Dealer : 

"  Again,  there  are  some,  who  ha\  e  a  certain 
ill-natured  stiffness  (forsooth)  in  their  tongue, 
so  as  not  to  be  able  to  applaud  and  keep  pace 
with  this  or  that  self-admiring,  vain-glorious 
Thraso,  while  he  is  pluming  and  praising  him 
self,  and  telling  fulsome  stories  in  his  own  com- 
mendation for  three  or  four  hours  by  the  clock, 
and  at  the  same  time  reviling  and  throwing 
dirt  upon  all  mankind  besides. 

"  There  is  also  a  sort  of  odd  ill-natured  men, 
whom  neither  hopes  nor  fears,  frowns  nor  fa- 
vours, can  prevail  upon,  to  have  any  of  the 
cast,  beggarly,  forlorn  nieces  or  kinswomen  of 
any  lord  or  grandee,  spiritual  or  temporal, 
trumped  upon  them. 

'*  To  which  we  may  add  another  sort  of  ob- 
stinate ill-natured  persons,  who  afe  not  to  be 
brought  by  any  one's  guilt  or  greatness,  to 
speak  or  write,  or  to  swear  or  lie,  as  they  are 
bidden,  or  to  give  up  their  own  consciences  in 
a  compliment  to  those,  who  have  none  them- 
selves. 

"  And  lastly,  there  are  some,  so  extremely 
ill-natured,  as  to  think  it  very  lawful  and  al- 
lowable for  them  to  be  sensible  when  they  are 
injured  or  oppressed,  when  they  are  slandered 
in  their  good  names,  and  wronged  in  their  just 
interests  ;  and  withal,  to  dare  to  own  what  they 
find,  and  feel  without  being  such  beasts  of 
burden  as  to  bear  tamely  whatsoever  is  cast 
upon  them  ;  or  such  spaniels  as  to  lick  the  foot 
which  kicks  them,  or  to  thank  the  goodly  great 
one  for  doing  them  all  these  back  favours."  * 

In  this  eccentric  style  all  blows  tell ; 
we  might  call  it  a  boxing-match  in 
which  sneers  inflict  bruises.  But  see 
the  effect  of  these  churls'  vulgarities. 
We  issue  thence  with  a  soul  full  of 
energetic  feeling ;  we  have  seen  the 
very  objects,  as  they  are,  without  dis- 
guise ;  we  find  ourselves  battered,  but 
seized  by  a  vigorous  hand.  This  pul- 
pit is  effective;  and  indeed,  as  com- 
pared with  the  French  pulpit,  this  is 
its  characteristic.  These  sermons  have 
not  the  art  and  artifice,  the  propriety 
and  moderation  of  French  sermons ; 
they  are  not,  like  the  latter,  monu- 
ments of  style,  composition,  harmony, 
veiled  science,  tempered  imagination, 
disguised  logic,  sustained  good  taste, 
exquisite  proportion,  equal  to  the  nar- 
angues  of  the  Roman  forum  and  the 
Athenian  agora.  They  are  not  clas- 
sical. No,  they  are  practical.  A  big 
workman-like  shovel,  roughly  handled, 
and  encrusted  with  pedantic  rust,  was 
*  South's  Sermons,  vi.  nS. 


402 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  111 


necessary  to  dig  in  this  coarse  civiliza- 
tion. The  delicate  French  gardening 
would  have  done  nothing  with  it.  If 
Barrow  is  redundant,  Tillotson  heavy, 
South  vulgar,  the  rest  unreadable, 
they  are  all  convincing  ;  their  sermons 
are  not  models  of  elegance,  but  instru- 
ments of  edification.  Their  glory  is 
not  in  their  books,  but  in  their  works. 
They  have  framed  morals,  not  literary 
productions. 

VI. 

To  form  morals  is  not  all ;  there  are 
creeds  to  be  defended.  We  must  com- 
bat doubt  as  well  as  vice,  and  theology 
goes  side  by  side  with  preaching.  It 
abounds  at  this  moment  in  England. 
Anglicans,  Presbyterians,  Independ- 
ents, Quakers,  Baptists,  Antitrinita- 
rians,  wrangle  with  each  other,  "  as 
heartily  as  a  Jansenist  damns  a  Jes- 
uit," and  are  never  tired  of  forging 
weapons.  What  is  there  to  take  hold 
of  and  preserve  in  all  this  arsenal  ?  In 
France  at  least  theology  is  lofty ;  the 
fairest  flowers  of  mind  and  genius  have 
there  grown  over  the  briars  of  scho- 
lastics ;  if  the  subject  repels,  the  dress 
attracts.  Pascal  and  Bossuet,  Fene- 
lon  and  La  Bruyere,  Voltaire,  Dide- 
rot and  Montesquieu,  friends  and  ene- 
mies, all  have  scattered  their  wealth  of 
pearls  and  gold.  Over  the  threadbare 
woof  of  barren  doctrines  the  seven- 
teenth century  has  embroidered  a  ma- 
jestic stole  of  purple  and  silk ;  and  the 
eighteenth  century,  crumpling  and 
tearing  it,  scatters  it  in  a  thousand 
golden  threads  which  sparkle  like  a 
ball-dress.  But  in  England  all  is  dull, 
dry,  and  gloomy  ;  the  great  men  them- 
selves, Addison  and  Locke,  when  they 
meddle  in  the  defence  of  Christianity, 
become  flat  and  wearisome.  From 
Chillingworth  to  Paley,  apologies,  ref- 
utations, expositions,  discussions,  mul- 
tiply and  make  us  yawn  ;  they  reason 
well  and  that  is  all.  The  theologian 
enters  on  a  campaign  against  the  Pa- 
pists of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the 
Deists  of  the  eighteenth,*  like  a  tacti- 
cian by  rule,  taking  a  position  on  a 

f  *  I  thought  it  necessary  to  look  into  the  So- 
cinian  pamphlets,  which  have  swarmed  so  much 
among  us  within  a  few  years. — Stillingfleet  In 
Vindication  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity^ 
1697. 


;rinciple,  throwing  up  all  around  a 
reastwork  of  arguments,  covering 
every  thing  with  texts,  marching  calm- 
ly underground  in  the  long  shafts 
which  he  has  dug ;  we  approach  and 
see  a  sallow-faced  pioneer  creep  out, 
with  frowning  brow,  stiff  hands,  dirty 
clothes  ;  he  thinks  he  is  protected  from 
all  attacks ;  his  eyes,  glued  to  the 
ground,  have  not  seen  the  broad  level 
road  beside  his  bastion,  by  which  the 
enemy  will  outflank  and  surprise  him, 
A  sort  of  incurable  mediocrity  keeps 
men  like  him,  mattock  in  hand,  in  their 
trenches,  where  no  one  is  likely  to  pass. 
They  understand  neither  their  texts 
nor  their  formulas.  They  are  impo- 
tent in  criticism  and  philosophy. 
They  treat  the  poetic  figures  of  Scrip- 
ture, the  bold  style,  the  approximations 
to  improvisation,  the  mystical  Hebrew 
emotion,  the  subtilties  and  abstractions 
of  Alexandrian  metaphysics,  with  the 
precision  of  a  jurist  and  a  psycholo- 
ist.  They  wish  actually  to  make  of 
icripture  an  exact  code  of  prescrip- 
tions and  definitions,  drawn  up  by  a 
convention  of  legislators.  Open  the 
first  that  comes  to  hand,  one  of  the 
oldest — John  Hales.  He  comments 
on  a  passage  of  St.  Matthew,  where  a 
question  arises  on  a  matter  forbidden 
on  the  Sabbath.  What  was  this  ? 
"The  disciples  plucked  the  ears  of 
corn  and  did  eat  them."  *  Then  fol- 
low divisions  and  arguments  raining 
down  by  myriads,  t  Take  the  most 
celebrated  :  Sherlock,  applying  the  new 
psychology,  invents  an  explanation  of 
the  Trinity,  and  imagines  three  divine 
souls,  each  knowing  what  passes  in  the 
others.  Stillingfleet  refutes  Locke,  who 

*  John  Hales  of  Eaton,  Works,  3  vols,  12010, 
1765,  i.  4. 

t  He  examines,  amongst  other  things,  l<  the 
sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost."  They  would  very 
much  like  to  know  in  what  this  consists.  But 
nothing  is  more  obscure.  Calvin  and  other 
theologians  each  gave  a  different  definition. 
After  a  minute  dissertation,  Hales  concludes 
thus  :  "And  though  negative  proofs  from  Scrip- 
ture are  not  demonstrative,  yet  the  general  si- 
lence of  the  apostles  may  at  least  help  to  infer 
a  probability  that  the  blasphemy  against  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  not  committable  by  any  Chris- 
tian who  lived  not  in  the  time  of  our  Saviour" 
(1636).  This  is  a  training  for  argument.  So, 
in  Italy,  the  discussion  about  giving  drawers  to, 
or  withholding  them  from  the  Capuchins,  devel- 
oped political  and  diplomatic  ability. — Ibid 
i.  36. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


403 


thought  that  the  soul  in  the  resurec- 
tion,  though  having  a  body,  would  not 
perhaps  have  exactly  the  same  one  in 
which  it  had  lived.  Let  us  look  at  the 
most  illustrious  of  all,  the  learned 
Clarke,  a  mathematician,  philosopher, 
scholar,  theologian ;  he  is  busy  patch- 
ing up  Arianism.  The  great  Newton 
himself  comments  on  the  Apocalypse, 
and  proves  that  the  Pope  is  Antichrist. 
In  vain  have  these  men  genius  ;  as 
soon  as  they  touch  religion,  they  be- 
come antiquated,  narrow-minded ;  they 
make  no  way  ;  they  are  stubborn,  and 
obstinately  knock  their  heads  against 
the  same  obstacle.  They  bury  them- 
selves generation  after  generation,  in 
the  heriditary  hole  with  English  pa- 
tience and  conscientiousness,  whilst 
the  enemy  marches  by,  a  league  off. 
Yet  in  the  hole  they  argue;  they 
square  it,  round  it,  face  it  with  stones, 
then  with  bricks,  and  wonder  that,  not- 
withstanding all  these  expedients,  the 
enemy  marches  on.  I  have  read  a 
host  of  these  treatises,  and  I  have  not 
gleaned  a  single  idea.  We  are  an- 
noyed to  see  so  much  lost  labor,  and 
amazed  that,  during  so  many  genera- 
tions, people  so  virtuous,  zealous, 
thoughtful,  loyal,  well  read,  well  trained 
in  discussion,  have  only  succeeded  in 
filling  the  lower  shelves  of  libraries. 
We  muse  sadly  on  this  second  scholas- 
tic theology,  and  end  by  perceiving 
that  if  it  was  without  effect  in  the 
kingdom  of  science,  it  was  because  it 
only  strove  to  bear  fruit  in  the  king- 
dom of  action. 

All  these  speculative  minds  were  so 
in  appearance  only.  They  were  apolo- 
gists, and  not  inquirers.  They  busy 
themselves  with  morality,  not  with 
truth.*  They  would  shrink  from  treat- 
ing God  as  a  hypothesis,  and  the  Bible 
as  a  document.  They  would  see  a 
vicious  tendency  in  the  broad  impar- 
tiality of  criticism  and  philosophy. 

*  "  The  Scripture  is  a  book  of  morality,  and 
not  of  philosophy.  Everything  there  relates 
to  practice.  ...  It  is  evident,  from  a  cursory 
view  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  that  they 
are  miscellaneous  books,  some  parts  of  which 
are  history,  others  writ  in  a  poetical  style,  and 
others  prophetical  ;  but  the  design  of  them  all, 
is  professedly  to  recommend  the  practice  of  true 
religion  and  virtue."— John  Clarke,  Chaplain 
of  the  King,  1721.  [I  have  not  been  able  to 
find  these  exact  words  in  the  edition  of  Clarke 
accessible  to  me. — TR.] 


They  would  have  scruples  of  con- 
science if  they  indulged  in  free  inquiry 
without  limitation.  In  reality  there  is 
a  sort  of  sin  in  truly  free  inquiry,  be- 
cause it  presupposes  skepticism,  aban 
dons  reverence,  weighs  good  and  evil 
in  the  same  balance,  and  equally  re- 
ceives all  doctrines,  scandalous  or 
edifying,  as  soon  as  they  are  proved. 
They  banish  these  dissolving  specu- 
lations ;  they  look  on  them  as  occupa- 
tions of  the  slothful  ;  they  seek  from 
argument  only  motives  and  means  for 
right  conduct.  They  do  not  love  it  for 
itself ;  they  repress  it  as  soon  as  it 
strives  to  become  independent ;  they 
demand  that  reason  shall  be  Christian 
and  Protestant ;  they  would  give  it  the 
lie  under  any  other  form  :  they  reduce 
it  to  the  humble  position  of  a  handmaid, 
and  set  over  it  their  own  inner  biblical 
and  utilitarian  sense.  In  vain  did  free- 
thinkers arise  in  the  beginning  of  the 
century ;  forty  years  later  they  were 
drowned  in  forgetfulness.*  Deism  and 
atheism  were  in  England  only  a  tran- 
sient eruption  developed  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  social  body,  in  the  bad  air 
of  the  great  world  and  the  plethora  of 
native  energy.  Professed  irreligious 
men,  Toland,  Tindal,  Mandeville,  Bo- 
lingbroke,  met  foes  stronger  than  them- 
selves. The  leaders  of  experimental 
philosophy,!  the  most  learned  and 
accredited  of  the  scholars  of  the  age,{ 
the  most  witty  authors,  the  most  beloved 
and  able,§  all  the  authority  of  science 
and  genius  was  employed  in  putting 
them  down.  Refutations  abound. 
Every  year,  on  the  foundation  of  Robert 
Boyle,  men  noted  for  their  talent  or 
knowledge  come  to  London  to  preach 
eight  sermons,  for  proving  the  Chris- 
tian religion  against  notorious  infidels, 
viz.,  atheists,  deists,  pagans,  Moham- 
medans, and  Jews.  And  these  apolo- 
gies are  solid,  able  to  convince  a  liberal 
mind,  infallible  for  the  conviction  of  a 
moral  mind.  The  clergymen  who  w  ite 
them,  Clarke,  Bentley,  Law,  Watt, 
Warburton,  Butler,  are  not  below  the 
lay  science  and  intellect.  Moreover, 
the  lay  element  assists  them.  Addison 

*  Burke,  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in 
France. 

t  Ray,  Boyle,  Barrow,  Newton. 

J  Bentley,  Clarke,  Warburton,  Berkeley. 

§  Locke,  Addison,  Swift,  Johnson,  Richard 
son. 


404 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BooK  III. 


writes  the  Evidences  of  Christianity, 
Locke  the  Reasonableness  of  Christi- 
anity, Ray  the  Wisdom  of  God  mani- 
fested in  the  Works  of  the  Creation. 
Over  and  above  this  concert  of  serious 
words  is  heard  a  ringing  voice  :  Swift 
compliments  with  his  terrible  irony  the 
elegant  rogues  who  entertained  the 
wise  idea  of  abolishing  Christianity.  If 
they  had  been  ten  times  more  numer- 
ous they  would  not  have  succeeded,  for 
they  had  nothing  to  substitute  in  its 
place.  Lofty  speculation,  which  alone 
could  take  the  ground,  was  shown  or 
declared  to  be  impotent.  On  all  sides 
philosophical  conceptions  dwindle  or 
come  to  nought.  If  Berkeley  lighted 
on  one,  the  denial  of  matter,  it  stands 
alone,  without  influence  on  the  public, 
as  it  were  a  theological  coup  d'etat, 
like  a  pious  man  who  wants  to  under- 
mine immorality  and  materialism  at 
their  basis.  Newton  attained  at  most 
an  incomplete  idea  of  space,  and  was 
only  a  mathematician.  Locke,  almost 
as  poor,*  gropes  about,  hesitates,  does 
little  more  than  guess,  doubt,  start  an 
opinion  to  advance  and  withdraw  it  by 
turns,  not  seeing  its  far-off  consequen- 
ces, nor,  above  all,  exhausting  any 
thing.  In  short,  he  forbids  himself 
lofty  questions,  and  is  very  much  in- 
clined to  forbid  them  to  us.  He  has 
written  a  book  to  inquire  what  objects 
are  within  our  reach,  or  above  our  com- 
prehension. He  seeks  for  our  limita- 
tions ;  he  soon  finds  them,  and  troubles 
himself  no  further.  Let  us  shut  our- 
selves in  our  own  little  domain,  and 
work  there  diligently.  Our  business  in 
this  world  is  not  to  know  all  things,  but 
those  which  regard  the  conduct  of  our 
life.  If  Hume,  more  bold,  goes  fur- 
ther, it  is  in  the  same  track :  he  pre- 
serves nothing  of  lofty  science ;  he 
abolishes  speculation  altogether.  Ac- 
cording to  him,  we  know  neither  sub- 
stances, causes,  nor  laws.  When  we 
affirm  that  an  object  is  conjoined  to 
another  object,  it  is  because  we  choose, 
by  custom  ;  "  all  events  seem  entirely 
loose  and  separate."  If  we  give  them 
"  a  tie,"  it  is  our  imagination  which 
creates  it ;  t  there  is  nothing  true  but 

*  "  Paupertina  philosophia,"  says  Leibnitz. 

t  After  the  constant  conjunction  -  •:  two  ob- 
jects— heat  and  flame,  for  instance,  weight  and 
solidity — we  are  determined  by  custom  alone  to 
expect  the  oue  from  the  appearance  of  the  other. 


doubt,  and  even  we  must  doubt  this. 
The  conclusion  is,  that  we  shall  do  well 
to  purge  our  mind  of  all  theory,  and 
only  believe  in  order  that  we  may  act 
Let  us  examine  our  wings  only  in  or 
der  to  cut  them  off,  and  let  us  confine 
ourselves  to  walking  with  our  legs. 
So  finished  a  pyrrhonism  serves  only 
to  cast  the  world  back  upon  established 
beliefs.  In  fact,  Reid,  being  honest, 
is  alarmed.  He  sees  society  broken 
up,  God  vanishing  in  smoke,  the  family 
evaporating  in  hypotheses.  He  objects 
as  a  father  of  a  family,  a  good  citizen, 
a  religious  man,  and  sets  up  common 
sense  as  a  sovereign  judge  of  truth. 
Rarely,  I  think,  in  this  world  has  specu- 
lation fallen  lower.  Reid  does  not 
even  understand  the  systems  which  he 
discusses  ;  he  lifts  his  hands  to  heaven 
when  he  tries  to  expound  Aristotle  and 
Leibnitz.  If  some  municipal  body 
were  to  order  a  system,  it  would  be 
this  churchwarden-philosophy.  In  re- 
ality the  men  of  this  country  did  not 
care  for  metaphysics ;  to  interest  them 
it  must  be  reduced  to  psychology. 
Then  it  becomes  a  science  of  observa- 
tion, positive  and  useful,  like  botany  ; 
still  the  best  fruit  which  they  pluck 
from  it  is  a  theory  of  moral  sentiments, 
In  this  domain  Shaftesbury,  Hutche- 
son,  Price,  Smith,  Ferguson,  and  Hume 
himself  prefer  to  labor ;  here  they 
find  their  most  original  and  durable 
ideas.  On  this  point  the  public  instinct 
is  so  strong,  that  it  enrols  the  most  in- 
dependent minds  in  its  service,  and 
only  permit  them  the  discoveries  which 
benefit  it.  Except  two  or  three,  chiefly 
purely  literary  men,  and  who  are 
French  or  Frenchified  in  mind,  they 
busy  themselves  only  with  morals. 
This  idea  rallies  round  Christianity  all 
the  forces  which  in  France  Voltaire 
ranges  against  it.  They  all  defend  it 
on  the  same  ground — as  a  tie  for  civil 
society,  and  as  a  support  for  private 
virtue.  Formerly  instinct  supported 
it ;  now  opinion  consecrates  it ;  and  it  - 

All  inferences  from  experience  are  effects  of 
custom,  not  of  reasoning.  ...  "  Upon  the 
whole,  there  appears  not,  throughout  all  na- 
ture, any  one  instance  of  connection  which  is 
conceivable  by  us.  All  events  seem  entirely 
loose  and  separate  ;  one  event  follows  another  ; 
but  we  can  never  observe  any  tie  between  them. 
They  seem  conjoined,  but  never  connected." — 
Hume's  Essays,  4  vols.  1760,  iii.  117. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


405 


is  the  same  secret  force  which,  by  a 
gradual  labor,  at  present  adds  the 
weight  of  opinion  to  the  pressure  of  in- 
stinct. Moral  sense,  having  preserved 
for  it  the  fidelity  of  the  lower  classes, 
conquered  for  it  the  approval  of  the  lof- 
tier intellects.  Moral  sense  transfers  it 
from  the  public  conscience  to  the  lit- 
erary world,  and  from  being  popular 
makes  it  official. 

VII. 

We  would  hardly  suspect  this  public 
tendency  after  taking  a  distant  view  of 
the  English  constitution;  but  on  a 
closer  view  it  is  the  first  thing  we  see. 
It  appears  to  be  an  aggregate  of  privi- 
leges, that  is,  of  sanctioned  injustices. 
The  truth  is,  that  it  is  a  body  of  con- 
tracts, that  is,  of  recognized  rights. 
Every  one,  great  or  small,  has  its  own, 
which  he  defends  with  all  his  might. 
My  lands,  my  property,  my  chartered 
right,  whatsoever  it  be,  antiquated,  in- 
direct, superfluous,  individual,  public, 
none  shall  touch  it,  king,  lords,  or  com- 
mons. Is  it  of  the  value  of  five  shil- 
lings ?  I  will  defend  it  as  if  it  were 
worth  a  million  sterling  ;  it  is  my  person 
which  they  would  attack.  I  will  leave 
my  business,  lose  my  time,  throw  away 
my  money,  form  associations,  pay  fines, 
go  to  prison,  perish  in  the  attempt ;  no 
matter;  I  shall  show  that  I  am  no 
coward,  that  I  will  not  bend  under  in- 
justice, that  I  will  not  yield  a  portion 
of  my  right. 

By  this  sentiment  Englishmen  have 
conquered  and  preserved  publicliberty. 
This  feeling,  after  they  had  dethroned 
Charles  I.  and  James  II.,  is  shaped  into 
principles  in  the  declaration  of  1689,  and 
is  developed  by  Locke  in  demonstra- 
tions.* "  All  men,"  says  Locke,  "  are 
naturally  in  a  state  of  perfect  freedom, 

*  We  must  read  Sir  Robert  Filmer's  Pa- 
triarchy London,  1680,  on  the  prevailing 
theory,  in  order  to  see  from  what  quagmire  of 
follies  people  emerged.  He  said  that  Adam,  on 
his  creation,  had  received  an  absolute  and  regal 
power  over  the  universe  ;  that  in  every  society 
of  men  there  was  one  legitimate  king,  the  direct 
heir  of  Adam.  "  Some  say  it  was  by  lot,  and 
others  that  Noah  sailed  round  the  Mediterra- 
nean in  ten  years,  and  divided  the  world  into 
Asia,  Africa,  and  Europe  "  (p.  15) — portions 
for  his  three  sons.  Compare  Bossuet,  Politique 
fondle  sur  V Ecriture.  At  this  epoch  moral 
science  was  being  emancipated  from  theology. 


also  of  equality."  *  "  In  the  State  of  Na« 
ture  every  one  has  the  Executive  power 
of  the  Law  of  Nature,"  t  i.e.  of  judg 
ing,  punishing,  making  war,  ruling  his 
family  and  dependents.  "  There  only 
is  political  society  where  every  one  ol 
the  members  hath  quitted  this  natural 
Power,  resign'd  it  up  into  the  Hands 
of  the  Community  in  all  Cases  that 
exclude  him  not  from  appealing  for 
Protection  to  the  Law  established  by 
it"  | 

"  Those  who  are  united  into  one  body  and 
have  a  common  established  law  and  judicature 
to  appeal  to,  with  authority  ...  to  punish  of- 
fenders, are  in  civil  society  one  with  another. § 
As  for  the  ruler  (they  are  ready  to  tell  you),  he 
ought  to  be  absolute.  .  .  .  Because  he  has 
power  to  do  more  hurt  and  wrong,  'tis  right 
when  he  does  it.  ...  This  is  to  think,  that 
men  are  so  foolish,  that  they  take  care  to  avoid 
what  mischiefs  may  be  done  them  by  polecats 
or  foxes  ;  but  are  content,  nay  think  it  safety, 
to  be  devoured  by  lions.  ||  The  only  way 
whereby  any  one  divests  himself  of  his  natural 
liberty,  and  puts  on  the  bonds  of  civil  society, 
is  by  agreeing  with  other  men  to  join  and  unite 
into  a  community,  for  their  comfortable,  safe, 
and  peaceable  living  one  amongst  another,  in  a 
secure  enjoyment  of  their  properties,  and  a 
greater  security  against  any,  that  are  not  of 
it."  H" 

Umpires,  rules  of  arbitration,  this  is 
all  which  their  federation  can  impose 
upon  them.  They  are  freemen,  who, 
having  made  a  mutual  treaty,  are  still 
free.  Their  society  does  not  found, 
but  guarantees  their  rights.  And 
official  acts  here  sustain  abstract  theory. 
When  Parliament  declares  the  throne 
vacant,  its  first  argument  is,  that  the 
king  has  violated  the  original  contract 
by  which  he  was  king.  When  the 
Commons  impeach  Sacheverell.  it  was 
in  order  publicly  to  maintain  that  the 
constitution  of  England  was  founded 
on  a  contract,  and  that  the  subjects  of 
this  kingdom  have,  in  their  different 
public  and  private  capacities,  as  legal 
a  title  to  the  possession  of  the  rights 
accorded  to  them  by  law,  as  the  prince 
has  to  the  possession  of  the  crown. 
When  Lord  Chatham  defended  the 
election  of  Wilkes,  it  was  by  laying 
down  that  the  rights  of  the  greatest  and 
of  the  meanest  subjects  now  stand 
upon  the  same  foundation,  the  security 

*  Locke,  Of  Civil  Government,  1714,  book 
ii.  ch.  ii.  §  4. 

t  Ibid.  §  13.  %  Ibid.  ii.  ch.  vii.  §  87. 

§  Ibid.  ||  Ibid.  ii.  ch.  vii.  §  93. 

TT  Ibid.  ii.  ch.  viii.  §  95. 


4o6 


of  law  common  to  all.  .  .  .  When  the 
people  had  lost  their  rights,  those  of 
of  the  peerage  would  soon  become  in- 
significant. It  was  no  supposition  or 
philosophy  which  founded  them,  but 
an  act  and  deed,  Magna  Charta,  the 
Petition  of  Rights,  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act,  and  the  whole  body  of  the  statute 
laws. 

1'hese  rights  are  there,  inscribed  on 
parchments,  stored  up  in  archives, 
signed,  sealed,  authentic  ;  those  of  the 
farmer  and  prince  are  traced  on  the 
same  page,  in  the  same  ink,  by  the 
same  writer  ;  both  are  on  an  equality 
on  this  vellum  ;  the  gloved  hand  clasps 
the  horny  palm.  What  though  they 
are  unequal  ?  It  is  by  mutual  accord  ; 
the  peasant  is  as  much  a  master  in 
his  cottage,  with  his  rye-bread  and  his 
nine  shillings  a  week,*  as  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough  in  Blenheim  Castle,  with 
his  many  thousands  a  year  in  places 
and  pensions. 

There  they  are,  these  men,  standing 
erect  and  ready  to  defend  themselves. 
Pursue  this  sentiment  of  right  in  the 
details  of  political  life;  the  force  of 
brutal  temperament  and  concentrated 
or  savage  passions  provides  arms.  If 
we  go  to  an  election,  the  first  thing  we 
see  is  the  full  tables.!  They  cram 
themselves  at  the  candidate's  expense  : 
ale,  gin,  brandy  are  set  flowing  without 
concealment  ;  the  victuals  descend  into 
their  electoral  stomachs,  and  their 
faces  grow  red.  At  the  same  time 
they  become  furious.  "  Every  glass 
they  pour  down  serves  to  increase  their 
animosity.  Many  an  honest  man,  be- 
fore as  harmless  as  a  tame  rabbit, 
when  loaded  with  a  single  election  din- 
ner, has  become  more  dangerous  than 
a  charged  culverin."  J  The  wrangle 
turns  into  a  fight,  and  the  pugnacious 

*  De  Foe's  estimate. 

t  "  Their  eating,  indeed,  amazes  me  ;  had  I 
five  hundred  heads,  and  were  each  head  fur- 
nished with  brains,  yet  would  they  all  be  in- 
sufficient to  compute  the  number  of  cows,  pigs, 
eese,  and  turkies  which  upon  this  occasion  die 
or  the  good  of  their  country!  .  .  .  On  the 
contrary,  they  seem  to  lose  their  temper  as  they 
lose  their  appetites  ;  every  morsel  they  swallow 
serves  to  increase  their  animosity.  .  .  .  The 
mob  meet  upon  the  debate,  fight  themselves 
sober,  and  then  draw  off  to  get  drunk  again, 
and  charge  for  another  encounter."  —  Gold- 
smith's Citizen  of  the  World,  Letter  cxii., 
"  An  Election  described."  See  also  Hogarth's 
prints.  %  Ibid. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


g 
fo 


instinct,  once  loosed,  craves  for  blows, 
The  candidates  bawl  against  each 
other  till  they  are  hoarse.  They  are 
chaired,  to  the  great  peril  of  then 
necks ;  the  mob  yells,  cheers,  grow? 
warm  with  the  motion,  the  defiance> 
the  row  ;  big  words  of  patriotism  peal 
out,  anger  and  drink  inflame  their 
blood,  fists  are  clenched,  cudgels  are 
at  work,  and  bulldog  passions  regulate 
the  greatest  interests  of  the  country. 
Let  all  beware  how  they  draw  these 
passions  down  on  their  heads  :  Lords. 
Commons,  King,  they  will  spare  nc 
one  and  when  Government  would  op- 
press a  man  in  spite  of  them,  they  will 
compel  Government  to  suppress  their 
own  law. 

They  are  not  to  be  muzzled,  they 
make  that  a  matter  of  pride.  With 
them,  pride  assists  instinct  in  defending 
the  right.  Each  feels  that  '•  his  house 
in  his  castle,"  and  that  the  law  keeps 
guard  at  his  door.  Each  tells  himself 
that  he  is  defended  against  private  in- 
solence, that  the  public  arbitrary  power 
will  never  touch  him,  that  he  has  "  his 
body,"  and  can  answer  blows  by  blows, 
wounds  by  wounds,  that  he  will  be 
judged  by  an  impartial  jury  and  a  law 
common  to  all.  "  Even  if  an  English- 
man," says  Montesquieu,  "  has  as  many 
enemies  as  hairs  on  his  head,  nothing 
will  happen  to  him.  The  laws  there 
were  not  made  for  one  more  than  for  an- 
other; each  looks  on  himself  as  a 
king,  and  the  men  of  this  nation  are 
more  confederates  than  fellow-citi- 
zens." This  goes  so  far,  "  that  there 
is  hardly  a  day  when  some  one  does 
not  lose  respect  for  the  king.  Lately 
my  Lady  Bell  Molineux,  a  regular 
virago,  sent  to  have  the  trees  pulled 
up*  from  a  small  piece  of  land  which 
the  queen  had  bought  for  Kensington, 
and  went  to  law  with  her,  without  hav- 
ing wished,  under  any  pretext,  to  come 
to  terms  with  her ;  she  made  the 
queen's  secretary  wait  three  hours."  * 
"  When  Englishmen  come  to  France, 
they  are  deeply  astonished  to  see  the 
sway  of  '  the  king's  good  pleasure,1 
the  Bastile,  the  lettres  de  cachet ;  a 
gentleman  who  dare  not  live  on  his  es- 
tate in  the  country,  for  fear  of  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  province  ;  a  groom  of  th? 
king's  chamber,  who,  for  a  cut  with  thf 

*  Montesquieu,  Notes  sur  FA  ngltterre. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


407 


razor,  kills  a  poor  barber  with  impu- 
nity." *  In  England,  "  one  man  does 
not  fear  another."  If  we  converse 
with  any  of  them,  we  will  find  how 
greatly  this  security  raises  their  hearts 
and  courage.  A  sailor  who  rows  Vol- 
taire about,  and  may  be  pressed  next 
day  into  the  fleet,  prefers  his  condition 
to  that  of  the  Frenchman,  and  looks 
on  him  with  pity,  whilst  taking  his  five 
shillings.  The  vastness  of  their  pride 
breaks  forth  at  every  step  and  in 
every  page.  An  Englishman,  says 
Chesterfield,  thinks  himself  equal  to 
beating  three  Frenchmen.  They  would 
willingly  declare  that  they  are  in  the 
herd  of  men  as  bulls  in  a  herd  of  cat- 
tle. We  hear  them  bragging  of  their 
boxing,  of  their  meat  and  ale,  of  all 
that  can  support  the  force  and  energy 
of  their  virile  will.  Roast-beef  and 
beer  make  stronger  arms  than  cold 
water  and  frogs.t  In  the  eyes  of  the 
vulgar,  the  French  are  starved  wig- 
makers,  papists,  and  serfs,  an  inferior 
kind  of  creatures,  who  can  neither  call 
their  bodies  nor  their  souls  their  own, 
puppets  and  tools  in  the  hands  of  a 
master  and  a  priest.  As  for  them- 
selves, 

"  Stern  o'er    each    bosom  reason  holds  her 

^  state m 

With  daring  aims  irregularly  great. 
Pride  in  their  port,  defiance  in  their  eye, 
I  see  the  lords  of  human-kind  pass  by  ; 
Intent  on  high  designs,  a  thoughtful  band, 
By  forms  unfashion'd,  fresh  from  nature's 

hand, 

Fierce  in  their  native  hardiness  of  soul, 
True  to  imagin'd  right,  above  control, 
While  even  the  peasant  boasts  these  rights 

to  scan, 
And  learns  to  venerate  himself  as  man."  $ 

Men  thus  constituted  can  become 
impassioned  in  public  concerns,  Jfor 
they  are  their  own  concerns  ;  in  France, 
they  are  only  the  business  of  the  king 
and  of  Madame  de  Pompadour.  §  In 
England,  political  parties  are  as  ardent 
as  sects :  High  Church  and  Low 
Church,  capitalists  and  landed  pro- 
prietors, court  nobility  and  county 
families,  they  have  their  dogmas,  their 
theories,  their  manners,  and  their  ha- 

*  Smollett,  Peregrine  Pickle^  ch.  40. 

t  See  Hogarth's  prints. 

%  Goldsmith's  Traveller. 

§  Chesterfield  observes  that  a  Frenchman  of 
his  time  did  not  understand  the  word  Country  ; 
you  must  speak  to  him  of  his  Prince. 


treds,  like  Presbyterians,  Anglicans, 
and  Quakers.  The  country  squire 
rails,  over  his  wir  e,  at  the  House  of 
Hanover,  drinks  to  the  king  over  the 
water ;  the  Whig  in  London,  on  the 
3Oth  of  January,  drinks  to  the  man  in 
the  mask,*  and  then  to  the  man  who 
will  do  the  same  thing  without  a  mask. 
They  imprisoned,  exiled,  beheaded 
each  other,  and  Parliament  resounded 
daily  with  the  fury  of  their  animadver- 
sions. Political,  like  religious  life, 
wells  up  and  overflows,  and  its  out- 
bursts only  mark  the  force  of  the  flame 
which  nourishes  it.  The  passion  of 
parties,  in  state  affairs  as  in  matters  of 
belief,  is  a  proof  of  zeal ;  constant 
quiet  is  only  general  indifference  ;  and 
if  people  fight  at  elections,  it  is  be- 
cause they  take  an  interest  in  them. 
Here  "a  tiler  had  the  newspaper 
brought  to  him  on  the  roof  that  he 
might  read  it."  A  stranger  who  reads 
the  papers  "  would  think  the  country 
on  the  eve  of  a  revolution."  When 
Government  takes  a  step,  the  public 
feels  itself  involved  in  it;  its  honor 
and  its  property  are  being  disposed  of 
by  the  minister ;  let  the  minister  be- 
ware if  he  disposes  of  them  ill.  With 
the  French,  M.  de  Conflans,  who  lost 
his  fleet  through  cowardice,  is  pun- 
ished by  an  epigram ;  here,  Admiral 
Byng,  who  was  too  prudent  to  risk  his, 
was  shot.  Every  man  in  his  due  posi- 
tion, and  according  to  his  power,  takes 
part  in  public  business :  the  mob 
broke  the  heads  of  those  who  would 
not  drink  Dr.  SacheverelPs  health ; 
gentlemen  came  in  mounted  troops  to 
meet  him.  Some  public  favorite  or 
enemy  is  always  exciting  open  demon- 
strations. One  day  it  is  Pitt  whom 
the  people  cheer,  and  on  whom  the 
municipal  corporations  bestow  many 
gold  boxes;  another  day  it  is  Gren 
ville,  whom  people  go  to  hiss  when 
coming  out  of  the  house ;  then  again 
Lord  Bute,  whom  the  queen  loves,  who 
is  hissed,  and  who  is  burned  under  the 
effigy  of  a  boot,  a  pun  on  his  name, 
whilst  the  princess  of  Wales  was 
burned  under  the  effigy  of  a  petticoat ; 
or  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  whose  town 
house  is  attacked  by  a  mob,  and  who 
is  only  saved  by  a  garrison  of  horse 
and  foot ;  Wilkes,  whose  papers  the 
*  The  executioner  of  Charles  I. 


4o8 


Government  seize,  and  to  whom  the 
jury  assign  one  thousand  pounds  dam- 
ages. Every  morning  appear  news- 
papers and  pamphlets  to  discuss  af- 
fairs, criticize  characters,  denounce  by 
name  lords,  orators,  ministers,  the  king 
himself.  He  who  wants  to  speak 
speaks.  In  this  wrangle  of  writings 
and  associations  opinion  swells,  mounts 
like  a  wave,  and  falling  upon  Parlia- 
ment and  Court,  drowns  intrigue  and 
carries  away  all  differences.  After  all, 
in  spile  of  the  rotten  boroughs,  it  is 
public  opinion  which  rules.  What 
though  the -king  be  obstinate,  the  men 
in  power  band  together  ?  Public  opin- 
ion growls,  and  every  thing  bends  or 
breaks.  The  Pitts  rose  as  high  as 
they  did,  only  because  public  opinion 
raised  them,  and  the  independence  of 
the  individual  ended  in  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people. 

In  such  a  state,  "  all  passions  being 
free,  hatred,  envy,  jealousy,  the  fervor 
for  wealth  and  distinction,  would  be 
displayed  in  all  their  fulness."  *  We 
can  imagine  with  what  force  and  ener- 
gy eloquence  must  have  been  implant- 
ed and  flourished.  For  the  first  time 
since  the  fall  of  the  ancient  tribune,  it 
found  a  soil  in  which  it  could  take 
root  and  live,  and  a  harvest  of  orators 
sprang  up,  equal,  in  the  diversity  of 
their  talents,  the  energy  of  their  con- 
victions, and  the  magnificence  of  their 
style,  to  that  which  once  covered  the 
Greek  agora  and  the  Roman  forum. 
For  a  long  time  it  seemed  that  liberty 
of  speech,  experience  in  affairs,  the  im- 
portance of  the  interests  involved,  and 
the  greatness  of  the  rewards  offered, 
should  have  forced  its  growth ;  but 
eloquence  came  to  nothing,  encrusted 
in  theological  pedantry,  or  limited  in 
local  aims  ;  and  the  privacy  of  the  par- 
liamentary sittings  deprived  it  of  half 
its  force  by  removing  from  it  the  light 
of  day.  Now  at  last  there  was  light ; 
publicity,  at  first  incomplete,  then  en- 
tire, gives  Parliament  the  nation  for  an 
audience.  Speech  becomes  elevated  and 
enlarged  at  the  same  time  that  the  pub- 
lic is  polished  and  more  numerous. 
Classical  art,  become  perfect,  furnishes 
method  and  development.  Modern 
culture  introduces  into  technical  rea- 

*  Montesquieu,  De  V Esprit  des  lots,  book 
xix.  ch.  27. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


soiling  freedom  of  discourse  and  a 
breadth  of  general  ideas.  In  place  of 
arguing,  men  conversed  ;  they  were  at- 
torneys, they  became  orators.  With 
Addison,  Steele,  and  Swift,  taste  and 
genius  invade  politics.  Voltaire  can- 
not say  whether  the  meditated  har- 
angues once  delivered  in  Athens  and 
Rome  excelled  the  unpremeditated 
speeches  of  Windham,  Carteret,  and 
their  rivals.  In  short,  discourse  suc- 
ceeds in  overcoming  the  dryness  of 
special  questions  and  the  coldness  of 
compassed  action,  which  had  so  long 
restricted  it;  it  boldly  and  irregularly 
extends  its  force  and  luxuriance ;  and 
in  contrast  with  the  fine  abbes  of  the 
drawing-room,  who  in  France  compose 
their  academical  compliments,  we  see 
appear,  the  manly  eloquence  of  Junius, 
Chatham,  Fox,  Pitt,  Burke,  and  Sheri- 
dan. 

I  need  not  relate  their  lives  nor  un- 
fold their  characters ;  I  should  have 
to  enter  upon  political  details.  Three 
of  them,  Lord  Chatham,  Fox,  and  Pitt, 
were  ministers,*  and  their  eloquence 
is  part  of  their  power  and  their  acts. 
That  eloquence  is  the  concern  of  those 
men  who  may  record  their  political 
history  ;  I  can  simply  take  note  of  its 
tone  and  accent. 

VIII. 

An  extraordinary  afflatus,  a  sort  of 
quivering  of  intense  determination,  runs 
through  all  these  speeches.  Men  speak, 
and  they  speak  as  if  they  fought.  No 
caution,  politeness,  restraint.  They 
are  unfettered,  they  abandon  them- 
selves, they  hurl  themselves  onward  ; 
and  if  they  restrain  themselves,  it  is 
onlji  that  they  may  strike  more  piti- 
lessly and  more  forcibly.  When  the 
elder  Pitt  first  filled  the  House  with 
his  vibrating  voice,  he  already  pos- 
sessed his  indomitable  audacity.  In 
vain  Walpole  tried  to  "muzzle  him," 
then  to  crush  him;  his  sarcasm  was 
sent  back  to  him  with  a  prodigality  of 
outrages,  and  the  all-powerful  minister 
bent,  smitten  with  the  truth  of  the 
biting  insult  which  the  young  man  in- 
flicted on'  him.  A  lofty  haughtiness, 

*  Junius  wrote  anonymously,  and  critics  have 
not  yet  been  able  with  certainty  to  reveal  his 
true  name.  Most  probably  he  was  Sir  Philip 
Francis. 


CHAP   III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


409 


only  surpassed  by  that  of  his  son,  an  ! 
arrogance  which  reduced  his  colleagues 
to  the  rank  of  subalterns,  a  Roman  pa- 
triotism which  demanded  for  England 
a  universal  tyranny,  an  ambition  lavish 
of  money  and  men,  gave  the  nation  its 
rapacity  and  its  fire,  and  only  saw  rest  in 
far  vistas  of  dazzling  glory  and  limitless 
power,  an  imagination  which  brought 
into  Parliament  the  vehemence  and  dec- 
lamation of  the  stage,  the  brilliancy  of 
fitful  inspiration,  the  boldness  of  poetic 
imagery.  Such  are  the  sources  of  his 
eloquence : 

"  *  But  yesterday,  and  England  might  have 
stood  against  the  world  ;  now  none  so  poor  to 
do  her  reverence? 

"  My  Lords,  YOU  CANNOT  CONQUER  AMER- 
ICA. 

"  We  shall  be  forced  ultimately  to  retract ; 
let  us  retract  while  we  can,  not  when  we  must. 
I  say  we  must  necessarily  undo  these  violent 
oppressive  Acts ;  they  must  be  repealed — you 
will  repeal  them ;  I  pledge  myself  for  it,  that 
you  will  in  the  end  repeal  them  ;  I  stake  my 
reputation  on  it.  I  will  consent  to  be  taken  for 
an  idiot,  if  they  are  not  finally  repealed. 

"  You  may  swell  every  expense,  and  every 
effort,  still  more  extravagantly  ;  pile  and  accu- 
mulate every  assistance  you  can  buy  or  bor- 
row ;  traffic  and  barter  with  every  little  pitiful 
German  prince,  that  sells  and  sends  his  sub- 
jects to  the  shambles  of  a  foreign  prince  ;  your 
efforts  are  for  ever  vain  and  impotent — doubly 
so  from  this  mercenary  aid  on  which  you  rely  J 
for  it  irritates,  to  an  incurable  resentment,  the 
minds  of  your  enemies.  To  overrun  them  with 
the  mercenary  sons  of  rapine  and  plunder  ;  de- 
voting them  and  their  possessions  to  the  rapac- 
ity of  hireling  cruelty!  If  I  were  an  American 
as  I  am  an  Englishman,  while  a  foreign  troop 
was  landed  in  my  country,  I  never  would  lay 
down  my  arms — never — never — never  ! 

"  But,  my  Lords,  who  is  the  man,  that  in  ad- 
dition to  these  disgraces  and  mischiefs  of  our 
army,  has  dared  to  authorize  and  associate  to 
our  arms  the  tomahawk  and  scalping-knife  of 
the  savage  ?  To  call  into  civilized  alliance  the 
wild  and  inhuman  savage  of  the  woods  ;  to  del- 
egate to  the  merciless  Indian  the  defence  of 
disputed  rights,  and  to  wage  the  horrors  ofc>bar- 
barous  war  against  our  brethren  ?  My  Lords, 
these  enormities  cry  aloud  for  redress  and  pun- 
ishment ;  unless  thoroughly  done  away,  it  will 
be  a  stain  on  the  national  character — it  is  a  vio- 
lation of  the  constitution — I  believe  it  is  against 
law."  * 

There  is  a  touch  of  Milton  and  Shak- 
sp  eare  in  this  tragic  pomp,  in  this  im- 
passioned solemnity,  in  the  sombre  and 
violent  brilliancy  of  this  overstrung  and 
overloaded  style.  In  such  superb  and 
blood-like  purple  are  English  passions 

*  A  necdotes  and  Speeches  of  the  Earl  of 
Chatham^  7th  ed.,  3  vols.,  1810,  ii.  ch.  42  and 
44. 


clad,  under  the  folds  of  such  a  banner 
they  fall  into  battle  array  ;  the  more 
powerfully  that  amongst  them  there  is 
one  altogether  holy,  the  sentiment  of 
right,  which  rallies,  occupies,  and  en- 
nobles them : 

"  I  rejoice  that  America  has  resisted.  Three 
millions  of  people  so  dead  to  all  the  feelings  of 
liberty,  as  voluntarily  to  submit  to  be  slaves, 
would  have  been  fit  instruments  to  make  slaves 
of  the  rest.* 

"  Let  the  sacredness  of  their  property  re- 
main inviolate  ;  let  it  be  taxable  only  by  their 
own  consent  given  in  their  provincial  assem- 
blies ;  else  it  will  cease  to  be  property. 

"  This  glorious  spirit  of  Whiggism  animates 
three  millions  in  America,  who  prefer  poverty 
with  liberty  to  gilded  chains  and  sordid  afflu- 
ence, and  who  will  die  in  defence  of  their  rights 
as  men,  as  freemen.  .  .  .  The  spirit  which  now 
resists  your  taxation  in  America  is  the  same 
which  formerly  opposed  loans,  benevolences, 
and  ship  money  in  England  ;  the  same  spirit 
which  called  all  England  on  its  legs,  and  by  the 
Bill  of  Rights  vindicated  the  English  constitu- 
tion ;  the  same  spirit  which  established  the 
great  fundamental,  essential  maxim  of  your  lib- 
erties ;  that  no  subject  of  England  shall  be 
taxed  but  by  his  own  consent. 

"  As  an  Englishman  by  birth  and  principle,  I 
recognize  to  the  Americans  their  supreme  un- 
alienable  right  in  their  property,  a  right  which 
they  are  justified  in  the  defence  of  to  the  last 
extremity."  t 

If  Pitt  sees  his  own  right,  he  sees 
that  of  others  too  ;  it  was  with  this  idea 
that  he  moved  and  managed  England. 
For  it,  he  appealed  to  Englishmen 
against  themselves;  and  in  spite  of 
themselves  they  recognized  their  dear- 
est instinct  in  this  maxim,  that  every 
human  will  is  inviolable  in  its  limited 
and  legal  province,  and  that  it  must  put 
forth  its  whole  strength  against  the 
slightest  usurpation. 

Unrestrained  passions  and  the  most 
manly  sentiment  of  right  ;  such  is  the 
abstract  of  all  this  eloquence.  Instead 
of  an  orator,  a  public  man,  let  us  take 
a  writer,  a  private  individual ;  let  us 
look  at  the  letters  of  Junius,  which, 
amidst  national  irritation  and  anxiety, 
fell  one  by  one  like  drops  of  fire  on  the 
fevered  limbs  of  the  body  politic.  If 
he  makes  his  phrases  concise,  and  se- 
lects his  epithets,  it  was  not  from  a 
love  of  style,  but  in  order  the  better  to 
stamp  his  insult.  Oratorical  artifices  in 
his  hand  become  instruments  of  tor- 
ture, and  when  he  files  his  periods  it 
was  to  drive  the  knife  deeper  and  surer ; 

*  Ibid,  ii.  ch.  29.  t  Ibid.  ii.  ch.  42. 

18 


4io 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


with  what  audacity  of  denunciation, 
with  what  sternness  of  animosity,  with 
what  corrosive  and  burning  irony,  ap- 
plied to  the  most  secret  corners  of 
private  life,  with  what  inexorable  per- 
sistence of  calculated  and  meditated 
persecution,  the  quotations  alone  will 
show.  He  writes  to  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford: 

"  My  lord,  you  are  so  little  accustomed  to 
receive  any  marks  of  respect  or  esteem  from 
ths  public,  that  if,  in  the  following  lines,  acom- 
plimer.i  or  expression  of  applause  should  es- 
cape n  e,  I  fear  you  would  consider  it  as  a  mock- 
ery of  your  established  character,  and  perhaps 
an  insult  to  your  understanding."  * 

He  writes  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton : 

"  There  is  something  in  both  your  character 
and  conduct  which  distinguishes  you  not  only 
from  all  other  ministers,  but  from  all  other 
men.  It  is  not  that  you  do  wrong  by  design, 
but  that  you  should  never  do  right  by  mistake. 
It  is  not  that  your  indolence  and  your  activity 
have  been  equally  misapplied,  but  that  the  first 
uniform  principle,  or,  if  I  may  call  it,  the  genius 
of  your  life,  Should  have  carried  you  through 
every  possible  change  and  contradiction  of  con- 
duct, without  the  momentary  imputation  or 
colour  of  a  virtue  ;  and  that  the  wildest  spirit 
of  inconsistency  should  never  once  have  be- 
trayed you  into  a  wise  or  honourable  action."  t 

Junius  goes  on,  fiercer  and  fiercer; 
even  when  he  sees  the  minister  fallen 
and  dishonored,  he  is  still  savage. 

It  is  vain  that  he  confesses  aloud  that 
in  the  state  in  which  he  is,  the  Duke 
might  "  disarm  a  private  enemy  of  his 
resentment."  He  grows  worse  : 

"  You  have  every  claim  to  compassion  that 
can  arise  from  misery  and  distress.  The  con- 
dition you  are  reduced  to  would  disarm  a  pri- 
vate enemy  of  his  resentment,  and  leave  no  con- 
solation to  the  most  vindictive  spirit,  but  that 
such  an  object,  as  you  are,  would  disgrace  the 
dignity  of  revenge.  .  .  .  For  my  own  part,  I  do 
not  pretend  to  understand  those  prudent  forms 
of  decorum,  those  gentle  rules  of  discretion, 
which  some  men  endeavour  to  unite  with  the 
conduct  of  the  greatest  and  most  hazardous  af- 
fairs. ...  I  should  scorn  to  provide  for  a  fu- 
ture retreV.,  or  to  keep  terms  with  a  man  who 
pres  iryes  no  measures  with  the  public.  Neither 
the  abject  submission  of  deserting  his  post  in 
the  hour  of  danger,  nor  even  the  sacred  shield 
of  cowardice,  should  protect  him.  I  would  pur- 
sue him  through  life,  and  try  the  last  exertion 
of  my  abilities  to  preserve  the  perishable  in- 
famy of  his  name,  and  make  it  immortal."  % 

Except  Swift,  is  there  a  human  being 
who  has  more  intentionally  concentrated 
and  intensified  in  his  heart  the  venom 

*  Junius!  Letters^  2  vols.,  1772,  xxiii.  i.  162. 
t  Ibid.  xii.  i.  75.  J  Ibid,  xxxvi.  ii.  56. 


of  hatred  ?  Yet  this  is  not  vile,  for  it 
thinks  itself  to  be  in  the  service  of 
justice.  Amidst  these  excesses,  this  is 
the  persuasion  which  enhances  them  ; 
these  men  tear  one  another;  but  they 
do  not  crouch ;  whoever  their  enemy 
be,  they  take  their  stand  in  front  of 
him.  Thus  Junius  addresses  the  king : 

"  SIR — It  is  the  misfortune  of  your  life,  and 
originally  the  cause  of  every  reproach  and  dis- 
tress which  has  attended  your  government,  that 
you  should  never  have  been  acquainted  with  the 
language  of  truth  until  you  heard  it  in  the  com- 
plaints of  your  people.  It  is  not,  however,  too 
late  to  correct  the  error  of  your  education.  We 
are  still  inclined  to  make  an  indulgent  allowance 
for  the  pernicious  lessons  you  received  in  your 
youth,  and  to  form  the  most  sanguine  hopes 
from  the  natural  benevolence  of  your  disposi- 
tion. We  are  far  from  thinking  you  capable  of 
a  direct,  deliberate  purpose  to  invade  those 
original  rights  of  your  subjects  on  which  all 
their  civil  and  political  liberties  depend.  Had 
it  been  possible  for  us  to  entertain  a  suspicion 
so  dishonourable  to  your  character,  we  should 
long  since  have  adopted  a  style  of  remonstrance 
very  distant  from  the  humility  of  complaint. 
.  .  .  The  people  of  England  are  loyal  to  the 
House  of  Hanover,  not  from  a  vain  preference 
of  one  family  to  another,  but  from  a  conviction 
that  the  establishment  of  that  family  was  neces* 
sary  to  the  support  of  their  civil  and  religious 
liberties.  This,  Sir,  is  a  principle  of  allegiance 
equally  solid  and  rational  ;  fit  for  Englishmen 
to  adopt,  and  well  worthy  of  your  Majesty's  en- 
couragement. We  cannot  long  be  deluded  by 
nominal  distinctions.  The  name  of  Stuart,  of 
itself,  is  only  contemptible : — armed  with  the 
sovereign  authority,  their  principles  are  formid- 
able. The  prince  wjio  imitates  their  conduct, 
should  be  warned  by  their  example  ;  and  while 
he  plumes  himself  upon  the  security  of  his  title 
to  the  crown,  should  remember  that,  as  it  was 
acquired  by  one  revolution,  it  may  be  lost  by 
another."  * 

Let  us  look  for  less  bitter  souls,  and 
try  to  encounter  a  sweeter  accent.  There 
is  one  man,  Charles  James  Fox,  happy 
from  his  cradle,  who  learned  every 
thing  without  study,  whom  his  father 
trained  in  prodigality  and  recklessness, 
whom,  from  the  age  of  twenty-one,  the 
public  voice  proclaimed  as  the  first  in 
eloquence  and  the  leader  of  a  great 
party,  liberal,  humane,  sociable,  not 
frustrating  these  generous  expectations, 
whose  very  enemies  pardoned  his  faults, 
whom  his  friends  adored,  whom  labor 
never  wearied,  whom  rivals  never  em- 
bittered, whom  power  did  not  spoil ;  a 
lover  of  converse,  of  literature,  of 
pleasure,  who  has  left  the  impress  of 
his  rich  genius  in  the  persuasive  abun- 
dance, in  the  fine  character,  the  clear- 

*Ibid.  xxxv.  ii.  29. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


411 


ness  and  continuous  ease  of  his  speech- 
es. Behold  him  rising  to  speak ;  think 
of  the  discretion  he  must  use ;  he  is  a 
statesman,  a  premier,  speaking  in  Par- 
liament of  the  friends  of  the  king,  lords 
of  the  bedchamber,  the  noblest  families 
of  the  kingdom,  with  their  allies  and 
connections  around  him  ;  he  knows 
that  every  one  of  his  words  will  pierce 
like  a  fiery  arrow  into  the  heart  and 
honor  of  five  hundred  men  who  sit  to 
hear  him.  No  matter,  he  has  been  be- 
trayed ;  he  will  punish  the  traitors,  and 
here  is  the  pillory  in  which  he  sets 
"  the  janissaries  of  the  bedchamber," 
who  by  the  Prince's  order  have  deserted 
him  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  : 

"  The  whole  compass  of  language  affords  no 
terms  sufficiently  strong  and  pointed  to  mark 
the  contempt  which  I  feel  for  their  conduct.  It 
is  an  impudent  avowal  of  political  profligacy,  as 
if  that  species  of  treachery  were  less  infamous 
than  any  other.  It  is  not  only  a  degradation  of 
a  station  which  ought  to  be  occupied  only  by 
the  highest  and  most  exemplary  honour,  but 
forfeits  their  claim  to  the  characters  of  gentle- 
men, and  reduces  them  to  a  level  with  the 
meanest  and  basest  of  the  species  ;  it  insults 
the  noble,  the  ancient,  and  the  characteristic 
independence  of  the  English  peerage,  and  is 
calculated  to  traduce  and  vilify  the  British  leg- 
islature in  the  eyes  of  all  Europe,  and  to  the 
latest  posterity.  By  what  magic  nobility  can 
thus  charm  vice  into  virtue,  I  know  not  nor 
wish  to  know  ;  but  in  any  other  thing  than 
politics,  and  among  any  other  men  than  lords 
of  the  bedchamber,  such  an  instance  of  the 
grossest  perfidy  would,  as  it  well  deserves,  be 
branded  with  infamy  and  execration."  * 

Then  turning  to  the  Commons : 

"  A  parliament  thus  fettered  and  controlled, 
without  spirit  and  without  freedom,  instead  of 
limiting,  extends,  substantiates,  and  establishes 
beyond  all  precedent,  latitude,  or  condition,  the 
prerogatives  of  the  crown.  But  though  the 
British  House  of  Commons  were  so  shamefully 
lost  to  its  own  weight  in  the  constitution,  were 
so  unmindful  of  its  former  struggles  and 
triumphs  in  the  great  cause  of  liberty  and  man- 
kind, were  so  indifferent  and  treacherous  to 
those  primary  objects  and  concerns  for  which 
it  was  originally  instituted,  I  trust  the  charac- 
teristic spirit  of  this  country  is  still  equal  to  the 
trial  ;  I  trust  Englishmen  will  be  as  jealous  of 
secret  influence  as  superior  to  open  violence  ;  I 
trust  they  are  not  more  ready  to  defend  their 
interests  against  foreign  depredation  and  in- 
sult, than  to  encounter  and  defeat  this  midnight 
conspiracy  against  the  constitution."  | 

If  such  are  the  outbursts  of  a  nature 
above  all  gentle  and  amiable,  we  can 
judge  what  the  others  must  have  been. 

*  Fox's  Speeches,  6  vols.,  1815,  ii.  271  ;  Dec. 
.  p.  268. 


A  sort  of  impassioned  exaggeration 
reigns  in  the  debates  to  which  the 
trial  of  Warren  Hastings  and  the 
French  Revolution  gave  rise,  in  the 
acrimonious  rhetoric  and  forced  dec- 
lamation of  Sheridan,  in  the  pitiless 
sarcasm  and  sententious  pomp  of  the 
younger  Pitt.  These  orators  love  the 
coarse  vulgarity  of  gaudy  colors  ;  they 
hunt  out  accumulations  of  big  words, 
contrasts  symmetrically  prolracted, 
vast  and  resounding  periods.  1  hey  do 
not  fear  to  repel ;  they  crave  effect. 
Force  is  their  characteristic,  and  the 
characteristic  of  the  greatest  amongst 
them,  the  first  mind  of  the  age,  Edmund 
Burke,  of  whom  Dr.  Johnson  said : 
"  Take  up  whatever  topic  you  please, 
he  (Burke)  is  ready  to  meet  you." 

Burke  did  not  enter  Parliament,  like 
Pitt  and  Fox,  in  the  dawn  of  his  youth, 
but  at  thirty-five,  having  had  time  to 
train  himself  thoroughly  in  all  matters, 
learned  in  law,  history,  philosophy, 
literature,  master  of  such  a  universal 
erudition,  that  he  has  been  compared 
to  Bacon.  But  what  distinguished 
him  from  all  other  men  was  a  wide, 
comprehensive  intellect,  which,  exer- 
cised by  philosophical  studies  and 
writings,*  seized  the  general  aspects  of 
things,  and,  beyond  text,  constitutions, 
and  figures,  perceived  the  invisible 
tendency  of  events  and  the  inner  spirit, 
covering  with  his  contempt  those  pre- 
tended statesmen,  a  vulgar  herd  of 
common  journeymen,  denying  the  ex- 
istence of  every  thing  not  coarse  or 
material,  and  who,  far  from  being  ca- 
pable of  guiding  the  grand  movements 
of  an  empire,  are  not  worthy  to  turn 
the  wheel  of  a  machine. 

Beyond  all  those  gifts,  he  possessed 
one  of  those  fertile  and  precise  imag- 
inations which  believe  that  finished 
knowledge  is  an  inner  view,  which 
never  quit  a  subject  without  having 
clothed  it  in  its  colors  and  forms,  and 
which,  passing  beyond  statistics  and 
the  rubbish  of  dry  documents,  recom- 
pose  and  reconstruct  before  the  reader's 
eyes  a  distant  country  and  a  foreign 
nation,  with  its  monuments,  dresses, 
landscapes,  and  all  the  shifting  detail 
of  its  aspects  and  manners.  To  all 
these  powers  of  mind,  which  constitute 

*  An  Inquiry  into  our  Ideas  of  the  Sublinu 
and  the  Beautiful. 


412 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III, 


a  man  of  system,  he  added  all  those 
energies  of  heart  which  constitute  an 
enthusiast.  Poor,  unknown,  having 
spent  his  youth  in  compiling  for  the 
publishers,  he  rose,  by  dint  of  work 
and  personal  merit,  with  a  pure  repu- 
tation and  an  unscathed  conscience, 
ere  the  trials  of  his  obscure  life  or  the 
secuctions  of  his  brilliant  life  had 
fettered  his  independence  or  tarnished 
the  flower  of  his  loyalty.  He  brought  to 
politics  a  horror  of  crime,  a  vivacity 
and  sincerity  of  conscience,  a  humanity, 
a  sensibility,  which  seem  only  suitable  to 
a  young  man.  He  based  human  society 
on  maxims  of  morality,  insisted 
upon  a  high  and  pure  tone  of  feeling 
in  the  conduct  of  public  business,  and 
seemed  to  have  undertaken  to  raise 
and  authorize  the  generosity  of  the  hu- 
man heart.  He  fought  nobly  for  noble 
causes  ;  against  the  crimes  of  power  in 
England,  the  crimes  of  the  people  in 
France,  the  crimes  of  monopolists  in 
India.  He  defended,  with  immense  re- 
search and  unimpeached  disinterested- 
ness, the  Hindoos  tyrannized  over  by 
English  greed : 

"  Every  man  of  rank  and  landed  fortune  being 
long  since  extinguished,  the  remaining  miser- 
able last  cultivator  who  grows  to  the  soil  after 
having  his  back  scored  by  the  farmer,  has  it 
again  flayed  by  the  whip  of  the  assignee,  and  is 
thus  by  a  ravenous  because  a  short-lived  suc- 
cession of  claimants  lashed  from  oppressor  to 
oppressor,  whilst  a  single  drop  of  blood  is  left 
as  the  means  of  extorting  a  single  grain  of 
com."  * 

He  made  himself  everywhere  the 
champion  of  principle  and  the  perse- 
cutor of  vice ;  and  men  saw  him  bring 
to  the  attack  all  the  forces  of  his  won- 
derful knowledge,  his  lofty  reason,  his 
splendid  style,  with  the  unwearying  and 
untempered  ardor  of  a  moralist  and  a 
knight. 

Let  us  read  him  only  several  pages  at 
a  time  :  only  thus  he  is  great ;  otherwise 
all  this  is  exaggerated,  commonplace, 
and  strange,  will  arrest  and  shock  us ; 
but  if  we  give  ourselves  up  to  him,  we 
will  be  carried  away  and  captivated.  The 
enormous  mass  of  his  documents  rolls 
impetuously  in  a  current  of  eloquence. 
Sometimes  a  spoken  or  written  dis- 
course needs  a  whole  volume  to  unfold 
the  train  of  his  multiplied  proofs  and 
*  Burke's  Works,  1808,  8  vols.,  iv.  286, 
Speech  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcofs  debts. 


courageous  anger.  It  is  either  the 
expose  of  an  administration,  or  the 
whole  history  of  British  India,  or  the 
complete  theory  of  revolutions,  and 
the  political  conditions,  which  comes 
down  like  a  vast,  overflowing  stream,  to 
dash  with  its  ceaseless  effort  and  accu- 
mulated mass  against  some  crime  that 
men  would  overlook,  or  some  injustice 
which  they  would  sanction.  Doubtless 
there  is  foam  on  its  eddies,  mud  in  its 
bed :  thousands  of  strange  creatures 
sport  wildly  on  its  surface.  Burke 
does  not  select,  he  lavishes ;  he  casts 
forth  by  myriads  his  teeming  fancies, 
his  emphasized  and  harsh  words,  dec- 
lamations and  apostrophes,  jests  and 
execrations,  the  whole  grotesque  or 
horrible  assemblage  of  the  distant  re- 
gions and  populous  cities  which  his 
unwearied  learning  or  fancy  has  trav- 
ersed. He  says,  speaking  of  the  usuri- 
ious  loans,  at  forty-eight  per  cent.,  and 
at  compound  interest,  by  which  Eng- 
lishmen had  devastated  India,  that 

"  That  debt  forms  the  foul  putrid  mucus,  in 
which  are  engendered  the  whole  brood  of 
creeping  ascarides,  all  the  endless  involutions, 
the  eternal  knot,  added  to  a  knot  of  those  inex- 
pugnable tape-worms  which  devour  the  nutri- 
ment, and  eat  up  the  bowels  of  India,"  * 

Nothing  strikes  him  as  excessive  in 
speech,  neither  the  description  of  tor- 
tures, nor  the  atrocity  of  his  images, 
nor  the  deafening  racket  of  his  antith- 
eses, nor  the  prolonged  trumpet-blast 
of  his  curses,  nor  the  vast  oddity  of  his 
jests.  To  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  who 
had  reproached  him  with  his  pension, 
he  answers : 

"  The  grants  to  the  house  of  Russell  were  so 
enormous,  as  not  only  to  outrage  economy,  but 
even  to  stagger  credibility.  The  duke  of  Bed- 
ford is  the  leviathan  among  all  the  creatures  of 
the  crown.  He  tumbles  about  his  unwieldy 
bulk  ;  he  plays  and  frolicks  in  the  ocean  of  the 
royal  bounty.  Huge  as  he  is,  and  whilst  '  he 
lies  floating  many  a  rood,'  he  is  still  a  creature. 
His  ribs,  his  fins,  his  whalebone,  his  blubber, 
the  very  spiracles  through  which  he  spouts  a 
torrent  of  brine  against  his  origin,  and  covers 
me  all  over  with  the  spray, — every  thing  of  him 
and  about  him  is  from  the  throne."  t 

Burke  has  no  taste,  nor  have  his  com- 
peers. The  fine  Greek  or  French 
deduction  has  never  found  a  place 
among  the  Germanic  nations ;  with 
them  all  is  heavy  or  ill-refined.  It  is 

*Ibid.  iv.  282. 

t  Ibid.  viii.  35  ;  A  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord. 


CHAP   III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


413 


of  no  use  for  Burke  to  study  Cicero, 
and  to  confine  his  dashing  force  in  the 
orderly  channels  of  Latin  rhetoric  ;  he 
continues  half  a  barbarian,  battening 
in  exaggeration  and  violence  ;  but  his 
fire  is  so  sustained,  his  conviction  so 
strong,  his  emotion  so  warm  and  abun- 
dant, that  we  give  way  to  him,  forget 
our  repugnance,  see  in  his  irregularities 
and  his  outbursts  only  the  outpourings 
of  a  great  heart  and  a  deep  mind,  too 
open  and  too  full;  and  we  wonder 
with  a  sort  of  strange  veneration  at 
this  extraordinary  overflow,  impetuous 
as  a  torrent,  broad  as  a  sea,  in  which 
the  inexhaustible  variety  of  colors  and 
forms  undulates  beneath  the  sun  of  a 
splendid  imagination,  which  lends  to 
this  muddy  surge  all  the  brilliancy  of 
its  rays. 

IX. 

If  you  wish  for  a  comprehensive 
view  of  all  these  personages,  study  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,*  and  then  look  at 
the  fine  French  portraits  of  this  time, 
the  cheerful  ministers,  gallant  and 
charming  archbishops,  Marshal  de 
Saxe,  who  in  the  Strasburg  monu- 
ment goes  down  to  his  tomb  with  the 
grace  and  ease  of  a  courtier  on  the 
staircase  at  Versailles.  In  England, 
under  skies  drowned  in  pallid  mists, 
amid  soft,  vaporous  clouds,  appear 
expressive  or  contemplative  heads  :  the 
rude  energy  of  the  character  has  not 
awed  the  artist;  the  coarse  bloated 
animal ;  the  strange  and  ominous  bird 
of  prey ;  the  growling  jaws  of  the 
fierce  bulldog — he  has  put  them  all  in  : 
levelling  politeness  has  not  in  his  pic- 
tures effaced  individual  asperities  under 
uniform  pleasantness.  Beauty  is  there, 
but  only  in  the  cold  decision  of  look, 
in  the  deep  seriousness  and  sad  nobil- 
ity of  the  pale  countenance,  in  the 
conscientious  gravity  and  the  indom- 
itable resolution  of  the  restrained  ges- 
ture. In  place  of  Lely's  courtesans,  we 
see  by  their  side  chaste  ladies,  some- 
times severe  and  active ;  good  moth- 
ers surrounded  by  their  little  children, 
who  kiss  them  and  embrace  one 
another  :  morality  is  here,  and  with 
it  the  sentiment  of  home  and  family, 

*  Lord  Heathfield,  the  Earl  of  Mansfield, 
Major  Stringer  Lawrence,  Lord  Ashburton, 
Lord  Edgecombe,  and  many  others. 


propriety  of  dress,  a  pensive  air,  the 
correct  deportment  of  Miss  Burney's 
heroines.  They  are  men  who  have 
done  the  world  some  service  :  Bake- 
well  transforms  and  reforms  their  cat- 
tle ;  Arthur  Young  their  agriculture ; 
Howard  their  prisons  ;  Arkwright  and 
Watt  their  industry  ;  Adam  Smith  their 
political  economy ;  Bentham  their  penal 
law;  Locke,  Hutcheson,  Ferguson, 
Bishop  Butler,  Reid,  Stewart,  Price, 
their  psychology  and  their  morality* 
They  have  purified  their  private  man- 
ners, they  now  purify  their  public  man- 
ners. They  have  settled  their  govern- 
ment, they  have  established  themselves 
in  their  religion.  Johnson  is  able  to 
say  with  truth,  that  no  nation  in  the 
world  better  tills  its  soil  and  its  mind. 
There  is  none  so  rich,  so  free,  so  well 
nourished,  where  public  and  private 
efforts  are  directed  with  such  assiduity, 
energy,  and  ability  towards  the  im- 
provement of  public  and  private  affairs. 
One  point  alone  is  wanting:  lofty 
speculation.  It  is  just  this  point  which, 
when  all  others  are  wanting,  constitutes 
at  this  moment  the  'glory  of  France ; 
and  English  caricatures  show,  with  a 
good  appreciation  of  burlesque,  face  to 
face  and  in  strange  contrast,  on  one  side 
the  Frenchman  in  a  tumbledown  cot- 
tage, shivering,  with  long  teeth,  thin, 
feeding  on  snails  and  a  handful  of  roots, 
but  otherwise  charmed  with  his  lot, 
consoled  by  a  republican  cockade  and 
humanitarian  programmes ;  on  the 
other,  the  Englishman,  red  and  puffed 
out  with  fat,  seated  at  his  table  in  a 
comfortable  room,  before  a  dish  of 
most  juicy  roast-beef,  with  a  pot  of 
foaming  ale,  busy  in  grumbling  against 
the  public  distress  and  the  treacherous 
ministers,  who  are  going  to  ruin  ever} 
thing. 

Thus  Englishmen  arrive  on  the 
threshold  »f  the  French  Revolution, 
Conservatives  and  Christians  facing 
the  French  free-thinkers  and  revolu- 
tionaries. Without  knowing  it,  the 
two  nations  have  rolled  onwards  for 
two  centuries  towards  this  terrible 
shock ;  without  knowing  it,  they  have 
only  been  working  to  make  it  worse. 
All  their  efforts,  all  their  ideas,  all  their 
great  men  have  accelerated  the  motion 
which  hurls  them  towards  the  inevi 
table  conflict.  A  hundred  and  fifty 


414 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


years  of  politeness  and  general  ideas 
have  persuaded  the  French  to  trust  in 
human  goodness  and  pure  reason.  A 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  moral  reflec 
tion  and  political  strife  have  attachec 
the  Englishman  to  positive  religion  anc 
an  established  constitution.  Each  has 
his  contrary  dogma  and  his  contrary 
enthusiasm.  Neither  understands  anc 
each  detests  the  other.  What  one 
calls  reform,  the  other  calls  destruc- 
tion ;  what  one  reveres  as  the  estab- 
lishment of  right,  the  other  curses  as 
the  overthrow  of  right ;  what  seems  to 
one  the  annihilation  of  superstition, 
seems  to  the  other  the  abolition  oi 
morality.  Never  was  the  contrast  of 
two  spirits  and  two  civilizations  shown 
in  clearer  characters,  and  it  was  Burke 
who,  with  the  superiority  of  a  thinker 
and  the  hostility  of  an  Englishman, 
took  it  in  hand  to  show  this  to  the 
French. 

He  is  indignant  at  this  "tragi-comick 
farce,"  which  at  Paris  is  called  the  re- 
generation of  humanity.  He  denies 
that  the  contagion  of  such  folly  can 
ever  poison  England.  He  laughs  at 
the  Cockneys,  who,  roused  by  the  pra- 
tings  of  democratic  societies,  think 
themselves  on  the  brink  of  a  revolu- 
tion: 

"  Because  Haifa  dozen  grasshoppers  under  a 
fern  make  the  field  ring  with  their  importunate 
chink,  whilst  thousands  of  great  cattle,  reposed 
beneath  the  shadow  of  the  British  oak,  chew 
the  cud  and  are  silent,  pray  do  not  imagine  that 
those  who  make  the  noise  are  the  only  inhabi- 
tants of  the  field  ;  that  of  course,  they  are  many 
in  number  ;  or  that,  after  all,  they  are  other 
than  the  little  shrivelled,  meagre,  hopping, 
though  loud  and  troublesome  insects  of  the 
hour."  * 

Real  England  hates  and  detests  the 
maxims  and  actions  of  the  French 
Revolution:  t 

"  The  very  idea  of  the  fabrication  of  a  new 
government  is  enough  to  fill  us  with  disgust  and 
horror.  We  wished  ...  to  derive  all  we  pos- 
sess as  an  inheritance  from  our  forefathers.  .  .  . 
(We  claim)  our  franchises  not  as  the  rights  of 
men,  but  as  the  rights  of  Englishmen."  % 

Our  rights  do  not  float  in  the  air,  in 
the  imagination  of  philosophers ;  they 

*  Burke's  Works,  v.  165  ;  Reflections  on  the 
Revolution  in  France. 

t  "  I  almost  venture  to  affirm,  that  not  one 
in  a  hundred  amongst  us  participates  in  the 
triumph  of  the  revolution  society."— Burke's 
Reflections,  v.  165.  \  Ibid.  75. 


are  put  down  in  Magna  Charta.  We 
despise  this  abstract  verbiage,  which 
deprives  man  of  all  equity  and  respec* 
to  puff  him  up  with  presumption  and 
theories  : 

"  We  have  not  been  drawn  and  trussed,  in 
order  that  we  may  be  filled,  like  stuffed  birds  in 
a  museum,  with  chaff  and  rags  and  paltry  blurr- 
ed shreds  of  paper  about  the  rights  of  men.".* 

Our  constitution  is  not  a  fictitious  con 
tract,  like  that  of  Rousseau,  sure  to  be 
violated  in  three  months,  but  a  real 
contract,  by  which,  king,  nobles,  peo- 
ple, church,  every  one  holds  the  other, 
and  is  himself  held.  The  crown  of 
the  prince  and  the  privilege  of  the 
noble  are  as  sacred  as  the  land  of  the 
peasant  and  the  tool  of  the  working- 
man.  Whatever  be  the  acquisition  or 
the  inheritance,  we  respect  it  in  every 
man,  and  our  law  has  but  one  object, 
which  is  to  preserve  to  each  his  prop- 
erty and  his  rights. 

^ "  We  fear  God  ;  we  look  up  with  awe  to 
kings  ;  with  affection  to  parliaments  ;  with  duty 
to  magistrates  ;  with  reverence  to  priests  ;  and 
with  respect  to  nobility."  t 

"  There  is  not  one  public  man  in  this  king- 
dom  who  does  not  reprobate  the  dishonest,  per- 
fidious, and  cruel  confiscation  which  the 
National  Assembly  has  been  compelled  to 
make.  ...  Church  and  State  are  ideas  in- 
separable in  our  minds.  .  .  .  Our  education  is 
in  a  manner  wholly  in  the  hands  of  ecclesi- 
asticks,  and  in  all  stages,  from  infancy  to  man- 
hood. .  .  .  They  never  will  suffer  the  fixed 
estate  of  the  church  to  be  converted  into  a  pen- 
sion, to  depend  on  the  treasury.  .  .  .  They 
made  their  church  like  their  nobility,  indepen- 
dent. They  can  see  without  pain  or  grudging 
an  archbishop  precede  a  duke.  They  can  see 
a  Bishop  of  Durham  or  a  Bishop  of  Winchester 
in  possession  of  ten  thousand  a  year."  J 

We  will  never  suffer  the  established 
domain  of  our  church  to  be  converted 
nto  a  pension,  so  as  to  place  it  in  de- 
pendence on  the  treasury.  We  have 
made  our  church  as  our  king  and  our 
nobility,  independent.  We  are  shocked 
at  your  robbery — first,  because  it  is  an 
outrage  upon  property ;  next,  because 
t  is  an  attack  upon  religion.  We 
lold  that  there  exists  no  society  with- 
out belief,  and  we  feel  that,  in  exhaust- 
ng  the  source,  you  dry  up  the  whole 
stream.  We  have  rejected  as  a  poison 
he  infidelity  which  defiled  the  begin- 
ling  of  our  century  and  of  yours,  and 

*  Ibid  .  166.      t  Burke's  Reflections,  v.  167. 
\  Ibid.  1 88. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  REVOLUTION. 


415 


we  have  purged  ourselves  of  it,  whilst 
you  have  been  saturated  with  it. 

"  Who,  born  within  the  last  forty  years,  has 
read  one  word  of  Collins,  and  Toland,  andTin- 
dal,  .  .  .  and  that  whole  race  who  called  them- 
selves Freethinkers?"* 

"  We  are  Protestants,  not  from  indifference, 
but  from  zeal. 

"  Atheism  is  against  not  only  our  reason,  but 
our  instincts. 

"  We  are  resolved  to  keep  an  established 
church,  an  established  monarchy,  an  establish- 
ed aristocracy,  and  an  established  democracy, 
each  in  the  degree  it  exists,  and  in  no  greater."! 

We  base  our  establishment  upon  the 
sentiment  of  right,  and  the  sentiment 
of  right  on  reverence  for  God. 

In  place  of  right  and  of  God,  whom 
do  you,  Frenchmen,  acknowledge  as 
master  ?  The  sovereign  people,  that 
is,  the  arbitrary  inconstancy  of  a 
numerical  majority.  We  deny  that 
the  majority  has  a  right  to  destroy  a 
constitution. 

"  The  constitution  of  a  country  being  once 
settled  upon  some  compact,  tacit  or  expressed, 
there  is  no  power  existing  of  force  to  alter  it, 
without  the  breach  of  the  covenant,  or  the  con- 
sent of  all  the  parties."  J 

We  deny  that  a  majority  has  a  right  to 
make  a  constitution ;  unanimity  must 
first  have  conferred  this  right  on  the 
majority.  We  deny  that  brute  force 
is  a  legitimate  authority,  and  that  a 
populace  is  a  nation.  § 

"  A  true  natural  aristocracy  is  not  a  separate 
interest  in  the  state  or  separable  from  it.  ... 
When  great  multitudes  act  together  under  that 
discipline  of  nature,  I  recognize  the  people  ; 
.  .  .  when  you  separate  the  common  sort  of 
men  from  their  proper  chieftains  so  as  to  form 
them  into  an  adverse  army,  I  no  longer  know 
that  venerable  object  called  the  people  in  such 
a  disbanded  race  of  deserters  and  vagabonds.  "|| 

We  detest  with  all  our  power  of  hatred 
the  right  of  tyranny  which  you  give 
them  over  others,  and  we  detest  still 

*  Burke's  Works,  v.  172  ;  Reflections. 

t  Ibid.  175. 

\  Ibid,  vi.  201  ;  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the 
Old  Whigs. 

§  "  A  government  of  five  hundred  country 
attornies  and  obscure  curates  is  not  good  for 
twenty-four  millions  of  men,  though  it  were 
chos.?:  by  eight  and  forty  millions.  .  .  .  As  to 
the  share  of  power,  authority,  direction,  which 
each  individual  ought  to  have  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  state,  that  I  must  deny  to  be 
amongst  the  direct  original  rights  of  man  in 
civil  society." — Burke's  Works,  v.  109  ;  Reflec- 
tions. 

||  Burke's  Works,  vi.  219  :  Appeal  from  the 
New  to  the  Old  Whigs. 


more  the  right  of  insurrection  which 
you  give  them  against  themselves. 
We  believe  that  a  constitution  is  a 
trust  transmitted  to  this  generation  by 
the  past,  to  be  handed  down  to  the 
future,  and  that  if  a  generation  can 
dispose  of  it  as  its  own,  it  ought  also 
to  respect  it  as  belonging  to  others. 
We  hold  that,  "by  this  unprincipled 
facility  of  changing  the  state  as  often, 
and  as  much,  and  in  as  many  ways  as 
there  are  floating  fancies  and  fash:  ens, 
the  whole  chain  and  continuity  of  the 
commonwealth  would  be  broken.  No 
one  generation  could  link  with  the 
other.  Men  would  become  little  bet- 
ter than  the  flies  of  a  summer."  *  We 
repudiate  this  meagre  and  coarse  rea- 
son, which  separates  a  man  from  his 
ties,  and  sees  in  him  only  the  present, 
which  separates  a  man  from  society, 
and  counts  him  as  only  one  head  in  a 
flock.  We  despise  these  "  metaphysics 
of  an  undergraduate  and  the  mathe- 
matics of  an  exciseman,"  by  which  you 
cut  up  the  state  and  man's  rights  ac- 
cording to  square  miles  and  numerical 
unities.  We  have  a  horror  of  that 
cynical  coarseness  by  which  "  all  the 
decent  drapery  of  life  is  to  be  rudely 
torn  off,"  by  which  "  now  a  queen  is 
but  a  woman,  and  a  woman  is  but  an 
animal,"  t  which  cuts  down  chivalric 
and  religious  spirit,  the  two  crowns  of 
humanity,  to  plunge  them,  together 
with  learning,  into  the  popular  mire,  to 
be  "  trodden  down  under  the  hoofs  of 
a  swinish  multitude."  \  We  have  a 
horror  of  this  systematic  levelling 
which  disorganizes  civil  society.  Burke 
continues  thus : 

"  I  am  satisfied  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  pro- 
ject of  turning  a  great  empire  into  a  vestry,  or 
into  a  collection  of  vestries,  and  of  governing  it 
in  the  spirit  of  a  parochial  administration,  is 
senseless  and  absurd,  in  any  mode,  or  with  any 
qualifications.  I  can  never  be  convinced  that 
the  scheme  of  placing  the  highest  powers  of  the 
state  in  churchwardens  and  constables,  and 
other  such  officers,  guided  by  the  prudence  of 
litigious  attornies,  and  Jew  brokers,  and  set  in 
action  by  shameless  women  of  the  lowest  con- 
dition, by  keepers  of  hotels,  taverns,  and  broth- 
els, by  pert  apprentices,  by  clerks,  shop-boys, 
hairdressers,  fiddlers,  and  dancers  on  the  stage 
(who,  in  such  a  commonwealth  as  yours,  will  in 
future  overbear,  as  already  they  have  over- 
borne, the  sober  incapacity  of  dull  uninstructed 


*  Ibid.  v.  181  ;  Reflections. 
%Ibid.\.  154;  Reflections. 


t  Ibid,  i 


416 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


men,  of  useful  but  laborious  occupations),  can 
never  be  put  into  any  shape  that  must  not  be 
both  disgraceful  and  destructive.''  *  "  If  mon- 
archy should  ever  obtain  an  entire  ascendency 
in  France,  it  will  probably  be  ...  the  most 
completely  arbitrary  power  that  has  ever  ap- 
peared on  earth.  France  will  be  wholly  gov- 
erned by  the  agitators  in  corporations,  by  soci- 
eties in  the  towns  formed  of  directors  in  as- 
signats,  .  .  .  attoroies,  agents,  money-jobbers, 
speculators,  and  adventurers,  composing  an 
ignoble  oligarchy  founded  on  the  destruction  of 
the  crown,  the  church,  the  nobility,  and  the 
people."  t 

This  is  what  Burke  wrote  in  1790  at 
the  dawn  of  the  first  French  Revolu- 
tion. }  Two  years  after  the  people  of 
Birmingham  destroyed  the  houses  of 
some  English  democrats,  and  the  miners 
of  Wednesbury  went  out  in  a  body 
from  their  pits  to  come  to  the  succor 
of  "  king  and  church."  If  we  compare 
one  crusade  with  another,  scared  Eng- 
land was  as  fanatical  as  enthusiastic 
France.  Pitt  declared  that  they  could 
not  "  treat  with  a  nation  of  atheists."  § 
Burke  said  that  the  war  was  not  be- 
tween people  and  people,  but  between 

*  Burke' s  Works,  vi.  5  ;  Letter  to  a  Member 
of  the  National  A  ssembly. 

t  Ibid.  v.  349  ;  Reflections. 

j  "  The  effect  of  liberty  to  individuals  is,  that 
they  may  do  what  they  please  :  we  ought  to  see 
what  it  will  please  them  to  do,  before  we  risk 
congratulations  which  may  be  soon  turned  into 
complaints.  .  .  .  Strange  chaos  of  levity  and 
ferocity,  .  .  .  monstrous  tragi-comic  scene. 
.  .  .  After  I  have  read  the  list  of  the  persons 
and  descriptions  elected  into  the  Tiers-Etat, 
nothing  which  they  afterwards  did  could  appear 
astonishing.  ...  Of  any  practical  experience 
in  the  state,  not  one  man  was  to  be  found.  The 
best  were  only  men  of  theory.  The  majority 
was  composed  of  practitioners  in  the  law,  .  .  . 
active  chicaners,  .  .  .  obscure  provincial  advo- 
cates, stewards  of  petty  local  jurisdictions, 
country  attornies,  notaries,  etc." — Burke's  Re- 
flections^ etc.,  v.  37  and  90.  That  which  offends 
Burke,  and  even  makes  him  very  uneasy,  was, 
that  no  representatives  of  the  "  natural  landed 
interests"  were  among  the  representatives  of 
the  Tiers-Etat.  Let  us  give  one  quotation 
more,  for  really  this  political  clairvoyance  is 
akin  to  genius:  "Men  are  qualified  for  civil 
libe  rty  in  exact  proportion  to  their  disposition 
to  \  at  moral  chains  upon  their  own  appetites. 
.  .  .  Society  cannot  exist  unless  a  controlling 
power  upon  will  and  appetite  be  placed  some- 
where ;  and  the  less  of  it  there  is  within  the 
more  there  must  be  without.  It  is  ordained  in 
the  eternal  constitution  of  things  that  men  of 
intemperate  minds  cannot  be  free.  Their  pas- 
sions forge  their  fetters." 

§  Pitt's  S/>eec/tes,  3  vols.  1808,  ii.  p.  81,  on 
negotiating  for  peace  with  France,  Jan.  26, 
1795.  Pitt  says,  however,  in  the  same  speech  : 
'  God  forbid  that  we  should  look  on  the  body 
of  the  people  of  France  as  atheists." — TR. 


property  and  brute  force.  The  rage  of 
execration,  invective,  and  destruction 
mounted  on  both  sides  like  a  conflagra- 
tion.* It  was  not  the  collision  of  the 
two  governments,  but  of  the  two  civili- 
zations and  the  two  doctrines.  The 
two  vast  machines,  driven  with  all  their 
momentum  and  velocity,  met  face  to 
face,  not  by  chance,  but  by  fatality.  A 
whole  age  of  literature  and  philosophy 
had  been  necessary  to  amass  the  fuel 
which  filled  their  sides,  and  laid  down 
the  rail  which  guided  their  course.  In 
this  thundering  clash,  amid  these  ebulli- 
tions of  hissing  and  fiery  vapor,  in 
these  red  flames  which  licked  the 
boilers,  and  whirled  with  a  rumbling 
noise  upwards  to  the  heavens,  an  at- 
tentive spectator  may  still  discover  the 
nature  and  the  accumulation  of  the 
force  which  caused  such  'an  outburst, 
dislocated  such  iron  plates,  and  strewed 
the  ground  with  such  ruins. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


I. 


IN  this  vast  transformation  of  mind 
which  occupies  the  whole  eighteenth 
century,  and  gives  England  its  political 
and  moral  standing,  tyyo  eminent  men 
appear  in  politics  and  morality,  both 
accomplished  writers  —  the  most  ac- 
complished yet  seen  in  England  ;  both 
accredited  mouthpieces  of  a  party, 
masters  in  the  art  of  persuasion  and 
conviction  ;  both  limited  in  philosophy 
and  art,  incapable  of  considering  sen- 
timents in  a  disinterested  fashion; 
always  bent  on  seeing  in  things  mo- 
tives for  approbation  or  blame  ;  other- 
wise differing,  and  even  in  contrast 
with  one  another  :  one  happy,  benevo- 
lent, beloved  ;  the  other  hated,  hut- 
ing,  and  most  unfortunate  :  the  one  a 
partisan  of  liberty  and  the  noblest 
hopes  of  man  ;  the  other  an  advocate 
of  a  retrograde  party,  and  an  eager 
detractor  of  humanity  :  the  one  meas- 
ured, delicate,  furnishing  a  model  of 
the  most  solid  English  qualities,  per- 

*  Letters  to  a  Noble  Lord;  Letters  on  » 
Regitide  Peace* 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


417 


fected  by  continental  culture  ;  the  other 
unbridled  and  formidable,  showing  an 
example  of  the  harshest  English  in- 
stincts, luxuriating  without  limit  or 
rule  in  every  kind  of  devastation  and 
amid  every  degree  of  despair.  To 
penetrate  to  the  interior  of  this  civil- 
ization and  this  people,  there  are  no 
means  better  than  to  pause  and  dwell 
upon  Swift  and  Addison. 

II. 

"  I  have  often  reflected,"  says  Steele 
of  Addison,  "  after  a  night  spent  with 
him,  apart  from  all  the  world,  that  I 
had  had  the  pleasure  of  conversing 
with  an  intimate  acquaintance  of  Ter- 
ence and  Catullus,  who  had  all  their 
wit  and  nature  heightened  with  humor, 
more  exquisite  and  delightful  than  any 
other  man  ever  possessed."  *  And 
Pope,  a  rival  of  Addison,  and  a  bitter 
rival,  adds :  '•  His  conversation  had 
something  in  it  more  charming  than  I 
have  found  in  any  other  man."  I"  These 
sayings  express  the  whole  talent  of 
Addison :  his  writings  are  conversa- 
tions, masterpieces  of  English  urbanity 
and  reason ;  nearly  all  the  details  of 
his  character  and  life  have  contributed 
to  nourish  this  urbanity  and  this  rea- 
soning. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen  we  find  him 
at  Oxford,  studious  and  peaceful,  lov- 
ing solitary  walks  under  the  elm-ave- 
nues, and  amongst  the  beautiful  mead- 
ows on  the  banks  of  the  Cherwell. 
From  the  thorny  brake  of  school  edu- 
cation he  chose  the  only  flower — a 
withered  one,  doubtless,  Latin  verse, 
but  one  which,  compared  to  the  erudi- 
tion, to  the  theology,  to  the  logic  of 
the  time,  is  still  a  flower.  He  cele- 
brates, in  strophes  or  hexameters,  the 
peace  of  Ryswick,  or  the  system  of  Dr. 
Burnet ;  he  composes  little  ingenious 
poems  on  a  puppet-show,  on  the  battle 
of  the  pigmies  and  cranes  ;  he  learns 
to  praise  and  jest — in  Latin  it  is  true — 
but  with  such  success,  that  his  verses 
recommend  him  for  the  rewards  of  the 
ministry,  and  even  come  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  Boileau.  At  the  same  time  he 
imbues  himself  with  the  Latin  poets ; 
he  knows  them  by  heart,  even  the 

*  Addison's  Works,    ed.    Hurd,  6  vols.,   v. 
151  ;  Steele's  Letter  to  Mr.  Congreve. 

t  Ibid.  vi.  729. 


most  affected,  Claudian  and  Pruden 
tius;  presently  in  Italy  quotations  will 
rain  from  his  pen  ;  from  top  to  bottom 
in  all  its  nooks,  and  under  all  its  as- 
pects, his  memory  is  stuffed  with  Latin 
verses.  We  see  that  he  loves  them, 
scans  them  with  delight,  that  a  fine 
caesura  charms  him,  that  every  delicacy 
touches  him,  that  no  hue  of  art  or 
emotion  escapes  him,  that  his  literary 
tact  is  refined,  and  prepared  to  relish 
all  the  beauties  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion. This  inclination,  too  long  re- 
tained, is  a  sign  of  a  little  mind,  I 
allow ;  a  man  ought  not  to  spend  so 
much  time  in  inventing  centos.  Addi- 
son would  have  done  better  to  enlarge 
his  knowledge — to  study  Latin  prose- 
writers,  Greek  literature,  Christian 
antiquity,  modern  Italy,  which  he 
hardly  knew.  But  this  limited  culture, 
leaving  him  weaker,  made  him  more 
refined.  He  formed  his  art  by  study- 
ing only  the  monuments  of  Latin  ur- 
banity ;  he  acquired  a  taste  for  the 
elegance  and  refinements,  the  triumphs 
and  artifices  of  style  ;  he  became  self- 
contemplative,  correct,  capable  of 
knowing  and  perfecting  his  own 
tongue.  In  the  designed  reminis- 
cences, the  happy  allusions,  the  dis- 
creet tone  of  his  little  poems,  I  find 
beforehand  many  traits  of  the  Specta- 
tor. 

Leaving  the  university,  he  travelled 
for  a  long  time  in  the  two  most  pol- 
ished countries  in  the  world,  France 
and  Italy.  He  lived  at  Paris,  in  the 
house  of  the  ambassador,  in  the  reg- 
ular and  brilliant  society  which  gave 
fashion  to  Europe ;  he  visited  Boileau, 
Malebranche,  saw  with  somewhat  ma- 
licious curiosity  the  fine  curtsies  of  the 
painted  and  affected  ladies  of  Ver- 
sailles, the  grace  and  almost  stale 
civilities  of  the  fine  speakers  and  fine 
dancers  of  the  other  sex.  He  was 
amused  at  the  complimentary  inter- 
course of  Frenchmen,  and  remarked 
that  when  a  tailor  accosted  a  shoe- 
maker, he  congratulated  himself  on 
the  honor  of  saluting  him.  In  Italy  he 
admired  the  works  of  art,  and  praised 
them  in  a  letter,*  in  which  the  enthu- 
siasm is  rather  cold,  but  very  well  ex- 

*  Addison's  Works,  4  vols.  4to,  Tonson, 
1721,  vol.  i.  43.  A  letter  to  Lord  Halifax 
[1701). 

IS* 


4i8 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


pressed.*  He  had  the  fine  training 
which  is  now  given  to  young  men  of 
higher  ranks.  And  it  was  not  the 
amusements  of  Cockneys  or  the  racket 
of  taverns  which  employed  him.  His 
beloved  Latin  poets  followed  him 
everywhere.  He  had  read  them  over 
before  setting  out ;  he  recited  their 
verses  in  the  places  which  they  men- 
tion. "  I  must  confess,  it  was  not  one 
of  the  least  entertainments  that  I  met 
with  in  travelling,  to  examine  these 
several  descriptions,  as  it  were,  upon 
the  spot,  and  to  compare  the  natural 
face  of  the  country  with  the  landscapes 
that  the  poets  have  given  us  of  it."  t 
These  were  the  pleasures  of  an  epicure 
in  literature ;  there  could  be  nothing 
more  literary  and  less  pedantic  than 
the  account"  which  he  wrote  on  his 
return.  \  Presently  this  refined  and 
delicate  curiosity  led  him  to  coins. 
"  There  is  a  great  affinity,"  he  says, 
"  between  them  and  poetry  :  "  for  they 
serve  as  a  commentary  upon  ancient 
authors ;  an  effigy  of  the  Graces  makes 
a  verse  of  Horace  visible.  And  on 
this  subject  he  wrote  a  very  agreeable 
dialogue,  choosing  for  personages  well- 
bred  men  :  "  all  three  very  well  versed 
in  the  politer  parts  of  learning,  and 
had  travelled  into  the  most  refined 
nations  of  Europe.  .  .  .  Their  design 
was  to  pass  away  the  heat  of  the  sum- 
mer among  the  fresh  breezes  that  rise 
from  the  river  (the  Thames),  and  the 
agreeable  mixture  of  shades  and  foun- 
tains in  which  the  whole  country  nat- 
urally abounds."  §  Then,  with  a  gen- 
tle and  well-tempered  gayety,  he  laughs 
at  pedants  who  waste  life  in  discussing 
the  Latin  toga  or  sandal,  but  pointed 
out,  like  a  man  of  taste  and  wit,  the 
services  which  coins  might  render  to 
history  and  the  arts.  Was  there  ever 
a  better  education  for  a  literary  man 

*  "  Renowned  in  verse,  each  shady  thicket 
grows, 

And  every  stream  in  heavenly  numbers 
flows.  .  .  . 

Where  the  smooth  chisel  all  its  force  has 
shown, 

And  softened  into  flesh  the  rugged  stone.  . 

Here  pleasing  airs   my  ravisht  soul  con- 
found 

With    circling   notes     and    labyrinths    of 

sound." — Addision's  Works,  i.  43. 
t  Preface  to  Remarks  on  Italy,  ii. 

i  ibid. 

}  First  Dialogs  on  Medals^  i.  435. 


of  the  world  ?  He  had  already  a  long 
time  ago  acquired  the  art  of  fashion- 
able poetry,  I  mean  the  correct  verses, 
which  are  complimentary,  or  written  to 
order.  In  all  polite  society  we  look 
for  the  adornment  of  thought ;  we 
desire  for  it  rare,  brilliant,  beautiful 
dress,  to  distinguish  it  from  vulgar 
thoughts,  and  for  this  reason  we  im- 
pose upon  it  rhyme,  metre,  noble  ex- 
pression ;  we  keep  for  it  a  store  of 
select  terms,  verified  metaphors,  suit- 
able images,  which  are  like  an  aristo- 
cratic wardrobe,  in  which  it  is  ham- 
pered but  must  adorn  itself.  Men  of 
wit  are  bound  to  make  verses  for  it, 
and  in  a  certain  style,  just  as  others 
must  display  their  lace,  and  that  after 
a  certain  pattern.  Addison  put  on 
this  dress,  and  wore  it  correctly  and 
easily,  passing  without  difficulty  from 
one  habit  to  a  similar  one,  from  Latin 
to  English  verse.  His  principal  piece, 
The  Campaign*  is  an  excellent  model 
of  the  agreeable  and  classical  style. 
Each  verse  is  full,  perfect  in  itself, 
with  a  clever  antithesis,  a  good  epithet, 
or  a  concise  picture.  Countries  have 
noble  names;  Italy  is  Ausonia,  the 
Black  Sea  is  the  Scythian  Sea ;  there 
are  mountains  of  dead,  and  a  thunder 
of  eloquence  sanctioned  by  Lucian ; 
pretty  turns  of  oratorical  address  im- 
itated from  Ovid;  cannons  are  men- 
tioned in  poetic  periphrases,  as  later 
in  Delille.t  The  poem  is  an  official 
and  decorative  amplification,  like  that 
which  Voltaire  wrote  afterwards  on 
the  battle  of  Fontenoy.  Addison  does 
yet  better ;  he  wrote  an  opera,  a  com- 
edy, a  much  admired  tragedy  on  the 
death  of  Cato.  Such  writings  were  al- 
ways, in  the  last  century,  a  passport  to 

*  On  the  victory  of  Blenheim,  i.  63. 
t  "  With   floods  of  gore  that  from  the  van- 
quished fell 

The  marshes  stagnate  and  the  rivers  £weu, 

Mountains  of  slain,  etc.  .  .  . 

Rows  of  hollow  brass, 

Tube  behind  tube  the  dreadful  entrance 
keep, 

Whilst  in  their  wombs  ten  thousand  thun  • 
dors  sleep.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Here  shattered    walls,   like    broken 
rocks,  from  far 

Rise  up  in  hideous  views,  the  guilt  of  war  ; 

Whilst  here  the  vine  o'er  hills  of  ruin 
climbs 

Industrious  to   conceal    great   Bourbon'* 
crimes."— Vol.  i.  63-82. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


419 


a  good  style  and  to  fashionable  society. 
A  young  man  in  Voltaire's  time,  on 
leaving  college,  had  to  write  his  trag- 
edy, as  now  he  must  write  an  article 
on  political  economy ;  it  was  then  a 
proof  that  he  could  converse  with  la- 
dies, as  now  it  is  a  proof  that  he  can 
argue  with  men.  He  learned  the  art  of 
being  amusing,  of  touching  the  heart, 
of  talking  of  love ;  he  thus  escaped 
from  dry  or  special  studies ;  he  could 
choose  among  events  or  sentiments 
those  which  interest  or  please  ;  he  was 
able  to  hold  his  own  in  good  society, 
to  be  sometimes  agreeable  there,  never 
to  offend.  Such  is  the  culture  which 
these  works  gave  Addison;  it  is  of 
slight  importance  that  they  are  poor. 
In  them  he  dealt  with  the  passions, 
with  humor.  He  produced  in  his 
opera  some  lively  and  smiling  pictures  ; 
in  his  tragedy  some  noble  or  moving 
accents ;  he  emerged  from  reasoning 
and  pure  dissertation  ;  he  acquired 
the  art  of  rendering  morality  visible 
and  truth  expressive  ;  he  knew  how  to 
give  ideas  a  physiognomy,  and  that  an 
attractive  one.  Thus  was  the  finished 
writer  perfected  by  contact  with  an- 
cient and  modern,  foreign  and  national 
urbanity,  by  the  sight  of  the  fine  arts, 
by  experience  of  the  world  and  study 
of  style,  by  continuous  and  delicate 
choice  of  all  that  is  agreeable  in  things 
and  men,  in  life  and  art. 

His  politeness  received  from  his 
character  a  singular  bent  and  charm. 
It  was  not  external,  simply  voluntary 
and  official ;  it  came  from  the  heart. 
He  was  gentle  and  kind,  of  refined 
sensibility,  so  shy  even  as  to  remain 
silent  and  seem  dull  in  a  large  company 
or  before  strangers,  only  recovering 
his  spirits  before  intimate  friends,  and 
confessing  that  only  two  persons  can 
converse  together.  He  could  not  en- 
dure an  acrimonious  discussion  ;  when 
his  opponent  was  intractable,  he  pre- 
tended to  approve,  and  for  punish- 
ment, plunged  him  discreetly  into  his 
own  folly.  He  withdrew  by  preference 
from  political  arguments ;  being  invited 
to  deal  with  them  in  the  Spectator,  he 
contented  himself  with  inoffensive  and 
general  subjects,  which  could  interest 
all  whilst  offending  none.  It  would 
have  pained  him  to  give  others  pain. 
Though  a  very  decided  and  steady 


Whig,  he  continued  moderate  in  po- 
lemics ;  and  in  an  age  when  the  winners 
in  the  political  fight  were  ready  to  ruin 
their  opponents  or  to  bring  them  to 
the  block,  he  confined  himself  to  show 
the  faults  of  argument  made  by  the 
Tories,  or  to  rail  courteously  at  their 
prejudices.  At  Dublin  he  went  first 
of  all  to  shake  hands  with  Swift,  his 
great  and  fallen  adversary.  Insulted 
bitterly  by  Dennis  and  Pope,  he  re- 
fused to  employ  against  them  his  influ- 
ence or  his  wit,  and  praised  Pope  to 
the  end.  What  can  be  more  touching, 
when  we  have  read  his  life,  than  his 
essay  on  kindness  ?  we  perceive  that 
he  is  unconsciously  speaking  of  him- 
self: 

"  There  is  no  society  or  conversation  to  be 
kept  up  in  the  world  without  good-nature,  or 
something  which  must  bear  its  appearance,  and 
supply  its  place.  For  this  reason  mankind 
have  been  forced  to  invent  a  kind  of  artificial 
humanity,  which  is  what  we  express  by  the 
word  £Of»?>-Krp.eding.  .  .  .  The  greatest  wits  I 
have  convcised  with  are  men  eminent  for  their 
humanity.  .  .  .  Good-nature  is  generally  born 
with  us  ;  health,  prosperity,  and  kind  treat- 
ment from  the  world  are  great  cherishers  of  it 
where  they  find  it."  * 

It  so  happens  that  he  is  involuntarily 
describing  his  own  charm  and  his  own 
success.  It  is  himself  that  he  is  un- 
veiling ;  he  was  very  prosperous,  and 
his  good  fortune  spread  itself  around 
him  in  affectionate  sentiments,  in  con- 
stant consideration  for  others,  in  calm 
cheerfulness.  At  College  he  was  dis- 
tinguished ;  his  Latin  verses  made  him 
a  fellow  at  Oxford  ;  he  spent  ten  years 
there  in  grave  amusements  and  in 
studies  which  pleased  him.  Dryden, 
the  prince  of  literature,  praised  him  in 
the  highest  terms,  when  Addison  was 
only  twenty-two.  When  he  left  Oxford, 
the  ministry  gave  him  a  pension  of  three 
hundred  pounds  to  finish  his  education, 
and  prepare  him  for  public  service.  On 
his  return  from  his  travels,  his  poem 
on  Blenheim  placed  him  in  the  first 
rank  of  the  Whigs.  He  became  twice 
Secretary  for  Ireland,  Under- Secretary 
of  State,  a  member  of  Parliament,  one 
of  the  principal  Secretaries  of  State. 
Party  hatred  spared  him;  amid  the 
almost  universal  defeat  of  the  Whigs, 
he  was  re-elected  member  of  Parlia- 
ment; in  the  furious  war  of  Whigs  and 

*  Spectator,  No.  169. 


420 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III, 


Tories,  both  united  to  applaud  his 
tragedy  of  Cato ;  the  most  cruel 
pamphleteers  respected  him ;  his  up- 
rightness, his  talent,  seemed  exalted  by 
common  consent  above  discussion.  He 
lived  in  abundance,  activity,  and  honors, 
wisely  and  usefully,  amid  the  assiduous 
admiration  and  constant  affection  of 
learned  and  distinguished  friends,  who 
could  never  have  too  much  of  his  con- 
versation, amid  the  applause  of  all  the 
good  men  and  all  the  cultivated  minds 
of  England.  If  twice  the  fall  of  his 
party  seemed  to  destroy  or  retard  his 
fortune,  he  maintained  his  position 
without  much  effort,  by  reflection  and 
coolness,  prepared  for  all  that  might 
happen,  accepting  mediocrity,  con- 
firmed in  a  natural  and  acquired  calm- 
ness, accommodating  himself  without 
yielding  to  men,  respectful  to  the  great 
without  degrading  himself,  free  from 
secret  revolt  or  internal  suffering. 
These  are  the  sources  of  his  talent; 
could  any  be  purer  or  finer  ?  could  any 
thing  be  more  engaging  than  worldly 
polish  and  elegance,  without  the  fac- 
titious ardor  and  the  complimentary 
falsehoods  of  the  world  ?  Where  shall 
we  look  for  more  agreeable  conversa- 
tion than  that  of  a  good  and  happy 
man,  whose  knowledge,  taste,  and  wit, 
are  only  employed  to  give  us  pleasure  ? 

III. 

This  pleasure  will  be  useful  to  us. 
Our  interlocutor  is  as  grave  as  he  is 
polite  ;  he  will  and  can  instruct  as  well 
as  amuse  us  ;  his  education  has  been 
as  solid  as  it  has  been  elegant;  he  even 
confesses  in  the  Spectator  that  he  pre- 
fers the  serious  to  the  humorous  style. 
He  is  naturally  reflective,  silent,  atten- 
tive. He  has  studied  literature,  men, 
and  things,  with  the  conscientiousness 
of  a  scholar  and  an  observer.  When 
he  travelled  in  Italy,  it  was  in  the  Eng- 
lish style,  noting  the  difference  of  man- 
ners, the  peculiarities  of  the  soil,  the 
good  and  ill  effects  of  various  govern- 
ments, providing  himself  with  precise 
memoirs,  circumstantial  statistics  on 
taxes,  buildings,  minerals,  climate, 
harbors,  administration,  and  on  a  great 
many  other  things.*  An  English  lord, 
who  travels  in  Holland,  goes  simply 

*  See;  for  instance,  his  chapter  on  the 
Republic  of  San  Marino. 


into  a  cheese-shop,  in  order  to  see  foi 
himself  all  the  stages  of  the  manufac- 
ture ;  he  returns,  like  Addison,  pro- 
vided with  exact  statistics,  complete 
notes;  this  mass  of  verified  informa- 
tion is  the  foundation  of  the  common 
sense  of  Englishmen.  Addis  />n  added 
to  it  experience  of  business,  having 
been  successively,  or  at  the  same  time, 
a  journalist,  a  member  of  Parliament,  a 
statesman,  hand  and  heart  in  all  the 
fights  and  chances  of  party.  Mere 
literary  education  only  makes  good 
talkers,  able  to  adorn  and  publish  ideas 
which  they  do  not  possess,  and  which 
others  furnish  for  them.  If  writers 
wish  to  invent,  they  must  look  to  events 
and  men,  not  to  books  and  drawing- 
rooms  ;  the  conversation  of  special 
men  is  more  useful  to  them  than  the 
study  of  perfect  periods ;  they  cannot 
think  for  themselves,  but  in  so  far  as 
they  have  lived  or  acted.  Addison 
knew  how  to  act  and  live.  When  we 
read  his  reports,  letters,  and  dis- 
cussions, we  feel  that  politics  and  gov- 
ernment have  given  him  half  his  mind. 
To  exercise  patronage,  to  handle 
money,  to  interpret  the  law,  to  divine 
the  motives  of  men,  to  foresee  the 
changes  of  public  opinion,  to  be  com- 
pelled to  judge  rightly,  quickly,  and 
twenty  times  a  day,  on  present  and 
great  interests,  looked  after  by  the  pub- 
lic and  under  the  espionage  of  enemies; 
all  this  nourished  his  reason  and  sus- 
tained his  discourses.  Such  a  man 
might  judge  and  counsel  his  fellows  ; 
his  judgments  were  not  amplifications 
arranged  by  a  process  of  the  brain,  but 
observations  controlled  by  experience : 
he  might  be  listened  to  on  moral  sub- 
jects as  a  natural  philosopher  was  on 
subjects  connected  with  physics;  we 
feel  that  he  spoke  with  authority,  and 
that  we  were  instructed. 

After  having  listened  a  little,  people 
felt  themselves  better  ;  for  they  recog- 
nized in  him  from  the  first  a  singularly 
lofty  soul,  very  pure,  so  much  attached 
to  uprightness  that  he  made  it  his  con- 
stant care  and  his  dearest  pleasure.  He 
naturally  loved  beautiful  things,  good- 
ness and  justice,  science  and  liberty. 
From  an  early  age  he  had  joined  the 
Liberal  party,  and  he  continued  in  it  tc 
the  end,  hoping  the  best  of  human 
virtue  and  reason,  noting  the  wretched- 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


421 


ness  into  which  nations  fell  who 
abandoned  their  dignity  with  their  in- 
dependence.* He  followed  the  grand 
discoveries  of  the  new  physical  sciences, 
so  as  to  give  him  more  exalted  ideas  of 
the  works  of  God.  He  loved  the  deep 
and  serious  emotions  which  reveal  to 
us  the  nobility  of  our  nature  and  the 
infirmity  of  our  condition.  He  em- 
ployed all  his  talent  and  all  his  writings 
in  giving  us  the  notion  of  what  we  are 
worth,  and  of  what  we  ought  to  be.  Of 
two  tragedies  which  he  composed  or 
contemplated,  one  was  on  the  death  of 
Cato,  the  most  virtuous  of  the  Ro- 
mans ;  the  other  on  that  of  Socrates, 
the  most  virtuous  of  the  Greeks.  At  the 
end  of  the  first  he  felt  some  scruples  ; 
and  for  fear  of  being  accused  of  finding 
an  excuse  for  suicide,  he  gave  Cato 
some  remorse.  His  opera  of  Rosa- 
mond ends  with  the  injunction  to  prefer 
pure  love  to  forbidden  joys  ;  the  Spec- 
tator, the  Tatler,  the  Guardian,  are 
mere  lay  sermons.  Moreover,  he  put 
his  maxims  into  practice.  When  he 
was  in  office,  his  integrity  was  perfect ; 
he  conferred  often  obligations  on  those 
whom  he  did  not  know — always  gratui- 
tously, refusing  presents,  under  what- 
ever form  they  were  offered.  When 
out  of  office,  his  loyalty  was  perfect ; 
he  maintained  his  opinions  and  friend- 
ships without  bitterness  or  baseness, 
boldly  praising  his  fallen  protectors,! 
fearing  not  thereby  to  expose  himself 
to  the  loss  of  his  only  remaining  re- 
sources. He  possessed  an  innate  no- 
bility of  character,  and  reason  aided 
him  in  keeping  it.  He  considered  that 
there  is  common  sense  in  honesty.  His 
first  care,  as  he  said,  was  to  range  his 

*  Letter  from  Italy  to  Lord  Halifax  ; 

*   O  Liberty,  thou  Goddess  heavenly  bright, 
Profuse   of  bliss,  and  pregnant   with  de- 
light ; 

Eternal  pleasures  in  thy  presence  reign, 
And  smiling  plenty  leads  thy  wanton  train. 
'Tis  liberty  that  crowns  Britannia's  isle, 
And  makes  her  barren  rocks  and  her  bleak 

mountains  smile." — i.  53. 
About  the  Republic  of  San  Marino  he  writes  : 

"  Nothing  can  be  a  greater  instance  of  the 
natural  love  that  mankind  has  for  liberty,  and 
of  their  aversion  to  an  arbitrary  government, 
than  such  a  savage  mountain  covered  with  peo- 
ple, and  the  Campagna  of  Rome,  which  lies  in 
the  same  country,  almost  destitute  of  inhab- 
itants."— Remarks  on  Italy,  ii.  48. 
t  Halifax,  for  instance. 


passions  on  the  side  of  truth  He  had 
made  for  himself  a  portrait  ot  a  ration- 
al creature,  and  he  conformed  his  con- 
duct to  this  by  reflection  as  much  as  by 
instinct.  He  rested  every  virtue  on  an 
order  of  principles  and  proofs.  His 
logic  fed  his  morality,  and  the  upright 
ness  of  his  mind  completed  the  single- 
ness of  his  heart.  His  religion,  English 
in  every  sense,  was  after  the  like  fash 
ion.  He  based  his  faith  on  a  regulai 
succession  of  historical  discussions  ;  * 
he  established  the  existence  of  Go'l  I  y 
a  regular  series  of  moral  deductions  ; 
minute  and  solid  demonstration  was 
throughout  the  guide  and  foundation 
of  his  beliefs  and  emotions.  Thus  dis- 
posed, he  loved  to  conceive  God  as  the 
rational  head  of  the  world ;  he  trans- 
formed accidents  and  necessities  into 
calculations  and  directions;  he  saw 
order  and  providence  in  the  conflict  of 
things,  and  felt  around  him  the  wisdom 
which  he  attempted  to  establish  in 
himself.  Addison,  good  and  just  him- 
self, trusted  in  God,  also  a  being  good 
and  just.  He  lived  willingly  in  His 
knowledge  and  presence,  and  thought 
of  the  unknown  future  which  was  to 
complete  human  nature  and  accom- 
plish moral  order.  When  the  end  came, 
he  went  over  his  life,  and  discovered 
that  he  had  done  some  wrong  or  other 
to  Gay  :  this  wrong  was  doubtless 
slight,  since  Gay  had  never  thought  of 
it.  Addison  begged  him  to  come  to 
his  bedside,  and  asked  his  pardon. 
When  he  was  about  to  die,  he  wished 
still  to  be  useful,  and  sent  for  his  step- 
son, Lord  Warwick,  whose  careless 
life  had  caused  him  some  uneasiness. 
He  was  so  weak  that  at  first  he  could 
not  speak.  The  young  man,  after  wait- 
ing a  while,  said  to  him  :  "  Dear  sir, 
you  sent  for  me,  I  believe  ;  I  hope  that 
you  have  some  commands  ;  I  shall  hold 
them  most  sacred."  The  dying  man 
with  an  effort  pressed  his  hand,  and  re- 
plied gently :  "  See  in  what  peace  a 
Christian  can  die."  t  Shortly  after- 
wards he  expired. 

IV. 

"  The  great  and  only  end  of  these 
speculations,"  says  Addison,  in  one  oi 

*  Of  the  Christian  Religion. 

t  Addison's  Works,  Hurd,  vi.  525. 


422 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


his  Spectators,  "is  to  banish  vice  and 
ignorance  out  of  the  territories  of 
Great  Britain."  And  he  kept  his  word. 
His  papers  are  wholly  moral — advices 
to  families,  reprimands  to  thoughtless 
women,  a  sketch  of  an  honest  man, 
remedies  for  the  passions,  reflections 
on  God  and  a  future  life.  I  hardly 
know,  or  rather  I  know  very  well,  what 
success  a  newspaper  full  of  sermons 
would  have  in  France.  In  England  it 
was  extraordinary,  equal  to  that  of  the 
most  popular  modern  novelists.  In 
the  general  downfall  of  the  daily  and 
weekly  papers  ruined  by  the  Stamp 
Act,*  the  Spectator  doubled  its  price, 
and  held  its  ground.t  This  was  be- 
cause it  offered  to  Englishmen  the  pic- 
ture of  English  reason  :  the  talent  and 
the  teaching  were  in  harmony  with  the 
needs  of  the  age  and  of  the  country. 
Let  us  endeavor  to  describe  this  rea- 
son, which  became  gradually  eliminated 
from  Puritanism  and  its  rigidity,  from 
the  Restoration  and  its  excess.  The 
mind  attained  its  balance,  together  with 
religion  and  the  state.  It  conceived 
the  rule,  and  disciplined  its  conduct  ; 
it  diverged  from  a  life  of  excess,  and 
confirmed  itself  in  a  sensible  life  ;  it 
shunned  physical  and  prescribed  moral 
existence.  Addison  rejects  with  scorn 
gross  corporeal  pleasure,  the  brutal 
joy  of  noise  and  motion :  "  I  would 
nevertheless  leave  to  the  consideration 
of  those  who  are  patrons  of  this  mon- 
strous trial  of  skill,  whether  or  no  they 
are  not  guilty,  in  some  measure,  of  an 
affront  to  their  species,  in  treating  after 
this  manner  the  human  face  divine."  \ 
"  Is  it  possible  that  human  nature  can 
rejoice  in  its  disgrace,  and  take  pleas- 
ure in  seeing  its  own  figure  turned  to 
ridicule,  and  distorted  into  forms  that 
raise  horror  and  aversion  ?  There  is 
something  disingenuous  and  immoral 
in  the  being  able  to  bear  such  a  sight. "§ 

*The  Stamp  Act  (1712  ;  10  Anne,  c.  19)  put 
a  duty  of  a  halfpenny  on  every  printed  half- 
sheet  or  less,  and  a  penny  on  a  whole  sheet, 
besides  twelve  pence  on  every  advertisement. 
This  Act  was  repealed  in  1855.  Swift  writes 
to  Stella  (August  7,  1712),  "  Do  you  know  that 
all  Grub  Street  is  ruined  by  the  Stamp  Act." 
— TR. 

t  The  sale  of  the  Spectator  was  considerably 
diminished  through  its  forced  increase  of  price, 
and  it  was  discontinued  in  1713,  the  year  after 
the  Stamp  Act  was  passed. — TR. 

t  Spectator,  No    173.        §  Tatler,  No.  108. 


Of  course  he  sets  himself  against  de- 
liberate shamelessness  and  the  system* 
atic  debauchery  which  were  the  taste 
and  the  shame  of  the  Restoration  He 
wrote  whole  articles  against  young 
fashionable  men,  "a  sort  of  vermin" 
who  fill  London  with  their  bastards; 
against  professional  seducers,  who  are 
the  "  knights-errant  "  of  vice.  "  When 
men  of  rank  and  figure  pass  away  their 
lives  in  these  criminal  pursuits  and 
practices,  they  ought  to  consider  that 
they  render  themselves  more  vile  and 
despicable  than  any  innocent  man  can 
be,  whatever  low  station  his  fortune  01 
birth  have  placed  him  in."  *  He  se- 
verely jeers  at  women  who  expose 
themselves  to  temptations,  and  whom 
he  calls  "  salamanders  : "  "A  salaman- 
der is  a  kind  of  heroine  in  chastity, 
that  treads  upon  fire,  and  lives  in  the 
midst  of  flames  without  being  hurt.  A 
salamander  knows  no  distinction  of 
sex  in  those  she  converses  with,  grows 
familiar  with  a  stranger  at  first  sight, 
and  is  not  so  narrow-spirited  as  to  ob- 
serve whether  the  person  she  talks  to 
be  in  breeches  or  petticoats.  She  ad- 
mits a  male  visitant  to  her  bedside, 
plays  with  him  a  whole  afternoon  at 
picquet,  walks  with  him  two  or  three 
hours  by  moonlight."  t  He  fights  like 
a  preacher  against  the  fashion  of  low 
dresses,  and  gravely  demands  the 
tucker  and  modesty  of  olden  times : 
"  To  prevent  these  saucy  familiar 
glances,  I  would  entreat  my  gentle 
readers  to  sew  on  their  tuckers  again, 
to  retrieve  the  modesty  of  their  char- 
acters, and  not  to  imitate  the  naked- 
ness, but  the  innocence,  of  their  mother 
Eve.  In  short,  modesty  gives  the 
maid  greater  beauty  than  even  the 
bloom  of  youth  ;  it  bestows  on  the  wife 
the  dignity  of  a  matron,  and  reinstates 
the  widow  in  her  virginity."  J  We 
find  also  lectures  on  masquerades 
which  end  with  a  rendezvous  ;  precepts 
on  the  number  of  glasses  people  might 
drink,  and  the  dishes  of  which  they 
might  eat;  condemnations  of  licen- 
tious professors  of  irreligion  and  im- 
morality ;  all  maxims  now  somewhat 
stale,  but  then  new  and  useful  because 
Wycherleyand  Rochester  had  put  into 
practice  and  made  popular  the  oppo« 

*  Guardian,  No-  123.  t  Spectator,  No.  1984 
%  Guardian,  No.  100. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


423 


site  maxims.  Debauchery  passed  for 
French  and  fashionable  :  this  is  why 
Addison  proscribes  in  addition  all 
French  frivolities.  He  laughs  at 
women  who  receive  visitors  in  their 
dressing-rooms,  and  speak  aloud  at  the 
theatre  :  "  There  is  nothing  which  ex- 
poses a  woman  to  greater  dangers, 
than  thatgayety  and  airiness  of  temper, 
which  are  natural  to  most  of  the  sex. 
It  should  be  therefore  the  concern  of 
every  wise  and  virtuous  woman  to  keep 
this  sprightliness  from  degenerating 
into  levity.  On  the  contrary,  the  whole 
discourse  and  behavior  of  the  French 
is  to  make  the  sex  more  fantastical,  or 
(as  they  are  pleased  to  term  it)  more 
awakened,  than  is  consistent  either 
with  virtue  or  discretion/'  *  We  see 
already  in  these  strictures  the  portrait 
of  the  sensible  housewife,  the  modest 
English  woman,  domestic  and  grave, 
wholly  taken  up  with  her  husband  and 
children.  Addison  returns  a  score  of 
times  to  the  artifices,  the  pretty  af- 
fected babyisms,  the  coquetry,  the 
futilities  of  women.  He  cannot  suffer 
languishing  or  lazy  habits.  He  is  full 
of  epigrams  against  flirtations,  extrav- 
agant toilets,  useless  visits,  t  He 
writes  a  satirical  journal  of  a  man  who 
goes  to  his  club,  learns  the  news, 
yawns,  studies  the  barometer,  and 
thinks  his  time  well  occupied.  He 
considers  that  time  is  capital,  business 
duty,  and  life  a  task. 

Is  life  only  a  task?  If  Addison 
holds  himself  superior  to  sensual  life,  he 
falls  short  of  philosophical  life.  His 
morality,  thoroughly  English,  always 
drags  along  among  commonplaces,  dis- 
covering no  principles,  making  no  de- 
ductions. The  fine  and  lofty  aspects 
of  the  mind  are  wanting.  He  gives 
useful  advice,  clear  instruction,  justified 
by  what  happened  yesterday,  useful 
for  to-morrow.  He  observes  that 
fathers  must  not  be  inflexible,  and  that 
they  often  repent  driving  their  chil- 
dren to  despair.  He  finds  that  bad 
books  are  pernicious,  because  their 
durability  carries  their  poison  to  future 
ages.  He  consoles  a  woman  who  has 
lost  her  sweetheart,  by  showing  her 
the  misfortunes  of  so  many  other  peo- 
ple who  are  suffering  the  greatest 
evils  at  the  same  time.  His  Spectator 
*  Spectator,  No.  45.  f  Ibid.  317  and  323. 


is  only  an  honest  man's  manual,  and  is 
often  like  the  Complete  Lawyer.  It  is 
practical,  its  aim  being  not  to  amuse, 
but  to  correct  us.  The  conscientious 
Protestant,  nourished  with  disserta- 
tions and  morality,  demands  an  effect- 
ive monitor  and  guide ;  he  would  like 
his  reading  to  influence  his  conduct, 
and  his  newspaper  to  suggest  a  resolu- 
tion. To  this  end  Addison  seeks  mo- 
tives everywhere.  He  thinks  of  th& 
future  life,  but  does  not  forget  the 
present ;  he  rests  virtue  on  interest 
rightly  understood.  He  strains  no 
principle  to  its  limits ;  he  accepts  them 
all,  as  they  are  to  be  met  with  every- 
where, according  to  their  manifest 
goodness,  drawing  from  them  only  the 
primary  consequences,  shunning  the 
powerful  logical,  pressure  which  spoils 
all  by  expressing  too  much.  Let  us 
observe  him  establishing  a  maxim,  rec- 
ommending constancy  for  instance ; 
his  motives  are  mixed  and  incongru- 
ous :  first,  inconstancy  exposes  us  to 
scorn ;  next,  it  puts  us  in  continual  dis- 
traction ;  again,  it  hinders  us  as  a  rule 
from  attaining  our  end  ;  moreover,  it 
is  the  great  feature  of  a  human  and 
mortal  being ;  finally,  it  is  most  op- 
posed to  the  inflexible  nature  of  God, 
who  ought  to  be  our  model.  The 
whole  is  illustrated  at  the  close  by  a 
quotation  from  Dryden  and  a  verse 
from  Horace.  This  medley  and  jum- 
ble describe  the  ordinary  rnind  which 
remains  on  the  level  of  its  audience, 
and  the  practical  mind,  which  knows 
how  to  dominate  over  its  audience. 
Addison  persuades  the  public,  because 
he  draws  from  the  public  sources  of 
belief.  He  is  powerful  because  he  is 
vulgar,  and  useful  because  he  is  nar- 
row. 

Let  us  picture  now  this  mind,  so 
characteristically  mediocre,  limited  to 
the  discovery  of  good  motives  of  action. 
What  a  reflective  man,  always  calm  and 
dignified !  What  a  store  he  has  of 
resolutions  and  maxims  !  All  rapture, 
instinct,  inspiration,  and  caprice,  are 
abolished  or  disciplined.  No  case  sur- 
prises or  carries  him  away.  He  is  always 
ready  and  protected  ;  so  much  so,  that 
he  is  like  an  automaton.  Argument  has 
frozen  and  invaded  him.  Consider,  for 
instance,  how  he  puts  us  on  our  guard 
against  involuntary  hypocrisy,  announc 


424 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE, 


[BOOK  III 


ing,  explaining,  distinguishing  the  ordi- 
nary and  extraordinary  modes,  drag- 
ging on  with  exordiums,  preparations, 
methods,  allusions  to  Scripture.*  After 
having  read  six  lines  of  this  morality, 
a  Frenchman  would  go  out  for  a  mouth- 
ful of  fresh  air.  What  in  the  name  of 
hearen  would  he  do,  if,  in  order  to 
move  him  to  piety,  he  was  told  f  that 
God's  omniscience  and  omnipresence 
furnished  us  with  three  kinds  of  mo- 
tives, and  then  subdivided  these  motives 
into  first,  second,  and  third  ?  To  put 
calculation  at  every  stage  ;  to  come 
with  weights,  scales,  and  figures,  into 
the  thick  of  human  passions,  to  label 
them,  classify  them  like  bales,  to  tell 
the  public  that  the  inventory  is  com- 
plete ;  to  lead  them,  with  the  reckon- 
ing in  their  hand,  and  by  the  mere  vir- 
tue of  statistics,  to  honor  and  duty, — 
such  is  the  morality  of  Addison  and  of 
England.  It  is  a  sort  of  commercial 
common  sense  applied  to  the  interests 
of  the  soul ;  a  preacher  here  is  only  an 
economist  in  a  white  tie,  who  treats 
conscience  like  food,  and  refutes  vice 
because  its  introduction  is  prohibited. 
There  is  nothing  sublime  or  chimer- 
ical in  the  end  which  he  sets  before 
us  ;  all  is  practical,  that  is,  business- 
like and  sensible  ;  the  question  is,  how 
"to  be  easy  here  and  happy  after- 
wards." To  be  easy  is  a  word  which 
has  no  French  equivalent,  meaning 
that  comfortable  state  of  the  mind,  a 
middle  state  between  calm  satisfaction, 
approved  action  and  serene  conscience. 
Addison  makes  it  consist  in  labor  and 
manly  functions,  carefully  and  regular- 
ly discharged.  We  must  see  with 
what  complacency  he  paints  in  the 
Freeholder  and  "  Sir  Roger  "  the  grave 
pleasures  of  a  citizen  and  proprietor  : 

"  I  have  rather  chosen  this  title  (the  Free- 
holder :han  any  other,  because  it  is  what  I 
most  g>  :ry  in,  and  what  most  effectually  calls 
to  my  mind  the  happiness  of  that  government 
under  which  I  live.  As  a  British  freeholder,  I 
should  not  scruple  taking  place  of  a  French 
marquis  ;  and  when  I  see  one  of  my  country- 
men amusing  himself  in  his  little  cabbage-gar- 
den, I  naturally  look  upon  him  as  a  greater 
person  than  the  owner  of  the  richest  vineyard 
in  Champagne.  .  .  .  There  is  un  unspeakable 
pleasure  in  calling  anything  one's  own.  A 
freehold,  though  it  be  but  in  ice  and  snow,  will 
make  the  owner  pleased  in  the  possession,  and 
*tout  in  the  defence  of  it.  ...  I  consider  my- 


*  Spectator ',  No.  399. 


t  Ibid.  No.  571. 


self  as  one  who  give  my  consent  to  every  law 
which  passes.  ...  A  freeholder  is  but  one  re- 
move from  a  legislator,  and  for  that  reason 
ought  to  stand  up  in  the  defence  of  those  laws 
which  are  in  some  degree  of  his  own  making."  * 

These  are  all  English  feelings,  made 
made  up  of  calculation  and  pride,  en- 
ergetic and  austere  ;  and  this  portrait 
is  capped  by  that  of  the  married  man  : 
"  Nothing  is  more  gratifying  to  the  mind  of 
man  than  power  or  dominion  ;  and  this  I  think 
myself  amply  possessed  of,  as  I  am  the  father  of 
a  family.  I  am  perpetually  taken  up  in  giving 
out  orders,  in  prescribing  duties,  in  hearing 
parties,  in  administering  justice,  and  in  distrib- 
uting rewards  and  punishments.  ...  I  look 
upon  my  family  as  a  patriarchal  sovereignty,  in 
which  I  am  myself  both  king  and  priest.  .  .  . 
When  I  see  my  little  troop  before  me,  I  re- 
joice in  the  additions  which  I  have  made  to  my 
species,  to  my  country,  and  to  my  religion,  in 
having  produced  such  a  number  of  reasonable 
creatures,  citizens,  and  Christians.  I  am 
pleased  to  see  myself  thus  perpetuated  ;  and 
as  there  is  no  production  comparable  to  that  of 
a  human  creature,  I  am  more  proud  of  having 
been  the  occasion  of  ten  such  glorious  produc- 
tions, than  if  I  had  built  a  hundred  pyramids 
at  my  own  expense,  or  published  as  many  vol- 
umes of  the  finest  wit  and  learning."  t 

If  now  we  take  the  man  away  from  his 
estate  and  his  household,  alone  with 
himself,  in  moments  of  idleness  or 
reverie,  we  will  find  him  just  as  posi- 
tive. He  observes,  that  he  may  culti- 
vate his  own  reasoning  power,  and  that 
of  others  ;  he  stores  himself  with  mor- 
ality ;  he  wishes  to  make  the  most  of 
himself  and  of  existence,  that  is  the 
reason  why  he  thinks  of  death.  The 
northern  races  willingly  direct  their 
thoughts  to  final  dissolution  and  the 
dark  future.  Addison  often  chose  for  his 
promenade  gloomy  Westminster  Ab- 
bey, with  its  many  tombs  :  "  Upon  my 
going  into  the  church,  I  entertained 
myself  with  a  digging  of  a  grave  ;  and 
saw  in  every  shovelful  of  it  that  was 
thrown  up  the  fragment  of  a  bone  or 
skull  intermixt  with  a  kind  of  fresh 
mouldering  earth  that  sometime  or 
other  had  a  place  in  the  composition 
of  a  human  body.  ...  I  consider  that 
great  day  when  we  shall  ail  of  us  be 
contemporaries,  and  make  our  appear 
ance  together."  \  And  suddenly  his 
emotion  is  transformed  into  profitable 
meditations.  Underneath  his  morality 
is  a  pair  of  scales  which  weigh  quanti 
ties  of  happiness.  He  stirs  himself  b^ 

*  Freeholder,  No.  i.     t  Spectator,  No.  500* 
\  Ibid.  Nos.  26  and  575. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


425 


mathematical  comparisons  to  prefer 
the  future  to  the  present.  He  tries  to 
realize,  amidst  an  assemblage  of  dates, 
the  disproportion  of  our  short  life  to 
infinity.  Thus  arises  this  religion,  a 
product  of  melancholic  temperament 
and  acquired  logic,  in  which  man,  a 
sort  of  caculating  Hamlet,  aspires  to 
the  ideal  by  making  a  good  business  of 
it,  and  maintains  his  poetical  senti- 
ments by  financial  calculations. 

In  such  a  subject  these  habits  are 
offensive.  We  ought  not  to  try  and 
over-define  or  prove  God ;  religion  is 
rather  a  matter  of  feeling  than  of  sci- 
ence ;  we  compromise  it  by  exacting 
too  rigorous  demonstrations,  and  too 
precise  dogmas.  It  is  the  heart  which 
sees  heaven  ;  if  a  man  would  make  me 
believe  in  it,  as  he  makes  me  believe  in 
the  Antipodes,  by  geographical  ac- 
counts and  probabilities,  I  shall  barely 
or  not  at  all  believe.  Addison  has  little 
more  than  his  college  or  edifying  argu- 
ments, very  like  those  of  the  abbe  Plu- 
che,  *  which  let  in  objections  at  every 
chink,  and  which  we  can  only  regard 
as  dialectical  essays,  or  sources  of  emo- 
tion. When  we  add  to  these  argu- 
ments, motives  of  interest  and  calcula- 
tions of  prudence,  which  can  make  re- 
cruits, but  not  converts,  we  possess  all 
his  proofs.  There  is  an  element  of 
coarseness  in  this  fashion  of  treating 
divine  things,  and  we  like  still  less  the 
exactness  with  which  he  explains  God, 
reducing  him  to  a  mere  magnified  man. 
This  preciseness  and  narrowness  go 
so  far  as  to  describe  heaven : 

"Though  the  Deity  be  thus  essentially  pres- 
ent through  all  the  'immensity  of  space,  there 
is  one  part  of  it  in  which  he  discovers  himself 
in  a  most  transcendent  and  visible  glory.  .  .  . 
It  is  here  where  the  glorified  body  of  our  Sav- 
iour resides,  and  where  all  the  celestial  hier- 
archies, and  the  innumerable  hosts  of  angels, 
are  represented  as  perpetually  surrounding  the 
seat  of  God  with  hallelujahs  and  hymns  of 
praise.  .  .  .  With  how  much  skill  must  the 
throne  of  God  be  erected!  .  .  .  How  great 
must  be  the  majesty  of  that  place,  where  the 
whole  art  of  creation  has  been  employed,  and 
where  God  has  chosen  to  shew  himself  in  the 
most  magnificent  manner!  What  must  be  the 
architecture  of  infinite  power  under  the  direction 
of  infinite  wisdom  ?  "  f 

Moreover,   the    place   must    be    very 

*  The  abbe"  Pluche  (1688-1761)  was  the  author 
of  a  Systems  de  la  Nature  and  several  other 
works.— TR. 

t  Spectator,  No.  580  ;  see  also  No.  531. 


grand,  and  they  have  music  there  :  it  is 
a  noble  palace ;  perhaps  there  ar*» 
antechambers.  We  had  better  not  con- 
tinue the  quotation.  The  same  duL 
and  literal  precision  makes  him  inquire 
what  sort  of  happiness  the  elect  have.* 
They  will  be  admitted  into  the  coun- 
cils of  Providence,  and  will  understand 
all  its  proceedings :  "  There  is,  doubt- 
less, a  faculty  in  spirits  by  which  they 
apprehend  one  another  as  our  senses 
do  material  objects  ;  and  there  is  no 
question  but  our  souls,  when  they  are 
disembodied,  or  placed  in  glorified 
bodies,  will  by  this  faculty,  in  whatever 
part  of  space  they  reside,  be  always 
sensible  of  the  Divine  Presence."  t 
This  grovelling  philosophy  repels  us. 
One  word  of  Addison  will  justify  it, 
and  make  us  understand  it :  "  The 
business  of  mankind  in  this  life  is 
rather  to  act  than  to  know."  Now, 
such  a  philosophy  is  as  useful  in  ac- 
tion as  poor  in  science.  All  its  faults 
of  speculation  become  merits  in  prac- 
tice. It  follows  in  a  prosy  manner 
positive  religion,  f  What  support  does 
it  not  attain  from  the  authority  of  an 
ancient  tradition,  a  national  institution, 
an  established  priesthood,  outward  cer- 
emonies, every-day  customs  !  It  em- 
ploys as  arguments  public  utility,  the 
example  of  great  minds,  heavy  logic, 
literal  interpretation,  and  unmistak- 
able texts.  What  better  means  of  gov- 
erning the  crowd,  than  to  degrade  proofs 
to  the  vulgarity  of  its  intelligence  and 
needs  ?  It  humanizes  the  Divinity  : 
is  it  not  the  only  way  to  make  men  un- 
derstand Him  ?  It  defines  almost  ob- 
viously a  future  life  :  is  it  not  the  only 
way  to  cause  it  to  be  wished  for  ?  The 
poetry  of  lofty  philosophical  deductions 
is  weak  compared  to  the  inner  persua- 
sion, rooted  by  so  many  positive  and 
detailed  descriptions.  In  this  way  an 
active  piety  is  born ;  and  religion  thus 
constructed  doubles  the  force  of  the 
moral  spring.  Adclison's  is  admirable, 
because  it  is  so  strong.  Energy  of 
feeling  rescues  wretchedness  of  dogma. 
Beneath  his  dissertations  we  feel  that 
he  is  moved  ;  minutiae,  pedantry  disap- 
pear. We  see  in  him  now  only  a  soul 
deeply  penetrated  with  adoration  and 

*  Ibid.  Nos.  237,  571,  600. 

t  Ibid.  No.  571  ;  see  also  Nos.  237,  600. 

j  Tatler,  No.  257 


426 


respect ;  no  more  a  preacher  classify- 
ing God's  attributes,  and  pursuing  his 
trade  as  a  good  logician ;  but  a  man 
who  naturally,  and  of  his  own  bent,  re- 
turns to  a  lofty  spectacle,  goes  with  awe 
into  all  its  aspects,  and  leaves  it  only 
with  a  renewed  or  overwhelmed  heart. 
The  sincerity  of  his  emotions  makes 
us  respect  even  his  catechetical  pre- 
scriptions. He  demands  fixed  days  of 
devotion  and  meditation  to  recall  us 
regularly  to  the  thought  of  our  Creator 
and  of  our  faith.  He  inserts  prayers 
in  his  paper.  He  forbids  oaths,  and 
recommends  to  keep  always  before  us 
the  idea  of  a  sovereign  Master  : 

"  Such  an  habitual  homage  to  the  Supreme 
Being  would,  in  a  particular  manner,  banish 
from  among  us  that  prevailing  impiety  of  using 
his  name  on  the  most  trivial  occasions.  .  .  . 
What  can  we  then  think  of  those  who  make 
use  of  so  tremendous  a  name  in  the  ordinary 
expressions  of  their  anger,  mirth,  and  most  im- 
pertinent passions  ?  of  those  who  admit  it  into 
the  most  familiar  questions,  and  assertions, 
ludicrous  phrases,  and  works  of  humour  ?  not  to 
mention  those  who  violate  it  by  solemn  perjur- 
ies !  It  would  bean  affront  to  reason  to  en- 
deavour to  set  forth  the  horror  and  profaneness 
of  such  a  practice."  * 

If  a  Frenchman  was  forbidden  to  swear, 
he  would  probably  laugh  at  the  first  word 
of  the  admonition  ;  in  his  eyes  that  is 
a  matter  of  good  taste,  not  of  morality. 
But  if  he  had  heard  Addison  himself 
pronouncing  what  I  have  written,  he 
would  laugh  no  longer. 

V. 

It  is  no  small  thing  to  make  morality 
fashionable.  Addison  did  it,  and  it  re- 
mained in  fashion.  Formerly  honest 
men  were  not  polished,  and  polished 
men  were  not  honest ;  piety  was  fanati- 
cal, and  urbanity  depraved  ;  in  man- 
ners, as  in  literature,  a  man  could  meet 
only  Puritans  or  libertines.  For  the 
first  time  Addison  reconciled  virtue 
with  eleg-ince,  taught  duty  in  an  accom- 
plished style,  and  made  pleasure  sub- 
servient to  reason  : 

"  It  was  said  of  Socrates  that  he  brought 
Philosophy  down  from  heaven,  to  inhabit 
among  men  ;  and  I  shall  be  ambitious  to  have 
it  said  of  me,  that  I  have  brought  Philosophy 
out  of  closets  and  libraries,  schools  and  colleges, 
to  dwell  in  clubs  and  assemblies,  at  tea-tables 
and  in  coffee-houses.  I  would  therefore,  in  a 
very  particular  manner,  recommend  these  my 

*  Spectator,  No  541.  , 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


speculations  to  all  well-regulated  families,  and 
set  apart  an  hour  in  every  morning  for  tea  and 
bread  and  butter  ;  and  would  earnestly  advise 
them  for  their  good  to  order  this  paper  to  be 
punctually  served  up,  and  to  be  looked  upon  as 
a  part  of  the  tea-equipage."  * 

In  this  passage  we  may  detect  an  in- 
clination to  smile,  a  little  irony  tempers 
the  serious  idea;  it  is  the  tone  of  a 
polished  man,  who,  at  the  first  sign  of 
ennui,  turns  round,  delicately  laughs, 
even  at  himself,  and  tries  to  please.  It 
is  Addison's  general  tone. 

What  an  amount  of  art  is  necessary 
to  please  1  First,  the  art  of  making 
oneself  understood,  at  once,  always, 
completely,  without  difficulty  to  the 
reader,  without  reflection,  without  at- 
tention. Let  us  figure  to  ourselves 
men  of  the  world  reading  a  page  be- 
tween two  mouthfuls  of  "  bohea-rolls," 
ladies  interrupting  a  phrase  to  ask 
when  the  ball  begins  :  three  technical 
or  learned  words  would  make  them 
throw  the  paper  down.  They  only  de- 
sire distinct  terms,  in  common  use,  into 
which  wit  enters  all  at  once,  as  it  enters 
ordinary  converse ;  in  fact,  for  them 
reading  is  only  a  conversation,  and  a 
better  one  than  usual.  For  the  select 
world  refines  language.  It  does  not 
suffer  the  risks  and  approximations  of 
extempore  and  inexperienced  speaking. 
It  requires  a  knowledge  of  style,  like  a 
knowledge  of  external  forms.  It  will 
have  exact  words  to  express  the  fine 
shades  of  thought,  and  measured  words 
to  preclude  offensive  or  extreme  impres- 
sions. It  wishes  for  developed  phrases, 
which,  presenting  the  same  idea,  under 
several  aspects,  impress  it  easily  upon 
its  desultory  mind.  It  demands  har- 
monies of  words,  which,  presenting  a 
known  idea  in  a  smart  form,  may  in- 
troduce it  in  a  lively  manner  to  its  des- 
ultory imagination.  Addison  gives  it 
all  that  it  desires ;  his  writings  are  the 
pure  source  of  classical  style ;  men 
never  spoke  better  in  England.  Orna- 
ments abound,  and  never  has  rhetoric 
a  share  in  them.  Throughout  we  have 
precise  contrasts,  which  serve  only  for 
clearness,  and  are  not  too  prolonged ; 
happy  expressions,  easily  hit  on,  which 
give  things  a  new  and  ingenious  turn ; 
harmonious  periods,  in  which  the 
sounds  flow  into  one  another  with  the 

*  Ibid.  No.  10. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


427 


diversity  and  sweetness  of  a  quiet 
stream ;  a  fertile  vein  of  invention  and 
fancy,  through  which  runs  the  most 
amiable  irony.  We  trust  one  example 
will  suffice  : 

"  He  is  not  obliged  to  attend  her  (Nature)  in 
the  slow  advances  which  she  makes  from  one 
season  to  another,  or  to  observe  her  conduct  in 
the  successive  production  of  plants  and  flowers. 
He  may  draw  into  his  description  all  the  beau- 
ties of  the  spring  and  autumn,  and  make  the 
whole  year  contribute  something  to  render  it 
the  more  agreeable.  His  rose-trees,  woodbines, 
and  jessamines  may  flower  together,  and  his 
beds  be  covered  at  the  same  time  with  lilies, 
violets,  and  amaranths.  His  soil  is  not  re- 
strained to  any  particular  set  of  plants,  but  is 
proper  either  for  oaks  or  myrtles,  and  adapts 
itself  to  the  products  of  every  climate.  Oranges 
may  grow  wild  in  it  ;  myrrh  may  be  met  with 
in  every  hedge ;  and  if  he  thinks  it  proper  to 
have  a  grove  of  spices,  he  can  quickly  command 
sun  enough  to  raise  it.  If  all  this  will  not  fur- 
nish out  an  agreeable  scene,  he  can  make  sev- 
eral new  species  of  flowers,  with  richer  scents 
and  higher  colours,  than  any  that  grow  in  the 
gardens  of  nature.  His  concerts  of  birds  may 
be  as  full  and  harmonious,  and  his  woods  as 
thick  and  gloomy  as  he  pleases.  He  is  at  no 
more  expense  in  a  long  vista  than  a  short  one, 
and  can  as  easily  throw  his  cascades  from  a 
precipice  of  half  a  mile  high  as  from  one  of 
twenty  yards.  He  has  his  choice  of  the  winds, 
and  can  turn  the  course  of  his  rivers  in  all  the 
variety  of  meanders  that  are  most  delightful  to 
the  reader's  imagination."  * 

I  find  here  that  Addison  profits  by  the 
rights  which  he  grants  to  others,  and  is 
amused  in  explaining  to  us  how  we 
may  amuse  ourselves.  Such  is  the 
charming  tone  of  society.  Reading  the 
Spectator,  we  fancy  it  still  more  amiable 
than  it  is  :  no  pretension  ;  no  efforts  ; 
endless  contrivances  employed  uncon- 
sciously, and  obtained  without  asking  ; 
the  gift  of  being  lively  and  agreeable  ; 
a  refined  banter,  raillery  without  bitter- 
ness, a  sustained  gayety;  the  art  of 
finding  in  every  thing  the  most  bloom- 
ing and  the  freshest  flower,  and  to 
smell  it  without  bruising  or  sullying  it ; 
science,  politics,  experience,  morality, 
bringing  their  finest  fruits,  adorning 
them,  offering  them  at  a  chosen  mo- 
ment, ready  to  withdraw  them  as  soon 
as  conversation  has  enjoyed  them,  and 
before  it  is  tired  of  them;  ladies  placed  in 
the  first  rank,t  arbiters  of  refinement, 
surrounded  with  homage,  crowning 
the  politeness  of  men  and  the  brilliancy 
of  society  by  the  attraction  of  their  toi- 
lettes, the  delicacy  of  their  wit,  and  the 

*  Spectator,  No.  418.        t  Ibid.   423,  265. 


charm  of  their  smiles  ;  such  is  the  fa- 
miliar  spectacle  in  which  the  writer  has 
formed  and  delighted  himself. 

So  many  advantages  are  not  without 
their  inconvenience.  The  compliments 
of  society,  which  attenuate  expressions, 
blunt  the  style ;  by  regulating  what  is 
instinctive  and  moderating  what  is  ve- 
hement, they  make  speech  threadbare 
and  uniform.  We  must  not  always 
seek  to  please,  above  all,  to  please 
the  ear.  Monsieur  de  Chateaubriand 
boasted  of  not  admitting  a  single  elision 
into  the  song  of  Cymodocee ;  so  much 
the  worse  for  Cymodocee.  So  the  com- 
mentators who  have  noted  'n  Addison 
the  balance  of  his  periods  do  him  an 
injustice.*  They  explain  thus  why  he 
slightly  wearies  us.  The  rotundity 
of  his  phrases  is  a  scanty  merit  and 
mars  the  rest.  To  calculate  longs  and 
shorts,  to  be  always  thinking  of  sounds, 
of  final  cadences, — all  these  classical 
researches  spoil  a  writer.  Every  idea 
has  its  accent,  and  all  our  labor  ought 
to  be  to  put  it  down  free  and  simple  on 
paper,  as  it  is  in  our  mind.  We  ought 
to  copy  and  mark  our  thought  with  the 
flow  of  emotions  and  images,  which 
raise  it,  caring  for  nothing  but  its  exact- 
ness and  clearness.  One  true  phrase 
is  worth  a  hundred  periods  :  the  first  is 
a  document  which  fixes  forever  a 
movement  of  the  heart  or  the  senses  ; 
the  other  is  a  toy  to  amuse  the  empty 
heads  of  verse-makers.  I  would  give 
twenty  pages  of  Flechier  for  three  lines 
of  Saint-Simon.  Regular  rhythm  muti- 
lates the  impetus  of  natural  invention ; 
the  shades  of  inner  vision  vanish  ;  we 
see  no  more  a  soul  which  thinks  or 
feels,  but  fingers  which  count  measures 
whilst  scanning.  The  continuous  peri- 
od is  like  the  shears  of  La  Quintinie,t 
which  clip  all  the  trees  round  under 
pretence  of  beautifying.  This  is  why 
there  is  some  coldness  and  monotony 
in  Addison's  style.  He  seems  to  be 
listening  to  himself  He  is  too  meas- 
ured and  correct.  His  most  touching 
stories,  like  that  of  77ieodosius  and  Ccn- 

*  See,  in  the  notes  of  No.  409  of  the  Specta- 
tor, the  pretty  minute  analysis  of  Kurd,  the 
decomposition  of  the  period,  the  proportion  of 
long  and  short  syllables,  the  study  of  the  finals. 
A  musician  could  not  have  done  better. 

t  La  Quintinie  (1626-1688),  a  celebrated  gar- 
dener under  Louis  XIV.,  planned  the  gardens 
of  Versailles.— TR. 


428 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK   III 


stantia,  touch  us  only  partially.  Who 
could  feel  inclined  to  weep  over  such 
periods  as  these  ? 

*  Constantia,  who  knew  that  nothing  but  the 
rep  >rt  of  her  marriage  could  have  driven  him 
to  such  extremities,  was  not  to  be  comforted  : 
she  now  accused  herself  for  having  so  tamely 
given  an  ear  to  the  proposal  of  a  husband,  and 
looked  upon  the  new  lover  as  the  murderer  of 
Theodosius:  in  short,  she  resolved  to  suffer 
the  utmost  effects  of  her  father's  displeasure, 
rather  than  to  comply  with  a  marriage  which 
appeared  to  her  so  full  of  guilt  and  horror."  * 

Is  this  the  way  to  paint  horror  and 
guilt  ?  Where  are  the  passionate  emo- 
tions which  Addison  pretends  to  paint  ? 
The  story  is  related,  not  seen. 

The  classical  writer  simply  cannot 
see.  Always  measured  and  rational, 
his  first  care  is  to  proportion  and  ar- 
range. He  has  his  rules  in  his  pocket, 
and  brings  them  out  for  every  thing. 
He  does  not  rise  to  the  source  of  the 
beautiful  at  once,  like  genuine  artists, 
by  force  and  lucidity  of  natural  inspira- 
tion ;  he  lingers  in  the  middle  regions, 
amid  precepts,  subject  to  taste  and 
common  sense.  This  is  why  Addison's 
criticism  is  so  solid  and  so  poor.  They 
who  seek  ideas  will  do  well  not  to  read 
his  Essays  on  Imagination,  f  so  much 
praised,  so  well  written,  but  so  scant  of 
philosophy,  and  so  commonplace,  drag- 
ged down  by  the  intervention  of  final 
causes.  His  celebrated  commentary 
on  Paradise  Lost  is  little  better  than 
the  dissertations  of  Batteux  and  Bossu. 
In  one  place  he  compares,  almost  in  a 
line,  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Ovid.  The 
fine  arrangement  of  a  poem  is  with  him 
the  highest  merit.  The  pure  classics 
enjoy  better  arrangement  and  good  or- 
der than  artless  truth  and  strong  origi- 
nality. They  have  always  their  poetic 
manual  in  their  hands:  if  we  agree 
with  the  pre-arranged  pattern,  we  have 
genius ;  if  not,  we  have  none.  Addison, 
in  praise  of  Milton,  establishes  that, 
according  to  the  rule  of  epic  poetry, 
the  action  of  Paradise  Lost  is  one,  com- 
plete and  great ;  that  its  characters  are 
varied  and  of  universal  interest,  and  its 
sentiments  natural,  appropriate,  and 
elevated  ;  the  style  clear,  diversified, 
and  sublime.  Now  we  may  admire 
Milton ;  he  has  a  testimonial  from  Aris- 
totle. Listen,  for  instance,  to  cold  de- 
tails of  classical  dissertation : 

*  Spectator,  No.  164.        \Ibid.    411-421, 


'  Had  I  followed  Monsieur  Bossu's  method 
in  my  first  paper  on  Milton,  I  should  have 
dated  the  action  of  Paradise  Lost  from  the  be- 
ginning of  Raphael's  speech  in  this  book."* 

"  But,  notwithstanding  the  fineness  of  this 
allegory  (Sin  and  Death)  may  atone  for  it  (tin 
defect  'in  the  subject  of  his  poem)  in  some 
measure,  I  cannot  think  that  persons  of  such  a 
chimerical  existence  are  proper  actors  in  an  epic 
poem."  t 

Further  on  Addison  defines  poetical 
machines,  the  conditions  of  their  struc- 
ture, the  advantage  of  their  use.^  He 
seems  to  me  a  carpenter  inspecting  a 
staircase.  Do  not  suppose. that  artifi- 
ciality shocks  him  :  on  the  contrary, 
he  rather  admires  it.  He  finds  the  vio- 
lent declamations  of  the  Miltonic  di- 
vinity and  the  royal  compliments  in 
dulged  in  by  the  persons  of  the  Trinity, 
sublime.  The  camps  of  the  angels, 
their  bearing  in  the  chapel  and  barrack, 
their  scholastic  disputes,  their  bitter 
puritanical  or  pious  royalistic  style,  do 
not  strike  him  as  false  or  disagreeable. 
Adam's  pedantry  and  household  lec- 
tures appear  to  him  suitable  to  the  state 
of  innocence.  In  fact,  the  classics  of 
the  last  two  centuries  never  looked 
upon  the  human  mind,  except  in  its 
cultivated  state.  The  child,  the  artist, 
the  barbarian,  the  inspired  man,  es- 
caped them ;  so,  of  course,  did  all  who 
were  beyond  humanity :  their  world 
was  limited  to  the  earth,  and  to  the 
earth  of  the  study  and  drawing-rooms  ; 
they  rose  neither  to  God  nor  nature,  or 
if  they  did,  it  was  to  transform  nature 
into  a  well  regulated  garden-plot,  and 
God  into  a  moral  scrutator.  They  re- 
duced genius  to  eloquence,  poetry  to 
discourse,  the  drama  to  a  dialogue. 
They  regarded  reason  as  if  it  were 
beauty,  a  sort  of  middle  faculty,  not 
apt  for  invention,  potent  in  rules,  bal- 
ancing imagination  like  conduct,  and 
making  taste  the  arbiter  of  letters,  as  it 
made  morality  the  arbiter  of  actions. 
They  dispensed  with  t&e  play  on  words, 
the  sensual  grossness,  the  flights  of  im- 
agination, the  unlikelihood,  the  atroci- 
ties, and  all  the  bad  accompaniments 
of  Shakspeare ;  \  but  they  only  half 
followed  him  in  the  deep  intuitions  by 
which  he  pierced  the  human  heart,  and 
discovered  therein  the  god  and  the  ani- 
mal. They  wanted  to  be  moved,  but 
not  overwhelmed ;  they  allowed  them- 

*  Ibid.  No.  327.  t  Ibid.  No.  273. 

t  Ibid.  Nos.  39,  40,  58. 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


429 


selves  to  be  impressed,  but  demanded 
to  be  pleased.  To  please  rationally 
was  the  object  of  their  literature.  Such 
is  Addison's  criticism,  which  resembles 
his  art ;  born,  like  his  art,  of  classical 
urbanity  ;  fit,  like  his  art,  for  the  life  of 
the  world,  having  the  same  solidity  and 
the  same  limits,  because  it  had  the 
same  sources,  namely,  order  and  relaxa- 
tion. 

VI. 

But  we  must  consider  that  we  are  in 
Kngl.md,  and  that  we  find  there  many 
things  not  agreeable  to  a  Frenchman. 
In  France,  the  classical  age  attained 
perfection ;  so  that,  compared  to  it, 
other  countries  lack  somewhat  of  fin- 
ish. Addison,  elegant  in  his  own  na- 
tive country,  is  not  quite  so  in  France. 
Compared  with  Tillotson,  he  is  the 
most  charming  man  possible ;  compared 
to  Montesquieu,he  is  only  half  polished. 
His  converse  is  hardly  sparkling 
enough ;  the  quick  movement,  the  easy 
change  of  tone,  the  facile  smile,  readily 
dropt  and  readily  resumed,  are  hardly 
visible.  He  drags  on  in  long  and  too 
uniform  phrases ;  his  periods  are  too 
square ;  we  might  cull  a  load  of  useless 
words.  He  tells  us  what  he  is  going 
to  say :  he  marks  divisions  and  subdi- 
visions ;  he  quotes  Latin,  even  Greek; 
he  displays  and  protracts  without  end 
the  serviceable  and  sticky  plaster  of  his 
morality.  He  has  no  fear  of  being 
wearisome.  That  is  not  what  English- 
men fear.  Men  who  love  demonstra- 
tive sermons  three  hours  long  are  not 
difficult  to  amuse.  Remember  that 
here  the  women  like  to  go  to  meeting, 
and  are  entertained  by  listening  for  half 
a  day  to  discourses  on  drunkenness,  or 
on  the  sliding  scale  for  taxes  :  these  pa- 
tient creatures  do  not  require  that  con- 
versation should  be  always  lively  and 
piquant.  Consequently  they  can  put 
up  with  a  less  refined  politeness  and 
less  disguised  compliments.  When 
Addison  bows  to  them,  which  happens 
often,  it  is  gravely,  and  his  reverence 
is  always  accompanied  by  a  warning. 
Take  the  following  on  'their  gaudy 
dresses  : 

"  I  looked  with  as  much  pleasure  upon  this 
little  party-coloured  assembly,  as  upon  a  bed  of 
tulips,  and  did  not  know  at  first  whether  it 
might  not  be  an  embassy  of  Indian  queens  ;  but 


upon  my  going  about  into  the  pit,  and  taking 
them  in  front,  I  was  immediately  undeceived, 
and  saw  so  much  beauty  in  every  face,  that  I 
found  them  all  to  be  English.  Such  eyes  and 
lips,  cheeks  and  foreheads,  couid  be  the  growth 
of  no  other  country.  The  complexion  of  their 
faces  hindered  me  from  observing  any  further 
.the  colour  of  their  hoods,  though  I  could  easily 
perceive,  by  that  unspeakable  satisfaction  which 
appeared  in  their  looks,  that  their  own  thoughts 
were  wholly  taken  up  on  those  pretty  orna- 
ments they  wore  upon  their  heads."  * 
In  this  discreet  raillery,  modified  by  an 
almost  official  admiration,  we  perceive 
the  English  mode  of  treating  women  : 
man,  by  her  side,  is  always  a  lay-preach- 
er ;  they  are  for  him  charming  children, 
or  useful  housewives,  never  queens 
of  the  drawing-room,  or  equals,  as 
amongst  the  French.  When  Addison 
wishes  to  bring  back  the  Jacobite  la- 
dies to  the  Protestant  party,  he  treats 
them  almost  like  little  girls,  to  whom 
we  promise,  if  they  will  be  good,  to  re- 
store their  doll  or  their  cake  : 

"  They  should  first  reflect  on  the  great  suf- 
ferings and  persecutions  to  which  they  expose 
themselves  by  the  obstinacy  of  their  behaviour. 
They  lose  their  elections  in  every  club  where 
they  are  set  up  for  toasts.  They  are  obliged 
by  their  principles  to  stick  a  patch  on  the  most 
unbecoming  side  of  their  foreheads.  They 
forego  the  advantage  of  birthday  suits.  .  .  . 
They  receive  no  benefit  from  the  army,  and 
are  never  the  better  for  all  the  young  fellows 
that  wear  hats  and  feathers.  They  are  forced 
to  live  in  the  country  and  feed  their  chickens  ; 
at  the  same  time  that  they  might  show  them- 
selves at  court,  and  appear  in  brocade,  if  they 
behaved  themselves  well.  In  short,  what  must 
go  to  the  heart  of  every  fine  woman,  they  throw 
themselves  quite  out  of  the  fashion.  ...  A 
man  is  startled  when  he  sees  a  pretty  bosom 
heaving  with  such  party-rage,  as  is  disagreeable 
even  in  that  sex  which  is  of  a  more  coarse  and 
rugged  make.  And  yet  such  is  our  misfortune, 
that  we  sometimes  see  a  pair  of  stays  ready  to 
burst  with  sedition  ;  and  hear  the  most  mascu- 
line passions  expressed  in  the  sweetest  voices. 
.  .  .  Where  a  great  number  of  flowers  grow, 
the  ground  at  distance  seems  entirely  covered 
with  them,  and  we  must  walk  into  it  before  we 
can  distinguish  the  several  weeds  that  spring 
up  in  such  a  beautiful  mass  of  colours."  t 

This  gallantry  is  too  deliberate  ;  we 
are  somewhat  shocked  to  see  a  woman 
touched  by  such  thoughtful  hands.  It 
is  the  urbanity  of  a  moralist ;  albeit  he 
is  well-bred,  he  is  not  quite  amiable ; 
and  if  a  Frenchman  can  receive  from 
him  lessons  of  pedagogy  and  conduct, 
Addison  might  come  over  to  France  to 
find  models  of  manners  and  conversa- 
tion. 

*  Spectator,  No.  265. 
t  Freeholder,  No.  26. 


430 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


If  the  first  care  of  a  Frenchman  in 
society  is  to  be  amiable,  that  of  an 
Englishman  is  to  be  dignified ;  their 
mood  leads  them  to  immobility,  as 
ours  to  gestures  ;  and  their  pleasantry 
is  as  grave  as  ours  is  gay.  Laughter 
with  them  is  inward  ;  they  shun  givin 
themselves  up  to  it ;  they  are  amuse 
silently.  Let  us  make  up  our  mind  to 
understand  this  kind  of  temper,  it  will 
end  by  pleasing  us.  When  phlegm  is 
united  to  gentleness,  as  in  Addison,  it 
is  as  agreeable  as  it  is  piquant.  We 
are  charmed  to  meet  a  lively  man,  who 
is  yet  master  of  himself.  We  are  as- 
tonished to  see  these  contrary  qualities 
together.  Each  heightens  and  modi- 
fies the  other.  We  are  not  repelled  by 
venomous  bitterness,  as  in  Swift,  or  by 
continuous  buffoonery,  as  in  Voltaire. 
We  enjoy  altogether  the  rare  union, 
which  for  the  first  time  combines  seri- 
ous bearing  and  good  humor.  Read 
this  little  satire  against  the  bad  taste  of 
the  stage  and  the  public. 

"  There  is  nothing  that  of  late  years  has  af- 
forded matter  of  greater  amusement  to  the 
town  than  Signer  Nicolini's  combat  with  a  lion 
in  the  Haymarket,  which  has  been  very  often 
exhibited  to  the  general  satisfaction  of  most  of 
the  nobility  and  gentry  in  the  kingdom  of  Great 
Britain.  .  .  .  The  first  lion  was  a  candle-snuf- 
fer, who  being  a  fellow  of  a  testy,  choleric  tem- 
per, overdid  his  part,  and  would  not  suffer  him- 
self to  be  killed  so  easily  as  he  ought  to  have 
done.  .  .  .  The  second  lion  was  a  tailor  by 
trade,  who  belonged  to  the  playhouse,  and  had 
the  character  of  a  mild  and  peaceable  man  in 
his  profession.  If  the  former  was  too  furious, 
this  was  too  sheepish  for  his  part ;  insomuch 
that,  after  a  short  modest  walk  upon  the  stage, 
he  would  fall  at  the  first  touch  of  Hydaspes, 
without  grappling  with  him,  and  giving  him  an 
opportunity  of  shewing  his  variety  of  Italian 
trips.  ^  It  is  said,  indeed,  that  he  once  gave  him 
a  rip  in  his  flesh-coloured  doublet ;  but  this  was 
only  to  make  work  for  himself,  in  his  private 
character  of  a  tailor.  .  .  .  The  acting  lion  at 
present  is  as  I  am  informed,  a  country  gentle- 
man, who  does  it  for  his  diversion,  but  desires 
his  name  may  be  concealed.  He  says,  very 
handsomely,  in  his  own  excuse,  that  he  does 
not  act  for  gain,  that  he  indulges  an  innocent 
pleasure  in  it ;  and  that  it  is  better  to  pass 
away  an  evening  in  this  manner  than  in  gaming 
and  drinking.  .  .  .  This  gentleman's  temper  is 
made  out  of  such  a  happy  mixture  of  the  mild 
and  the  choleric,  that  he  outdoes  both  his  pre- 
decessors, and  has  drawn  together  greater  au- 
diences than  have  been  known  in  the  memory 
of  man.  ...  In  the  meantime  I  have  related 
this  combat  of  the  lion,  to  show  what  are  at 
present  the  reigning  entertainments  of  the 
politer  part  of  Great  Britain."  * 


There  is  much  originality  in  this  grave 
gayety.  As  a  rule,  singularity  is  in 
accordance  with  the  taste  of  the  nation  ; 
they  like  to  be  impressed  strongly  by 
contrasts.  French  literature  seems  to 
them  threadbare  ;  and  the  French  find 
them  often  not  very  delicate.  A  num- 
ber of  the  Spectator  which  seemed  pleas- 
ant to  London  ladies  would  have  shock 
ed  people  in  Paris.  Thus,  Addison 
relates  in  the  form  of  a  dream  the  dissec- 
tion of  a  beau's  brain : 

"  The  pineal  gland,  which  many  of  our  mod- 
ern  philosophers  suppose  to  be  the  seat  of  the 
soul,  smelt  very  strong  of  essence  and  orange- 
flower  water,  and  was  encompassed  with  a  kind 
of  horny  substance,  cut  into  a  thousand  little 
faces  or  mirrors,  which  were  imperceptible  to 
the  naked  eye  ;  insomuch  that  the  soul,  if  there 
had  been  any  here,  must  have  been  always 
taken  up  in  contemplating  her  own  beauties. 
We  observed  a  large  antrum  or  cavity  in  the 
sinciput,  that  was  filled  with  ribbons,  lace,  and 
embroidery.  .  .  .  We  did  not  find  anything 
very  remarkable  in  the  eye,  saving  only,  that 
the  musculi  amatorii,  or,  as  we  may  translate 
it  into  English,  the  ogling  muscles,  were  very 
much  worn,  and  decayed  with  use  ;  whereas  on 
the  contrary,  the  elevator,  or  the  muscle  which 
turns  the  eye  towards  heaven,  did  not  appear 
to  have  been  used  at  all."  * 

These  anatomical  details,  which  would 
disgust  the  French,  amuse  a  matter-of- 
fact  mind ;  harshness  is  for  him  only 
accuracy;  accustomed  to  precise  im- 
ages, he  finds  no  objectionable  odor  in 
the  medical  style.  Addison  does  not 
share  our  repugnance.  To  rail  at  a 
vice,  he  becomes  a  mathematician,  an 
economist,  a  pedant,  an  apothecary. 
Technical  terms  amuse  him.  He  sets 
up  a  court  to  judge  crinolines,  and  con- 
demns petticoats  in  legal  formulas.  He 
teaches  how  to  handle  a  fan  as  if  he 
were  teaching  to  prime  and  load  mus- 
kets. He  draws  up  a  list  of  men  dead 
or  injured  by  love,  and  the  ridiculous 
causes  which  have  reduced  them  to 
such  a  condition : 

"  Will  Simple,  smitten  at  the  Opera  by  the 
glance  of  an  eye  that  was  aimed  at  one  who 
^>tood  by  him. 

"  Sir  Christopher  Crazy,  Bart.,  hurt  by  the 
Drush  of  a  whalebone  petticoat. 

"  Ned  Courtly,  presenting  Flavia  with  her 
glove  (which  she  had  dropped  on  purpose), 
she  received  it  and  took  away  his  life  with  a 


*  Sptctator,  No-  13. 


*  Ibid.  No.  »75. 


t  Ibid.  No.  377, 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


431 


Other  statistics,  with  recapitulations 
and  tables  of  numbers,  relate  the  his- 
tory of  the  Leucadian  leap  : 

•*  Aridaeus,  a  beautiful  youth  of  Epirus,  in 
love  with  Praxinoe,  the  wife  of  the  Thespis, 
escaped  without  damage,  saving  only  that  two 
ot  his  foreteeth  were  struck  out,  and  his  nose  a 
little  flatted. 

"  Hipparchus,  being  passionately  fond  of  his 
own  wife,  who  was  enamoured  of  Bathyllus, 
leaped  and  died  of  his  fall ;  upon  which  his  wife 
married  her  gallant."  * 

We  see  this  strange  mode  of  paint- 
ing human  folly  :  in  England  it  is  called 
humor.  It  consists  of  an  incisive  good 
sense,  the  habit  of  restraint,  business 
habits,  but  above  all  a  fundamental 
energy  of  invention.  The  race  is  less 
refined,  but  stronger  than  the  French  ; 
and  the  pleasures  which  content  its 
mind  and  taste  are  like  the  liquors 
which  suit  its  palate  and  its  stomach. 

This  potent  Germanic  spirit  breaks 
out  even  in  Addison  through  his  classi- 
cal and  Latin  exterior.  Albeit  he  rel- 
ishes art,  he  still  loves  nature.  His 
education,  which  loaded  him  with 
maxims,  has  not  destroyed  his  virgin 
sentiment  of  truth.  In  his  travels  in 
France  he  preferred  the  wildness  of 
Fontainebleau  to  the  correctness  of 
Versailles.  He  shakes  off  worldly  re- 
finement to  praise  the  simplicity  of  the 
old  national  ballads.  He  explains  to 
his  public  the  sublime  images,  the  vast 
passions,  the  deep  religion  of  Paradise 
Lost.  It  is  curious  to  see  him,  com- 
pass in  hand,  kept  back  by  Bossu. 
fettered  in  endless  arguments  and 
academical  phrases,  attaining  with  one 
spring,  through  the  strength  of  natural 
emotion,  the  lofty  unexplored  regions 
to  which  Milton  rose  by  the  inspiration 
of  faith  and  genius.  Addison  does  not 
say,  as  Voltaire  does,  that  the  allegory 
of  Sin  and  Death  is  enough  to  make 
people  sick.  He  has  a  foundation  of 
grand  imagination,  which  makes  him 
indifferent  to  the  little  refinements  of 
social  civilization.  He  sojourns  will- 
ingly amid  the  grandeur  and  marvels 
of  the  other  world.  He  is  penetrated 
by  the  presence  of  the  Invisible,  he 
must  escape  from  the  interests  and 
hopes  of  the  petty  life  in  which  we 
crawl.t  This  source  of  faith  gushes 

*  Spectator,  No.  233. 

t  See  the  last  thirty  numbers  of  the  Specta- 
tor. 


from  him  in  all  directions  ;  in  vain  is 
it  enclosed  in  the  regular  channel  of 
official  dogma  ;  the  text  and  arguments 
with  which  it  is  covered  do  not  hide 
its  true  origin.  It  springs  frcin.  the 
grave  and  fertile  imagination  which 
can  only  be  satisfied  with  a  sight  of 
what  is  beyond. 

Such  a  faculty  swallows  a  man  up  ; 
and  if  we  descend  to  the  examination 
of  literary  qualities,  we  find  it  at  the 
bottom  as  well  as  at  the  top.  Nothing 
in  Addison  is  more  varied  an  1  rich 
than  the  changes  and  the  scenerj,  The 
driest  morality  is  transformed  under 
his  hand  into  pictures  and  stories. 
There  are  letters  from  all  kinds  of  men, 
clergymen,  common  people,  men  of 
fashion,  who  keep  their  own  style,  and 
disguise  their  advice  under  the  form  of 
a  little  novel.  An  ambassador  from 
Bantam  jests,  like  Montesquieu,  at  the 
lies  of  European  politeness.  Greek  or 
Oriental  tales,  imaginary  travels,  the 
vision  of  a  Scottish  seer,  the  memoirs 
of  a  rebel,  the  history  of  ants,  the  trans- 
formations of  an  ape,  the  journal  of  an 
idle  man,  a  walk  in  Westminster,  the 
genealogy  of  humor,  the  laws  of  ridicu- 
lous clubs ;  in  short,  an  inexhaustible 
mass  of  pleasant  or  solid  fictions.  The 
allegories  are  most  frequent.  We  feel 
that  the  author  delights  in  this  mag- 
nificent and  fantastic  world ;  he  is  act- 
ing for  himself  a  sort  of  opera  ;  his 
eyes  must  look  on  colors.  Here  is  a 
paper  on  religions,  very  Protestant,  but 
as  sparkling  as  it  is  ingenious :  relaxa- 
tion in  England  does  not  consist,  as  in 
France,  in  the  vivacity  and  variety  of 
tone,  but  in  the  splendor  and  correct- 
ness of  invention : 

"  The  middle  figure,  which  immediately  at- 
tracted the  eyes  of  the  whole  company,  and  was 
much  bigger  than  the  rest,  was  formed  like  a 
matron,  dressed  in  the  habit  of  an  elderly  wo- 
man of  quality  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  days.  The 
most  remarkable  parts  of  her  dress  were  the 
beaver  with  the  steeple  crown,  the  scarf  that 
was  darker  than  sable,  and  the  lawn  apron  that 
was  whiter  than  ermine.  Her  gown  was  of  the 
richest  black  velvet,  and  just  upon  her  heart 
studded  with  large  diamonds  of  an  inestimable 
value,  disposed  in  the  form  of  a  cross.  She 
bore  an  inexpressible  cheerfulness  and  dignity 
in  her  aspect ;  and  though  she  seemed  in  years, 
appeared  with  so  much  spirit  and  vivacity,  as 
gave  her  at  the  same  time  an  air  of  old  age  and 
immortality.  I  found  my  heart  touched  with 
so  much  love  and  reverence  at  the  sight  of  her. 
that  the  tears  ran  down  my  face  as  I  looked 


432 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


upon  her;  and  still  the  more  I  looked  upon 
her,  the  more  my  heart  was  melted  with  the 
sentiments  of  filial  tenderness  and  duty.  I  dis- 
covered every  moment  something  so  charming 
in  this  figure,  that  I  could  scarce  take  my  eyes 
off  it.  On  its  right  hand  there  sat  the  figure  of 
%  woman  so  covered  with  ornaments,  that  her 
•ace,  her  body,  and  her  hands  were  almost  en- 
tirely hid  under  them.  The  little  you  could 
see  of  her  face  was  painted,  and  what  I  thought 
very  odd,  had  something  in  it  like  artificial 
wrinkles ;  but  I  was  the  less  surprised  at  it, 
when  I  saw  upon  her  forehead  an  old-fashioned 
tower  of  grey  hairs.  Her  head-dress  rose  very 
high  by  three  several  stories  or  degrees ;  her 
garments  had  a  thousand  colours  in  them,  and 
were  embroidered  with  crosses  in  gold,  silver, 
and  silk  ;  she  had  nothing  on,  so  much  as  a 
glove  or  a  slipper,  which  was  not  marked  with 
this  figure  ;  nay,  so  superstitiously  fond  did  she 
appear  of  it,  that  she  sat  cross-legged.  .  .  . 
The  next  to  her  was  a  figure  which  somewhat 
puzzled  me  ;  it  was  that  of  a  man  looking  with 
horror  in  his  eyes,  upon  a  silver  bason  filled 
with  water.  Observing  something  in  his  coun- 
tenance that  looked  like  lunacy,  I  fancied  at 
first  that  he  was  to  express  that  kind  of  distrac- 
tion which  the  physicians  call  the  Hydrophobia; 
but  considering  what  the  intention  of  the  show 
was,  I  immediately  recollected  myself,  and 
concluded  it  to  be  Anabaptism."  * 

The  reader  must  guess  what  these  two 
first  figures  mean.  They  will  please  a 
member  of  the  Episcopal  Church  more 
than  a  Roman  Catholic  ;  but  I  think 
that  a  Roman  Catholic  himself  cannot 
help  recognizing  the  fulness  and  fresh- 
ness of  the  fiction. 

Genuine  imagination  naturally  ends 
in  the  invention  of  characters.  For, 
if  we  clearly  represent  to  ourselves  a 
situation  or  an  action,  we  will  see  at 
the  same  time  the  whole  network  of  its 
connection  ;  the  passion  and  faculties, 
all  the  gestures  and  tones  of  voice,  all 
details  of  dress,  dwelling,  social  inter- 
course, which  flow  from  it,  will  be  con- 
nected in  our  mind,  and  bring  their  pre- 
cedents and  their  consequences  ;  and 
this  multitude  pf  ideas,  slowly  organ- 
ized, will  at  last  be  concentrated  in  a 
single  sentiment,  from  which,  as  from  a 
deep  spring,  will  break  forth  the  por- 
trait and  "the  history  of  a  complete 
character.  There  are  several  such  in 
Addison ;  the  quiet  observer  Will 
Honeycomb,  the  country  Tory  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley,  which  are  not  satir- 
ical theses,  like  those  of  La  Bruyere, 
but  genuine  individuals,  like,  and  some- 
times equal  to,  the  characters  of  the 
great  contemporary  novels.  In  reality, 
ne  invents  the  novel  without  suspect- 
*  Tatler,  No.  257. 


ing  it,  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
way  as  his  most  illustrious  neighbors. 
His  characters  are  taken  from  life, 
from  the  manners  and  conditions  of 
the  age,  described  at  length  and  minute- 
ly in  all  the  details  of  their  education 
and  surroundings,  with  a  precise  and 
positive  observation,  marvellously  real 
and  English.  A  masterpiece  as  well 
as  an  historical  record  is  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley,  the  country  gentleman,  a 
loyal  servant  of  State  and  Church,  a 
justice  of  the  peace,  with  a  chaplain  of 
his  own,  and  whose  estate  shows  on  a 
small  scale  the  structure  of  the  English 
nation.  This  domain  is  a  little  king- 
dom, paternally  governed,  but  still  gov- 
erned. Sir  Roger  rates  his  tenants, 
passes  them  in  review  in  church,  knows 
their  affairs,  gives  them  advice,  as- 
sistance, commands ;  he  is  respected, 
obeyed,  loved,  because  he  lives  with 
them,  because  the  simplicity  of  his 
tastes  and  education  puts  him  almost 
on  a  level  with  them  ;  because  as  a 
magistrate,  a  landed  proprietor  of  many 
years  standing,  a  wealthy  man,  a  bene- 
factor and  neighbor,  he  exercises  a 
moral  and  legal,  a  useful  and  respected 
authority.  Addison  at  the  same  time 
shows  in  him  the  solid  and  peculiar 
English  character,  built  of  heart  of  oak, 
with  all  the  ruggedness  of  the  primitive 
bark,  which  can  neither  be  softened 
nor  planed  down,  a  great  fund  of 
kindness  which  extends  even  to  an- 
imals, a  love  for  the  country  and  for 
bodily  exercises,  an  inclination  to  com- 
mand and  discipline,  a  feeling  of  sub- 
ordination and  respect,  much  common 
sense  and  little  finesse,  a  habit  of  dis- 
playing and  practising  in  public  his 
singularities  and  oddities,  careless  of 
ridicule,  without  thought  of  bravado, 
solely  because  these  men  acknowledge 
no  judge  but  themselves.  A  hundred 
traits  depict  the  times  ;  a  lack  of  love 
for  reading,  a  lingering  belief  in  witches, 
rustic  and  sporting  manners,  the  igno- 
rances of  an  artless  or  backward  mind. 
Sir  Roger  gives  the  children,  who  an- 
swer their  catechism  well,  a  Bible  for 
themselves,  and  half  a  flitch  of  bacon 
for  their  mothers.  When  a  verse 
pleases  him,  he  sings  it  for  half  a  min- 
ute after  the  congregation  has  finished. 
He  kills  eight  fat  pigs  at  Christmas, 
and  sends  a  pudding  and  a  pack  of 


CHAP.  IV.] 


ADDISON. 


433 


cards  to  each  poor  family  in  the  parish 
When  he  goes  to  the  theatre,  he  sup- 
plies his  servants  with  cudgels  to  pro- 
tect themselves  from  the  thieves  which, 
he  says,  infest  London.  Addison  re- 
turns a  score  of  times  to  the  old  knight, 
always  showing  some  new  aspect  of  his 
character,  a  disinterested  observer  of 
humanity,  curiously  assiduous  and  dis- 
cerning, a  true  creator,  having  but  one 
step  farther  to  go  to  enter,  like  Richard- 
3011  and  Fielding,  upon  the  great  work 
of  modern  literature,  the  novel  of  man- 
ners and  customs. 

There  is  an  undercurrent  of  poetry 
in  all  this.  It  has  flowed  through  his 
prose  a  thousand  times  more  sincere 
and  beautiful  than  in  his  verses.  Rich 
oriental  fancies  are  displayed,  not  witl 
a  shower  of  sparks  as  in  Voltaire,  but 
in  a  calm  and  abundant  light,  which 
makes  the  regular  folds  of  their  purple 
and  gold  undulate.*  The  music  of  the 
vast  cadenced  and  tranquil  phrases 
leads  the  mind  gently  amidst  romantic 
splendors  and  enchantments,  and  the 
deep  sentiment  of  ever  young  nature 
recalls  the  happy  quietude  of  Spenser. 
Through  gentle  railleries  or  moral 
essays  we  feel  that  the  author's  imagina- 
tion is  happy,  delighted  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  swaying  to  and  fro  of  the 
forest-tops  which  clothe  the  mountains, 
the  eternal  verdure  of  the  valleys,  in- 
vigorated by  fresh  springs,  and  the 
wide  view  undulating  far  away  on  the 
distant  horizon.  Great  and  simple 
sentiments  naturally  join  these  noble 
images,  and  their  measured  harmony 
creates  a  unique  spectacle,  worthy  to 
fascinate  the  heart  of  a  good  man  by 
its  gravity  and  sweetness.  Such  are 
the  Visions  of  Mirza,  which  I  will  give 
almost  entire  ; 

"  On  the  fifth  day  of  the  moon,  which  ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  my  forefathers  I  al- 
ways keep  holy,  after  haying  washed  myself, 
and  offere  i  up  my  morning  devotions,  I  as- 
cended the  high  hills  of  Bagdat,  in  order  to 
pass  the  rest  of  the  day  in  meditation  and 
prayer.  As  I  was  here  airing  myself  on  the 
tops  of  the  mountains,  I  fell  into  a  profound 
contemplation  on  the  vanity  of  human  life  ;  and 
passing  from  one  thought  to  another:  Surely, 
said  I,  man  is  but  a  shadow  and  life  a  dream. 
Whilst  I  was  thus  musing,  I  cast  my  eyes  to- 
wards the  summit  of  a  rock  that  was  not  far 


*  See  the  history  of  A  Inaschar  in  the  Spec- 
tator, No.  535,  and  also  that  of  Hilpa  in  the 
same  paper,  Nos.  584,  585. 


from  me,  where  I  discovered  one  in  the  habit 
of  a  shepherd,  with  a  musical  instrument  in 
his  hand.  As  I  looked  upon  him  he  applied  it 
to  his  lips,  and  began  to  play  upon  it.  The 
sound  of  it  was  exceeding  sweet,  and  wrought 
into  a  variety  of  tunes  that  were  inexpressibly 
melodious,  and  altogether  different  from  any- 
thing I  had  ever  heard.  They  put  me  in  mind 
of  those  heavenly  airs  that  are  played  to  the 
departed  souls  of  good  men  upon  their  first  ar- 
rival in  Paradise,  to  wear  out  the  impressions 
of  the  last  agonies,  and  qualify  them  for  the 
pleasures  of  that  happy  place.  My  heart  melted 
away  in  secret  raptures.  .  .  . 

"  He  (the  Genius)  then  led  me  to  the 
highest  pinnacle  of  the  rock,  and  placing 
me  on  the  top  of  it,  Cast  thy  eyes  eastward, 
said  he,  and  tell  me  what  thou  seest.  I 
see,  said  I,  a  huge  valley,  and  a  prodigious 
tide  of  water  rolling  through  it.  The  valley 
that  thou  seest,  said  he,  is  the  vale  of 
miser}',  and  the  tide  of  water  that  thou  seest 
is  part  of  the  great  tide  of  Eternity.  What  is 
the  reason,  said  I,  that  the  tide  I  see  rises 
put  of  a  thick  mist  at  one  end,  and  again  loses 
itself  in  a  thick  mist  at  the  other?  What  thou 
seest,  said  he,  is  that  portion  of  Eternity  which 
is  called  Time,  measured  out  by  the  Sun,  and 
reaching  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  its 
consummation.  Examine  now,  said  he,  this 
sea  that  is  bounded  with  darkness  at  both  ends, 
and  tell  me  what  thou  discoverest  in  it.  I  see 
a  bridge,  said  I,  standing  in  the  midst  of  the 
tide.  The  bridge  thou  seest,  said  he,  is  human 
life ;  consider  it  attentively.  Upon  a  more 
leisurely  survey  of  it,  I  found  that  it  consisted 
of  three  score  and  ten  entire  arches,  with  sev- 
eral broken  arches,  which  added  to  those  that 
were  entire,  made  up  the  number  about  an  hun- 
dred. As  I  was  counting  the  arches,  the  genius 
told  me  that  this  bridge  consisted  at  first  of  a 
thousand  arches  :  but  that  a  great  flood  swept 
away  the  rest,  and  left  the  bridge  in  the  ruinous 
condition  I  now  beheld  it.  But  tell  me  further, 
said  he,  what  thou  discoverest  on  it.  I  see 
multitudes  of  people  passing  over  it,  said  I,  and 
a  black  cloud  hanging  on  each  end  of  it.  As  I 
looked  more  attentively,  I  saw  several  of  the 
passengers  dropping  through  the  bridge  into 
the  great  tide  that  flowed  underneath  it ;  and 
upon  further  examination,  perceived  there  were 
innumerable  trap-doors  that  lay  concealed  In 
the  bridge,  which  the  passengers  no  sooner 
trod  upon,  but  they  fell  through  them  into  the 
tide,  and  immediately  disappeared.  These  hid- 
den pit-falls  were  set  very  thick  at  the  entrance 
of  the  bridge,  so  that  throngs  of  people  no 
sooner  broke  through  the  cloud,  but  many  of 
:hem  fell  into  them.  They  grew  thinner  to- 
wards the  middle,  but  multiplied  and  lay  closer 
together  towards  the  end  of  the  arches  that 
were  entire^. 

"  There  were  indeed  some  persons,  but  their 

umber  was  very  small,  that  c  ;ntinued  a  kind 

of  hobbling  march  on  the   broken  arches,  but 

ell  through  one  after  another,  being  quite  tired 

and  spent  with  so  long  a  walk. 

"  I  passed  sometime  in  die  contemplation  of 
this  wonderful  structure,  and  the  great  variety 
of  objects  which  it  presented.  My  heart  was 
illed  with  a  deep  melancholy  to  see  several 
dropping  unexpectedly  in  the  midst  of  mirth 
and  jollity,  and  catching  at  everything  that 

19 


434 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


gl 
b 


stood  by  them  to  save  themselves.  Some  were 
looking  up  towards  the  Heavens  in  a  thought- 
ful posture,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  Speculation 
stumbled  and  fell  out  of  sight.  Multitudes 
were  very  busy  in  the  pursuit  of  bubbles  that 

littered  in  their  eyes  and  danced  before  them  ; 

ut  often  when  they  thought  themselves  within 
the  reach  of  them,  their  footing  failed,  and 
down  they  sunk.  In  this  confusion  of  objects, 
I  observed  some  with  scimitars  in  their  hands, 
and  others  with  urinals,  who  ran  to  and  fro  upon 
the  bridge,  thrusting  several  persons  on  trap- 
doors which  did  not  seem  to  lie  in  their  way, 
and  which  they  might  have  escaped  had  they 
not  been  thus  forced  upon  them.  .  .  . 

"  I  here  fetched  a  deep  sigh.  Alas,  said  I, 
man  was  made  in  vain  !  How  is  he  given  away 
to  misery  and  mortality  !  tortured  in  life,  and 
swallowed  up  in  death!  —  The  Genius,  being 
moved  with  compassion  towards  me,  bid  me 
quit  so  uncomfortable  a  prospect.  Look  no 
more,  said  he,  on  man  in  the  first  stage  of  his 
existence,  in  his  setting  out  for  eternity  ;  but 
cast  thine  eye  on  that  thick  mist  into  which  the 
tide  bears  the  several  generations  of  mortals 
that  fall  into  it.  1  directed  my  sight  as  I  was 
ordered,  and  (whether  or  no  the  good  Genius 
strengthened  it  with  any  supernatural  force,  or 
dissipated  part  of  the  mist  that  was  before  too 
thick  for  the  eye  to  penetrate)  I  saw  the  valley 
opening  at  the  farther  end,  and  spreading  forth 
into  an  immense  ocean,  that  had  a  huge  rock  of 
adamant  running  through  the  midst  of  it,  and 
dividing  it  into  two  equaJ  parts.  The  clouds 
still  rested  on  one  half  of  it,  insomuch  that  I 
could  discover  nothing  in  it  :  but  the  other  ap- 
peared to  me  a  vast  ocean  planted  with  innu- 
merable islands,  that  were  covered  with  fruits 
and  flowers,  and  interwoven  with  a  thousand 
little  shining  seas  that  ran  among  them.  t  I 
could  see  persons  dressed  in  glorious  habits, 
with  garlands  upon  their  heads,  passing  among 
the  trees,  lying  down  by  the  sides  of  the  foun- 
tains, or  resting  on  beds  of  flowers  ;  and  could 
hear  a  confused  harmony  of  singing  birds,  fall- 
ing waters,  human  voices,  and  musical  instru- 
ments. Gladness  grew  in  me  upon  the  discov- 
ery of  so  delightful  a  scene.  I  wished  for  the 
wings  of  an  eagle,  that  I  might  fly  away  to 
those  happy  seats  ;  but  the  Genius  told  me 
there  was  no  passage  to  -them,  except  through 
the  gates  of  death  that  I  saw  opening  every 
moment  upon  the  bridge.  The  islands,  said  he, 
that  lie  so  fresh  and  green  before  thee,  and 
with  which  the  whole  face  of  the  ocean  appears 
spotted  as  far  as  thou  canst  see,  are  more  in 
number  than  the  sands  on  the  sea-shore  ;  there 
are  myriads  of  islands  behind  those  which  thou 
here  discoverest,  reaching  farther  than  thine 
eye,  or  even  thine  imagination,  can  extend  it- 
eel  f.  These  are  the  mansions  of  good  men  af- 
ter death,  who  according  to  the  degree  and 
kinds  of  virtue  in  which  they  excelled,  are  dis- 
tributed among  these  several  islands,  which 
abound  with  pleasures  of  different  kinds  and 
iegraes,  suitable  to  the  relishes  and  perfections 
of  those  who  are  settled  in  them  :  every  island 
is  a  paradise  accommodated  to  its  respective  in- 
habitants. Are  not  these,  O  Mirza,  habitations, 
worth  contending  for?  Does  life  appear  mis- 
erable, that  gives  thee  opportunities  of  earning 
such  a  reward  ?  Is  death  to  be  feared,  that  will 
Convey  thee  to  so  happy  an  existence  ?  Think 


not  man  was  n  ade  in  vain,  who  has  such  an 
eternity  reserved  for  him.  I  gazed  with  inex« 
pressible  pleasure  on  these  happy  islands.  At 
length,  said  I,  shew  me  now,  I  beseech  thee, 
the  secrets  that  lie  hid  under  those  dark  clouds 
which  cover  the  ocean  on  the  other  side  of  the 
rock  of  Adamant.  The  Genius  making  me  no 
answer,  I  turned  me  about  to  address  myself  to 
him  a  second  time,  but  I  found  that  he  had  left 
me  ;  I  then  turned  again  to  the  vision  which  I 
had  been  so  long  contemplating  :  but  instead  of 
the  rolling  tide,  the  arched  bridge,  and  the 
happy  islands,  I  saw  nothing  but  the  long  hol- 
low valley  of  Bagdat,  with  oxen,  sheep,  and 
camels  grazing  upon  the  sides  of  it."  * 

In  this  ornate  moral  sketch,  this  fine 
reasoning,  so  correct  and  so  eloquent 
this  ingenious  and  noble  imagination,  I 
find  an  epitome  of  all  Adclison's  charac- 
teristics. These  are  the  English  tints 
which  distinguish  this  classical  age 
from  that  of  the  French  :  a  narrower 
and  more  practical  argument,  a  more 
poetical  and  less  eloquent  urbanity,  a 
structure  of  mind  more  inventive  and 
more  rich,  less  sociable  and  less  refined. 


CHAPTER  V. 


IN  1685,  in  the  great  hall  of  Dublin 
University,  the  professors  engaged  in 
examining  for  the  bachelor's  degree 
beheld  a  singular  spectacle  :  a  poor 
scholar,  odd,  awkward,  with  hard  blue 
eyes,  an  orphan,  friendless,  dependent 
on  the  precarious  charity  of  an  uncle, 
having  failed  once  before  to  take  his 
degree  on  account  of  his  ignorance  of 
logic,  had  come  up  again  without  having 
condescended  to  read  logic.  To  no 
purpose  his  tutor  set  before  him  the 
most  respectable  folios  —  Smiglecius, 
Keckermannus,  Burgerdiscius.  He 
turned  over  a  few  pages,  and  shut  them 
directly.  When  the  argumentation  came 
on,  the  proctor  was  obliged  to  "  reduce 
his  replies  into  syllogism."  He  was 
asked  how  he  could  reason  well  without 
rules  ;  he  replied  that  he  did  reason 
pretty  well  without  them.  This  folly 
shocked  them  ;  yet  he  was  received, 
though  with  some  difficulty,  speciali 
gratid,  s?ys  the  college  register,  and  the 
professr  s  went  away,  doubtless  with 

*  Spectator,  No.  159. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


435 


Eitying  smiles,   lamenting   the   feeble 
rain  of  Jonathan  Swift 

I. 

This  was  his  first  humiliation  and  his 
first  rebellion.  His  whole  life  was  like 
this  moment,  overwhelmed  and  made 
wretched  by  sorrow  and  hatred.  To 
what  excess  they  rose,  his  portrait  and 
his  history  alone  can  show.  He  foster- 
ed an  exaggerated  and  terrible  pride, 
and  made  the  haughtiness  of  the  most 
powerful  ministers  and  greatest  lords 
bend  beneath  his  arrogance.  Though 
only  a  literary  man,  possessing  nothing 
but  a  small  Irish  living,  he  treated 
them  on  a  footing  of  equality.  Harley, 
the  prime  minister,  having  sent  him  a 
bank-bill  of  fifty  pounds  for  his  first 
articles,  he  was  offended  at  being  taken 
for  a  hack  writer,  returned  the  money, 
demanded  an  apology,  received  it,  and 
wrote  in  his  journal  :  "  I  have  taken 
Mr.  Harley  into  favor  again."  *  On 
another  occasion,  having  observed  that 
the  Secretary  of  State,  St.  John,  looked 
ipon  him  coldly,  rebuked  him  for  it  : 

"  One  thing  I  warned  him  of,  never  to  appear 
:old  to  me,  for  I  would  not  be  treated  like  a 
school-boy  ;  that  I  expected  every  great  minis- 
ter who  honoured  me  with  his  acquaintance,  if 
he  heard  or  saw  anything  to  my  disadvantage, 
would  let  me  know  in  plain  words,  and  not  put 
me  in  pain  to  guess  by  the  change  or  coldness 
of  his  countenance  or  behaviour ;  for  it  was 
what  I  would  hardly  bear  from  a  crowned  head  ; 
and  I  thought  no  subject's  favour  was  worth  it : 
and  that  I  designed  to  let  my  Lord  Keeper  and 
Mr.  Harley  know  the  same  thing,  that  they 
might  use  me  accordingly."  t 

St.  John  approved  of  this,  made  excuses, 
said  that  he  had  passed  several  nights 
at  "  business,  and  one  night  at  drink- 
ing," and  that  his  fatigue  might  have 
seemed  like  ill-humor.  In  the  minis- 
ter's drawing-room  Swift  went  up  and 
spoke  to  some  obscure  person,  and 
compelled  the  lords  to  come  and  speak 
to  him  : 

'*  Mr.  Secretary  told  me  the  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham had  been  talking  to  him  much  about 
me,  and  desired  my  acquaintance.  I  an- 

*  In  Swift's  Works,  ed.  W.  Scott,  19  vols. 
1814  ;  Journal  to  Stella^  ii.  Feb.  13  (1710-11). 
He  says  also  (Feb.  6  and  7)  :  "I  will  not  see 
him  (Mr.  Harley)  till  he  makes  amends.  .  .  . 
I  was  deaf  to  all  entreaties,  and  have  desired 
Lewis  to  go  to  him,  and  let  him  know  that  I 
expect  farther  satisfaction.  If  we  let  these 
great  ministers  pretend  too  much,  there  will  be 
no  governing  them."  t  Ibid.  April  3,  1711. 


swered,  it  could  not  be,  for  he  had  not  mada 
sufficient  advances.  Then  the  Duke  of  Shrews- 
bury said,  he  thought  the  Duke  was  not  used 
to  make  advances.  I  said,  I  could  not  help 
that  ;  for  I  always  expected  advances  in  pro* 
portion  to  men's  quality,  and  more  from  a  duke 
than  other  men."  * 

"  Saw  Lord  Halifax  at  court,  and  we  joined 
and  talked,  and  the  Duchess  of  Shrewsbury 
came  up  and  reproached  me  tor  not  dining  with 
her :  I  said  that  was  not  so  soon  done  ;  for  I 
expected  more  advances  from  ladies,  especially 
duchesses :  She  promised  to  comply.  .  .  .  Lady 
Oglethorp  brought  me  and  the  Duchess  of 
Hamilton  together  to-day  in  the  drawing-room, 
and  I  have  given  her  some  encouragement,  cut 
not  much."  t 

He  triumphed  in  his  arrogance,  and 
said  with  a  restrained  joy,  full  of  ven- 
geance :  "  I  generally  am  acquainted 
with  about  thirty  in  the  drawing-room, 
and  am  so  proud  that  I  make  al)  the 
lords  come  up  to  me.  One  passes  half 
an  hour  pleasant  enough."  He  carried 
his  triumph  to  the  verge  of  brutality 
and  tyranny  ;  writing  to  the  Duchess 
of  Queensberry,  he  says  :  "  I  am  glad 
you  know  your  duty  ;  for  it  has  been  a 
known  and  established  rule  above 
twenty  years  in  England,  that  the  first 
advances  have  been  constantly  made 
me  by  all  ladies  who  aspired  to  my 
acquaintance,  and  the  greater  their 
quality,  the  greater  were  their  ad- 
vances." J  The  famous  General  Webb, 
with  his  crutch  and  cane,  limped  up  two 
flights  of  stairs  to  congratulate  him  and 
invite  him  to  dinner  ;  Swift  accepted, 
then  an  hour  later  withdrew  his  consent, 
preferring  to  dine  elsewhere.  He 
seemed  to  look  upon  himself  as  a  su- 
perior being,  exempt  from  the  necessity 
of  showing  his  respects  to  any  one, 
entitled  to  homage,  caring  neither  for 
sex,  rank,  nor  fame,  whose  business  it 
was  to  protect  and  destroy,  distributing 
favors,  insults,  and  pardons.  Addison, 
and  after  him  Lady  Gifford,  a  friend  of 
twenty  years'  standing,  having  offended 
him,  he  refused  to  take  them  back  into 
his  favor  until  they  had  asked  his  par- 
don. Lord  Lansdown,  Secretary  for 
War,  being  annoyed  by  an  expression 
in  the  Examiner,  Swift  says  :  "  This  I 
resented  highly  that  he  should  complain 
of  me  before  lie  spoke  to  me.  I  sent 
him  a  peppering  letter,  and  would  not 
summon  him  by  a  note,  as  I  did  the 

*  Swift's  Works,  Journal  to  Stella,  ii.  Maj 
19,  1711.  t  Ibid.  Oct.  7.  1711. 

\  Ibid.  xvii.  p.  352. 


436 


rest ;  nor  ever  will  have  any  thing  to 
say  to  him,  till  he  begs  my  pardon."  * 
He  treated  art  like  man,  writing  a  thing 
off,  scorning  the  wretched  necessity  of 
reading  it  over,  putting  his  name"  to 
nothing,  letting  every  piece  make  its 
way  on  its  own  merits,  unassisted,  with- 
out the  prestige  of  his  name,  recom- 
mended by  none.  He  had  the  soul  of 
a  dictator,  thirsting  after  power,  and 
saying  openly  :  "  All  my  endeavors, 
from  a  boy,  to  distinguish  myself  were 
only  for  want  of  a  great  title  and  for- 
tune, that  I  might  be  treated  like  a  lord 
.  .  .  whether  right  or  wrong,  it  is  no 
great  matter  ;  and  so  the  reputation  of 
wit  or  great  learning  does  the  office  of 
a  blue  ribbon,  or  of  a  coach  and  six 
horses."  t  But  he  thought  this  power 
and  rank  due  to  him  ;  he  did  not  ask, 
but  expected  them.  "  I  will  never  beg 
for  myself,  though  I  often  do  it  for 
others."  He  desired  ruling  power,  and 
acted  as  if  he  had  it.  Hatred  and  mis- 
fortune find  a  congenial  soil  in  these 
despotic  minds.  They  live  like  fallen 
kings,  always  insulting  and  offended, 
having  all  the  miseries  but  none  of  the 
consolations  of  pride,  unable  to  relish 
either  society  or  solitude,  too  ambitious 
to  be  content  with  silence,  too  haughty 
to  use  the  world,  born  for  rebellion  and 
defeat,  destined  by  their  passions  and 
impotence  to  despair  and  to  talent. 

Sensitiveness  in  Swift's  case  aggra- 
vated the  stings  of  pride.  Under  this 
outward  calmness  of  countenance  and 
style  raged  furious  passions.  There 
was  within  him  a  ceaseless  tempest  of 
wrath  and  desire  :  "  A  person  of  great 
honor  in  Ireland  (who  was  pleased  to 
stoop  so  low  as  to  look  into  my  mind) 
used  to  tell  me  that  my  mind  was  like 
a  conjured  spirit,  that  would  do  mis- 
chief, if  I  would  not  give  it  employment." 
Resentment  sunk  deeper  in  him  than 
in  other  men.  Listen  to  the  profound 
sigh  of  joyful  hatred  with  which  he 
sees  his  enemies  under  his  feet  :  "  The 
whigs  were  ravished  to  see  me,  and 
would  lay  hold  on  me  as  a  twig  while 
they  are  drowning ;  and  the  great  men 
making  me  their  clumsy  apologies."  J 
"  It  is  good  to  see  what  a  lamentable 
confession  the  whigs  all  make  of  my 

*  yournal  to  Stella^  iii.  March  27,  1711-12. 

t  Letter   to   Bolingbroke,    Dublin,    April  5, 

^729.        \  Journal  to  Stella^  ii.,  Sept.  9,  1710. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  lit 


ill-usage."  *  And  soon  after  :  "  Rot 
them,  for  ungrateful  dogs  ;  I  will  make 
them  repent  their  usage  before  I  leave 
this  place."  t  He  is  satiated  and  has 
glutted  his  appetite  ;  like  a  wolf  or  a 
lion,  he  cares  for  nothing  else. 

This  impetuosity  led  him  to  every 
sort  of  madness  and  violence.  His 
Drapier's  Letters  had  roused  Ireland 
against  the  government,  and  the  govern- 
ment had  issued  a  proclamation  offering 
a  reward  to  any  one  who  would  denounce 
the  Drapier.  Swift  came  suddenly  into 
the  reception-chamber,  elbowed  the 
groups,  went  up  to  the  lord-lieutenant, 
with  indignation  on  his  countenance, 
and  in  a  thundering  voice,  said  :  "  So, 
my  lord,  this  is  a  glorious  exploit  that 
you  performed  yesterday,  in  suffering  a 
proclamation  against  a  poor  shopkeeper, 
whose  only  crime  is  an  honest  endeavor 
to  save  his  country  from  ruin."  |  And 
he  broke  out  into  railing  amidst  general 
silence  and  amazement.  The  lord  lieu- 
tenant, a  man  of  sense,  answered  calmly. 
Before  such  a  torrent  men  turned  aside. 
This  chaotic  and  self-devouring  heart 
could  not  understand  the  calmness  of 
his  friends  ;  he  asked  them  :  "  Do  not 
the  corruptions  and  villanies  of  men  eat 
your  flesh,  and  exhaust  your  spirits  ?  "§ 

Resignation  was  repulsive  to  him. 
His  actions,  abrupt  and  strange,  broke 
out  amidst  his  silent  moods  like  flashes 
of  lightning.  He  was  eccentric  and 
violent  in  every  thing,  in  his  pleasantrv, 
in  his  private  affairs,  with  his  friends, 
with  unknown  people ;  he  was  often 
taken  for  a  madman.  Addison  and 
his  friends  had  seen  for  several  days 
at  Button's  coffee-house  a  singular  par- 
son, who  laid  his  hat  on  the  table, 
walked  for  half-an-hour  backward  and 
forward,  paid  his  money,  and  left,  hav- 
ing attended  to  nothing  and  said  noth- 
ing. They  called  him  the  mad  parson. 
One  day  this  parson  perceives  a  gen- 
tleman "  just  come  out  of  the  country," 
went  straight  up  to  him,  "  and  in  a 
very  abrupt  manner,  without  any  pre- 
vious salute,  asked  him,  '  Pray,  sir,  do 
you  remember  any  good  weather  in  the 
world  ?  '  The  country  gentleman,  after 
staring  a  little  at  the  singularity  of  his 
(Swift's)  manner  and  the  oddity  of  the 

*  Ibid.  Sept.  30,  1710.     %  Ibid.  Nov.  8,  1710, 
t  Swiff  s  Life,  by  Roscoe  %  56. 
I  Swiff  s  Life,  by  W.  Scon.  i.  279. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


437 


question,  answered,  '  Yes,  sir,  I  thank 
God,  I  remember  a  great  deal  of  good 
weather  in  my  time.'  '  That  is  more,' 
said  Swift,  '  than  I  can  say  ;  I  never  re- 
member any  weather  that  was  not  too 
hot,  or  too  cold,  too  wet  or  too  dry  ; 
but,  however  God  Almighty  contrives 
it,  at  the  end  of  the  year  '  tis  all  very 
well.'  "  *  Another  day,  dining  with 
the  Earl  of  Burlington,  the  Dean  said 
to  the  mistress  of  the  house,  "  Lady 
Burlington,  I  hear  you  can  sing  ;  sing 
me  a  song."  The  lady  looked  on  this 
unceremonious  manner  of  asking  a 
favor  with  distaste,  and  positively  re- 
fused. He  said,  "  she  should  sing,  or 
he  would  make  her.  Why,  madam,  I 
suppose  you  take  me  for  one  of  your 

?oor  English  hedge-parsons;  sing  when 
bid  you  !  "  As  the  earl  did  nothing 
but  laugh  at  this  freedom,  the  lady  was 
so  vexed,  that  she  burst  into  tears  and 
retired.  His  first  compliment  to  her 
when  he  saw  her  again,  was,  "  Pray, 
madam,  are  you  as  proud  and  as  ill- 
natured  now  as  when  I  saw  you  last  ?  "t 
People  were  astonished  or  amused  at 
these  outbursts  ;  I  see  in  them  sobs 
and  cries,  the  explosion  of  long,  over- 
whelming and  bitter  thoughts  ;  they  are 
starts  of  a  mind  unsubdued,  shudder- 
ing, rebelling,  breaking  the  barriers, 
wounding,  crushing,  or  bruising  every 
one  on  its  road,  or  those  who  wish  to 
stop  it.  Swift  became  mad  at  last  ;  he 
felt  this  madness  coming  on,  he  has  de- 
scribed it  in  a  horrible  manner  ;  before- 
hand he  has  tasted  all  the  disgust  and  bit- 
terness of  it  ;  he  showed  it  on  his  trag- 
ic face,  in  his  terrible  and  wan  eyes. 
This  is  the  powerful  and  mournful 
genius  which  nature  gave  up  as  a  prey 
to  society  and  life;  society  and  life 
poured  all  their  poisons  into  him. 

He  knew  what  poverty  and  scorn 
were,  even  at  that  age  when  the  mind 
expands,  when  the  heart  is  full  of 
ride,  £  when  he  was  hardly  maintained 
y  the  alms  of  his  family,  gloomy  and 
without  hope,  feeling  his  strength  and 
the  dangers  of  his  strength.  §  At 


p 
b 


*  Sheridan's  Life  of  Swift. 
t  W.  Scott's  Life  of  Swift,  i. 


At  that   time   he  had  already  begun   the 
Tale  of  a  Tub. 

§  He  addresses  his  muse  thus,  in  Verses  oc- 
casioned by  Sir  William  Temple's  late  illness 
and  recovery,  xiv.  45  : 

"  Wert  thou  right  woman,  thou  should'st  scorn 
to  look 


twenty  one,  as  secretary  to  Sir  William 
Temple,  he  h«\d  twenty  pounds  a  year 
salary,  sat  at  the  same  table  with  the 
upper  servants,*  wrote  Pindaric  odes 
in  honor  of  his  master,  spent  ten  years 
amidst  the  humiliations  of  servitude 
and  the  familiarity  of  the  servants'  hall, 
obliged  to  adulate  a  gouty  and  flattered 
courtier,  to  submit  to  my  lady  his  sis- 
ter, acutely  pained  "when  Sir  William 
Temple  would  look  cold  and  out  of 
humor,"  t  lured  by  false  hopes,  forced 
after  an  attempt  at  independence  to  re- 
sume the  livery  which  was  choking 
him.  "  When  you  find  years  coming 
on,  without  hopes  of  a  place  at  court, 
.  .  .  I  directly  advise  you  to  go  upon 
the  road,  which  is  the  only  post  of  hon- 
or left  you ;  there  you  will  mee.t  many 
of  your  old  comrades,  and  live  a  short 
life  and  a  merry  one."  }  This  is  followed 
by  instructions  as  to  the  conduct  ser- 
vants ought  to  display  when  led  to  the 
gallows.  Such  are  his  Directions  to 
Servants  ;  he  was  relating  what  he  had 
suffered.  At  the  age  of  thirty-one,  ex- 
pecting a  place  from  William  III.,  he 
edited  the  works  of  his  patron,  dedi- 
cated them  to  the  sovereign,  sent  him 
a  memorial,  got  nothing,  and  fell  back 
upon  the  post  of  chaplain  and  private 
secretary  to  the  Earl  of  Berkeley.  He 
soon  remained  only  chaplain  to  that 
nobleman,  feeling  all  the  disgust  which 
the  part  of  ecclesiastical  valet  must  in- 
spire in  a  man  of  feeling. 

"  You  know  I  honour  the  cloth," 

Says  the  chambermaid  in  the  well- 
known  Petition  : 

"  I  design  to  be  a  parson's  wife.  .  . . 
And  over  and  above,  that  I  may  have  your 
excellency's  letter 


On  an  abandoned  wretch  by  hopes  forsook  ; 
Forsook  by  hopes,  ill  fortune's  last  relief, 
Assign'd  for  life  to  unremitting  grief  ; 
To  thee  I  owe  that  fatal  bent  of  mind 
Still  to  unhappy  restless  thoughts  inclined  ', 
To  thee,  what  oft  I  vainly  strive  to  hide, 
That  scorn   of    fools,  by  fools  mistook  far 

pride." 

*  These  assertions  have  been  denied.     See 
Roscoe's  Life  of  Swift,  i.  14.— TR. 

t  "  Don't  you  remember  how  I  used  to  be  in 
pain  when  Sir  William  Temple  would  look  cold 
and  out  of  humour  for  three  or  four  days,  and 
I  used  to  suspect  a  hundred  reasons  ?  I  have 
plucked  up  my  spirit  since  then,  faith  ;  he 
spoiled  a  fine  gentleman." — Journal  to  Stella^ 
April  4,  1710-11. 
\  Directions  to  Servants^  xii.  ch.  iii.  434. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


With  an  order  for  the  chaplain  aforesaid,  or 
instead  of  him  a  better."  * 

The  earl,  having  promised  him  the 
deanery  of  Derry,  gave  it  to  another. 
Driven  to  politics,  he  wrote  a  Whig 
pamphlet,  A  Discourse  on  the  Contests 
and  Dissensions  in  Athens  and  Rome> 
received  from  Lord  Halifax  and  the 
party  leaders  a  score  of  fine  promises, 
and  was  neglected.  Twenty  years  of 
insults  without  revenge,  and  humilia- 
tions without  respite  ;  the  inner  tempest 
of  fostered  and  crushed  hopes,  vivid 
and  brilliant  dreams,  suddenly  with- 
ered by  the  necessity  of  a  mechani- 
cal duty ;  the  habit  of  suffering  and 
hatred,  the  necessity  of  concealing 
these,  the  baneful  consciousness  of 
superiority,  the  isolation  of  genius  and 
pride,  the  bitterness  of  accumulated 
wrath  and  pent-up  scorn, — these  were 
the  goads  which  pricked  him  like  a 
bull.  More  than  a  thousand  pamph- 
lets in  four  years,  stung  him  still  more, 
with  such  designations  as  renegade, 
traitor,  and  atheist.  He  crushed  them 
all,  set  his  foot  on  the  Whig  party, 
solaced  himself  with  the  poignant  pleas- 
ure of  victory.  If  ever  a  soul  was  sa- 
tiated with  the  joy  of  tearing,  outraging 
and  destroying,  it  was  his.  Excess  of 
scorn,  implacable  irony,  crushing  logic, 
the  cruel  smile  of  the  foeman,  who 
sees  beforehand  the  spot  where  he  will 
wound  his  enemy  mortally,  advances 
towards  him,  tortures  him  deliberately, 
eagerly, with  enjoyment, — such  were  the 
feelings  which  had  leavened  him,  and 
which  broke  from  him  with  such  harsh- 
ness that  he  hindered  his  own  career  ;  t 
and  that  of  so  many  high  places  for 
which  he  stretched  out  his  hands,  there 
remained  for  him  only  a  deanery  in 
poor  Ireland.  The  accession  of 
George  I.  exiled  him  thither ;  the  ac- 
cession of  George  II.,  on  which  he  had 
counted,  confined  him  there.  He  con- 
tended there  first  against  popular 
hatred,  then  against  the  victorious 
minister,  then  against  entire  humanity, 
in  sanguinary  pamphlets,  despairing 
satires ;  J  he  tasted  there  once  more 

*  Mrs.  Harris*  Petition,  xiv.  52. 

t  By  the  Tale  of  a  Tub  with  the  clergy,  and 
by  the  Prophesy  of  Windsor  with  the  queen. 

$  The  Draper's  Letter s.Gulliver's  Travels, 
Rhapsody  on  Poetry,  A  modest  Proposal  for 
preventing  the  Children  of  poor  people  in  Ire- 
land from  being  a  burden  to  their  farints  or 


the  pleasure  of  fighting  and  wounding 
he  suffered  there  to  the  e.id,  soured  by 
the  advance  of  years,  by  the  spectacle 
of  oppression  and  misery,  by  the  feel- 
ing of  his  own  impotence,  enraged  to 
have  to  live  amongst  "  an  enslaved 
people,"  chained  and  vanquished.  He 
says :  "  I  find  myself  disposed  every 
year,  or  rather  every  month,  to  be  more 
angry  and  revengeful ;  and  my  rage  is 
so  ignoble,  that  it  descends  even  to  re- 
sent the  folly  and  baseness  of  the  en- 
slaved people  among  whom  I  live."  * 
This  cry  is  the  epitome  of  his  pub- 
lic life ;  these  feelings  are  the  mate- 
rials which  public  life  furnished  to  his 
talent. 

He  experienced  these  feelings  also 
in  private  life,  more  violent  and  more 
inwardly.  He  had  brought  up  and 
purely  loved  a  charming,  well  in- 
formed, modest  young  girl,  Esther 
Johnson,  who  from  infancy  had  loved 
and  reverenced  him  alone.  She  lived 
with  him,  he  had  made  her  his  confi- 
dante. From  London,  during  his  politi- 
cal struggles,  he  sent  her  the  full  journal 
of  his  slightest  actions  ;  he  wrote  to 
her  twice  a  day,  with  extreme  ease  and 
familiarity,  with  all  the  playfulness, 
vivacity,  petting  and  caressing  names 
of  the  tenderest  attachment.  Yet  an- 
other girl,  beautiful  and  rich,  Miss 
Vanhomrigh,  attached  herself  to 
him,  declared  her  passion,  received 
from  him  several  marks  of  his  own, 
followed  him  to  Ireland,  sometimes 
jealous,  sometimes  submissive,  but  so 
impassioned,  so  unhappy,  that  her  let- 
ters might  have  broken  a  harder  heart : 
"  If  you  continue  to  treat  me  as  you  do 
you  will  not  be  made  uneasy  by  me 
long.  ...  I  am  sure  I  could  have 
borne  the  rack  much  better  than  those 
killing,  killing  words  of  you.  ...  Oh 
that  you  may  have  but  so  much  regard 
for  me  left,  that  this  complaint  may 
touch  your  soul  with  pity  !  "t  She  pined 
and  died.  Esther  Johnson,  who  had 
so  long  possessed  Swift's  whole  heart, 
suffered  still  more.  All  was  changed 
in  Swift's  house.  "  At  my  first  com- 
ing (at  Laracor)  I  thought  I  should 

country,  and  for  making  them  beneficial  to  th& 
public,  and  several  pamphlets  on  Ireland. 

*  Letter  to  Lord  Bolingbroke,  Dublin,  March 
tz,  1728,  xvii.  274. 

t  Letter  of  Miss  Vanhomrigh,  Dublin,  17141 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


439 


have  died  with  discontent,  and  was 
horribly  melancholy  while  they  were 
installing  me."  *  He  found  tears,  dis- 
trust, resentment,  cold  silence,  in  place 
of  familiarity  and  tenderness.  He 
married  Miss  Johnson  from  a  feeling 
of  duty,  but  in  secret,  and  on  condition 
that  she  should  only  be  his  wife  in 
name.  She  was  twelve  years  dying  ; 
Swift  went  away  to  England  as  often 
as  he  could.  His  house  was  a  hell  to 
him ;  it  is  thought  that  some  secret 
physical  cause  had  influenced  his 
loves  and  his  marriage.  Delany,  his 
biographer,  having  once  found  him 
talking  with  Archbishop  King,  saw  the 
archbishop  in  tears,  and  Swift  rushing 
by,  with  a  countenance  full  of  grief, 
and  a  distracted  air.  "  Sir,"  said  the 
prelate,  "  you  have  just  met  the  most 
unhappy  man  upon  earth;  but  on  the 
subject  of  his  wretchedness  you  must 
never  ask  a  question."  Esther  John- 
son died.  Swift's  anguish,  the  spectres 
by  which  he  was  haunted,  the  remem- 
brance of  the  two  women,  slowly  ruined 
and  killed  by  his  fault,  continually  en- 
compassed him  with  such  horrors,  that 
only  his  end  reveals  them.  "  It  is  time 
for  me  to  have  done  with  the  world 
....  and  so  I  would  .  .  .  and  not  die 
here  in  a  rage,  like  a  poisoned  rat  in  a 
hole."  t  Overwork  and  excess  of  emo- 
tion had  made  him  ill  from  his  youth  ; 
he  was  subject  to  giddiness ;  he  lost 
his  hearing.  He  had  long  felt  that 
reason  was  deserting  him.  One  day 
he  was  observed  "gazing  intently  at 
the  top  of  a  lofty  elm,  the  head  of 
which  had  been  blasted.  Upon  his 
friend's  approach,  he  pointed  to  it, 
significantly  adding,  'I  shall  be  like 
that  tree,  and  die  first  at  the  top.'  "  \ 
His  memory  left  him  ;  he  received  the 
attentions  of  others  with  disgust,  some- 
times with  rage.  He  lived  alone, 
gloomy,  unable  to  read.  It  is  said  that 
he  passed  a  whole  year  without  utter- 
ing a  word,  hating  the  sight  of  a  hu- 
man being,  walking  ten  hours  a  day,  a 
maniac,  then  an  idiot.  A  tumor  came 
on  one  of  his  eyes,  so  that  he  continued 

t  These  words  are  taken  from  a  letter  to 
Miss  Vanhomrigh,  8th  July,  1713,  and  cannot 
refer  to  her  death,  which  took  place  in  1721. — 
TR. 

*  Letter  to  Bolingbroke,  Dublin,  March  21, 
1728,  xvii.  276. 

t  Roscoe's  Life  of  Swiftt  i.  80. 


a  month  without  sleeping,  and  five 
men  were  needed  to  prevent  his  tear- 
ing out  the  eye  with  his  nails.  One  oi 
his  last  words  was,  "  I  am  a  fool." 
When  his  will  was  opened,  it  was 
found  that  he  left  his  whole  fortune  to 
build  a  madhouse. 

II. 

These  passions  and  these  miseries 
were  necessary  to  inspire  Gulliver's 
Travels  and  the  Tale  of  a  Tub. 

A  strange  and  powerful  form  of 
mind,  too,  was  necessary,  as  English 
as  his  pride  and  his  passions.  Swift 
has  the  style  of  a  surgeon  and  a  judge, 
cold,  grave,  solid,  unadorned,  without 
vivacity  or  passion,  manly  and  practi- 
cal. He  desired  neither  to  please,  nor 
to  divert,  nor  to  carry  people  away,  nor 
to  move  the  feelings  ;  he  never  hesi- 
tated, nor  was  redundant,  nor  was  ex- 
cited, nor  made  an  effort.  He  expressed 
his  thoughts  in  a  uniform  tone,  with 
exact,  precise,  often  harsh  terms,  with 
familiar  comparisons,  levelling  all 
within  reach  of  his  hand,  even  the 
loftiest  things  —  especially  the  loftiest 
— with  a  brutal  and  always  haughty 
coolness.  He  knows  life  as  a  banker 
knows  accounts ;  and  his  total  once 
made  up,  he  scorns  or  knocks  down 
the  babblers  who  dispute  it  in  his 
presence. 

He  knows  the  items  as  well  as  the 
sum  total.  He  not  only  familiarly  and 
vigorously  seized  on  every  object,  but 
he  also  decomposed  it,  and  kept  an  in- 
ventory of  its  details.  His  imagination 
was  as  minute  as  it  was  energetic.  He 
could  give  you  a  statement  of  dry  facts 
on  every  event  and  object,  so  connected 
and  natural  as  to  deceive  any  man. 
Gulliver's  Travels  read  like  a  log-book. 
Isaac  Bickerstaff's  predictions  were 
taken  literally  by  the  inquisition  in 
Portugal.  His  account  of  M.  du  Bau- 
drier  seems  an  authentic  translation. 
He  gives  to  an  extravagant  romance  the 
air  of  a  genuine  history.  By  this 
thorough  knowledge  of  details  he  im- 
ports into  literature  the  positive  spirit 
of  men  of  business  and  experience. 
Nothing  could  be  more  vigorous,  nar- 
row, unhappy,  for  nothing  could  be 
more  destructive.  No  greatness,  false 
or  true,  can  stand  before  him  ;  whatso- 
ever he  fathoms  and  takes  in  hand  loses 


440 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK   III 


at  once  its  prestige  and  value.  Whilst 
he  decomposes  he  displays  the  real 
ugliness,  and  removes  the  fictitious 
beauty  of  objects.  Whilst  he  brings 
them  to  the  level  of  common  things, 
he  suppresses  their  real  beauty,  and 
gives  them  a  fictitious  ugliness.  He 
presents  all  their  gross  features,  and 
nothing  but  their  gross  features.  Look 
with  him  into  the  physical  details  of 
science,  religion,  state,  and  with  him 
reduce  science,  religion,  state,  to  the 
low  standing  of  every-day  events ;  with 
him  you  will  see  here  a  Bedlam  of 
shrivelled-up  dreamers,  narrow  and 
chimerical  brains,  busy  in  contradicting 
each  other,  picking  up  meaningless 
phrases  in  mouldy  books,  inventing 
conjectures,  and  crying  them  up  for 
truth;  there,  a  band  of  enthusiasts, 
mumbling  phrases  which  they  do  not 
understand,  adoring  figures  of  rhetoric 
as  mysteries,  attaching  ideas  of  holiness 
or  impiety  to  lawn-sleeves  or  postures, 
spending  in  persecutions  or  genuflex- 
ions the  surplus  of  sheepish  or  ferocious 
folly  with  which  an  evil  fate  has 
crammed  their  brains;  there,  again, 
flocks  of  idiots  pouring  out  their  blood 
and  treasure  for  the  whims  or  plots  of 
a  carriage-drawn  aristocrat,  out  of 
respect  for  the  carriage  which  they 
themselves  have  given  him.  What 
part  of  human  nature  or  existence  can 
continue  great  and  beautiful,  before  a 
mind  which,  penetrating  all  details, 
perceives  men  eating,  sleeping,  dress- 
ing, in  all  mean  and  low  actions,  de- 
grading every  thing  to  the  level  of 
vulgar  events,  trivial  circumstances  of 
dress  and  cookery  ?  It  is  not  enough 
for  the  positive  mind  to  see  the  springs, 
pulleys,  lamps,  and  whatever  there  is 
objectionable  in  the  opera  at  w^hich  he 
is  present ;  he  makes  it  more  objection- 
able by  calling  it  a  show.  It  is  not 
enough  not  to  ignore  any  thing  ;  we 
must  also  refuse  to  admire.  He  treats 
things  like  domestic  utensils ;  after 
reckoning  up  their  materials,  he  gives 
them  a  vile  name.  Nature  for  him  is 
but  a  caldron,  and  he  knows  the  pro- 
portion and  number  of  the  ingredients 
simmering  in  it.  In  this  power  and 
this  weakness  we  see  beforehand  the 
misanthropy  and  the  talent  of  Swift. 
/  There  are,  indeed,  but  two  modes  of 
(  agreeing  with  the  world :  mediocrity  of 


mind  and  superiority  of  intelligence—' 
the  one  for  the  public  and  the  fools,  the 
other  for  artists  and  philosophers  :  the 
one  consists  in  seeing  nothing,  the 
other  in  seeing  all.  We  will  respect 
the  respectable,  if  we  see  only  the  sur- 
face— if  we  take  them  as  they  are,  if  we 
let  ourselves  be  duped  by  the  fine  show 
which  they  never  fail  to  present.  We 
will  revere  the  gold-embroidered  gar- 
ments with  which  our  masters  bedizen 
themselves,  and  we  will  never  dream  of 
examining  the  stains  hidden  under  the 
embroidery.  We  will  be  moved  by  the 
big  words  which  they  pronounce  in  a 
sublime  voice,  and  we  will  never  see  in 
their  pockets  the  hereditary  phrase- 
book  from  which  they  have  taken  them. 
We  will  punctiliously  bring  them  our 
money  and  our  services;  the  custom 
will  seem  to  us  just,  and  we  will  accept 
the  goose-dogma,  that  a  goose  is  bound 
to  be  roasted.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  will  tolerate  and  even  love  the 
world,  if,  penetrating  to  its  nature,  we 
take  the  trouble  to  explain  or  imitate 
its  mechanism.  We  will  be  interested 
in  passions  by  an  artist's  sympathy  or  a 
philosopher's  comprehension ;  we  will 
find  them  natural  whilst  admitting  their 
force,  or  we  will  find  them  necessary 
whilst  computing  their  connection;  we 
will  cease  to  be  indignant  against  the 
powers  which  produce  fine  spectacles, 
or  will  cease  to  be  roused  by  the  re- 
bounds which  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  had  foretold.  We  will  admire 
the  world  as  a  grand  drama,  or  as  an 
invincible  development ;  and  we  will 
be  preserved  by  imagination  or  by  logic 
from  slander  or  disgust.  We  will  ex- 
tract from  religion  the  lofty  truths 
which  dogmas  hide,  and  the  generous 
instincts  which  superstition  conceals. 
We  will  perceive  in  the  state  the  infi- 
nite benefits  which  no  tyranny  abolishes 
and  the  sociable  inclinations  which  no 
wickedness  uproots.  We  will  dis- 
tinguish in  science  the  solid  doctrines 
which  discussion  never  shakes,  the 
liberal  notions  which  the  shock  of 
systems  purifies  and  unfolds,  the  splen- 
did promises  "which  the  progress  of  the 
present  time  opens  up  to  the  ambition 
of  the  future.  We  can  thus  escape 
hatred  by  the  nullity  or  the  greatness 
of  the  prospect,  by  the  inability  to  dis- 
cover contrasts,  or  by  the  power  to  dis- 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


44 1 


cover  the  harmony  of  contrasts.  Raised 
above  the  first,  sunk  beneath  the  last, 
seeing  evil  and  disorder,  ignoring  good- 
ness and  harmony,  excluded  from  love 
and  calmness,  given  up  to  indignation 
and  bitterness,  Swift  found  neither  a 
cause  to  cherish,  nor  a  doctrine  to  es- 
tablish;* he  employs  the  whole  force 
of  an  excellently  armed  mind  and  a 
thoroughly  trained  character  in  decry- 
ing and  destroying :  all  his  works  are 
pamphlets. 

III. 

At  this  time,  and  in  his  hands,  the 
newspaper  in  England  attained  its 
proper  character  and  its  greatest  force. 
Literature  entered  the  sphere  of  poli- 
tics. To  understand  what  the  one  be- 
came, we  must  understand  what  the 
other  was  :  art  depended  upon  polit- 
ical business,  and  the  spirit  of  parties 
made  the  spirit  of  writers. 

In  France  a  theory  arises — eloquent, 
harmonious,  and  generous  ;  the  young 
are  enamoured  of  it,  wear  a  cap  and 
sing  songs  in  its  honor  :  at  night,  the 
citizens,  while  digesting  their  dinner, 
read  it  and  delight  in  it ;  some,  hot- 
headed, accept  it,  and  prove  to  them- 
selves their  strength  of  mind  by  ridi- 
culing those  who  are  behind  the  times. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  established 
people,  prudent  and  timid,  are  mistrust- 
ful :  being  well  off,  they  find  that  every 
thing  is  well,  and  demand  that  things 
shall  continue  as  they  are.  Such  are 
the  two  parties  in  France,  very  old,  as 
we  all  know ;  not  very  earnest,  as 
everybody  can  see.  They  must  talk, 
be  enthusiastic,  reason  on  speculative 
opinions,  glibly,  about  an  hour  a  day, 
indulging  but  outwardly  in  this  taste ; 
but  these  parties  are  so  equally  levelled 
that  they  are  at  bottom  all  the  same  : 
when  we  understand  them  rightly,  we 
will  find  in  France  only  two  parties,  the 
men  of  twenty  and  the  men  of  forty. 
English  parties-,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  always  compact  and  living  bodies, 
united  by  interests  of  money,  rank,  and 
conscience,  receiving  theories  only  as 

*  In  his  Thoughts  on  Religion  (viii.  173)  he 
says :  "  The  want  of  belief  is  a  defect  that 
ought  to  be  concealed,  when  it  cannot  be  over- 
come." "  I  look  upon  myself,  in  the  capacity 
of  a  clergyman,  to  be  one  appointed  by  Provi- 
dence for  defending  a  post  assigned  me,  and 
for  gaining  over  as  many  enemies  as  I  can." 


I  standards  or  as  a  balance,  a  sort  ot 
secondary  States,  which,  like  the  two 
old  orders  in  Rome,  legally  endeavor 
to  monopolize  the  government.  So,  th<r 
English  constitution  was  never  more 
than  a  transaction  between  distinct 
powers,  compelled  to  tolerate  each 
other,  disposed  to  encroach  on  each 
other,  occupied  in  treating  with  each 
other.  Politics  for  them  are  a  domes- 
tic interest,  for  the  French  an  occupa- 
tion of  the  mind ;  Englishmen  make 
them  a  business,  the  French  a  dis- 
cussion. 

Thus  their  pamphlets,notably  Swift's, 
seem  to  us  only  half  literary.  For  an 
argument  to  be  literary,  it  must  not  ad- 
dress itself  to  an  interest  or  a  faction, 
but  to  the  pure  mind  :  it  must  be  based 
on  universal  truths,  rest  on  absolute 
justice,  be  able  to  touch  all  human 
reasons ;  otherwise,  being  local,  it  is 
simply  useful :  nothing  is  beautiful  but 
what  is  general.  It  must  also  be  de- 
veloped regularly  by  analysis,  and  with 
exact  divisions  ;  its  distribution  must 
give  a  picture  of  pure  reason  ;  the  or- 
der of  ideas  must  be  inviolable  ;  every 
mind  must  be  able  to  draw  thence  with 
ease  a  complete  conviction  ;  its  method, 
its  principles,  must  be  sensible  through- 
out, in  all  places  and  at  all  times.  The 
desire  to  prove  well  must  be  added  to 
the  art  of  proving  well;  tl  r  writer 
must  announce  his  proof,  recall  it,  pre- 
sent it  under  all  its  faces,  desire  to 
penetrate  minds,  pursue  them  persist- 
ently in  all  their  retreats  ;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  must  treat  his  hearers 
like  men  worthy  of  comprehending  and 
applying  general  truths ;  his  discourse 
must  be  lively,  noble,  polished,  and 
fervid,  so  as  to  suit  such  subjects  and 
such  minds.  It  is  thus  that  classical 
prose  and  French  prose  are  eloquent, 
and  that  political  dissertations  or  re- 
ligious controversies  have  endured  as 
models  of  art. 

This  good  taste  and  philosophy  are 
wanting  in  the  positive  mind ;  it 
wishes  to  attain  not  eternal  beauty, 
but  present  success.  Swift  does  not 
address  men  in  general,  but  certain 
men.  He  does  not  speak  to  reasoners, 
but  to  a  party ;  he  does  not  care  to 
teach  a  truth,  but  to  make  an  impres- 
sion ;  his  aim  is  not  to  enlighten  that 
isolated  part  of  man,  called  his  mind, 
19* 


442 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


but  to  stir  up  the  mass  of  feelings  and 
prejudices  which  constitute  the  actual 
man.  Whilst  he  writes,  his  public  is 
before  his  eyes  :  fat  squires,  puffed 
out  with  port  wine  and  beef,  accus- 
tomed at  the  end  of  their  meals  to  bawl 
loyally  for  church  and  king  ;  gentlemen 
farmers,  bitter  against  London  luxury 
and  the  new  importance  of  merchants  ; 
clergymen  bred  on  pedantic  sermons, 
and  old-established  hatred  of  dissen- 
ters and  papists.  These  people  have 
not  mind  enough  to  pursue  a  fine  de- 
duction or  understand  an  abstract 
principle.  A  writer  must  calculate 
the  facts  they  know,  the  ideas  they 
have  received,  the  interests  that  move 
them,  and  recall  only  these  facts,  reason 
only  from  these  ideas,  set  in  motion 
only  these  interests.  It  is  thus  Swift 
speaks,  without  development,  without 
logical  hits,  without  rhetorical  effects, 
but  with  extraordinary  force  and  suc- 
cess, in  phrases  whose  accuracy  his 
contemporaries  inwardly  felt,  and  which 
they  accepted  at  once,because  they  sim- 
ply told  them  in  a  clear  form  and  open- 
ly, what  they  murmured  obscurely  and 
to  themselves.  Such  was  the  power  of 
the  Examiner,  which  in  one  year 
transformed  the  opinion  of  three  king- 
doms ;  and  particularly  of  the  Dra- 
pier*s  Letters,  which  made  a  govern- 
ment withdraw  one  of  their  measures. 
Small  change  was  lacking  in  Ireland, 
and  the  English  ministers  had  given  a 
certain  William  Wood  a  patent  to  coin 
one  hundred  and  eight  thousand  pounds 
of  copper  money.  A  commission,  of 
which  Newton  was  a  member,  verified 
the  pieces  made,  found  them  good,  and 
several  competent  judges  still  think 
that  the  measure  was  loyal  and  ser- 
viceable to  the  land.  Swift  roused  the 
people  against  it,  spoke  to  them  in  an 
ntelligible  style,  and  triumphed  over 
common  sense  and  the  state.* 

"  Brethren,  friends,  countrymen,  and  fellow- 
subjects,  what  I  intend  now  to  say  to  you  is, 
next  to  your  duty  to  God  and  the  care  of  your 
salvation,  of  the  greatest  concern  to  you  and 
your  children :  your  bread  and  clothing,  and 

*  Whatever  has  been  said,  I  do  not  think 
that  he  wrote  the  Drapier's  Letters,  whilst 
thinking  the  introduction  of  small  copper  coin 
an  advantage  for  Ireland.  It  was  possible^  for 
Swift  more  than  for  another,  to  believe  in  a 
ministerial  job.  He  seems  to  rie  to  have  been 
at  bottom  an  honest  man. 


every  common  -iecessavy  of  life  depend  upon 
it.  Therefore  I  do  most  earnestly  exhort  you 
as  men,  as  Christians,  as  parents,  and  as  lovers 
of  your  country,  to  read  this  paper  with  the 
utmost  attention,  or  get  it  read  to  you  by  others  ; 
which  that  you  may  do  at  the  less  expence,  I 
have  ordered  the  printer  to  sell  it  at  the  lowest 
rate."  * 

We  see  popular  distrust  spring  up  at  a 
glance  ;  this  is  the  style  which  reaches 
workmen  and  peasants;  this  simplic- 
ity, these  details,  are  necessary  to 
penetrate  their  belief.  The  author  is 
like  a  draper,  and  they  trust  only  men 
of  their  own  condition.  Swift  goes  on 
to  accuse  Wood,  declaring  that  his 
copper  pieces  are  not  worth  one-eighth 
their  nominal  value.  There  is  no 
trace  of  proof :  no  proofs  are  required 
to  convince  the  people ;  it  is  enough  to 
repeat  the  same  accusation  again  and 
again,  to  abound  in  intelligible  exam- 
ples, to  strike  eye  and  ear.  The  imag- 
ination once  gained,  they  will  go  on 
shouting,  convincing  themselves  by 
their  own  cries,  and  incapable  of  rea- 
soning. Swift  says  to  his  adversaries : 

"Your  paragraph  relates  further  that  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  reported  an  assay  taken  at  the 
Tower  of  Wood's  metal ;  by  which  it  appears 
that  Wood  had  in  all  respects  performed  his 
contract.  His  contract  ?  With  whom  ?  Was 
it  with  the  Parliament  or  people  of  Ireland  ? 
Are  not  they  to  be  the  purchasers  ?  But  they 
detest,  abhor,  reject  it  as  corrupt,  fraudulent, 
mingled  with  dirt  and  trash."  f 

And  a  little  further  on  : 

"  His  first  proposal  is,  that  he  will  be  con- 
tent to  coin  no  more  (than  forty  thousand 
pounds),  unless  the  exigencies  of  the  trade  re- 
quire it,  although  his  patent  empowers  him  to 
coin  a  far  greater  quantity.  ...  To  which  if  I 
were  to  answer,  it  should  be  thus :  let  Mr. 
Wood  and  his  crew  of  founders  and  tinkers 
coin  on,  till  there  is  not  an  old  kettle  left  in  the 
kingdom  ;  let  them  coin  old  leather,  tobacco- 
pipe  clay,  or  the  dirt  in  the  street,  and  call  their 
trumpery  by  what  name  they  please  from  a 
guinea  to  a  farthing  ;  we  are  not  under  any  con- 
cern to  know  how  he  and  his  tribe  of  accom- 
;lices  think  fit  to  employ  themselves.  But  I 
ope  and  trust  that  we  are  all,  to  a  man.  fully 
determined  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  him 
or  his  ware."  $ 

Swift  gets  angry  and  does  not  answer. 
In  fact,  this  is  the  best  way  to  answer ; 
to  move  such  hearers  we  must  stir  up 
their  blood  and  their  passions  ;  then 
shopkeepers  and  farmers  will  turn  up 
their  sleeves,  double  their  fists ;  and 

*  Drapier*s  Letters,  vii.  J  Letter  i,  97. 
t  Ibid.  Letter  2,  114. 
\  Ibid.  Letter  2,  115. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


443 


the  good  arguments  of  their  opponents 
will  only  increase  their  desire  to  knock 
them  down. 

Now  see  how  a  mass  of  examples 
makes  a  gratuitous  assertion  probable  : 

"  Your  Newsletter  says  that  an  assay  was 
made  of  the  coin.  How  impudent  and  insup- 
portable is  this !  Wood  takes  care  to  coin  a 
dozen  or  two  halfpence  of  good  metal,  sends 
them  to  the  Tower,  and  they  are  approved  ; 
And  these  must  answer  all  that  he  has  already 
coined,  or  shall  coin  for  the  future.  It  is  true, 
indeed,  that  a  gentleman  often  sends  to  my  shop 
for  a  pattern  of  stuff  ;  I  cut  it  fairly  off,  and  if 
he  likes  it,  he  comes  or  sends  and  compares  the 
pattern  with  the  whole  piece,  and  probably  we 
come  to  a  bargain.  But  if  I  were  to  buy  a 
hundred  sheep,  and  the  grazier  should  bring  me 
one  single  wether,  fat,  and  well  fleeced,  by  way 
of  pattern,  and  expect  the  same  price  round 
for  the  whole  hundred,  without  suffering  me  to 
see.  them  before  he  was  paid,  or  giving  me  good 
security  to  restore  my  money  for  those  that  were 
lean,  or  shorn,  or  scabby,  I  would  be  none  of 
his  customer.  I  have  heard  of  a  man  who  had 
a  mind  to  sell  his  house,  and  therefore  carried 
a  piece  of  brick  in  his  pocket,  which  he  showed 
as  a  pattern  to  encourage  purchasers  ;  and  this 
is  directly  the  case  in  point  with  Mr.  Wood's 
assay."  * 

A  burst  of  laughter  follows  ;  butchers 
and  bricklayers  were  gained  over.  As 
a  finish,  Swift  showed  them  a  practical 
expedient,  suited  to  their  understand- 
ing and  their  rank  in  life  : 

"  The  common  soldier,  when  he  goes  to  the 
market  or  ale-house,  will  offer  his  money  ;  and 
if  it  be  refused,  perhaps  he  will  swagger  and 
hector,  and  threaten  to  beat  the  butcher  or  ale- 
wife,  or  take  the  goods  by  force,  and  throw 
them  the  bad  half-pence.  In  this  and  the  like 
cases,  the  shopkeeper  or  victualler,  or  any  other 
tradesman,  has  no  more  to  do  than  to  demand 
ten  times  the  price  of  his  goods,  if  it  is  to  be 
paid  in  Wood's  money  ;  for  example,  twenty- 
pence  of  that  money  for  a  quart  of  ale,  and  so 
in  all  things  else,  and  never  part  with  his  goods 
till  he  gets  the  money."  f 

Public  clamor  overcame  the  English 
Government ;  they  withdrew  the  mon- 
ey and  paid  Wood  a  large  indemnity. 

Such  is  the  merit  of  Swift's  argu- 
ments ;  good  tools,  trenchant  and  han- 
dy, neither  elegant  nor  bright,  but 
whose  value  is  proved  by  their  effect. 

The  whole  beauty  of  these  pam- 
phlets is  in  their  tone.  They  have 
neither  the  generous  fire  of  Pascal,  nor 
the  bewildering  gayety  of  Beaumar- 
chais,  nor  the  chiselled  delicacy  of 
Paul  Louis  Courier,  but  an  overwhelm- 
ing air  of  superiority  and  a  bitter  and 

*  Drapier's  Letters,  vii.  J  Letter  2,  1 14. 

t  Ibid.  Letter  i,  101. 


terrible  rancor.  Vast  passion  and 
pride,  like  the  positive  "  Drapier's " 
mind  just  now  described,  have  given 
all  the  blows  their  force.  We  should 
read  his  Public  Spirit  of  the  Whigs, 
against  Steele.  Page  by  page  Steelc 
is  torn  to  pieces  with  a  calmness  and 
scorn  never  equalled.  Swift  approaches 
regularly,  leaving  no  part  untouched, 
heaping  wound  on  wound,  every  blow 
sure,  knowing  beforehand  their  reach 
and  depth.  Poor  Steele,  a  vain 
thoughtless  fellow,  is  in  his  hands 
like  Gulliver  amongst  the  giants  ;  it  is 
a  pity  to  see  a  contest  so  unequal; 
and  this  contest  is  pitiless.  Swift 
crushes  him  carefully  and  easily,  like 
an  obnoxious  animal.  The  unfortu- 
nate man,  formerly  an  officer  and  a 
semi-literary  man,  had  made  awkward 
use  of  constitutional  words  : 

"  Upon  this  rock  the  author  ...  is  perpetu- 
ally splitting,  as  often  as  he  ventures  out  be- 
yond the  narrow  bounds  of  his  literature.  He 
has  a  confused  remembrance  of  words  since  he 
left  the  university,  but  has  lost  half  their  mean- 
ing, and  puts  them  together  with  no  regard, 
except  to  their  cadence  ;  as  I  remember  a  fellow 
nailed  up  maps  in  a  gentleman's  closet,  some 
sidelong,  others  upside  down,  the  better  to 
adjust  them  to  the  pannels."  * 

When  he  judges  he  is  worse  than 
when  he  proves ;  witness  his  Short 
Character  of  Thomas  Earl  of  Wharton. 
He  pierces  him  with  the  formulas  of 
official  politeness  ;  only  an  Englishman 
is  capable  of  such  phlegm  and  such 
haughtiness  : 

"  I  have  had  the  honour  of  much  conversation 
with  his  lordship,  and  am  thoroughly  convinced 
how  indifferent  he  is  to  applause,  and  how  in- 
sensible of  reproach.  .  .  .  He  is  without  the 
sense  of  shame,  or  glory,  as  some  men  are 
without  the  sense  of  smelling  ;  and  therefore, 
a  good  name  to  him  is  no  more  than  a  precious 
ointment  would  be  to  these.  Whoever,  for  the 
sake  of  others,  were  to  describe  the  nature  of  a 
serpent,  a  wolf,  a  crocodile  or  a  fox,  must  be 
understood  to  do  it  without  any  personal  love 
or  hatred  for  the  animals  themselves.  In  the 
same  manner  his  excellency  is  one  whom  I 
neither  personally  love  nor  hate.  I  see  him  at 
court,  at  his  own  house,  and  sometimes  at  mine, 
for  I  have  the  honour  of  his  visits  ;  and  when 
these  papers  are  public,  it  is  odds  but  he  will 
tell  me,  as  he  once  did  upon  a  like  occasion, 
"  that  he  is  damnably  mauled,"  and  then,  with 
the  easiest  transition  in  the  world,  ask  about  the 

*  The  Public  Spirit  of  the  Whigs,  iv.  405. 
See  also  in  the  Examiner  the  pamphlet  against 
Marlborough  under  the  name  of  Crassus,  and 
the  comparison  between  Roman  generosity  aud 
English  meanness. 


444 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


weather,  or  time  of  the  day  ;  so  that  I  enter  on 
the  work  with  more  cheerfulness,  because  I  am 
sure  neither  to  make  him  angry,  nor  any  way 
hurt  his  reputation  ;  a  pitch  of  happiness  and 
security  to  which  his  excellency  has  arrived, 
and  which  no  philosopher  before  him  could 
reach.  Thomas  Earl  of  Wharton,  lord-lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland,  by  the  force  of  a  wonderful 
constitution,  has  some  years  passed  his  grand 
climacteric  without  any  visible  effects  of  old 
age,  either  on  his  body  or  his  mind  ;  and  in 
spite  of  a  continual  prostitution  to  those  vices 
which  usually  wear  out  both.  .  .  .  Whether  he 
walks  or  whistles,  or  swears,  or  talks  bawdy,  or 
calls  names,  he  acquits  himself  in  each,  beyond 
a  templar  of  three  years'  standing.  "With  the 
same  grace,  and  in  the  same  style,  he  will  rattle 
his  coachman  in  the  midst  of  the  street,  where 
he  is  governor  of  the  kingdom  ;  and  all  this  is 
without  consequence,  because  it  is  in  his  char- 
acter, and  what  everybody  expects.  .  .  .  The 
ends  he  has  gained  by  lying,  appear  to  be  more 
owing  to  the  frequency,  than  the  art  of  them  ; 
his  lies  being  sometimes  detected  in  an  hour, 
often  in  a  day,  and  always  in  a  week.  .  .  .  He 
swears  solemnly  he  loves  and  will  serve  you ; 
and  your  back  is  no  sooner  turned,  but  he 
tells  those  about  him,  you  are  a  dog  and  a 
rascal.  He  goes  constantly  to  prayers  in  the 
forms  of  his  place,  and  will  talk  bawdy  and 
blasphemy  at  the  chapel  door.  He  is  a  presby- 
terian  in  politics,  and  an  atheist  in  religion  ;  but 
he  choses  at  present  to  whore  with  a  papist.  In 
his  commerce  with  mankind,  his  general  rule  is, 
to  endeavour  to  impose  on  their  understandings, 
for  which  he  has  but  one  receipt,  a  composition 
of  lies  and  oaths.  ...  He  bears  the  gallant- 
ries of  his  lady  with  the  indifference  of  a  stoick  ; 
and  thinks  them  well  recompensed,  by  a  return 
of  children  to  support  his  family,  without  the 
fatigues  of  being  a  father.  .  .  .  He  was  never 
yet  known  to  refuse  or  keep  a  promise,  as  I  re- 
member he  told  a  lady,  but  with  an  exception 
to  the  promise  he  then  made  (which  was  to  get 
her  a  pension),  yet  he  broke  even  that,  and  I 
confess,  deceived  us  both.  But  here  I  desire 
to  distinguish  between  a  promise  and  a  bargain ; 
for  he  will  be  sure  to  keep  the  latter,  when  he 
has  the  fairest  offer.  .  .  .  But  here  I  must  de- 
sire the  reader's  pardon,  if  I  cannot  digest  the 
following  facts  in  so  good  a  manner  as  I  intend- 
ed ;  because  it  is  thought  expedient,  for  some 
reasons,  that  the  world  should  be  informed  of 
his  excellency's  merits  as  soon  as  possible.  .  .  . 
As  they  are,  they  may  serve  for  hints  to  any 
person  who  may  hereafter  have  a  mind  to  write 
memoirs  of  his  excellency's  life."  * 

Throughout  this  piece  Swift's  voice 
has  remained  calm ;  not  a  muscle  of 
his  face  has  moved ;  we  perceive  nei- 
ther smile,  flash  of  the  eye,  or  gesture ; 
he  speaks  like  a  statue  ;  but  his  anger 
grows  by  constraint,  and  burns  the  more 
that  it  shines  the  less. 

This  is  why  his  ordinary  style  is 
grave  irony.  It  is  the  weapon  of 
pride,  meditation,  and  force.  The  man 
who  employs  it  is  self-contained  whilst 

*  Swift's  Works,  iv.  148. 


a  storm  is  raging  within  him  ;  he  if  too 
proud  to  make  a  show  of  his  pass/on  ; 
he  does  not  take  the  public  into  his  con- 
fidence ;  he  elects  to  be  solitary  in  his 
soul ;  he  would  be  ashamed  to  con- 
fide in  any  man  ;  he  means  and  knows 
how  to  keep  absolute  possession  of 
Jiimself.  Thus  collected,  he  under- 
stands better  and  suffers  more ;  no  fit 
of  passion  relieves  his  wrath  or  draws 
away  his  attention ;  he  feels  all  the 
points  and  penetrates  to  the  depths  of 
the  opinion  which  he  detests  ;  he  mul- 
tiplies his  pain  and  his  knowledge,  and 
spares  himself  neither  wound  nor  re- 
flection. We  must  see  Swift  in  this 
attitude,  impassive  in  appearance,  but 
with  stiffening  muscles,  a  heart  scorch- 
ed with  hatred,  writing  with  a  terrible 
smile  such  pamphlets  as  this  : 

"  It  may  perhaps  be  neither  safe  nor  prudent, 
to  argue  against  the  abolishing  of  Christianity, 
at  a  juncture,  when  all  parties  appear  so  unani- 
mously determined  upon  the  point.  .  .  .  How- 
ever, I  know  not  how,  whether  from  the  affec- 
tation of  singularity,  or  the  perverseness  of  hu- 
man nature,  but  so  it  unhappily  falls  out,  that 
1  cannot  be  entirely  of  this  opinion.  Nay, 
though  I  were  sure  an  order  were  issued  for  my 
immediate  prosecution  by  the  attorney-general, 
I  should  still  confess,  that  in  the  present  pos- 
ture of  our  affairs,  at  home  or  abroad,  I  do  not 
yet  see  the  absolute  necessity  of  extirpating  the 
Christian  religion  from  among  us.  This  per- 
haps may  appear  too  great  a  paradox,  even  for 
our  wise  and  paradoxical  age  to  endure  ;  there- 
fore I  shall  handle  it  with  all  tenderness,  and 
with  the  utmost  deference  to  that  great  and 
profound  majority,  which  is  of  another  sentiment. 
.  •  .  I  hope  no  reader  imagines  me  so  weak 
to  stand  up  in  the  defence  of  real  Christianity, 
such  as  used,  in  primitive  times  (if  we  may  be- 
lieve the  authors  of  those  ages),  to  have  an 
influence  upon  men's  belief  and  actions  ;  to 
offer  at  the  restoring  of  that,  would  indeed  be  a 
wild  project ;  it  would  be  to  dig  up  foundations  ; 
to  destroy  at  one  blow  all  the  wit.  and  half  the 
learning  of  the  kingdom.  .  .  .  Every  candid 
reader  will  easily  understand  my  discourse  to 
be  intended  only  in  defence  of  nominal  Chris- 


and  power."  * 

Let  us  then  examine  the  advantages 
which  this  abolition  of  the  title  and 
name  of  Christian  might  have  : 

"  It  is  likewise  urged,  that  there  are,  by  com- 
putation, in  this  kingdom  above  ten  thousand 
parsons,  whose  revenues,  added  to  those  of  my 

*  A  n  A  rgument  to  prove  that  the  A  bolish- 
ing  of  Christianity  might  be  attended,  with 
some  Inconveniences,  viii.  184.  The  Whiga 
were  herein  attacked  as  the  friends  of  free- 
thinkers. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


445 


lords  the  bishops,  would  suffice  to  maintain  al 
\east  two  hundred  young  gentlemen  of  wit  and 
pleasure,  and  free  thinking,  enemies  to  priest- 
craft, narrow  principles,  pedantry,  and  preju- 
dices, who  might  be  an  ornament  to  the  court 
and  town."  * 

"  It  is  likewise  proposed  as  a  great  advantage 
to  the  public  that  if  we  once  discard  the  system 
of  the  gospel,  all  religion  will  of  course  be 
banished  for  ever ;  and  consequently  along 
with  it,  those  grievous  prejudices  of  education, 
which  under  the  names  of  virtue,  conscience, 
honour,  justice,  and  the  like,  are  so  apt  to  dis- 
turb the  peace  of  human  minds,  and  the  notions 
whereof  are  so  hard  to  be  eradicated,  by  right 
reason,  or  free-thinking."  f 

Then  he  concludes  by  doubling  the  in- 
sult : 

"  I  am  very  sensible  how  much  the  gentle- 
men of  wit  and  pleasure  are  apt  to  murmur, 
and  be  choked  at  the  sight  of  so  many  daggied- 
tail  parsons,  who  happen  to  fall  in  their  way, 
and  offend  their  eyes  ;  but  at  the  same  time, 
these  wise  reformers  do  not  consider  what  an 
advantage  and  felicity  it  is  for  great  wits  to  be 
always  provided  with  objects  of  scorn  and  con- 
temp't,  in  order  to  exercise  and  improve  their 
talents,  and  divert  their  spleen  from  falling  on 
each  other,  or  on  themselves  ;  especially  when 
all  this  may  be  done,  without  the  least  imagin- 
able danger  to  their  persons.  And  to  urge  an- 
other argument  of  a  parallel  nature  :  if  Chris- 
tianity were  once  abolished,  how  could  the 
free-thinkers,  the  strong  reasoners,  and  the 
men  of  profound  learning,  be  able  to  find  an- 
other subject,  so  calculated  in  all  points  where- 
on to  display  their  abilities?  what  wonderful 
E  reductions  of  wit  should  we  be  deprived  of, 
•om  those,  whose  genius,  by  continual  prac- 
tice, has  been  wholly  turned  upon  raillery  and 
invectives,  against  religion,  and  would,  there- 
fore, never  be  able  to  shine  or  distinguish 
themselves  upon  any  other  subject!  we  are 
daily  complaining  of  the  great  decline  of  wit 
among  us,  and  would  we  take  away  the  great- 
est, perhaps  the  only  topic  we  have  left  ?"  $ 

"I  do  very  much  apprehend,  that  in  six 
months  time  after  the  act  is  passed  for  the  ex- 
tirpation of  the  gospel,  the  Bank  and  East 
India  stock  may  fall  at  least  one  per  cent. 
And  since  that  is  fifty  times  more  than  ever 
the  wisdom  of  our  age  thought  fit  to  venture, 
for  the  preservation  of  Christianity,  there  is  no 
reason  we  she  uld  be  at  so  great  a  loss,  merely 
for  the  sake  of  destroying  it?'  § 

Swift  is  only  a  combatant,  I  admit  ; 
but  when  we  glance  at  this  common 
sense  and  this  pride,  this  empire  over 
the  passions  of  others,  and  this  empire 
over  himself ;  this  force  and  this  em- 
ployment of  hatred,  we  judge  that  there 
have  rarely  been  such  combatants.  He 

*  A  n  A  rgwnent  to  prove  that  the  A  bolish- 
ing  of  Christianity  might  be  attended  with 
some  Inconveniences,  viii.  188.  The  Whigs 
were  herein  attacked  as  the  friends  of  free- 
thinkers. 

t  Ibid.  192.  t  Ibid.  196. 

§  Ibid.  200  ;  final  words  of  the  A  rgument. 


is  a  pamphleteer  as  Hannibal  was  a 

condotticre. 

IV. 

On  the  night  after  the  battle  we 
usually  unbenc'  ;  we  sport,  we  make 
fun,  we  talk  in  prose  and  verse  ;  but 
with  Swift  this  /light  is  a  continuation 
of  the  day,  and  the  mind  which  leaves 
its  trace  in  matters  of  business  leaves 
also  its  trace  in  amusements. 

What  is  gayer  than  Voltaire's  ioirecz  ? 
He  rails  ;  but  do  we  find  any  murder- 
ous intention  in  his  railleries  ?  He 
gets  angry ;  but  do  we  perceive  a  ma- 
lignant or  evil  character  in  his  pas- 
sions ?  In  him  all  is  amiable.  In  an 
instant,  through  the  necessity  of  action, 
he  strikes,  caresses,  changes  a  hundred 
times  his  tone,  his  face,  with  abrupt 
movements,  impetuous  sallies,  some- 
times as  a  child,  always  as  a  man  of 
the  world,  of  taste  and  conversation. 
He  wishes  to  entertain  us  ;  he  con- 
ducts us  at  once  thfough  a  thousand 
ideas,  without  effort,  to  amuse  himself, 
to  amuse  us.  What  an  agreeable  host 
is  this  Voltaire,  who  desires  to  please 
and  who  knows  how  to  please,  who 
only  dreads  ennui,  who  does  not  dis- 
trust us,  who  is  not  constrained,  who  is 
always  himself,  who  is  brimful  of  ideas, 
naturalness,  liveliness !  If  we-  were 
with  him,  and  he  rallied  us,  we  should 
not  be  angry ;  we  should  adopt  his 
style,  we  should  laugh  at  ourselves, 
we  should  feel  that  he  only  wished  to 
pass  an  agreeable  hour,  that  he  was 
not  angry  with  us,  that  he  treated  us 
as  equals  and  guests,  that  he  broke 
out  into  pleasantries  as  a  winter  fire  into 
sparks,  and  that  he  was  none  the  less 
pleasant,  wholesome,  amusing. 

Heaven  grant  that  Swift  may  never 
jest  at  our  expense.  The  positive 
mind  is  too  solid  and  too  cold  to  be 
gay  and  amiable.  When  such  a  mind 
:akes  to  ridicule,  it  does  not  sport  with 
't  superficially,  but  studies  it,  goes  into 
it  gravely,  masters  it,  knows  all  its  sub- 
divisions and  its  proofs.  This  pro- 
:ound  knowledge  can  only  produce  a 
withering  pleasantry.  Swift's,  at  bot- 
tom, is  but  a  reductio  ad  absiirdum,  al- 
together scientific.  For  instance,  The 
art  of  Political  Lying*  is  a  didactic 
*  vi.  415. — Arbuthnot  is  said  to  have  written 
the  whole  or  at  least  part  of  it. — TR. 


446 


treatise,  whose  plan  might  serve  for  a 
model.  uln  the  first  chapter  of  this 
excellent  treatise  he  (the  author)  rea- 
sons philosophically  concerning  the 
nature  of  the  soul  of  man,  and  those 
qualities  which  render  it  susceptible  of 
lies.  He  supposes  the  soul  to  be  of 
the  nature  of  a  piano-cylindrical  specu- 
lum, or  looking-glass.  .  .  .  The  plain 
side  represents  objects  just  as  they  are  ; 
and  the  cylindrical  side,  by  the  rules  of 
catoptrics,  must  needs  represent  true 
objects  false,  and  false  objects  true.  In 
his  second  chapter  he  treats  of  the  na- 
ture of  political  lying ;  in  the  third  of 
the  lawfulness  of  political  lying.  The 
fourth  chapter  is  wholly  employed  in 
this  question,  '  Whether  the  right  of 
coinage  of  political  lies  be  wholly  in 
the  government.' "  Again,  nothing 
could  be  stranger,  more  worthy  of  an 
archaeological  society,  than  the  argu- 
ment in  which  he  proves  that  a  humor- 
ous piece  of  Pope's  *  is  an  insidious 
pamphlet  against  the  religion  of  the 
state.  His  Art  of  Sinking  in  Poetry  f 
has  all  the  appearance  of  good  rhet- 
oric ;  the  principles  are  laid  down,  the 
divisions  justified;  the  examples  chosen 
with  extraordinary  precision  and  meth- 
od ;  it  is  perfect  reason  employed  in 
the  service  of  folly. 

His  passions,  like  his  mind,  were  too 
strong.  If  he  wishes  to  scratch,  he 
tears ;  his  pleasantry  is  gloomy ;  by  way 
of  a  joke,  he  drags  his  reader  through 
all  the  disgusting  details  of  sickness 
and  death.  Partridge,  formerly  a  shoe- 
maker, had  turned  astrologer ;  Swift, 
imperturbably  cool,  assumes  an  astrol- 
oger's title,  writes  maxims  on  the  du- 
ties of  the  profession,  and  to  inspire 
confidence,  begins  to  predict : 

"  My  first  prediction  is  but  a  trifle  ;  yet  I 
will  mention  it  to  show  how  ignorant  those 
sottish  pretenders  to  astrology  are  in  their  own 
concerns:  it  relates  to  Partridge  the  almanack- 
maker  ;  I  have  consulted  the  star  of  his  nativ- 
ity by  my  own  rules,  and  find  he  will  infallibly 
die  upon  the  2gth  or  March  next,  about  eleven 
at  night,  of  a  raging  fever ;  therefore  I  advise 
him  to  consider  of  it,  and  settle  his  affairs  in 
time."  $ 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


*  The  Rape  of  the  Lock. 

t  xiii.  17. — Pope,  Arbuthnot,  and  Swift  wrote 
it,  together. 

%  Predictions  for  the  Year  1708  by  Isaac 
Bickerstajf)  ix.  156. 


The  29th  of  March  being  past,  he  re- 
lates how  the  undertaker  came  to  hang 
Partridge's  rooms  "in  close  mourn- 
ing ; "  then  Ned,  the  sexton,  asking 
"whether  the  grave  is  to  be  plain  or 
bricked ;  "  then  Mr.  White,  the  carpen- 
ter, to  screw  down  the  coffin  ;  then  the 
stone-cutter  with  his  monument.  Last- 
ly, a  successor  comes  and  sets  up  in 
the  neighborhood,  saying  in  his  printed 
directions,  "  that  he  lives  in  the  house 
of  the  late  ingenious  Mr.  John  Par- 
tridge, an  eminent  practitioner  in  leath- 
er, physic,  and  astrology."  *  We  car. 
tell  beforehand  the  protestations  of 
poor  Partridge.  Swift  in  his  reply 
proves  that  he  is  dead,  and  is  astonish- 
ed at  his  hard  words  : 

"  To  call  a  man  a  fool  and  villain,  an  impu- 
dent fellow,  only  for  differing  from  him  in  a 
point  merely  speculative,  is,  in  my  humble 
opinion,  a  very  improper  style  for  a  person  of 
his  education.  ...  I  will  appeal  to  Mr.  Par- 
tridge himself,  whether  it  be  probable  I  could 
have  been  so  indiscreet,  to  begin  my  predic- 
tions, with  the  only  falsehood  that  ever  was 
pretended  to  be  in  them  ?  and  this  in  an  affair 
at  home,  where  I  had  so  many  opportunities  to 
be  exact."  t 

Mr.  Partridge  is  mistaken,  or  deceives 
the  public,  or  would  cheat  his  heirs. 

This  gloomy  pleasantry  becomes 
elsewhere  still  more  gloomy.  Swift 
pretends  that  his  enemy,  the  bookseller 
Curll,  has  just  been  poisoned,  and  re- 
lates his  agony.  A  house-surgeon  of  a 
hospital  would  not  write  a  more  repul- 
sive diary  more  coldly.  The  details, 
worked  out  with  the  completeness  of  a 
Hogarth,  are  admirably  minute,  but 
disgusting.  We  laugh,  or  rather  we 
grin,  as  before  the  vagaries  of  a  mad- 
man in  an  asylum,  but  in  reality  we 
feel  sick  at  heart.  Swift  in  his  gayety 
is  always  tragical ;  nothing  unbends 
him  ;  even  when  he  serves  he  pains 
you.  In  his  Journal  to  Stella  there  is 
a  sort  of  imperious  austerity ;  his  con- 
descension is  that  of  a  master  to  a 
child.  The  charm  and  happiness  of  a 
young  girl  of  sixteen  cannot  soften  him. 
She  has  just  married  him,  and  he  tells 
her  that  love  is  a  "ridiculous  passion, 
which  has  no  being  but  in  playbooks  and 

*  These  quotations  are  taken  from  a  humor- 
ous pamphlet,  Squire  Bickcrstajf  Detected^ 
written  by  Dr.  Yalden.  See  Swift's  Works,  ix. 
176.— TR. 

t  A  Vindication  of  Isaac  Bicker  staff,  ix 
1 86. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


447 


romances ;  "  then  he  adds,  with  perfect 
brutality : 

"  I  never  yet  knew  a  tolerable  woman  to  be 
fond  of  her  sex  ;  .  .  .  your  sex  employ  more 
thought,  memory,  and  application  to  be  fools 
than  would  serve  to  make  them  wise  and  use- 
ful. .  .  .  When  I  reflect  on  this,  I  cannot  con- 
ceive you  to  be  human  creatures,  but  a  sort  of 
species  hardly  a  degree  above  a  monkey  ;  who 
has  more  diverting  tricks  than  any  of  you,  is 
an  animal  less  mischievous  and  expensive, 
might  in  time  be  a  tolerable  critic  in  velvet  and 
brocade,  and,  for  aught  I  know,  would  equally 
become  them."  * 

Will  poetry  calm  such  a  mind  ?  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  he  is  most  unfortunate. 
He  is  excluded  from  great  transports 
of  imagination,  as  well  as  from  the 
lively  digressions  of  conversation.  He 
can  attain  neither  the  sublime  nor  the 
agreeable ;  he  has  neither  the  artist's 
rapture,  nor  the  entertainment  of  the 
man  of  the  world.  Two  similar  sounds 
at  the  end  of  two  equal  lines  have  al- 
ways consoled  the  greatest  troubles : 
the  old  muse,  after  three  thousand 
years,  is  a  young  and  divine  nurse  ;  and 
her  song  lulls  the  sickly  nations  whom 
she  still  visits,  as  well  as  the  young, 
flourishing  races  amongst  whom  she 
has  appeared.  The  involuntary  music, 
in  which  thought  wraps  itself,  hides 
ugliness  and  unveils  beauty.  Feverish 
man,  after  the  labors  of  the  evening 
and  the  anguish  of  the  night,  sees  at 
morning  the  beaming  whiteness  of  the 
opening  heaven;  he  gets  rid  of  him- 
self, and  the  joy  of  nature  from  all 
sides  enters  with  oblivion  into  his  heart. 
If  misery  pursues  him,  the  poetic  affla- 
tus, unable  to  wipe  it  out,  transforms 
it;  it  becomes  ennobled,  he  loves  it, 
and  thenceforth  he  bears  it;  for  the 
only  thing  to  which  he  cannot  resign 
himself  is  littleness.  Neither  Faust 
nor  Manfred  have  exhausted  human 
grief  ;  they  drank  from  the  cruel  cup  a 
generous  wine,  they  did  not  reach  the 
dregs.  They  enjoyed  themselves,  and 
nature  ;  they  tasted  the  greatness 
which  was  in  them,  and  the  beauty  of 
creation  ;  they  pressed  with  their 
bruised  hands  all  the  thorns  with  which 
necessity  has  made  our  way  thorny, 
but  they  saw  them  blossom  with  roses, 
fostered  by  the  purest  of  their  noble 
blood.  There  is  nothing  of  the  sort  in 

*  Letter  to  a  very  young  Lady  on  her  mar- 
riage, ix.  420-422. 


Swift:  what  is  wanting  most  in  his 
verses  is  poetry.  The  positive  mind 
can  neither  love  nor  understand  it ;  it 
sees  therein  only  a  kind  of  mechanisn* 
or  a  fashion,  and  employs  it  only  for 
vanity  and  conventionality.  When  in 
his  youth  Swift  attempted  Pindaric 
odes,  he  failed  lamentably.  I  cannot 
remember  a  line  of  his  which  indicates 
a  genuine  sentiment  of  nature  :  he  saw 
in  the  forests  only  logs  of  wood,  and  in 
the  fields  only  sacks  of  corn.  He  em- 
ployed mythology,  as  we  put  on  a  \\ig, 
ill-timed,  wearily  and  scornfully.  His 
best  piece,  Cadenus  and  Vanessa,  *  is  a 
poor  threadbare  allegory.  To  praise 
Vanessa,  he  supposes  that  the  nymphs 
and  shepherds  pleaded  before  Venus, 
the  first  against  men,  the  second  against 
women;  and  that  Venus,  wishing  to 
end  the  debates,  made  in  Vanessa  a 
model  of  perfection.  What  can  such 
a  conception  furnish  but  flat  apostro- 
phes and  pedantic  comparisons  ?  Swift, 
who  elsewhere  gives  a  recipe  for  an 
epic  poem,  is  here  the  first  to  make  use 
of  it.  And  even  his  rude  prosaic  freaks 
tear  this  Greek  frippery  at  every  turn. 
He  puts  a  legal  procedure  into  heav- 
en ;  he  makes  Venus  use  all  kinds  of 
technical  terms.  He  introduces  wit- 
nesses, "  questions  on  the  fact,  bill 
with  costs  dismissed,"  etc.  They  talk 
so  loud  that  the  goddess  fears  to  lose 
her  influence,  to  be  driven  from  OJym- 
pus,  or  else 

"  Shut  out  from  heaven  and  earth, 
Fly  to  the  sea,  my  place  of  oirth  : 
There  live  with  daggled  mermaids  pent, 
And  keep  on  fish  perpetual  Lent."  t 

When  he  relates  the  touching  history 
of  Baucis  and  Philemon,  \  he  degrades 
it  by  a  travesty.  He  does  not  love  the 
ancient  nobleness  and  beauty  ;  the  two 
gods  become  in  his  hands  begging 
friars,  Philemon  and  Baucis  Kentish 
peasants.  For  a  recompense,  their 
house  becomes  a  church,  and  Philemon 
a  parson : 

"  His  talk  was  now  of  tithes  and  dxies  ; 
He  smoked  his  pipe  and  read  the  news.  .  • 
Against  dissenters  would  repine, 
And  stood  up  firm  for  '  right  divine.'  " 

Wit  luxuriates,  incisive,  in  little  com- 
pact verses,  vigorously  coined,  of  ex- 

*  Cadenus  and  Vanessa,  xiv.  441 

t  Ibid.  443- 

J  Baucis  and  Philemon,  xiv.  83. 


443 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III, 


treme  conciseness,  facility,  precision  ; 
but  compared  to  La  Fontaine,  it  is  wine 
turned  into  vinegar.  Even  when  he 
comes  to  the  charming  Vanessa,  his 
vein  is  still  the  same :  to  praise  her 
childhood,  he  puts  her  name  first  on 
the  list,  as  a  little  model  girl,  just  like 
a  schoolmaster : 

'  And  all  their  conduct  would  be  tried 
By  her,  as  an  unerring  guide  : 
Offending  daughters  oft  would  hear 
Vanessa's  praise  rung  in  their  ear  : 
Miss  Betty,  when  she  does  a  fault, 
Lets  fall  her  knife,  or  spills  the  salt, 
Will  thus  be  by  her  mother  chid  : 

'  'Tis  what  Vanessa  never  did! '  "  * 

A  strange  way  of  admiring  Vanessa, 
and  of  proving  his  admiration  for  her. 
He  calls  her  a  nymph,  and  treats  her 
like  a  school-girl  !  Cadenus  "  now 
could  praise,  esteem,  approve,  but  un- 
derstood not  what  was  love  !  "  Noth- 
ing could  be  truer,  and  Stella  felt  it, 
like  others.  The  verses  which  he  writes 
every  year  on  her  birthday,  are  a  peda- 
gogue's censures  and  praises  ;  if  he 
gives  her  any  good  marks,  it  is  with  re- 
strictions. Once  he  inflicts  on  her  a 
little  sermon  on  want  of  patience; 
again,  by  way  of  compliment,  he  con- 
cocts this  delicate  warning : 

"  Stella,  this  day  is  thirty-four 
(We  shan't  dispute  a  year  or  more). 
However,  Stella,  be  not  troubled, 
Although  thy  size  and  years  are  doubled 
Since  first  I  saw  thee  at  sixteen, 
The  brightest  virgin  on  the  green ; 
So  little  is  thy  form  declin'd, 
Made  up  so  largely  in  thy  mind." 

And  he  insists  with  exquisite  taste : 

"  O,  would  it  please  the  gods  to  split 
Thy  beauty,  size,  and  years,  and  wit  I 
No  age  could  furnish  out  a  pair 
Of  nymphs  so  graceful,  wise,  and  fair."  t 

Decidedly  this  man  is  an  artisan,  strong 
of  arm,  terrible  at  his  work  and  in  a  fray, 
£ut  narrow  of  soul,  treating  a  woman 
as  ;f  she  were  a  log  of  wood.  Rhyme 
and  rhythm  are  only  business-like  tools, 
which  have  served  him  to  press  and 
launcn  his  thought ;  he  has  put  noth- 
ing but  prose  into  them :  poetry  was 
too  fine  to  be  grasped  by  those  coarse 
hands. 

But  in  prosaic  subjects,  what  truth 
and  force  !  How  this  masculine  naked- 

*  Cadenus  and  Vanessa*  xiv.  448. 
t  Verses  on  Stella's  Birthday,   March  13, 
718-19,  xiv.  469. 


ness  crushes  the  affected  elegance  and 
artificial  poetry  of  Addison  and  Pope ! 
There  are  no  epithets  ;  he  leaves  his 
thought  as  he  conceived  it,valuing  it  foi 
and  by  itself,  needing  neither  ornaments, 
nor  preparation,  nor  extension  ;  above 
the  tricks  of  the  profession,  scholastic 
conventionalisms,  the  vanity  of  the 
rhymester,  the  difficulties  of  the  art; 
master  of  his  subject  and  of  himself. 
This  simplicity  and  naturalness  aston- 
ish us  in  verse.  Here,  as  elsewhere, 
his  originality  is  entire,  and  his  geniu  3 
creative  ;  he  surpasses  his  classical  and 
timid  age  ;  he  tyrannizes  over  form, 
breaks  it,  dare  utter  any  thing,  spares 
himself  no  strong  word.  Acknowledge 
the  greatness  of  this  invention  and  au- 
dacity ;  he  alone  is  a  superior  being, 
who  finds  every  thing  and  copies  noth- 
ing. What  a  biting  comicality  in 
the  Grand  Question  Debated!  He  has 
to  represent  the  entrance  of  a  captain 
into  a  castle,  his  airs,  his  insolence,  his 
folly,  and  the  admiration  caused  by 
these  qualities  !  The  lady  serves  him 
first ;  the  servants  stare  at  him  : 
"  The  parsons  for  envy  are  ready  to  burst ; 
The  servants  amazed  are  scarce  ever  able 
To  keep  off  their  eyes,  as  they  wait  at  the 

table  ; 

And  Molly  and  I  have  thrust  in  our  nose 
To  peep  at  the  captain  in  all  his  fine  clo'es. 
Dear  madam,  be  sure   he's  a  fine  spoken 

man, 
Do  but  hear  on  the    clergy  how  glib  hia 

tongue  ran : 
'  And  madam,'  says  he,  '  if  such  dinners  you 

give, 
You'll  ne'er  want  for  parsons  as  long  as  you 

live. 

I  ne'er  knew  a  parson  without  a  good  nose  ; 
But  the  devil's  as  welcome  wherever    he 

goes ; 

G — d — n  me  !  they  bid  us  reform  and  repent, 
But,   z — s!  by  their  looks  they  never  keep 

Lent : 
Mister  curate,  for  all  your  grave  looks,  I'm 

afraid 
You  cast  a  sheep's  eye  on  her  ladyship's 

maid : 
I  wish  she  would  lend  you  her  pretty  white 

hand 
In   mending  your  cassock,    and  smoothing 

your  band ' 
(For  the  dean   was   so  shabby,  and  look'd 

like  a  ninny, 
That  the  captain  suppos'd  he  was  curate  to 

Jinny). 

*  Whenever  you  see  a  cassock  and  gown, 
A  hundred  to  one  but  it  covers  a  clown. 
Observe  how  a  parson  comes  into  a  room, 
G — d — n    me,   he  hobbles    as   bad    as    my 

groom  ; 

A  scholard,  when  just  from  his  college  broke 
loose, 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


449 


Can  hardly  tell  how  to  cry  bo  to  a  goose  ; 
Your  Noveds  and  Blutrirks  and   Omurs,* 

and  stuff, 
By  G — ,   they  don't  signify  this  pinch  of 

snuff ; 

To  give  a  young  gentleman  right  education, 
The   army's  the   only  good   school    in   the 

nation."  t 

This  has  been  seen,  and  herein  lies  the 
beauty  of  Swift's  verses  :  they  are  per- 
sonal ;  they  are  not  developed  themes, 
but  impressions  felt  and  observations 
collected.  Read  The  Journal  of  a  Mod- 
ern Lady,  The  Furniture  of  a  Woman's 
Mind,  and  other  pieces  by  the  dozen  : 
they  are  dialogues  transcribed  or  opin- 
ions put  on  paper  after  quitting  a  draw- 
ing-room. The  Progress  of  ATarriage 
represents  a  dean  of  fifty-two  married 
to  a  young  worldly  coquette;  do  we 
not  see  in  this  title  alone  all  the  fears 
of  the  bachelor  of  St.  Patrick's  ?  What 
diary  is  more  familiar  and  more  pun- 
gent than  his  verses  on  his  own  death  ? 
"  *  He  hardly  breathes.'  '  The  Dean  is  dead.' 
Before  the  passing  bell  begun, 
The  news  through  half  the  town  has  run  ; 
1  O  may  we  all  for  death  prepare  ! 
What  has  he  left  ?  and  who's  his  heir  ? ' 

*  I  know  no  more  than  what  the  news  is  ; 
'Tis  all  bequeathed  to  public  uses.' 

*  To  public  uses !  there's  a  whim  ! 
What  had  the  public  done  for  him  ? 
Mere  envy,  avarice,  and  pride : 

He  gave  it  all — but  first  he  died. 
And  had  the  Dean  in  all  the  nation 
No  worthy  friend,  no  poor  relation  ? 
So  ready  to  do  strangers  good, 
Forgetting  his  own  flesh  and  blood !  '  .  .  . 
Poor  Pope  will  grieve  a  month,  and  Gay 
A  week,  and  Arbuthnot  a  day.  .  .  . 
My  female  friends,  whose  tender  hearts 
Have  better  learn'd  to  act  their  parts, 
Receive  the  news  in  doleful  dumps  : 
The  Dean  is  dead  (pray  what  is  trumps  ?) 
Then,  Lord,  have  mercy  on  his  soul  I 
(Ladies,  I'll  venture  for  the  vole.) 
Six  Deans,  they  say,  must  bear  the  pall. 
(I  wish  I  knew  what  king  to  call.) 
Madam,  your  husband  will  attend 
The  funeral  of  so  good  a  friend  ? 
No,  madam,  'tis  a  shocking  sight, 
And  he's  engaged  to-morrow  night : 
My  Lady  Club  will  take  it  ill, 
If  he  should  fail  her  at  quadrille. 
He  lov'd  the  Dean — (I  lead  a  heart), 
But  dearest  friends  they  say  must  part. 
His  time  was  come  :  he  ran  his  race  ; 
We  hope  he's  in  a  better  place."  £ 

Such  is  the  inventory  of  human 
friendships.  All  poetry  exalts  the 
mind,  but  this  depresses  it :  instead  of 
concealing  reality,  it  unveils  it ;  instead 

*  Ovids,  Plutarchs,  Homers. 

t  The  Grand  Question  Debated,  xv.  153. 
\  On  the  Death  of  Dr.  Swift,  xiv.  331. 


of  creating  illusions,  it  removes  them. 
When  he  wishes  to  give  a  description  oj 
the  morning,  *  he  shows  us  the  street- 
sweepers,  the  "watchful  bailiffs,"  and 
imitates  the  different  street  cries. 
When  he  wishes  to1  paint  the  rain,  t  he 
describes  "  filth  of  all  hues  and  odors," 
the  "swelling  kennels,"  the  "dead 
cats,"  "  turnip-tops,"  "  stinking  sprats," 
which  "  come  tumbling  down  the  flood." 
His  long  verses  whirl  all  this  filth  in 
their  eddies.  We  smile  to  see  poetry 
degraded  to  this  use  :  we  seem  to  be  at 
a  masquerade ;  it  is  a  queen  travestied 
into  a  rough  country  girl.  We  stop, 
we  look  on,  with  the  sort  of  pleasure 
we  feel  in  drinking  a  bitter  draught. 
Truth  is  always  good  to  know,  and  in 
the  splendid  piece  which  artists  show 
us  we  need  a  manager  to  tell  us  the 
number  of  the  hired  applauders  and  of 
the  supernumeraries.  It  would  be  well 
if  he  only  drew  up  such  a  list !  Num- 
bers look  ugly,  but  they  only  affect  the 
mind ;  other  things,  the  oil  of  the 
lamps,  the  odors  of  the  side  scenes, 
all  that  we  cannot  name,  remains  to  be 
told.  I  cannot  do  more  than  hint  at 
the  length  to  which  Swift  carries  us ; 
but  this  I  must  do,  for  these  extremes 
are  the  supreme  effort  of  his  despair 
and  his  genius :  we  must  touch  upon 
them  in  order  to  measure  and  know 
him.  He  drags  poetry  not  only  through 
the  mud,  but  into  the  filth  ;  he  rolls  in 
it  like  a  raging  madman,  he  enthrones 
himself  in  it,  and  bespatters  all  passers- 
by.  Compared  with  his,  all  foul  words 
are  decent  and  agreeable.  In  Aretin 
and  Brantome,  in  La  Fontaine  and  Vol- 
taire, there  is  a  soupgon  of  pleasure. 
With  the  first,  unchecked  sensuality, 
with  the  others,  malicious  gayety,  are  ex- 
cuses ;  Tve  are  scandalized,  not  disgust- 
ed ;  ve  do  not  like  to  see  in  a  man  a 
bull's  fury  or  an  ape's  buffoonery  ;  but 
the  bull  is  so  eager  and  strong,  the  ape 
so  funny  and  smart,  that  we  end  by 
looking  on  or  being  amused.  Then, 
again,  however  coarse  their  pictures 
may  be,  they  speak  of  the  accompani- 
ments of  love :  Swift  touches  only  upon 
the  results  of  digestion,  and  that  merely 
with  disgust  and  revenge ;  he  pours 
them  out  with  horror  and  sneering  at 
the  wretches  whom  he  describes.  He 

*  Swift's  Works,  xiv.  93. 

t  A  Description  of  a  City  Shower ;  xiv.  94. 


450 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


must  not  in  this  be  compared  to  Rabe- 
lais ;  that  good  giant,  that  drunken 
doctor,  rolls  himself  joyously  about  on 
his  dunghill,  thinking  no  evil ;  the 
dunghill  is  warm,  convenient,  a  fine 
place  to  philosophize  and  sleep  off 
one's  wine.  Raised  to  this  enormity, 
and  enjoyed  with  this  heedlessness,  the 
bodily  functions  become  poetical. 
When  the  casks  are  emptied  down  the 
giant's  throat,  and  the  viands  are  gorg- 
ed, we  sympathize  with  so  much  bodily 
comfort ;  in  the  heavings  of  this  colos- 
sal belly  and  the  laughter  of  this  ho- 
meric  mouth,  we  see,  as  through  a  mist, 
the  relics  of  bacchanal  religions,  the  fe- 
cundity, the  monstrous  joy  of  nature  ; 
these  are  the  splendors  and  disorders 
of  its  first  births.  The  cruel  positive 
mind,  on  the  contrary,clings  only  to  vile- 
ness;  it  will  only  see  what  is  behind 
things  ;  armed  with  sorrow  and  bold- 
ness, it  spares  no  ignoble  detail,  no  ob- 
scene word.  Swift  enters  the  dressing- 
room,  *  relates  the  disenchantments  of 
love,  t  dishonors  it  by  a  medley  of  drugs 
and  physic,  J  describes  the  cosmetics 
and  a  great  many  more  things.  §  He 
takes  his  evening  walk  by  solitary 
walls,  ||  and  in  these  pitiable  pryings 
has  his  microscope  ever  in  his  hand. 
Judge  what  he  sees  and  suffers  ;  this  is 
his  ideal  beauty  and  his  jesting  conver- 
sation, and  we  may  fancy  that  he  has 
for  philosophy,  as  for  poetry  and  poli- 
tics, execration  and  disgust. 

V. 

Swift  wrote  the  Tale  of  a  Tub  at  Sir 
"William  Temple's  amidst  all  kind  of 
reading,  as  an  abstract  of  truth  and 
science.  Hence  this  tale  is  the  satire 
of  all  science  and  all  truth. 

Of  religion  first.  He  seems  here  to 
defend  the  Church  of  England ;  but 
what  church  and  what  creed  are  not 
involved  in  his  attack  ?  To  enliven  his 
Subject,  he  profanes  and  reduces  ques- 
tions of  dogma  to  a  question  of  clothes. 
A  father  had  three  sons,  Peter,  Martin, 
and  Jack ;  he  left  each  of  them  a  coat 
at  his  death,^[  warning  them  to  wear  it 

*  The  Lady's  Dressing-room. 
t  Strephon  and  Chloe. 
\  A  Love  Poemfrom  a  Physician. 
§  The  Progress  of  Beauty. 
||  The  Problem,  aud    The  Examination  of 
Certain  Abuses.  If  Christian  truth. 


clean  and  brush  it  often.  The  three 
brothers  obeyed  for  some  time  and 
travelled  sensibly,  slaying  "a  reason- 
able quantity  of  giants  and  dragons."  * 
Unfortunately,  having  come  up  to  town 
they  adopted  its  manners,  fell  in  love 
with  several  fashionable  ladies,  the 
Duchess  d'Argent,  Madame  cle  Grands 
Titres,  and  the  Countess  d'Orgueil,  t 
and  to  gain  their  favors,  began  to  live 
as  gallants,  taking  snuff,  swearing, 
rhyming,  and  contracting  debts,  keep- 
ing horses,  fighting  duels,  whoring, 
killing  bailiffs.  A  sect  was  established 
who 

"  Held  the  universe  to  be  a  large  suit  of 
clothes,  which  invests  everything:  that  the 
earth  is  invested  by  the  air  ;  the  air  is  invested 
by  the  stars,  and  the  stars  are  invested  by  the 
primum  mobile.  .  .  .  What  is  that  which 
some  call  land,  but  a  fine  coat  faced  with 
green  ?  or  the  sea,  but  a  waistcoat  of  water- 
tabby  ?  .  .  .  You  will  find  how  curious  jour- 
neyman Nature  has  been,  to  trim  up  the  vege- 
table beaux :  observe  how  sparkish  a  periwig 
adorns  the  head  of  a  beech,  and  what  a  fine 
doublet  of  white  satin  is  worn  by  the  birch. 
...  Is  not  religion  a  cloak  ;  honesty  a  pair  of 
shoes  worn  out  in  the  dirt ;  self-love  a  surtout; 
vanity  a  shirt ;  and  conscience  a  pair  of 
breeches  ;  which,  though  a  coyer  for  lewdness 
as  well  as  nastiness,  is  easily  slipt  down  for  the 
service  of  both?  ...  If  certain  ermines  and 
furs  be  placed  in  a  certain  position,  we  style 
them  a  judge  ;  and  so  an  apt  conjunction  of 
lawn  and  black  satin,  we  entitle  a  bishop."  J 

Others  held  also  "  that  the  soul  was 
the  outward,  and  the  body  the  inward 
clothing.  .  .  .  This  last  they  proved  by 
Scripture,  because  in  them  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being."  Thus 
our  three  brothers,  having  only  very 
simple  clothes,  were  embarrassed.  For 
instance,  the  fashion  at  this  time  was 
for  shoulder-knots,  §  and  their  father's 
will  expressly  forbade  them  to  "add 
to  or  diminish  from  their  coats  one 
thread ; 

"  In  this  unhappy  case  they  went  immedi- 
ately to  consult  their  father's  will,  read  it  over 
and  over,  but  not  a  word  of  the  shoulder-knot. 
.  .  .  After  much  thought,  one  of  the  brothers, 
who  happened  to  be  more  book-learned  than 
the  other  two,  said,  he  had  found  an  expe- 
dient. '  It  is  true,'  said  he,  '  there  is  nothing  in 
this  will,  totidem  verbis,  making  mention  of 


*  Persecutions  and  contests  of  the  primitive 
church. 

t  Coyetousness,  ambition,  and  pride  ;  the 
three  vices  that  the  ancient  fathers  inveighed 
against. 

t  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  xi.  sec.  2,  79,  81. 

§  Innovations. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


45  * 


shoulder-knots ;  but  T  dare  conjecture,  we 
may  find  them  inclusive,  or  totidem  syllabis? 
This  distinction  was  immediately  approved  by 
all  ;  and  so  they  fell  again  to  examine  ;*  but 
their  evil  star  had  so  directed  the  matter,  that 
the  first  syllable  was  not  to  be  found  in  the 
whole  writings.  Upon  which  disappointment, 
he,  who  found  the  former  evasion,  took  heart 
and  said :  '  Brothers,  there  are  yet  hopes,  for 
though  we  cannot  find  them  totidem  verbis, 
nor  totidem  syllabis,  I  dare  engage  we  shall 
make  them  out  tertio  modo  or  totidem  litter- 
w."  This  discovery  was  also  highly  com- 
mended ;  upon  which  they  fell  once  more  to 
the  scrutiny,  and  picked  out  s,  H,  o,  u,  L,  D,  E,R; 
when  the  same  planet,  enemy  to  their  repose, 
had  wonderfully  contrived  that  a  K  was  not  to 
be  found.  Here  was  a  weighty  difficulty  ;  but 
the  distinguishing  brother  .  .  .  now  his  hand 
was  in,  proved  by  a  very  good  argument,  that 
K  was  a  modern  illegitimate  letter,  unknown  to 
the  learned  ages,  nor  anywhere  to  be  found  in 
ancient  manuscripts.  .  .  .  Upon  this  all  farther 
difficulty  vanished  ;  shoulder-knots  were  made 
clearly  out  to  be  jure  paterno,  and  our  three 
gentlemen  swaggered  with  as  large  and  flaunt- 
ing ones  as  the  best."  f 

Other  interpretations  admitted  gold 
lace,  and  a  codicil  authorized  flame-col- 
ored satin  linings  :  J 

"  Next  winter  a  player,  hired  for  the  purpose 
by  the  corporation  of  fringemakers,  acted  his 

Eart  in  a  new  comedy,  all  covered  with  silver 
ringe,  and  according  to  the  laudable  custom 
gave   rise  to   that  fashion.     Upon   which   the 
brothers  consulting  their  father's  will,  to  their 

freat  astonishment  found  these  words  :  '  Item, 
charge  and  command  my  said  three  sons  to 
wear  no  sort  of  silver-fringe  upon  or  about  their 
said  coats,'  etc.  .  .  .  However,  after  some 
pause,  the  brother  so  often  mentioned  for  his 
erudition,  vyho  was  well  skilled  in  criticisms, 
had  found  in  a  certain  author,  which  he  said 
should  be  nameless,  that  the  same  word,  which 
in  the  will  is  called  fringe,  does  also  signify  a 
broomstick :  and  doubtless  ought  to  have  the 
same  interpretation  in  this  paragraph.  This 
another  of  the  brothers  disliked,  because  of  that 
epithet  silver,  which  could  not,  he  humbly  con- 
ceived, in  propriety  of  speech,  be  reasonably 
applied  to  a  broomstick  ;  but  it  was  replied  upon 
him  that  this  epithet  was  understood  in  a  my- 
thological and  allegorical  sense.  However,  he 
objected  again,  why  their  father  should  forbid 
them  to  wear  a  broomstick  on  their  coats,  a 
caution  that  seemed  unnatural  and  impertinent; 
upon  which  he  was  taken  up  short,  as  one  who 
spoke  irreverently  of  a  mystery,  which  doubt- 
less was  very  useful  and  significant,  but  ought 
not  to  be  over-curiously  pried  into,  or  nicely 
reasoned  upon."§ 

In  the  end  the  scholastic  brother  grew 
weary  of  searching  further  "evasions," 
locked  up  the  old  will  in  a  strong  box,  || 

*  The  Will. 

t  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  xi.  sec.  2,  83. 
$  Purgatory.  §  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  88. 

II  The  prohibition  of  the  laity's  reading  the 
Scriptures. 


authorized  by  tradition  the  fashiona 
which  became  him,  and  having  con 
trived  to  be  left  a  legacy,  styled  him- 
self My  Lord  Peter.  His  brothers, 
treated  like  servants,  were  discarded 
from  his  house;  they  reopened  the 
will  of  their  father,  and  began  to  un- 
derstand it.  Martin  (Luther),  to  re- 
duce his  clothes  to  the  primitive  sim- 
plicity, brought  off  a  large  handful  of 
points,  stripped  away  ten  dozen  yards 
of  fringe,  rid  his  coat  of  a  huge  quantity 
of  gold-lace,  but  kept  a  few  embroideries 
which  could  not  "  be  got  away  without 
damaging  the  cloth."  Jack  (Calvin) 
tore  off  all  in  his  enthusiasm,  and  was 
found  in  tatters,  besides  being  er.vious 
of  Martin  and  half  mad.  He  then 
joined  the  ^Eolists,  or  inspired  admir- 
ers of  the  wind,  who  pretend  that  the 
spirit,  or  breath,  or  wind,  is  heavenly, 
and  contains  all  knowledge  : 

"  First,  it  is  generally  affirmed  or  confessed 
that  learning  puffeth  men  up  ;  and  secondly 
they  proved  it  by  the  following  syllogism  :  words 
are  but  wind  ;  and  learning  is  nothing  but 
words  ,  ergo  learning  is  nothing  but  wind.  .  .  . 
This,  when  blown  up  to  its  perfection,  ought 
not  to  be  covetously  hoarded  up,  stifled,  or  hid 
under  a  bushel,  but  freely  communicated  to 
mankind.  Upon  these  reasons,  and  others  of 
equal  weight,  the  wise  ^Eolists  affirm  the  gift  of 
belching  to  be  the  noblest  act  of  a  rational 
creature.  ...  At  certain  seasons  of  the  year, 
you  might  behold  the  priests  among  them  in 
vast  number  .  .  .  linked  together  in  a  circular 
chain,  with  every  man  a  pair  of  bellows  applied 
to  his  neighbour  s  breech,  by  which  they  blew 
each  other  to  the  shape  and  size  of  a  tun  ;  and 
for  that  reason  with  great  propriety  of  speech, 
did  usually  call  their  bodies  their  vessels."  * 

After  this  explanation  of  theology, 
religious  quarrels,  and  mystical  inspi- 
rations, what  is  left,  even  of  the  Angli- 
can Church  ?  She  is  a  sensible,  use- 
ful, political  cloak,  but  what  else  ? 


Like  a  stiff  brush  used  with  too  stron 
a  hand,  the  buffoonery  has  carried 
away  the  cloth  as  well  as  the'  stain. 
Swift  has  put  out  a  fire,  I  allow  ;  but, 
like  Gulliver  at  Lilliput,  the  people 
saved  by  him  must  hold  their  nose,  to 
admire  the  right  application  of  the 
liquid,  and  the  energy  of  the  engine 
that  saves  them. 

Religion  being  drowned,  Swift  turns 
against  science  ;  for  the  digressions 
with  which  he  interrupts  his  story  to 
imitate  and  mock  the  modern  sages  are 

*  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  sec.  8,  146. 


452 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


most  closely  connected  with  his  tale. 
The  book  opens  with  introductions, 
prefaces,  dedications,  and  other  appen- 
dices generally  employed  to  swell 
books — violent  caricatures  heaped  up 
against  the  vanity  and  prolixity  of  au- 
thors. He  professes  himself  one  of 
them,  and  announces  their  discoveries. 
Admirable  discoveries !  The  first  of 
their  commentaries  will  be  on 

"  Tom  Thumb,  whose  author  was  a  Pytha- 
gorean philosopher.  This  dark  treatise  con- 
tains the  whole  scheme  of  the  Metempsychosis, 
deducing  the  progress  of  the  soul  through  all 
her  stages.  Whittington  and  his  Cat  is  the 
work  of  that  mysterious  rabbi  Jehuda  Hannasi, 
containing  a  defence  of  the  gemara  of  the  Jeru- 
salem misna,  and  its  just  preference  to  that  of 
Babylon,  contrary  to  the  vulgar  opinion."  * 

He  himself  announces  that  he  is  going 
to  publish  "  A  Panegyrical  Essay  upon 
the  Number  Three  ;  a  General  His- 
tory of  Ears ;  a  Modest  Defence  of  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Rabble  in  all  Ages  ; 
an  Essay  on  the  Art  of  Canting,  phi- 
losophically, physically,  and  musically 
considered ; "  and  he  engages  his  read- 
ers to  try  by  their  entreaties  to  get  from 
him  these  treatises,  which  will  change 
the  appearance  of  the  world.  Then, 
turning  against  the  philosophers  and 
the  critics,  sifters  of  texts,  he  proves  to 
them,  according  to  their  own  fashion, 
that  the  ancients  mentioned  them. 
Can  ws  find  anywhere  a  more  biting 
parody  on  forced  interpretations  : 

a  "  The  types  are^so  apposite  and  the  applica- 
tions so  necessary.,  and  natural,  that  it  is  not 
easy  to  conceive  fcow  any  reader  of  a  modern 
eye  or  taste  could  overlook  them.  .  .  .  For 
first ;  Pausanias  is  of  opinion,  that  the  perfec- 
tion of  writing  correct  was  entirely  owing  to  the 
institution  of  critics  ;  and,  that  he  can  possibly 
mean  no  other  than  the  true  critic,  is,  I  think, 
manifest  enough  from  the  following  description. 
He  says,  they  were  a  race  of  men,  who  delight- 
ed to  nibble  at  the  superfluities  and  excres- 
cences of  books  ;  which  the  learned  at  length 
observing,  took  warning,  of  their  own  accord, 
to  lop  the  luxuriant,  the  rotten,  the  dead,  the 
sapless,  and  the  overgrown  from  their  works. 
But  now,  all  this  he  cunningly  shades  under  the 
following  allegory  ;  that  the  Nauplians  in  Argos 
learned  the  art  of  pruning  their  vines,  by  observ- 
ing that  when  an  ASS  had  browsed  upon  one  of 
them,  it  thrived  the  better  and  bore  fairer  fruits. 
But  Herodotus,  holding  the  very  same  hiero- 
glyph, speaks  much  plainer,  and  almost  in  ter- 
winis.  He  has  been  so  bold  as  to  tax  the  true 
critics  of  ignorance  and  malice  ;  telling  us 
openly,  for  I  think  nothing  can  be  plainer,  that 


*  A  Tak  of  a  Tub,  Introduction,  72. 


in  the  western  part  of  Libya  there  were  ASSBI 
with  horns."  * 

Then  follow  a  multitude  of  pitiless 
sarcasms.  Swift  has  the  genius  of  in- 
sult ;  he  is  an  inventor  of  irony,  as 
Shakspeare  of  poetry  ;  and  as  beseems 
an  extreme  force,  he  goes  to  extremes 
in  his  thought  and  art.  He  lashes 
reason  after  science,  and  leaves  nothing 
of  the  whole  human  mind.  With  a 
medical  seriousness  he  establishes  that 
vapors  are  exhaled  from  the  whole 
body,  which,  "getting  possession  of  the 
brain,"  leave  it  healthy  if  they  are  not 
abundant,  but  excite  it' if  they  are  ;  that 
in  the  first  case  they  make  peaceful  indi- 
viduals, in  the  second  great  politicians, 
founders  of  religions,  and  deep  philoso- 
phers, that  is,  madmen,  so  that  mad- 
ness is  the  source  of  all  human  genius 
and  all  the  institutions  of  the  universe. 
This  is  why  it  is  very  wrong  to  keep 
men  shut  up  in  Bedlam,  and  a  commis- 
sion appointed  to  examine  them  would 
find  in  this  academy  many  imprisoned 
geniuses  "  which  might  produce  admir- 
able instruments  for  the  several  offices 
in  a  state  ecclesiastical,  civil,  and  mili- 
tary." 

"  Is  any  student  tearing  his  straw  in  piece- 
meal, swearing  and  blaspheming,  biting  his 
grate,  foaming  at  the  mouth  ?  .  .  .  let  the  right 
worshipful  commissioners  of  inspection  give  him 
a  regiment  of  dragoons,  and  send  him  into  Flan- 
ders among  the  rest.  .  .  .  You  will  find  a  third 
gravely  taking  the  dimensions  of  his  kennel  ;  a 
person  of  foresight  and  insight,  though  kept 
quite  in  the  dark.  .  .  .  He  walks  duly  in  one 
pace  .  .  .  talks  much  of  hard  times  and  taxes 
and  the  whore  of  Babylon  ;  bars  up  the  wooden 
window  of  his  cell  constantly  at  eight  o'clock, 
dreams  of  fire.  .  .  .  Now  what  a  figure  would 
all  those  acquirements  amount  to  if  the  owner 
were  sent  into  the  city  among  his  brethren? 
.  .  .  Now  is  it  not  amazing  to  think  the  society 
pf  Warwick-lane  should  have  no  more  concern 
tor  the  recovery  of  so  useful  a  member?  .  .  . 
I  shall  not  descend  so  minutely,  as  to  insist 
upon  the  vast  number  of  beaux,  fiddlers,  poets, 
and  politicians  that  the  world  might  recover  by 
such  a  reformation.  .  .  .  Even  I  myself,  the 
author  of  these  momentous  truths,  am  a  person 
whose  imaginations  are  hard-mouthed,  and  ex« 
ceedingly  disposed  to  run  away  with  his  reason, 
which  I  have  observed,  from  long  experience, 
to  be  a  very  light  rider,  and  easily  shaken  off  ; 
upon  which  account  my  friends  will  never  trust 
me  alone,  without  a  solemn  promise  to  vent  my 
speculations  in  this,  or  the  like  manner,  for  the 
universal  benefit  of  mankind."  t 


*  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  sec.  3  ;  A  Digression 
'oncerning  Critics,  97. 

t  A  Tale  of  a  Tub  ;  A  Digression  concern* 
'ng  Madness,  sec.  n,  167. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


453 


What  a  wretched  man  is  he  who  knows 
himself  and  mocks  himself !  What 
madman's  laughter,  and  what  a  sob  in 
this  hoarse  gayety  !  What  remains  for 
him  but  to  slaughter  the  remainder  of 
human  invention  ?  Who  does  not  see 
here  the  despair  from  which  sprang 
the  academy  of  Lagado  ?  Is  there  not 
here  a  foretaste  of  madness  in  this  in- 
tense meditation  of  absurdity  ?  His 
mathematician,  who,  to  teach  geometry, 
makes  his  pupils  swallow  wafers  on 
which  he  writes  his  theorems ;  his 
moralist,  who,  to  reconcile  political 
parties,  proposes  to  saw  off  the  occiput 
and  brain  of  each  "  opposite  party- 
man,"  and  "  to  let  the  occiputs  thus  cut 
off  be  interchanged;"  his  economist 
again,  who  tries  "  to  reduce  human  ex- 
crement to  its  original  food."  Swift  is 
akin  to  these,  and  is  the  most  wretched 
of  all,  because  he  nourishes  his  mind, 
like  them,  on  the  filth  and  folly,  and 
because  he  possesses  what  they  have 
not,  knowledge  and  disgust. 

It  is  sad  to  exhibit  human  folly,  it  is 
sadder  to  exhibit  human  perversity  : 
the  heart  is  more  a  part  of  ourselves 
than  reason  :  we  suffer  less  in  seeing 
extravagance  and  folly  than  wickedness 
or  baseness,  and  I  find  Swift  more 
agreeable  in  his  Tale  of  a  Tub  than  in 
Gulliver. 

All  his  talent  and  all  his  passions  are 
assembled  in  this  book  ;  the  positive 
mind  has  impressed  upon  it  its  form 
and  force.  There  is  nothing  agreeable 
in  the  fiction  or  the  style.  It  is  the 
diary  of  an  ordinary  man,  a  surgeon, 
then  a  captain,  who  describes  coolly 
and  sensibly  the  events  and  objects 
which  he  has  just  seen,  but  who  has 
no  feeling  for  the  beautiful,  no  appear- 
ance of  admiration  or  passion,  no  de- 
livery. Sir  Joseph  Banks  and  Captain 
Cook  relate  thus.  Swift  only  seeks 
the  natural,  and  he  attains  it.  His  art 
consists  in  taking  an  absurd  supposi- 
tion, and  deducing  seriously  the  effects 
which  it  produces.  It  is  the  logical  and 
technical  mind  of  a  mechanician,  who, 
imagining  the  decrease  or  increase  in 
a  wheelwork,  perceives  the  result  of  the 
changes,  and  writes  down  the  record. 
His  whole  pleasure  is  in  seeing  these 
results  clearly,  and  by  a  solid  reasoning. 
He  marks  the  dimensions,  and  so  forth, 
.ike  a  good  engineer  and  a  statistician, 


omitting  no  trivial  a-id  positive  detail, 
explaining  cookery,  stabling,  politics  : 
in  this  he  has  no  equal  but  De  Foe. 
The  loadstone  machine  which  sustains 
the  flying  island,  the  entrance  of  Gul- 
liver into  Lilliput,  and  the  inventory 
of  his  property,  his  arrival  and  main- 
tenance among  the  Yahoos,  carry  us 
with  them  ;  no  mind  knew  better  the 
ordinary  laws  of  nature  and  human 
life ;  no  mind  shut  itself  up  more 
strictly  in  this  knowledge  ;  none  was 
ever  more  exact  or  more  limited. 

But  what  a  vehemence  underneath 
this  aridity !  How  ridiculous  our  in- 
terests and  passions  seem,  degraded  to 
the  littleness  of  Lilliput,  or  compared 
to  the  vastness  of  Brobdingnag  ?  What 
is  beauty,  when  the  handsomest  body, 
seen  with  piercing  eyes,  seems  horrible  ? 
What  is  our  power  when  an  insect, 
king  of  an  ant-hill,  can  be  called,  like 
our  princes,  "sublime  majesty,  delight 
and  terror  of  the  universe  ?"  What 
is  our  homage  worth,  when  a  pigmy 
"  is  taller,  by  almost  the  breadth  of  a 
nail,  than  any  of  his  court,  which  alone 
is  enough  to  strike  an  awe  into  his  be- 
holders ?  "  Three-fourths  of  our  sen- 
timent are  follies,  and  the  weakness 
of  our  organs  is  the  only  cause  of  our 
veneration  or  love. 

Society  repels  us  still  more  than 
man.  At  Laputa,  at  Lilliput,  amongst 
the  horses  and  giants,  Swift  rages 
against  it,  and  is  never  tired  of  abusing 
and  reviling  it.  In  his  eyes,  "igno- 
rance, idleness,  and  vice  are  the  proper 
ingredients  for  qualifying  a  legislator  ; 
laws  are  best  explained,  interpreted, 
and  applied  by  those  whose  interest 
and  abilities  lie  in  perverting,  con- 
founding, and  eluding  them."  *  A 
noble  is  a  wretch,  corrupted  body  and 
soul,  "combining  in  himself  all  the 
diseases  and  vices  transmitted  by  ten 
generations  of  rakes  and  rascals.  A 
.awyer  is  a  hired  liar,  wont  by  twenty 
years  of  roguery  to  pervert  the  truth  if 
he  is  an  advocate,  and  to  sell  it  if  he  is 
a  judge.  A  minister  of  state  is  a  go- 
between,  who,  having  disposed  of  his 
wife,"  or  brawled  for  the  public  good, 
is  master  of  all  offices;  and  who,  in 
order  better  to  rob  the  money  of  the 
nation,  buys  members  of  the  House  of 

*  Swift's  Works,  xii.  Gulliver's  Travel^ 
Part  2,  ch.  6,  p.  171. 


454 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


Commons  with  the  same  money.  A 
king  is  a  practiser  of  all  the  vices, 
unable  to  employ  or  love  an  honest 
man,  persuaded  that  "  the  royal  throne 
could  not  be  supported  without  cor- 
ruption, because  that  positive,confident, 
restive  temper,  which  virtue  infused 
into  a  man,  was  a  perpetual  clog  to 
public  business."*  At  Lilliput  the 
king  chooses  as  his  ministers  those  who 
dance  best  upon  the  tight-rope.  At 
Luggnagg  he  compels  all  those,  who 
are  presented  to  him,  to  crawl  on  their 
bellies  and  lick  the  dust. 

"  When  the  king  has  a  mind  to  put  any  of 
his  nobles  to  death  in  a  gentle,  indulgent  man- 
ner, he  commands  the  floor  to  be  strewed  with 
a  certain  brown  powder  of  a  deadly  composition, 
which,  being  licked  up,  infallibly  kills  him  in 
twenty-four  hours.  But  in  justice  to  this  prince's 
great  clemency,  and  the  care  he  has  of  his  sub- 
jects' lives  (wherein  it  were  much  to  be  wished 
that  the  monarchs  of  Europe  would  imitate 
him),  it  must  be  mentioned  for  his  honour,  that 
strict  orders  are  given  to  have  the  infected  parts 
of  the  floor  well  washed  after  every  such  ex- 
ecution. ...  I  myself  heard  him  give  direc- 
tions that  one  of  his  pages  should  be  whipped, 
whose  turn  it  was  to  give  notice  about  washing 
the  floor  after  an  execution,  but  maliciously  had 
omitted  it ;  by  which  neglect,  a  young  lord  of 
great  hopes  coming  to  an  audience,  was  unfor- 
tunately poisoned,  although  the  King  at  that 
time  had  no  design  against  his  life.  But  this 
good  prince  was  so  gracious  as  to  forgive  the 
poor  page  his  whipping,  upon  promise  that  he 
would  do  so  no  more,  without  special  orders."! 

All  these  fictions  of  giants,  pigmies, 
flying  islands,  are  means  for  depriving 
human  nature  of  the  veils  with  which 
habit  and  imagination  cover  it,  to  dis- 
play it  in  its  truth  and  its  ugliness. 
There  is  still  qne  cloak  to  remove,  the 
most  deceitful  and  familiar.  Swift 
must  tike  away  that  appearance  of 
reason  in  which  we  deck  ourselves. 
He  must  suppress  the  sciences,  arts, 
combinations  of  societies,  inventions  of 
industries,  whose  brightness  dazzles  us. 
He  must  discover  the  Yahoo  in  man. 
What  a  spectacle ! 

"  At  last  I  beheld  several  animals  in  a  field, 
and  one  or  two  of  the  same  kind  sitting  in  trees. 
Their  shape  was  very  singular  and  deformed. 
.  .  .  Their  heads  and  breasts  were  covered  with 
a  thick  hair,  some  frizzled,  and  others  lank  ; 
they  had  beards  like  goats,  and  a  long  ridge  of 
hair  down  their  backs,  and  the  forepart  of  their 
legs  and  feet  ;  but  the  rest  of  their  bodies  was 
bare,  so  that  I  might  see  their  skins,  which 
were  of  a  brown  buff  colour.  .  .  .  They  climbed 


*  G*lliv*i**  Travels,  Part  3»  ch.  8,  p.  258. 
t  Ibid.  ch.  9,  p.  264. 


high  trees  as  nimbly  as  a  squirrel,  for  they  had 
strong  extended  claws  before  and  behind,  ter- 

[  minating   in   sharp    points    and   hooked.  .  .  . 

!  The  females  .  .  .  had  long  lank  hair  on  their 
head,  but  none  on  their  faces,  nor  anything 
more  than  a  sort  of  down  on  the  rest  of  their 
bodies.  .  .  .  Upon  the  whole  I  never  beheld  in 
all  my  travels  so  disagreeable  an  animal,  or  one 
against  which  I  naturally  conceived  so  great  an 
antipathy."  * 

According  to  Swift,  such  are  our 
brothers.  He  finds  in  them  all  oui 
instincts.  They  hate  each  other,  tear 
each  other  with  their  talons,  with  hide- 
ous contortions  and  yells !  such  is  the 
source  of  our  quarrels.  If  they  find  a 
dead  cow,  although  they  are  but  five, 
and  there  is  enough  for  fifty,  they 
strangle  and  wound  each  other  :  such 
is  a  picture  of  our  greed  and  our  wars. 
They  dig  up  precious  stones  and  hide 
them  in  their  kennels,  and  watch  them 
"  with  great  caution/'  pining  and  howl- 
ing when  robbed:  such  is  the  origin 
of  our  love  of  gold.  They  devour 
indifferently  "  herbs,  berries,  roots,  the 
corrupted  flesh  of  animals,"  preferring 
"what  they  could  get  by  rapine  or 
stealth,"  gorging  themselves  till  they 
vomit  or  burst :  such  is  the  portrait  of 
our  gluttony  and  injustice.  They  have 
a  kind  of  juicy  and  unwholesome  root, 
which  they  "would  suck  with  great 
delight,"  till  they  "  howl,  and  grin,  and 
chatter,"  embracing  or  scratching  each 
other,  then  reeling,  hiccuping,  wallow- 
ing in  the  mud  :  such  is  a  picture  of 
our  drunkenness. 

"  In  most  herds  there  was  a  sort  of  ruling 
Yahoo,  who  was  always  more  deformed  in  body, 
and  mischievous  in  disposition,  than  any  of  the 
rest :  that  this  leader  had  usually  a  favourite  as 
like  himself  as  he  could  get,  whose  employment 
was  to  lick  his  master's  feet,  .  .  .  and  drive 
the  female  Yahoos  to  his  kennel  ;  for  which  he 
was  now  and  then  rewarded  with  a  piece  of 
ass's  flesh.  .  .  .  He  usually  continues  in  office 
till  a  worse  can  be  found."  t 

Such  is  an  abstract  of  our  govern- 
ment. And  yet  he  gives  preference  to 
the  Yahoos  over  men,  saying  that  our 
wretched  reason  has  aggravated  and 
multiplied  these  vices,  and  concluding 
with  the  king  of  Brobdingnag  that  our 
species  is  "the  most  pernicious  race  of 
little  odious  vermin  that  nature  ever 
suffered  to  crawl  upon  the  surface  of 
the  earth."  J 

*  Ibid,  Part  4,  ch.  r,  p.  286. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  7,  p.  337, 

t  Ibid.  Part  2,  ch.  6,  p.  172. 


CHAP.  V.] 


SWIFT. 


455 


Five  years  after  this  treatise  on  man, 
he  wrote  in  favor  of  unhappy  Ireland 
a  pamphlet  which  is  like  the  last  effort 
of  his  despair  and  his  genius.*  I  give 
it  almost  whole ;  it  deserves  it.  I 
know  nothing  like  it  in  any  literature  : 

"  It  is  a  melancholy  object  to  those  who  walk 
through  this  great  town,  or  travel  in  the  coun- 
try, when  they  see  the  streets,  the  roads,  and 
cabin-doors  crowded  with  beggars  of  the  female 
sex,  followed  by  three,  four,  or  six  children,  all 
in  rags,  and  importuning  every  passenger  for  an 
alms.  ...  I  think  it  is  agreed  by  all  parties 
that  this  prodigious  number  of  children  .  .  .  is, 
in  the  present  deplorable  state  of  the  kingdom, 
a  very  great  additional  grievance ;  and  there- 
fi  ire,  whoever  could  find  out  a  fair,  cheap,  and 
easy  method  of  making  these  children  sound, 
useful  members  of  the  Commonwealth,  would 
deserve  so  well  of  the  public,  as  to  have  his 
statue  setup  for  a  preserver  of  the  nation.  .  .  . 
I  shall  now,  therefore,  humbly  propose  my  own 
thoughts,  which  I  hope  will  not  be  liable  to  the 
least  objection."  f 

When  we  know  Swift,  such  a  begin- 
ning frightens  us : 

"  I  have  been  assured  by  a  very  knowing 
American  of  my  acquaintance  in  London,  that 
a  young  healthy  child,  well  nursed,  is,  at  a  year 
old,  a  most  delicious,  nourishing,  and  whole- 
some food,  whether  stewed,  roasted,  baked,  or 
boiled  ;  and  I  make  no  doubt  that  it  will  equally 
serve  in  a  f  icassee  or  a  ragout. 

"  I  do  therefore  humbly  offer  it  to  public 
consideration,  that  of  the  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  children  already  computed,  twenty 
thousand  ma}'  be  reserved  for  breed,  whereof 
only  one-fourth  part  to  be  males  ;  .  .  .  that  the 
remaining  hundred  thousand  may,  at  a  year  old, 
be  offered  in  sale  to  the  persons  of  quality  and 
fortune  through  the  kingdom  ;  always  advising 
the  mother  to  let  them  suck  plentifully  in  the 
last  month,  so  as  to  render  them  plump  and  tat 
for  a  good  table.  A  child  will  make  two  dishes 
at  an  entertainment  for  friends,  and  when  the 
family  dines  alone,  the  fore  or  hind  quarter  will 
make  a  reasonable  dish,  and  seasoned  with  a 
little  pepper  or  salt,  will  be  very  good  boiled  on 
the  fourth  day,  especially  in  winter. 

"  I  have  reckoned,  upon  a  medium,  that  a 
child  just  born  will  weigh  twelve  pounds,  and 
in  a  solar  year,  if  tolerably  nursed,  will  increase 
to  twenty-eight  pounds. 

"  I  have  already  computed  the  charge  of 
nursing  a  beggar's  child  (in  which  list  I  reckon 
all  cottagers,  labourers,  and  four-fifths  of  the 
farmers),  to  be  about  two  shillings  per  annum, 
rags  included ;  and  I  believe  no  gentleman 
would  repine  to  give  ten  shillings  for  the  car- 
cass of  a  good  fat  child,  which,  as  I  have  said, 
will  make  four  dishes  of  excellent  nutritive 
meat. 

"  Those  who  are  more  thrifty  (as  I  mustcon- 


*  A  Modest  Proposal  for  preventing  the 
children  of  the  poor  people  in  Ireland  from 
being  a  burden  to  their  parents  or  country, 
and  for  making  tt  em  beneficial  to  the  public, 
1729.  f  Ibid.  vii.  454. 


fess  the  times  require),  may  flay  the  carcass; 
the  skin  of  which,  artificially  dressed,  will  make 
admirable  gloves  for  ladies,  and  summer  boots 
for  fine  gentlemen. 

"  As  to  our  city  of  Dublin,  shambles  may  be 
appointed  for  this  purpose  in  the  most  con- 
'enient  parts  of  it  ;  and  butchers  we  may  be 
,ssured  will  not  be  wanting  ;  although  I  rather 
.ecommend  buying  the  children  alive,than  dress- 
ing them  hot  from  the  knife,  as  we  do  roasting 
pigs.  .  .  • 

"  I  think  the  advantages  by  the  proposal  which 
I  have  made,  are  obvious  and  many,  as  well  as 
of  the  highest  importance.  For  first,  as  I  have 
already  observed,  it  would  greatly  lessen  the 
number  of  Papists,  with  whom  we  are  yearly 
overrun,  being  the  principal  breeders  of  the 
nation,  as  well  as  our  most  dangerous  enemies. 
.  .  .  Thirdly,  whereas  the  maintenance  of  a 
hundred  thousand  children,  from  two  years  old 
and  upward,  cannot  be  computed  at  less  than 
ten  shillings  a  piece  per  annum,  the  nation's 
stock  will  be  thereby  increased  fifty  thousand 
pounds  per  annum,  beside  the  profit  of  a.  new 
dish  introduced  to  the  tables  of  all  gentlemen 
of  fortune  in  the  kingdom,  who  have  any  refine- 
ment in  taste.  And  the  money  will  circulate 
among  ourselves,  the  goods  being  entirely  of 
our  own  growth  and  manufacture.  .  .  .  Sixthly, 
this  vf  ould  be  a  great  inducement  to  marriage, 
which  all  wise  nations  have  either  encouraged 
by  rewards,  or  enforced  by  laws  and  penalties. 
It  would  increase  the  care  and  tenderness  of 
mothers  toward  their  children,  when  they  were 
sure  of  a  settlement  for  life  to  the  poor  babes, 
provided  in  some  sort  by  the  public,  to  their 
annual  profit  or  expense.  .  .  .  Many  other  ad- 
vantages might  be  enumerated,  for  instance,  the 
addition  of  some  thousand  carcasses  in  our  ex- 
portation of  barrelled  beef  ;  the  propagation  of 
swine's  flesh,  and  the  improvement  in  the  art  of 
making  good  bacon.  .  .  .  But  this,  and  many 
others,  I  omit,  being  studious  of  brevity. 

"  Some  persons  of  desponding  spirit  are  in 
great  concern  about  that  vast  number  of  poor 
people  who  are  aged,  diseased,  or  maimed ;  and 
I  have  been  desired  to  employ  my  thoughts, 
what  course  may  be  taken  to  ease  the  nation  of 
so  grievous  an  encumbrance.  But  I  am  not  in 
the  least  pain  upon  that  matter  ;  because  it  is 
very  well  known,  that  they  are  every  day  dying 
and  rotting,  by  cold  and  famine,  and  filth  and 
vermin,  as  fast  as  can  be  reasonably  expected. 
And  as  to  the  young  labourers,  they  are  now  in 
almost  as  hopeful  a  condition  ;  they  cannot  get 
work,  and  consequently  pine  away  for  want  of 
nourishment,  to  a  degree,  that,  if  at  any  time 
they  are  accidentally  hired  to  common  labour, 
they  have  not  strength  to  perform  it ;  and  thus 
the  country  and  themselves  are  happily  deliver- 
ed from  the  evils  to  come.* 

Swift  ends  with  the  following  ironic 
lines,  worthy  of  a  cannibal : 

"  I  profess,  in  the  sincerity  of  my  heart,  that 
I  have  not  the  least  personal  interest  in  en- 
deavouring to  promote  this  necessary  work, 
having  no  other  motive  than  the  public  good  of 
my  country,  by  advancing  our  trade,  providing 
for  infants,  relieving  the  poor,  and  giving  some 
pleasure  to  the  rich.  I  have  no  children  by 


*  A  Modest  Proposal,  etc.,  461. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


which  I  can  propose  to  get  a  single  penny  ;  the 
youngest  being  nine  years  old  and  my  wife  past 
child-bearing."  * 

Much  has  been  said  of  unhappy  great 
men,  Pascal,  for  instance.  I  think  that 
his  cries  and  his  anguish  are  faint  com- 
pared to  this  calm  treatise. 

Such  was  this  great  and  unhappy  ge- 
nius, the  greatest  of  the  classical  age, 
the  most  unhappy  in  history,  English 
throughout,  whom  the  excess  of  his 
English  qualities  inspired  and  con- 
sumed, having  this  intensity  of  de- 
sires, which  is  the  main  feature  of  the 
race,  the  enormity  of  pride  which  the 
habit  of  liberty,  command,  and  success 
has  impressed  upon  the  nation,  the 
solidity  of  the  positive  mind  which 
habits  of  business  have  established  in 
the  country ;  precluded  from  power 
and  action  by  his  unchecked  passions 
and  his  intractable  pride ;  excluded 
from  poetry  and  philosophy  by  the 
clear-sightedness  and  narrowness  of 
his  common  sense;  deprived  of  the 
consolations  offered  by  contemplative 
life,  and  the  occupation  furnished  by 
practical  life  ;  too  superior  to  embrace 
heartily  a  religious  sect  or  a  political 
party,  too  narrow-minded  to  rest  in 
the  lofty  doctrines  which  conciliate  all 
beliefs,  or  in  the  wide  sympathies  which 
embrace  all  parties;  condemned  by 
his  nature  and  surroundings  to  fight 
without  loving  a  cause,  to  write  with- 
out taking  a  liking  to  literature,  to 
think  without  feeling  the  truth  of  any 
dogma,  warring  as  a  condottiere 
against  all  parties,  a  misanthrope  dis- 
liking all  men,  a  skeptic  denying  all 
beauty  and  truth.  But  these  very  sur- 
roundings, and  this  very  nature,  which 
expelled  him  from  happiness,  love, 
power,  and  science,  raised  him,  in  this 
age  of  French  imitation  and  classical 
moderation,  to  a  wonderful  height, 
where,  by  the  originality  and  power  of 
his  inventions,  he  is  the  equal  of  Byron, 
Milton,  and  Shakspeare,  and  shows 
pre-eminently  the  character  and  mind 
of  his  nation.  Sensibility,  a  positive 
mind,  and  pride,  forged  for  him  a 
unique  style,  of  terrible  vehemence, 
withering  calmness,  practical  effective- 
ness, hardened  by  scorn,  truth  and 
hatred,  a  weapon  of  vengeance  and 
war  which  made  his  enemies  cry  out 
*  A  Modest  Proposal,  etc.  466. 


and  die  under  its  point  and  its  poison. 
A  pamphleteer  against  opposition  and 
government,  he  tore  or  crushed  his 
adversaries  with  his  irony  or  his  sen- 
tences, with  the  tone  of  a  judge,  a 
sovereign,  and  a  hangman.  A  man  of 
the  world  and  a  poet,  he  invented  a 
cruel  pleasantry,  funereal  laughter,  a 
convulsive  gayety  of  bitter  contrasts  ; 
and  whilst  dragging  the  mythological 
trappings,  as  if  it  were  rags  he  was 
obliged  to  wear,  he  created  a  personal 
poetry  by  painting  the  crude  details  of 
trivial  life,  by  the  energy  of  a  painful 
grotesqueness,  by  the  merciless  revela- 
tion of  the  filth  we  conceal.  A  phi- 
losopher against  all  philosophy,  he  cre- 
ated a  realistic  poem,  a  grave  parody, 
deduced  like  geometry,  absurd  as  a 
dream,  credible  as  a  law  report,  attrac- 
tive as  a  tale,  degrading  as  a  dishclout 
placed  like  a  crown  on  the  head  of  a 
divinity.  These  were  his  miseries  and 
his  strength  :  we  quit  such  a  spectacle 
with  a  sad  heart,  but  full  of  admiration  ; 
and  we  say  that  a  palace  is  beautiful 
even  when  it  is  on  fire.  Artists  will 
add  :  especially  when  it  is  on  fire. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

f%  Jtofalisia. 
i. 

AMIDST  these  finished  and  perfect 
writings  a  new  kind  makes  its  appear- 
ance, suited  to  the  public  tendencies 
and  circumstances  of  the  time,  the  anti- 
romantic  novel,  the  work  and  the  read- 
ing of  positive  minds,  observers  and 
moralists,  not  intended  to  exalt  and 
amuse  the  imagination,  like  the  novels 
of  Spain  and  the  middle  ages,  not  to 
reproduce  or  embellish  conversation, 
like  the  novels  of  France  and  the  seven- 
teenth century,  but  to  depict  real  life, 
to  describe  characters,  to  suggest  plans 
of  conduct,  and  judge  motives  of  ac- 
tion. It  was  a  strange  apparition,  and 
like  the  voice  of  a  people  buried  under- 
ground, when,  amidst  the  splendid  cor- 
ruption of  high  life,  this  severe  eman- 
ation of  the  middle  class  welled  up, 
and  when  the  obscenities  of  Mrs. 
Aphra  Behn,  still  the  diversion  of 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


457 


ladies  of  fashion,  were  found  on  the 
same  table  with  De  Foe's  Robinson 
Crusoe. 

II. 

De  Foe,  a  dissenter,  a  pamphleteer, 
a  journalist,  a  novel-writer,  successively 
a  hosier,  a  tile-maker,  an  accountant, 
was  one  of  those  indefatigable  laborers 
and  obstinate  combatants,  who,  ill- 
treated,  calumniated,  imprisoned,  suc- 
ceeded by  their  uprightness,  common 
sense  and  energy,  in  gaining  England 
over  to  their  side.  At  twenty-three, 
having  taken  arms  for  Monmouth,  he 
jras  fortunate  in  not  being  hung  or 
sent  out  of  the  country.  Seven  years 
later  he  was  ruined  and  obliged  to  hide. 
In  1702,  for  a  pamphlet  not  rightly 
understood,  he  was  condemned  to  pay 
a  fine,  was  set  in  the  pillory,  imprisoned 
two  years  in  Newgate,  and  only  the 
charity  of  Godolphin  prevented  his 
wife  and  six  children  from  dying  of 
hunger.  Being  released  and  sent  as  a 
commissioner  to  Scotland  to  treat 
about  the  union  of  the  two  countries, 
he  narrowly  escaped  being  stoned.  An- 
other pamphlet,  which  was  again  mis- 
construed, sent  him  to  prison,  com- 
pelled him  to  pay  a  fine  of  eight  hun- 
dred pounds,  and  only  just  in  time  he 
received  the  Queen's  pardon.  His 
works  were  copied,  he  was  robbed, 
and  slandered.  He  was  obliged  to 
protest  against  the  plagiarists,  who 
printed  and  altered  his  works  for  their 
benefit;  against  the  neglect  of  the 
Whigs,  who  did  not  find  him  tractable 
enough;  against  the  animosity  of  the 
Tories,  who  saw  in  him  the  chief 
champion  of  the  Whigs.  In  the  midst 
of  his  self-defence  he  was  struck  with 
apoplexy,  and  continued  to  defend 
himself  from  his  bed.  Yet  he  lived 
on,  but  with  great  difficulty  ;  poor  and 
burdened  with  a  family,  he  turned,  at 
fifty-five,  to  fiction,  and  wrote  succes- 
sively Moll  Flanders,  Captain  Singleton, 
Duncan  Campbell,  Colonel  Jack,  the 
History  of  the  Great  Plague  in  London, 
and  many  others.  This  vein  exhausted, 
he  diverged  and  tried  another  —  the 
Complete  English  Tradesman,  A  Tour 
through  Great  Britain.  Death  came  ; 
poverty  remained.  In  vain  had  he 
written  in  prose,  in.  verse,  on  all  sub- 


jects political  and  religious,  accidental 
or  moral,  satires  and  novels,  histories 
and  poems,  travels  and  pamphlets, 
commercial  essays  and  statistical  in- 
formation, in  all  two  hundred  and  ten 
works,  not  of  verbiage,  but  of  argu- 
ments, documents,  and  facts,  crowded 
and  piled  one  upon  another  with  such 
prodigality,  that  the  memory,  thought, 
and  application  of  one  man  seemed  too 
small  for  such  a  labor ;  he  died  penni- 
less, in  debt.  However  we  regard  his 
life,  we  see  only  prolonged  efforts  and 
persecutions.  Joy  seems  to  be  want- 
ing; the  idea  of  the  beautiful  never 
enters.  When  he  comes  to  fiction,  it 
is  like  a  Presbyterian  and  a  plebeian, 
with  low  subjects  and  moral  aims,  to 
treat  of  the  adventures,  and  reform  the 
conduct  of  thieves  and  prostitutes, 
workmen  and  sailors.  His  whole  de- 
light was  to  think  that  he  had  a  service 
to  perform  and  that  he  was  performing 
it :  "  He  that  opposes  his  own  judg- 
ment against  the  current  of  the  times 
ought  to  be  backed  with  unanswerable 
truth  ;  and  he  that  has  truth  on  his 
side  is  a  fool  as  well  as  a  coward  if  he 
is  afraid  to  own  it,  because  of  the  mul- 
titude of  other  men's  opinions.  'Tis 
hard  for  a  man  to  say,  all  the  world  is 
mistaken  but  himself.  But  if  it  be  so, " 
who  can  help  it  ?  "  Nobody  can  help 
it,  but  then  a  man  must  walk  straight 
ahead,  and  alone,  amidst  blows  and 
throwing  of  mud.  De  Foe  is  like  one 
of  those  brave,  obscure,  and  useful 
soldiers  who,  with  empty  belly  and 
burdened  shoulders,  go  through  their 
duties  with  their  feet  in  the  mud, 
pocket  blows,  receive  the  whole  day 
long  the  fire  of  the  enemy,  and  some- 
times that  of  their  friends  into  the 
bargain,  and  die  sergeants,  happy  if  it 
has  been  their  good  fortune  to  get 
hold  of  the  legion  of  honor. 

De  Foe  had  the  kind  of  mind  suita- 
ble to  such  a  hard  service,  solid,  exact, 
entirely  destitute  of  refinement,  enthu- 
siasm, agreeableness.*  His  imagination 
was  that  of  a  man  of  business,  not  of 
an  artist,  crammed  and,  as  it  were, 
jammed  down  with  facts.  He  tells 
them  as  they  come  to  him,  without 
arrangement  or  style,  like  a  conversa- 

*  See  his  dull   poems,  amongst  others  Jur* 
divino,  a  poem  in  twelve  books,  in  defence  of 
every  man's  birthright  by  nature. 
2O 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


tion,  without  dreaming  of  producing  an 
effect,  or  composing  a  phrase,  employ- 
ing technical  terms  and  vulgar  forms, 
repeating  himself  at  need,  using  the 
same  thing  two  or  three  times,  not  seem- 
ing to  imagine  that  there  are  methods 
of  amusing,  touching,  engrossing,  or 
pleasing,  with  no  desire  but  to  pour  out 
on  paper  the  fulness  of  the  information 
with  which  he  is  charged.  Even  in 
fiction  his  information  is  as  precise  as 
in  history.  He  gives  dates,  year,  month, 
and  day ;  notes  the  wind,  north-east, 
south-west,  north-west  ;  he  writes  a 
log-book,  an  invoice,  attorneys'  and 
shopkeepers'  bills,  the  number  of  moi- 
dores,  interest,  specie  payments,  pay- 
ments in  kind,  cost  and  sale  prices,  the 
share  of  the  king,  of  religious  houses, 
partners,  brokers,  net  totals,  statistics, 
the  geography  and  hydrography  of  the 
island,  so  that  the  reader  is  tempted  to 
take  an  atlas  and  draw  for  himself  a 
little  map  of  the  place,  to  enter  into  all 
the  details  of  the  history,  and  to  see  the 
objects  as  clearly  and  fully  as  the  au- 
thor. It  seems  as  though  our  author 
had  performed  all  Crusoe's  labors,  so 
exactly  does  he  describe  them,  with 
numbers,  quantities,  dimensions,  like 
a  carpenter,  potter,  or  an  old  tar.  Never 
was  such  a  sense  of  the  real  before  or 
since.  Our  realists  of  to-day,  painters, 
anatomists,  who  enter  deliberately  on 
their  business,  are  very  far  from  this 
naturalness  ;  art  and  calculation  crop 
out  amidst  their  too  minute  descrip- 
tions. De  Foe  creates  illusion  ;  for  it 
is  not  the  eye  which  deceives  us,  but 
the  mind,  and  that  literally  :  his  account 
of  the  great  plague  has  more  than  once 
passed  for  true  ;  and  Lord  Chatham 
mistook  his  Wemoirs  of  a  Cavalier  for 
An  authentic  narrative.  This  was  his 
aim.  In  the  preface  to  the  old  edition 
of  Robinson  Crusoe  it  is  said  :  "  The 
story  is  told  ...  to  the  instruction  of 
others  by  this  example,  and  to  justify 
and  honor  the  wisdom  of  Providence. 
The  editor  believes  the  thing  to  be  a 
just  history  of  facts  ;  neither  is  there 
any  appearance  of  fiction  in  it."  All 
his  talents  lie  in  this,  and  thus  even  his 
imperfections  aid  him  ;  his  lack  of  art 
becomes  a  profound  art;  his  negligence, 
repetitions,  prolixity,  contribute  to  the 
illusion  :  we  cannot  imagine  that  such 
and  such  a  detail,  so  minute,  so  dull,  is 


invented  ;  an  inventor  would  have  sup- 
pressed it;  it  is  too  tedious  to  have 
been  put  in  on  purpose  :  art  chooses, 
embellishes,  interests  ;  art,  therefore, 
cannot  have  piled  up  this  heap  of  dull 
and  vulgar  accidents  ;  it  is  the  truth. 

Read,  for  instance,  A  True  Relation 
of  the  Apparition  of  one  Mrs.  Veal,  the 
next  Day  after  her  Death,  to  one  Mrs. 
Bargrave,  at  Canterbiiry,  the  §th  of 
September  1705  ;  which  Apparition  re* 
commends  the  perusal  of  Drelincourfs, 
Book  of  Consolation  against  the  Fear  of 
Death.*  The  old  little  chap  books, 
read  by  aged  needlewomen,  are  not 
more  monotonous.  There  is  such  an 
array  of  circumstantial  and  guaranteed 
details,  such  a  file  of  witnesses  quoted, 
referred  to,  registered,  compared,  such 
a  perfect  appearance  of  tradesman-like 
honesty,  plain,  vulgar  common  sense, 
that  a  man  would  take  the  author  for 
an  honest  retired  hosier,  with  too  little 
brains  to  invent  a  story  ;  no  writer 
careful  of  his  reputation  would  have 
printed  such  nonsense.  In  fact,  it  was 
not  his  reputation  that  De  Foe  cared 
for  ;  he  had  other  motives  in  his  he^d  ; 
we  literary  men  of  the  present  time  can- 
not guess  them,  being  literary  men  only. 
But  he  wanted  to  sell  a  pious  book  of 
Drelincourt,  which  would  not  sell  of 
itself,  and  in  addition,  to  confirm  people 
in  their  religious  belief  by  advocating 
the  appearance  of  ghosts.  It  was  the 
grand  proof  then  brought  to  bear  on 
skeptics.  Grave  Dr.  Johnson  himself 
tried  to  see  a  ghost,  and  no  event  of  that 
time  was  more  suited  to  the  belief  of 
the  middle  class.  Here,  as  elsewhere, 
De  Foe,  like  Swift,  is  a  man  of  action  ; 
effect,  not  noise  touches  him  ;  he  com- 
posed Robinson  Crusoe  to  warn  the  im- 
pious, as  Swift  wrote  the  life  of  the 
last  man  hung  to  inspire  thieves  with 
terror!  In  that  positive  and  religious 
age,  amidst  these  political  and  puri- 
tanic citizens,  practice  was  of  such  im- 
portance as  to  reduce  art  to  the  condi- 
tion of  its  tool. 

Never  was  art  the  tool  of  a  more 
moral  or  more  thoroughly  English 
work.  Robinson  Crusoe  is  quite  a  man 
of  his  race,  and  might  instruct  it  even 

*  Compare  another  story  of  an  apparition 
Edgar  Poe's  Case  of  M.  Waldemar.  The 
American  is  a  suffering  artist ;  De  Foe  a  citi* 
zen,  who  has  common  sense. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


459 


in  the  present  day.  He  has  that  force 
of  will,  inner  enthusiasm,  hidden  fer- 
ment of  a  violent  imagination  which 
formerly  produced  the  sea-kings,  and 
now  produces  emigrants  and  squatters. 
The  misfortunes  of  his  two  brothers, 
the  tears  of  his  relatives,  the  advice  of 
his  friends,  the  remonstrances  of  his 
reason,  the  remorse  of  his  conscience, 
are  all  unable  to  restrain  him  :  there 
was  "  a  something  fatal  in  his  nature  ;  " 
he  had  conceived  the  idea,  he  must  go 
to  sea.  To  no  purpose  is  he  seized 
with  repentance  during  the  first  storm  ; 
he  drowns  in  punch  these  "  fits "  of 
conscience.  To  no  purpose  is  he  warned 
by  shipwreck  and  a  narrow  escape  from 
death  ;  he  is  hardened,  and  grows  ob- 
stinate. To  no  purpose  captivity 
among  the  Moors  and  the  possession 
of  a  fruitful  plantation  invite  repose  ; 
the  indomitable  instinct  returns ;  he 
was  born  to  be  his  own  destroyer,  and 
embarks  again.  The  ship  goes  down  ; 
he  is  cast  alone  on  a  desert  island  ; 
then  his  native  energy  found  its  vent 
and  its  employment ;  like  his  descend- 
ants, the  pioneers  of  Australia  and 
America,  he  must  recreate  and  re- 
master one  by  one  the  inventions  and 
acquisitions  of  human  industry;  one  by 
one  he  does  so.  Nothing  represses  his 
effort;  neither  possession  nor  weari- 
ness : 

"  I  had  the  biggest  magazine  of  all  kinds  now 
that  ever  was  laid  up,  I  believe,  for  one  man  ; 
but  I  was  not  satisfied  still ;  for  while  the  ship 
sat  upright  in  that  posture,  I  thought  I  ought  to 
get  everything  out  of  her  that  I  could-  ...  I 
got  most  of  the  pieces  of  cable  ashore,  and  some 
of  the  iron,  though  with  infinite  labour ;  for  I 
was  fain  to  dip  for  it  into  the  water  ;  a  work 
which  fatigued  me  very  much.  ...  I  believe, 
verily,  had  the  calm  weather  held,  I  should 
have  brought  away  the  whole  ship,  piece  by 
piece."  * 

In  his  eyes,  work  is  natural.  When,  in 
order  "  to  barricade  himself,  he  goes  to 
cut  the  piles  in  the  woods,  and  drives 
them  into  the  earth,  which  cost  a 
great  deal  of  time  and  labor,"  he  says  : 
"  A  very  laborious  and  tedious  work. 
But  what  need  I  have  been  concerned 
at  the  tediousness  of  any  thing  I  had  to 
do,  seeing  I  had  time  enough  to  do  it 
in  ?  ...  My  time  or  labor  was  little 
worth,  and  so  it  was  as  well  employed 
*  De  Foe's  Works,  20  vols.,  1819-21.  The 
Life  and  Adventures  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  i. 
ch.  iv.  65. 


one  way  as  another."*  Application 
and  fatigue  of  head  and  arms  give  oc- 
cupation to  his  superfluous  activity  and 
force  ;  the  mill-stone  must  find  grist  to 
grind,  without  which,  turning  round 
empty,  it  would  wear  itself  away.  He 
works,  therefore,  all  day  and  night,  at 
once  carpenter,  oarsman,  porter,  hunt 
er,  tiller  of  the  ground,  potter,  tailor, 
milkman,  basketmaker,  grinder,  baker, 
invincible  in  difficulties,  disappoint- 
ments, expenditure  of  time  and  toil. 
Having  but  a  hatchet  and  an  ;idze,  it 
took  him  forty-two  days  to  make  a 
board.  He  occupied  two  months  in 
making  his  first  two  jars;  five  months 
in  making  his  first  boat;  then,  "by 
dint  of  hard  labor,"  he  levelled  the 
ground  from  his  timber-yard  to  the  sea, 
then,  not  being  able  to  bring  his  boat 
to  the  sea,  he  tried  to  bring  the  sea  up 
to  his  boat,  and  began  to  dig  a  canal ; 
then,  reckoning  that  he  would  require 
ten  or  twelve  years  to  finish  the  task, 
he  builds  another  boat  at  another  place, 
with  another  canal  half-a-mile  long, 
four  feet  deep,  six  wide.  He  spends 
two  years  over  it :  "I  bore  with  this. 
...  I  went  through  that  by  dint  of  hard 
labor.  .  .  .  Many  a  weary  stroke  it  had 
cost.  .  .  .  This  will  testify  that  I  was 
not  idle.  ...  As  I  had  learned  not  to 
despair  of  any  thing.  I  never  grudged 
my  labor."  These  strong  expressions 
of  indomitable  patience  are  ever  recur- 
ring. These  stout-hearted  men  are 
framed  for  labor,  as  their  sheep  are  for 
slaughter  and  their  horses  for  racing. 
Even  now  we  may  hear  their  mighty 
hatchet  and  pickaxe  sounding  in~the 
claims  of  Melbourne  and  in  the  log- 
houses  of  the  Salt  Lake.  The  reason  of 
their  success  is  the  same  there  as  here ; 
they  do  every  thing  with  calculation  and 
method  ;  they  rationalize  their  energy, 
which  is  like  a  torrent  they  make  a  ca- 
nal for.  Crusoe  sets  to  work  only  after 
deliberate  calculation  and  reflection. 
When  he  seeks  a  spot  for  his  tent,  he 
enumerates  the  four  conditions  of  the 
place  he  requires.  When  he  wishes  to 
escape  despair,  he  draws  up  impartial- 
ly, "  like  debtor  and  creditor,"  the  list 
of  his  advantages  and  disadvantages, 
putting  them  in  two  columns,  active 
and  passive,  item  for  item,  so  that  the 
balance  is  in  his  favor.  His  courage 
*  Ibid.  76. 


460 


is  only  the  servant  of  his  common 
sense  :  "  By  stating  and  squaring  every 
thing  by  reason,  and  by  making  the 
most  rational  judgment  of  things,  every 
man  may  be  in  time  master  of  every 
mechanic  art.  I  had  never  handled 
a  tool  in  my  life,  and  yet  in  time,  by 
labor,  application,  and  contrivance,  I 
found  at  last  that  I  wanted  nothing  but 
I  could  have  made  it,  especially  if  I 
had  had  tools."  *  There  is  a  grave  and 
deep  pleasure  in  this  painful  success, 
and  in  this  personal  acquisition.  The 
squatter,  like  Crusoe,  takes  pleasure  in 
things,  not  only  because  they  are  use- 
ful, but  because  they  are  his  work. 
He  feels  himself  a  man,  whilst  finding 
everywhere  about  him  the  sign  of  his 
labor  and  thought ;  he  is  pleased :  "  I 
had  every  thing  so  ready  at  my  hand, 
that  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to 
see  all  my  goods  in  such  order,  and  es- 
pecially to  find  my  stock  of  all  necessa- 
ries so  great."!  He  returns  to  his 
home  willingly,  because  he  is  there  a 
master  and  creator  of  all  the  comforts 
he  has  around  him ;  he  takes  his  meals 
there  gravely  and  "  like  a  king." 

Such  are  the  pleasures  of  home.  A 
guest  enters  there  to  fortify  these  nat- 
ural inclinations  by  the  ascendency  of 
duty.  Religion  appears,  as  it  must,  in 
emotions  and  visions  :  for  this  is  not  a 
calm  soul  ;  imagination  breaks  out  into 
it  at  the  least  shock,  and  carries  it  to 
the  threshold  of  madness.  On  the  day 
when  Robinson  Crusoe  saw  the  "  print 
of  a  naked  man's  foot  on  the  shore," 
he  stood  "like  one  thunderstruck," 
and  fled  "  like  a  hare  to  cover ; " 
his  ideas  are  in  a  whirl,  he  is  no  longer 
master  of  them ;  though  he  is  hidden 
and  barricaded,  he  thinks  himself  dis- 
covered ;  he  intends  "  to  throw  down 
the  enclosures,  turn  all  the  tame  cattle 
wild  into  the  woods,  dig  up  the  corn- 
fields." He  has  all  kind  of  fancies; 
he  asks  himself  if  it  is  not  the  devil 
who  has  left  this  footmark ;  and  rea- 
sons upon  it : 

t(  I  considered  that  the  devil  might  have 
found  out  abundance  of  other  ways  to  have  ter- 
rified me  ;  ...  that,  as  I  lived  quite  on  the 
other  side  of  the  island,  he  would  never  have 
been  so  simple  to  leave  a  mark  in  a  place, 
where  it  was  ten  thousand  to  one  whether  I 
should  ever  see  it  or  not,  and  in  the  sand  too, 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


*  Robins  m  Crusoe,  ch.  iv.  79.        1  Ibid.  80. 


which  the  first  surge  of  the  sea  itpon  a  high  wind 
would  have  defaced  entirely.  All  this  seemed 
inconsistent  with  the  thing  itself,  and  with  all 
notions  we  usual,  y  entertain  of  the  subtlety  oi 
the  devil."  * 

In  this  impassioned  and  uncultivated 
mind,  which  for  eight  years  had  con- 
tinued without  a  thought,  and  as  it  were 
stupid,  engrossed  in  manual  labor  and 
bodily  wants,  belief  took  root,  fostered 
by  anxiety  and  solitude.  Amidst  the 
risks  of  all-powerful  nature,  in  this 
great  uncertain  upheaving,  a  French- 
man, a  man  bred  as  we  are,  would 
cross  his  arms  gloomily  like  a  Stoic,  or 
would  wait  like  an  Epicurean  for  the 
return  of  physical  cheerfulness.  As  for 
Crusoe,  at  the  sight  of  the  ears  of  bar- 
ley which  have  suddenly  made  their  ap- 
pearance, he  weeps,  and  thinks  at  first 
"  that  God  had  miraculously  caused 
this  grain  to  grow."  Another  day  he 
has  a  terrible  vision  :  in  a  fever  of  ex- 
citement he  repents  of  his  sins ;  he 
opens  the  Bible,  and  finds  these  words, 
which  "  were  very  apt  to  his  case  :  " 
"  Call  upon  me  in  the  day  of  trouble  ; 
I  will  deliver  thee,  and  thou  shalt 
•glorify  me/'  t  Prayer  then  rises  to  his 
lips,  true  prayer,  the  converse  of  the 
heart  with  a  God  who  answers,  and  to 
whom  we  listen.  He  also  read  the 
words  :  "  I  will  never  leave  thee  nor 
forsake  thee."  {  "  Immediately  it  oc- 
curred that  these  words  were  to  me. 
Why  else  should  they  be  directed  in 
such  a  manner,  just  at  the  moment 
when  I  was  mourning  over  my  condi- 
tion, as  one  forsaken  of  God  and 
man?"§  Thenceforth  spiritual  life 
begins  for  him.  To  reach  its  very 
foundation,  the  squatter  needs  only  his 
Bible;  with  it  he  carries  about  his 
faith,  his  theology,  his  worship ;  every 
evening  he  finds  in  it  some  application 
to  his  present  condition :  he  is  no 
longer  alone  :  God  speaks  to  him,  and 
provides  for  his  energy  matter  for  a 
second  labor  to  sustain  and  complete 
the  first.  For  he  now  undertakes 
against  his  heart  the  combat  which  he 
has  maintained  against  nature ;  he 
wants  to  conquer,  transform,  amelior- 
ate, pacify  the  one  as  he  has  done  with 
the  other.  Robinson  Crusoe  fasts, 
observes  the  Sabbath,  three  times  a 

*  Ibid.  ch.  xi.  184.       t  Ibid.  187.  Ps.  1.  15. 

$  Heb.  xiii.  5. 

§  Robinson  Crusoe,  ch.  viii.  134. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


day  he  reads  the  Scripture,  and  says  : 
"  I  gave  humble  and  hearty  thanks  .  .  . 
that  he  (God)  could  fully  make  up  to 
me  the  deficiencies  of  my  solitary  state, 
and  the  want  of  human  society  by  his 
presence,  and  the  communication  of 
his  grace  to  my  soul,  supporting,  com- 
forting, and  encouraging  me  to  depend 
upon  his  providence,  and  hope  for  his 
eternal  presence  hereafter."  *  In  this 
disposition  of  mind  there  is  nothing  a 
man  cannot  endure  or  do;  heart  and 
hand  come  to  the  assistance  of  the 
arms ;  religion  consecrates  labor,  piety 
feeds  patience  ;  and  man,  supported  on 
one  side  by  his  instincts,  on  the  other 
by  his  belief,  finds  himself  able  to  clear 
the  land,  to  people,  to  organize  and 
civilize  continents. 

III. 

It  was  by  chance  that  De  Foe,  like 
Cervantes,  lighted  on  a  novel  of  char- 
acter :  as  a  rule,  like  Cervantes,  he 
only  wrote  novels  of  adventure  ;  he 
knew  life  better  than  the  soul,  and  the 
general  course  of  the  world  better  than 
the  idiosyncrasies  of  an  individual. 
But  the  impulse  was  given,  neverthe- 
less, and  now  the  rest  followed.  Chiv- 
alrous manners  had  been  blotted  out, 
carrying  with  them  the  poetical  and 
picturesque  drama.  Monarchical  man- 
ners had  been  blotted  out,  carrying 
with  them  the  witty  and  licentious 
drama.  Citizen  manners  had  been 
established,  bringing  with  them  domes- 
tic and  practical  reading.  Like  so- 
ciety, literature  changed  its  course. 
Books  were  needed  to  read  by  the  fire- 
side, in  the  country,  amongst  the  fami- 
ly :  invention  and  genius  turn  to  this 
kind  of  writing.  The  sap  of  human 
thought,  abandoning  the  old  dried- up 
branches,  flowed  into  the  unseen 
boughs,  which  it  suddenly  made  to 
grow  and  turn  green,  and  the  fruits 
which  it  produced  bear  witness  at  the 
same  time  to  the  surrounding  tempera- 
ture and  the  native  stock.  Two  fea- 
tures are  common  and  proper  to  them. 
All  these  novels  are  character  novels. 
Englishmen,  more  reflective  than 
others,  more  inclined  to  the  melancholy 
pleasure  of  concentrated  attention  and 
inner  examination,  find  around  them 

*  Robinson  Crusoe ,  ch.  viii.  133. 


461 


human  medals  more  vigorously  struck 
less  worn  by  friction  with  the  world, 
whose  uninjured  face  is  more  visible 
than  that  of  others.  All  these  novels 
are  works  of  observation,  and  spring 
from  a  moral  design.  The  men  of  this 
time,  having  fallen  away  from  lofty  im- 
agination, and  being  immersed  in  act- 
ive life,  desire  to  cull  from  books  solid 
instruction,  just  examples,  powerful 
emotions,  feelings  of  practical  admira- 
tion, and  motives  of  action. 

We  have  but  to  look  around;  tie 
same  inclination  begins  on  all  sides 
the  same  task.  The  novel  springs  up 
everywhere,  and  shows  the  same  spirit 
under  all  forms.  At  this  time  *  appear 
the  Tatler,  Spectator,  GuardiaJ^,  and  all 
those  agreeable  and  serious  essays 
which,  like  the  novel,  look  for  readers 
at  home,  to  supply  them  with  examples 
and  provide  them  with  counsels ; 
which,  like  the  novel,  describe  man- 
ners, paint  characters,  and  try  to  cor- 
rect the  public ;  which,  finally,  like  the 
novel,  turn  spontaneously  to  fiction 
and  portraiture.  Addison^  like  a  deli- 
cate amateur  of  moral  curiosities,  com- 
placently follows  the  amiable  oddities 
of  his  darling  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley, 
smiles,  and  with  discreet  hand  guides 
the  excellent  knight  through  all  the 
awkward  predicaments  which  may 
bring  out  his  rural  prejudices  and  his 
innate  generosity  ;  whilst  by  his  side 
the  unhappy  Swift,  degrading  man  to 
the  instincts  of  the  beast  of  prey  and 
beast  of  burden,  tortures  humanity  by 
forcing  it  to  recognize  itself  in  the  ex- 
ecrable portrait  of  the  Yahoo.  Al- 
though they  differ,  both  authors  are 
working  at  the  same  task.  They  only 
employ  imagination  in  order  to  study 
characters,  and  to  suggest  plans  of  con- 
duct. They  bring  down  philosophy 
to  observation  and  application.  They 
only  dream  of  reforming  or  chastizing 
vice.  They  are  only  mora'ists  and 
psychologists.  They  both  confine 
themselves  to  the  considerat't  n  of  vice 
and  virtue  ;  the  one  with  calm  benev- 
olence, the  other  with  savage  indigna- 
tion. The  same  point  of  view  pro- 
duces the  graceful  portraits  of  Addi- 
son  and  the  slanderous  pictures  of 
Swift.  Their  successors  do  the  like, 
and  all  diversities  of  mood  and  talent 
*  1709*  171 1»  '  7 '3- 


462 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


do  not  hinder  their  works  from  ac- 
knowledging a  similar  source,  and  con- 
curring in  the  same  effect. 

Two  principal  ideas  can  rule,  and 
have  ruled,  morality  in  England.  Now 
it  is  conscience  which  is  accepted  as  a 
sovereign  ;  now  it  is  instinct  which  is 
taken  for  guide.  Now  they  have  re- 
course to  grace  ;  now  they  rely  on  na- 
ture. Now  they  wholly  enslave  every 
thing  to  rule ;  now  they  give  every 
thing  up  to  liberty.  The  two  opinions 
have  successively  reigned  in  England  ; 
and  the  human  frame,  at  once  too  vig- 
orous and  too  unyielding,  successively 
justifies  their  ruin  and  their  success. 
Some,  alarmed  by  the  fire  of  an  over- 
fed temperament,  and  by  the  energy 
of  unsocial  passions,  have  regarded 
nature  as  a  dangerous  beast,  and 
placed  conscience  with  all  its  auxilia- 
ries, religion,  law,  education,  proprie- 
ties, as  so  many  armed  sentinels  to  re- 
press its  least  outbreaks.  Others, 
repelled  by  the  harshness  of  an  inces- 
sant constraint,  and  by  the  minuteness 
of  a  morose  discipline,  have  over- 
turned guards  and  barriers,  and  let 
loose  captive  nature  to  enjoy  the  free 
air  and  sun,  deprived  of  which  it  was 
being  choked.  Both  by  their  excesses 
have  deserved  their  defeats  and  raised 
up  their  adversaries.  From  Shak- 
speare  to  the*  Puritans,  from  Milton  to 
Wycherley,  from  Congreve  to  De  Foe, 
from  Sheridan  to  Burke,  from  Wilber- 
force  to  Lord  Byron,  irregularity  has 
provoked  constraint  and  tyranny  re- 
volt. This  great  contest  of  rule  and 
nature  is  developed  again  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Fielding  and  Richardson. 


IV. 

"  Pamela,  or  Virtue  reivarded,  in  a 
series  of  familiar  letters  from  a  beau- 
tiful young  damsel  to  her  parents,  pub- 
lished in  order  to  cultivate  the  princi- 
ples of  virtue  and  religion  in  the  minds 
of  the  youth  of  both  sexes ;  a  narra- 
tive which  has  its  foundation  in  truth 
and  at  the  same  time- that  it  agreeably 
entertains  by  a  variety  of  curious  ancl 
affecting  incidents,  is  entirely  divested 
of  a^l  those  images  which,  in  too  many 
pieces  calculated  for  amusement  only, 
tend  to  inflame  the  minds  they  should 


instruct."  *  We  can  make  no  mistake, 
the  title  is  clear.  The  preachers  re- 
joiced to  see  assistance  coming  to  them 
from  the  very  spot  where  there  was 
danger ;  and  Dr.  Sherlock,  from  his 
pulpit,  recommended  the  book.  Men 
inquired  about  the  author.  He  was  a 
printer  and  bookseller,  a  joiner's  son, 
who,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  and  in  his 
leisure  moments,  wrote  in  his  shop 
parlor :  a  laborious  man,  who,  by 
work  and  good  conduct,  had  raised 
himself  to  a  competency  and  had  ed- 
ucated himself;  delicate  moreover, 
gentle,  nervous,  often  ill,  with  a  taste 
for  the  society  of  women,  accustomed 
to  correspond  for  and  with  them,  of 
reserved  and  retired  habits,  whose  only 
fault  was  a  timid  vanity.  He  was 
severe  in  principles,  and  had  acquired 
perspicacity  by  his  rigor.  In  reality, 
conscience  is  a  lamp  ;  a  moralist  is  a 
psychologist ;  Christian  casuistry  is  a 
sort  of  natural  history  of  the  soul.  He 
who  through  anxiety  of  conscience 
busies  himself  in  drawing  out  the  good 
or  evil  motives  of  his  manifest  actions, 
who  sees  vices  and  virtues  at  their 
birth,  who  follows  the  gradual  progress 
of  culpable  thoughts,  and  the  secret 
confirmation  of  good  resolves,  who  can 
mark  the  force,  nature,  and  moment  of 
temptation  and  resistance,  holds  in  his 
hand  almost  all  the  moving  strings  of 
humanity,  and  has  only  to  make  them 
vibrate  regularly  to  draw  from  them 
the  most  powerful  harmonies.  In  this 
consists  the  art  of  Richardson  ;  he 
combines  whilst  he  observes ;  his  med- 
itation develops  the  ideas  of  the  moral- 
ist. No  one  in  this  age  has  equalled 
him  in  these  detailed  and  comprehen- 
sive conceptions,  which,  grouping  to  a 
single  end  the  passions  of  thirty  char- 
acters, twine  and  color  the  innumer- 
able threads  of  the  whole  canvas,  to 
bring  out  a  figure,  an  action,  or  a  le? 
son. 

This  first  novel  is  a  flower — one  ot 
those  flowers  which  only  bloom  in  a 
virgin  imagination,  at  the  dawn  of 
original  invention,  whose  charm  and 
freshness  surpass  all  that  the  maturity 
of  art  and  genius  can  afterwards  cul- 
tivate or  arrange.  Pamela  is  a  child 
of  fifteen,  brought  up  by  an  old  lady, 

1741.      The  translator  has  consulted  the 
tenth  edition,  1775,  4  vols. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


half  servant  and  half  favorite,  who, 
after  the  death  of  her  mistress,  finds 
herself  exposed  to  the  growing  seduc- 
tions and  persecutions  of  the  young 
master  of  the  house.  She  is  a  genuine 
child,  frank  and  artless  as  Goethe's 
Margaret,  and  of  the  same  family. 
After  twenty  pages,  we  involuntarily 
see  this  fresh  rosy  face,  always  blush- 
ing, and  her  laughing  eyes,  so  ready 
with  tears.  At  the  smallest  kindness 
she  is  confused ;  she  knows  not  what 
to  say  ;  she  changes  color,  casts  down 
her  eyes,  as  she  makes  a  curtsey ;  the 
poor  innocent  heart  is  troubled  or 
melts.  *  No  trace  of  the  bold  vivac- 
ity, the  nervous  coolness,  which  are 
the  elements  of  a  French  girl.  She  is 
"  a  lambkin,"  loved,  loving,  without 
pride,  vanity,  bitterness  ;  timid,  always 
humble.  When  her  master  tries  forci- 
bly to  kiss  her,  she  is  astonished;  she 
will  not  believe  that  the  world  is  so 
wicked.  "This  gentleman  has  de- 
graded himself  to  offer  freedoms  to  his 
poor  servant."  t  She  is  afraid  of  be- 
ing too  free  with  him ;  reproaches  her- 
self, when  she  writes  to  her  relatives, 
with  saying  too  often  he  and  him  in- 
stead of  his  honor  ;  "  but  it  is  his  fault 
if  I  do,  for  why  did  he  lose  all  his  dig- 
nity with  me?"  \  No  outrage  ex- 
hausts her  submissiveness :  he  has 
kissed  her,  and  took  hold  of  her  arm 
so  rudely  that  it  was  "  black  and  blue  ;" 
he  has  tried  worse,  he  has  behaved  like 
a  ruffian  and  a  knave.  To  cap  all,  he 
slanders  her  circumstantially  before 
the  servants;  he  insults  her  repeatedly, 
and  provokes  her  to  speak;  she  does 
not  speak,  will  not  fail  in  her  duty  to 
her  master.  "  It  is  for  you,  sir,  to  say 
what  you  please,  and  for  me  only  to 
say,  God  bless  your  honor  !  "  §  She 
falls  on  her  knees,  and  thanks  him  for 
sending  her  away.  'But  in  so  much 
submission  what  resistance  !  Every 
thing  is  agiinst  her  ;  he  is  her  master ; 
he  is  a  justice  of  the  peace,  secure 

*  "  To  be  sure  I  did  think  nothing  but  curt'sv 
and  cry,  and  was  all  in  confusion  at  his  good- 
ness." 

"  I  was  so  confounded  at  these  words,  you 
might  have  beat  me  down  with  a  feather.  .  .  . 
So,  like  a  fool,  I  was  ready  to  cry,  and  went 
away  curt'syi  ig,  and  blushing,  I  am  sure,  up  to 
the  ears." 

t  Pamela,  /ol.  i.  Letter  x.  \  Ibid. 

§  Ibid.  Letter  xxvii. 


463 


against  all  intervention — a  sort  of  di- 
vinity to  her,  with  all  the  superiority 
and  authority  of  a  feudal  prince. 
Moreover,  he  has  the  brutality  of  the 
times ;  he  rates  her,  speaks  to  her  like 
a  slave,  and  yet  thinks  himself  very 
kind.  He  shuts  her  up  alone  for  sev- 
eral months,  with  "a  wicked  creature," 
his  housekeeper,  who  beats  and  threat 
ens  her.  He  tries  on  her  the  influence 
of  fear,  loneliness,  surprise,  money, 
gentleness.  And  what  is  more  terrible, 
her  own  heart  is  against  her  :  she  loves 
him  secretly;  her  virtues  injure  her; 
she  dare  not  lie,  when  she  most  needs 
it ;  *  and  piety  keeps  her  from  suicide, 
when  that  seems  her  only  resource. 
One  by  one  the  issues  close  around  her, 
so  that  she  loses  hope,  and  the  readers 
of  her  adventures  think  her  lost  and 
ruined.  But  this  native  innocence  has 
been  strengthened  by  Puritanic  faith. 
She  sees  temptations  in  her  weak- 
nesses ;  she  knows  that  "Lucifer  always 
is  ready  to  promote  his  own  work  and 
workmen  ; "  t  she  is  penetrated  by  the 
great  Christian  idea,  which  makes  all 
souls  equal  before  the  common  salva- 
tion and  the  final  judgment.  She  says  : 
"  My  soul  is  of  equal  importance  to 
the  soul  of  a  princess,  though  my  qual- 
ity is  inferior  to  that  of  the  meanest 
slave."  \  Wounded,  stricken,  aban- 
doned, betrayed,  still  thfc  knowledge 
and  thought  of  a  happy  or  an  unhappy 
eternity  are  two  defences  which  no  as- 
sault can  carry.  She  knows  it  well ; 
she  has  no  other  means  of  explaining 
vice  than  to  suppose  them  absent. 
She  considers  that  wicked  Mrs.  Jewkes 
is  an  atheist.  Belief  in  God,  the  heart's 
belief — not  the  wording  of  the  cate- 
chism, but  the  inner  feeling,  the  habit 
of  picturing  justice  as  ever  living  and 
ever  present — this  is  the  fresh  blood 
which  the  Reformation  caused  to  flow 
into  the  veins  of  the  old  world,  and 
which  alone  could  give  it  a  new  life 
and  a  new  youth. 

She  is,  as  it  were,  animated  by  this 
feeling  ;  in  the  most  perilous  as  in  the 
sweetest  moments,  this  grand  senti- 
ment returns  to  her,  so  much  is  it  en- 
twined with  all  the  rest,  so  much  lias 
:  it  multiplied  its  tendrils  and  buried  its 

*  "  I  dare  not  tell  a  wilful  lie." 

t  Pamela,  i.  Letter  xxv. 

\  Ibid.  Letter  to  Mr.  Williams,  i.  208. 


464 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


roots  in  the  innermost  folds  of  her 
heart.  Her  young  master  thinks  of 
marrying  her  now,  and  wishes  to  be 
sure  that  she  loves  him.  She  dares 
not  say  so,  being  afraid  to  give  him  a 
hold  upon  her.  She  is  greatly  troubled 
by  his  kindness,  and  yet  she  must  an- 
swer. Religion  comes  to  veil  love  in  a 
sublime  half-confession  :  "  I  fear  not, 
sir,the  grace  of  God  supporting  me,  that 
a*iy  acts  of  kindness  would  make  me 
f  jrejet  what  I  owe  to  my  virtue  ;  but 
.  .  .  my  nature  is  too  frank  and  open 
to  make  me  wish  to  be  ungrateful  ; 
an  1  if  I  should  be  taught  a  lesson  I 
never  yet  learnt,  with  what  regret 
should  I  descend  to  the  grave,  to  think 
that  I  could  not  hate  my  undoer  ;  and 
that,  at  the  last  great  day,  I  must  stand 
up  as  an  accuser  of  the  poor  unhappy 
soul,  that  I  could  wish  it  in  my  power 
to  save  !  "  *  He  is  softened  and  van- 
quished, descends  from  that  vast  height 
where  aristocratic  customs  placed  him, 
and  thenceforth,  day  by  day,  the  letters 
of  the  happy  child  record  the  prepara- 
tions for  their  marriage.  Amidst  this 
triumph  and  happiness  she  continues 
humble,  devoted,  and  tender;  her  heart 
is  full,  and  gratitude  fills  it  from  every 
source  :  "  This  foolish  girl  must  be, 
after  twelve  o'clock  this  day,  as  much 
his  wife  as  if  he  were  to  marry  a  duch- 
ess." t  She  "  had  the  boldness  to  kiss 
his  hand."  \  "  My  heart  is  so  wholly 
yours,  that  I  am  afraid  of  nothing  but 
that  I  may  be  forwarder  than  you 
wish."  §  Shall  the  marriage  take  place 
Monday,  or  Tuesday,  or  Wednesday? 
She  dare  not  say  Yes ;  she  blushes  and 
trembles :  there  is  a  delightful  charm 
in  this  timid  modesty,  these  restrained 
effusions.  For  a  wedding  present  she 
obtains  the  pardon  of  the  wicked  crea- 
tures who  have  ill-treated  her :  "  I 
clasped  my  arms  about  his  neck,  and 
was  not  ashamed  to  kiss  him  once,  and 
twice,  and  three  times,  once  for  each 
forgiven  person."  ||  Then  they  talk 
over  their  plans :  she  shall  remain  at 
home ;  she  will  not  frequent  grand 
parties  ;  she  is  not  fond  of  cards  ;  she 
will  keep  the  "  family  accounts,"  and 
distribute  her  husband's  charities  ;  she 
will  help  the  "Housekeeper  in  "the 


*  Pamela,  i.  290. 
%  Ibid.  ii.  78. 
II  Ibid.  ii.  194. 


t  Ibid.  ii.  167. 
§  Ibid.  ii.  148, 


making  jellies,  comfits,  sweetmeats, 
marmalades,  cordials,  and  to  pot,  and 
candy,  and  preserve,"*  to  get  up  the 
linen  ;  she  will  look  after  the  break 
fast  and  dinner,  especially  when  there 
are  guests ;  she  knows  how  to  carve  ; 
she  will  wait  for  her  husband,  who 
perhaps  will  be  so  good  as  now  and 
then  to  give  her  an  hour  or  two  of  his 
"  agreeable  conversation,"  "  and  will 
be  indulgent  to  the  impertinent  over- 
flowings of  my  grateful  heart."!  In 
his  absence  she  will  read — "  that  will 
help  to  polish  my  mind,  and  make  me 
worthier  of  your  company  and  conver- 
sation ; "  \  and  she  will  pray  to  God, 
she  says,  in  order  "  that  I  may  be  en- 
abled to  discharge  my  duty  to  my  hus- 
band." §  Richardson  has  sketched  here 
the  portrait  of  the  English  wife — a  good 
housekeeper  and  sedentary,  studious 
and  obedient,  loving  and  pious — and 
Fielding  will  finish  it  in  his  Amelia. 

Pamela's  adventures  describe  a  con- 
test :  the  novel  of  Clarissa  Harlowe 
represents  one  still  greater.  Virtue, 
like  force  of  every  kind,  is  propor- 
tioned according  to  its  power  of  resist- 
ance ;  and  we  have  only  to  subject  it 
to  more  violent  tests,  to  give  it  its 
greatest  prominence.  Let  us  look  in 
passions  of  the  English  for  foes  capa- 
ble of  assailing  virtue,  calling  it  forth, 
and  strengthening  it.  The  evil  and  the 
good  of  the  English  character  is  a  too 
strong  will.  ||  When  tenderness  and 
lofty  reason  fail,  the  native  energy  be- 
comes sternness,  obstinacy,  inflexible 
tyranny,  and  the  heart  a  den  of  malevo- 
lent passions,  eager  to  rave  and  tear 
each  other.  Against  a  family,  having 
such  passions,  Clarissa  Harlowe  has  to 
struggle.  Her  father  never  would  be 
"  controuled,  nor  yet  persuaded."1[  He 
never  "  did  give  up  one  point  he 
thought  he  had  a  right  to  carry."  **  He 
has  broken  down  the  will  of  his  wife, 
and  degraded  her  to  the  part  of  a 
dumb  servant :  he  wishes  to  break 
down  the  will  of  his  daughter,  and  to 
give  her  for  a  husband  a  coarse  and 
heartless  fool.  He  is  the  head  of  the 

*lbid.  ii.  62.  Mbid. 

t  Ibid.  ii.  63.  §  Ibid. 

||  See  in  Pamela  the  characters  of  Squire  B. 
and  Lady  Davers. 

If  Clarissa  Harlowe^  4th  ed.  1751,  7  vols.  i» 
92.  **  Ibtd.  i.  105. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


family,  master  of  all  his  people,  des- 
potic and  ambitious  as  a  Roman  patri- 
cian, and  he  wishes  to  found  a  house. 
He  is  stern  in  these  two  harsh  resolves, 
and  inveighs  against  the  rebellious 
daughter.  Above  the  outbursts  of  his 
voice  we  hear  the  loud  wrath  of  his  son, 
a  sort  of  plethoric,  over-fed  bull-dog, 
excited  by  his  greed,  his  youth,  his  fiery 
temper,  and  his  premature  authority ; 
the  shrill  outcry  of  the  eldest  daughter, 
a.  coarse,  plain-looking  girl,  with  "  a 
plump,  high-fed  face,"  exactingly 
jealous,  prone  to  hate,  who,  being  neg- 
lected by  Lovelace,  revenges  herself  on 
her  beautiful  sister;  the  churlish 
growling  of  the  two  uncles,  narrow- 
minded  old  bachelors,  vulgar,  pig- 
headed, through  their  notions  of  male 
authority;  the  grievous  importunities 
of  the  mother,  the  aunt,  the  old  nurse, 
poor  timid  slaves,  reduced  one  by  one 
to  become  instruments  of  persecution. 
The  whole  family  have  bound  them- 
selves to  favor  Mr.  Solmes'  proposal  to 
marry  Clarissa.  They  do  not  reason, 
they  simply  express  their  will.  By  dint 
of  repetition,  only  one  idea  has  fixed 
itself  in  their  brain,  and  they  become 
furious  when  any  one  endeavors  to 
oppose  it.  "  Who  at  the  long  run 
must  submit  ? "  asks  her  mother ;  "  all 
of  us  to  you,  or  you  to  all  of  us  ?  "  * 
Clarissa  offers  to  remain  single,  never 
to  marry  at  all ;  she  consents  to  give  up 
hei  property.  But  her  family  answered: 
"They  had  a  right  to  her  obedience 
upon  their  own  terms  ;  her  proposal 
was  an  artifice,  only  to  gain  time  ;  noth- 
ing but  marrying  Mr.  Solmes  should 
do  ;  ...  they  should  not  be  at  rest  till 
it  was  done."  t  It  must  be  done,  they 
have  promised  it ;  it  is  a  point  of 
honor  with  them.  A  girl,  a  young,  in- 
experienced, insignificant  girl,  to  resist 
men,  old  men,  people  of  position  and 
consideration,  nay,  her  whole  family — 
nonstrous !  So  they  persist,  like  brutes 
as  they  are,  blindly,  putting  on  the 
screw  with  all  their  stupid  hands  to- 
gether, not  seeing  that  at  every  turn, 
they  bring  the  child  nearer  to  madness, 
dishonor,  or  death.  She  begs  them,  im- 
plores them,  one  by  one,  with  every 
argument  and  prayer ;  racks  herself 
to  discover  concessions,  goes  on  her 

*  Clarissa  Harloive,  i.  Letter  xx.  125. 
t  Ibid.  i.  Letter  xxxix.  253. 


465 


knees,  faints,  makes  them  weep.  It  is 
all  useless.  The  indomitable,  crushing 
will  oppresses  her  with  its  daily  in- 
creasing mass.  There  is  no  example 
of  such  a  varied  moral  torture,  so  in- 
cessant, so  obstinate.  They  persist  in 
it,  as  if  it  were  a  task,  and  are  vexed  to 
find  that  she  makes  their  task  so  long. 
They  refuse  to  see  her,  forbid  her  to 
write,  are  afraid  of  her  tears.  Her 
sister  Arabella,  with  the  venomous 
bitterness  of  a  i  offended,  ugly  woman, 
tries  to  make  ner  insults  more  stinging: 

"  '  The  witty,  the  prudent,  nay  the  dutiful ^ 
and  pi-ous  (so  she  sneeringly  pronounced  the 
word)  Clarissa  Harlowe,  should  be  so  strangely 
fond  of  a  profligate  man,  that  her  parents  were 
forced  to  lock  her  up,  in  order  to  hinder  her 
from  running  into  his  arms.'  '  Let  me  ask 
you,  my  dear,'  said  she,  'how  you  now  keep 
your  account  of  the  disposition  of  your  time? 
How  many  hours  in  the  twenty-four  do  you  de- 
vote to  your  needle  ?  How  many  to  your 
prayers  ?  How  many  to  letter-writing  ?  And 
how  many  to  love  ?  I  doubt,  I  doubt,  my  little 
dear,  the  latter  article  is  like  Aaron's  rod,  and 
swallows  up  all  the  rest.  .  .  .  You  must  there- 
fore bend  or  break,  that  is. all,  child.'  *•  .  .  . 

"  '  What,  not  speak  yet  ?  Come,  my  sullen, 
silent  dear,  speak  one  word  to  me.  You  must 
say  two  very  soon  to  Mr.  Solmes,  I  can  tell  you 
that.  .  .  .  Well,  well  (insultingly  wiping  my 
averted  face  with  her  handkerchief)  .  .  .  Then 
you  think  you  may  be  brought  to  speak  the  two 
words.'  "  t 

She  continues  thus : 

"  '  This,  Clary,  is  a  pretty  pattern  enough. 
But  this  is  quite  charming? — And  this^  were  I 
you,  should  be  my  wedding  night-gown. — But, 
Clary,  won't  you  have  a  velvet  suit  ?  It  would 
cut  a  great  figure  in  a  country  church,  you 
know.  Crimson  velvet  suppose  ?  Such  a  fine 
complexion  as  yours,  how  it  would  be  set  off 
by  it! — And  do  you  sigh,  love  ?  Black  velvet, 
so  fair  as  you  are,  with  those  charming  eyes, 
gleaming  through  a  wintry  cloud,  like  an  April 
sun.  Does  not  Lovelace  tell  you  they  are 
charming  eyes?'  "  % 

Then,  when  Arabella  is  reminded  that, 
three  months  ago,  she  did  not  find 
Lovelace  so  worthy  of  scorn,  she 
nearly  chokes  with  passion ;  she  wants 
to  beat  her  sister,  cannot  speak,  and 
says  to  her  aunt,  "with  great  vio- 
lence ; "  "  Let  us  go,  madam ;  let  us 
leave  the  creature  to  swell  till  she 
bursts  with  her  own  poison."  §  It  re- 
minds us  of  a  pack  of  hounds  in  full 
cry  after  a  deer,  which  is  caught,  and 

*  Clarissa  Harloitie,  i.  Letter  xlii.  278- 
t  Ibid.  i.  Letter  xliii.  295. 
t  Ibid.  i.  Letter  xlv.  308. 
§  Ibid.  i.  Letter  xlv.  309. 
20* 


466 


wounded ;  whilst  the  pack  grow  more 
eager  and  more  ferocious,  because  the) 
have  tasted  blood. 

At  the  last  moment,  when  she  thinks 
to  escape  them,  a  new  chase  begins 
more  dangerous  than  the  other.  Love^ 
lace  has  all  the  evil  passions  of  Har- 
lowe,  and  in  addition  a  genius  which 
sharpens  and  aggravates  them.  What 
a  character  I  How  English !  how 
different  from  the  Don  Juan  of  Mozart 
dr  of  Moliere  !  Before  every  thing  he 
wishes  to  have  the  cruel  fair  one  in  his 
power :  then  come  the  desire  to  bend 
others,  a  combative  spirit,  a  craving  for 
triumph ;  only  after  all  these  come  the 
senses.  He  spares  an  innocent,  young 
girl,  because  he  knows  she  is  easy  to 
conquer,  and  the  grandmother  "  has 
besought  him  to  be  merciful  to  her." 
"  The.  Debellare  superbos  should  be  my 
motto,"  *  he  writes  to  his  friend  Bel- 
ford  ;  and  in  another  letter  he  says,  "  I 
always  considered  opposition  and  re- 
sistance as  a  challenge  to  do  my 
worst."  t  At  bottom,  pride,  infinite, 
insatiable,  senseless,  is  the  mainspring, 
the  only  motive  of  all  his  actions.  He 
acknowledges  "  that  he  only  wanted 
Caesar's  outsetting  to  make  a  figure 
among  his  contemporaries,"  \  and  that 
he  only  stoops  to  private  conquests  out 
of  mere  whim.  He  declares  that  he 
would  not  marry  the  first  princess  on 
earth,  if  he  but  thought  she  balanced  a 
minute  in  her  choice  of  him  or  of  an 
emperor.  He  is  held  to  be  gay, 
brilliant,  conversational ;  but  this  petu- 
lance of  animal  vigor  is  only  external ; 
he  is  cruel,  jests  savagely,  in  cool 
blood,  like  a  hangman,  about  the  harm 
which  he  has  done  or  means  to  do.  He 
reassures  a  poor  servant  who  is  troubled 
at  having  given  up  Clarissa  to  him  in 
the  following  words  :  "  The  affair  of 
Miss  Betterton  was  a  youthful  frolick. 
...  I  went  into  mourning  for  her, 
though  abroad  at  the  time, — a  distinc- 
tion I  have  ever  paid  to  those  worthy 
creatures  who  died  in  childbed  by  me. 
.  .  .  Why  this  squeamishness,  then, 
honest  Joseph  ?"  §  The  English  roy- 
sterers  of  those  days  threw  the  human 
pody  in  the  sewers.  One  gentleman,  a 

*  Clarissa  Harloiue^  i.  Letter  xxxiv.  223. 
t  Ibid.  ii.  Letter  xiiii.  315. 
\  Ibid.  i.  Letter  xii.  65. 
§  Ibid'  iii   Letter  xviii.  89. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  HI 


friend  of  Lovelace,  "  tricked  a  farmer's 
daughter,  a  pretty  girl,  up  to  town,  .  .  . 
drank   her  light-hearted,    .  .  .  then  to 
the    play,   .   .   .  then  to    the    bagnio, 
ruined  her  ;  kept  her  on  a  fortnight  or 
three  weeks  ;  then  left  her  to  the  mercy 
of  the  people  of  the  bagnio  (never  pay- 
ing for  any  thing),  who  stript  her  of  all 
her  cloaths,  and  because  she  would  net 
take  on,  threw  her   into  prison,  where 
she    died   in   want  and  in   despair."  * 
The  rakes  in  France  were  only  rascals,  t 
here  they  were   villains ;    wickedness 
with   them   poisoned    love.     Lovelace 
hates  Clarissa  even  more  than  he  loves 
her.     He  has  a  book  in  which  he  sets 
down,  he  says,  "all  the  family  faults 
and  the  infinite  trouble  she  herself  has 
given  me.     When  my  heart  is  soft,  and 
all  her  own,  I  can  but  turn  to  my  mem- 
oranda, and  harden  myself  at  once."  | 
He  is  angry  because  she  dares  to  de- 
fend herself,  says  that  he'll  teach  her  to 
vie  with  him  in  inventions,   to   make 
plots  against  and  for  her  conqueror.  It 
a   struggle   between   them   without 
truce  or  halting.   Lovelace  says  of  him- 
self :  "  What  an  industrious  spirit  have 
[  1     Nobody   can   say    that  I   eat  the 
Dread  of  idleness  ;  .  .  .  certainly,  with 
this  active  soul,  I  should  have  made  a 
very  great  figure  in  whatever  station  I 
lad   filled."  §     He    assaults    and    be- 
sieges her,  spends  whole  nights  outside 
ier  house,  gives  the  Harlowes  servants 
of  his  own,  invents  stories,  introduces 
Dersonages  under  a  false  name,  forges 
etters.     There  is  no  expense,  fatigue, 
3lot,  treachery  which  he  will  not  under- 
:ake.     All  weapons   are   the   same   to 
n'm.     He   digs   and  plans  even  when 
away,  ten,  twenty,  fifty  saps,  which  all 
meet  in  the  same  mine.     He  provides 
against  every  thing ;  he   is   ready  for 
every  thing  ;  divines,  dares  every  thing, 
against   all   duty,    humanity,    common 
sense,  in  spite   of   the  prayers  of   his 
'riends,  the  entreaties  of  Clarissa,  his 
own  remorse.     Excessive  will,  here  as 
vith  the  Harlowes,   becomes  an   iron 
wheel,  which  twists  out  of  shape  and 
Dreaks  to  pieces  what  it  ought  to  bend, 
.o  that  at  last,  by  blind  impetuosity,  it 

*  Ibid.  vii.  Letter  xxxviii.  122. 
t  See  the  Mhnoires  of  the  Marshal  de  Rich 
lieu. 

\  Clarissa  Marlowe,  ii.  Letter  xxxix.  294. 
§  Ibid  iv.  xxxiii.  232. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


467 


is  broken  by  its  own  impetus,  over  the 
ruins  it  has  made. 

Against  such  assaults  what  resources 
has  Clarissa  ?  A  will  as  determined  as 
Lovelace's.  She  also  is  armed  for  war, 
and  admits  that  she  has  much  of  her 
father's  spirit  as  of  her  mother's  gentle- 
ness. Though  gentle,  though  readily 
driven  into  Christian  humility,  she  has 
'jride ;  she  "  had  hoped  to  be  an  ex- 
ample to  young  persons "  of  her  sex  ; 
she  possesses  the  firmness  of  a  man, 
and  above  all  a  masculine  reflection.  * 
What  self-scrutiny  !  what  vigilance  ! 
what  minute  and  indefatigable  observa- 
tion of  her  conduct,  and  of  that  of 
others  !  t  No  action,  or  word,  involun- 
tary or  other  gesture  of  Lovelace  is  un- 
observed by  her,  uninterpreted,  un- 
judged,  with  the  perspicacity  and  clear- 
ness of  mind  of  a  diplomatist  and  a 
moralist !  We  must  read  these  long 
conversations,  in  which  no  word  is  used 
without  calculation,  genuine  duels  daily 
renewed,  with  death,  nay,  with  dis- 
honor before  her.  She  knows  it,  is  not 
disturbed,  remains  ever  mistress  of 
herself,  never  exposes  herself,  is  not 
dazed,  defends  every  inch  of  ground, 
feeling  that  all  the  world  is  on  his  side, 
no  one  for  her,  that  she  loses  ground, 
and  will  lose  more,  that  she  will  fall, 
that  she  is  falling.  And  yet  she  bends 
not.  What  a  change  since  Shakspeare  ! 
Whence  comes  this  new  and  original 
idea  of  woman?  Who  has  encased 
these  yielding  and  tender  innocents 
with  such  heroism  and  calculation? 
Puritanism  transferred  to  the  laity. 
Clarissa  "  never  looked  upon  any  duty, 
much  less  a  voluntary  vowed  one,  with 
indifference."  She  has  passed  her 
whole  life  in  looking  at  these  duties. 
She  has  placed  certain  principles  before 
her,  has  reasoned  upon  them,  applied 
them  to  the  various  circumstances  of 

*  See  (vol.  vii.  Letter  xlix.)  among  other 
things  her  last  Will. 

t  She  makes  out  statistics  and  a  classification 
of  Lovelace's  merits  and  faults,  with  subdivi- 
sions and  rumbers.  Take  an  example  of  this 
positive  and  practical  English  logic:  "That 
such  a  husband  might  unsettle  me  in  all  my  own 
principles,  and  hazard  my  future  hopes.  That 
he  has  a  very  immoral  character  to  women. 
That  knowing  this,  it  is  a  high  degree  of  im- 
purity to  think  of  joining  in  wedlock  with  such 
a  man."  She  keeps  all  her  writings,  her  mem- 
orandums, summaries  or  analyses  of  her  own 
letters. 


life,  has  fortified  herself  on  every  point 
with  maxims,  distinctions,  and  argu- 
ments. She  has  set  round  her,  like 
bristling  and  multiplied  ramparts,  ? 
numberless  army  of  inflexible  precepts 
We  can  only  reach  her  by  turning  ovei 
her  whole  mind  and  her  whole  past. 
This  is  her  force,  and  also  her  weak- 
ness ;  for  she  is  so  carefully  defended 
by  her  fortifications,  that  she  is  a 
prisoner  ;  her  principles  are'  a  snare  to 
her,  and  her  virtue  destroys  her.  She 
wishes  to  preserve  too  much  decorum. 
She  refuses  to  apply  to  a  magistrate,  for 
it  would  make  public  the  family 
quarrels.  She  does  not  resist  her 
father  openly;  that  would  be  against 
filial  humility.  She  does  not  repel 
Solmes  violently,  like  a  hound,  as  he 
is ;  it  would  be  contrary  to  feminine 
delicacy.  She  will  not  leave  home  with 
Miss  Howe ;  that  might  injure  the 
character  of  her  friend.  She  reproves 
Lovelace  when  he  swears,*  a  good 
Christian  ought  to  protest  against 
scandal.  She  is  argumentative  and 
pedantic,  a  politician  and  a  preacher ; 
she  wearies  us,  she  does  not  act  like  a 
woman.  When  a  room  is  on  fire,  a 
young  girl  flies  barefooted,  and  does 
not  do  what  Miss  Clarissa  does — ask 
for  her  slippers.  I  am  very  sorry  for 
it,  but  I  say  it  with  bated  breath,  the 
sublime  Clarissa  had  a  little  mind;  her 
virtue  is  like  the  piety  of  devotees, 
literal  and  over-nice.  She  does  not 
carry  us  away,  she  has  always  her  guide 
of  deportment  in  her  hand ;  she  does 
not  discover  her  duties,  but  follows  in- 
structions ;  she  has  not  the  audacity  of 
great  resolutions,  she  possesses  more 
conscience  and  firmness  than  enthu- 
siasm and  genius,  t  This  is  the  dis- 
advantage of  morality  pushed  to  an  ex- 
treme, no  matter  what  the  school  or 
the  aim  is.  By  dint  of  regulating  man, 
we  narrow  him. 

Poor  Richardson,  unsuspiciously, 
has'been  at  pains  to  set  the  thing  forth 
in  broad  light,  and  has  created  Sir 
Charles  Grandison  "a  man  of  true 

*  "  Swearing  is  a  most  unmanly  vice,  and 
cursing  as  poor  and  low  a  one,  since  it  pro* 
claims  the  profligate's  want  of  power  and  his 
wickedness  at  the  same  time  ;  for  could  such  a 
one  punish  as  he  speaks,  he  would  be  a  fiend." 
— Vol.  ii.  Letter  xxxviii.  282. 

t  The  contrary  is  the  case  with  the  heroines 
of  George  Sand's  novels. 


468 


honor."  I  cannot  say  whether  this 
model  has  converted  many.  There  is 
nothing  so  insipid  as  an  edifying  hero. 
This  Sir  Charles  is  as  correct  as  an 
automaton  ;  he  passes  his  life  in  weigh- 
ing his  duties,  and  "with  an  air  of 
gallantry."  *  When  he  goes  to  visit  a 
sick  person,  he  has  scruples  about 
going  on  a  Sunday,  but  reassures  his 
conscience  by  saying,  "  I  am  afraid  I 
must  borrow  of  the  Sunday  some  hours 
on  my  journey ;  but  visiting  the  sick  is 
an  act  of  mercy."  t  Would  any  one 
believe  that  such  a  man  could  fall  in 
love  ?  Such  is  the  case,  however,  but 
in  a  manner  of  his  own.  Thus  he 
writes  to  his  betrothed  :  "  And  now, 
loveliest  and  dearest  of  women,  allow 
me  to  expect  the  honor  of  a  line,  to  let 
me  know  how  much  of  the  tedious 
month  from  last  Thursday  you  will  be 
so  good  to  abate.  .  .  .  My  utmost 
gratitude  will  ever  be  engaged  by  the 
condescension,  whenever  you  shall  dis- 
tinguish the  day  of  the  year,  distin- 
guished as  it  will  be  to  the  end  of  my 
life  that  shall  give  me  the  greatest 
blessing  of  it  and  confirm  me — forever 
yours,  Charles  Grandison." }  A  wax 
figure  could  not  be  more  proper.  All 
is  in  the  same  taste.  There  are  eight 
wedding-coaches,  each  with  four  horses; 
Sir  Charles  is  attentive  to  old  people  ; 
at  table,  the  gentlemen,  each  with  a 
napkin  under  his  arm,  wait  upon  the 
ladies ;  the  bride  is  ever  on  the  point 
of  fainting ;  he  throws  himself  at  her 
feet  with  the  utmost  politeness :  "What, 
my  love  !  In  compliment  to  the  i>est 
of  parents  resume  your  usual  presence 
of  mind.  I,  else,  who  shall  glory  be- 
fore a  thousand  witnesses  in  receiving 
the  honor  of  your  hand,  shall  be  ready 
to  regret  that  I  acquiesced  so  cheer- 
fully with  the  wishes  of  those  parental 
friends  for  a  public  celebration."  § 
Courtesies  begin,  compliments  fly 
about ;  a  swarm  of  proprieties  flutters 
around,  like  a  troop  of  little  love-cher- 
ubs, and  their  devout  wings  serve  to 
sanctify  the  blessed  tendernesses  of  the 

_  *  See  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  7  vols.  1811, 
iii.  Letter  xvi.  142:  "  He  received  the  letters, 
standing  up,  bowing  ;  and  kissed  the  papers 
with  an  air  of  gallantry,  that  I  thought  greatly 
Yecame  him." 

t  Ibid.  vi.  Letter  xxxi.  236. 

t  Ibid.  1 1.  Letter  xxxiii.  252. 

§  Ibid.  M.  Letter  Iii.  358. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


happy  couple.  Tears  abound  ;  Har- 
riet bemoans  the  fate  of  Sir  Hargrave 
Pollexfen,  whilst  Sir  Charles  "  in  a 
soothing,  tender,  and  respectful  man- 
ner, put  his  arm  round  me,  and  taking 
my  own  handkerchief,  unresisted,  wiped 
away  the  tears  as  they  fell  on  my 
cheek.  Sweet  humanity !  Charming 
sensibility  1  Check  not  the  kindly 
gush.  Dewdrops  of  heaven!  (wiping 
away  my  tears,  and  kissing  the  hand- 
kerchief), dew-drops  of  heaven,  from  a 
mind  like  that  heaven  mild  and  gra- 
cious ?  "  *  It  is  too  much  ;  we  are  sur- 
feited, we  say  to  ourselves  that  these 
phrases  should  be  accompanied  by  a 
mandoline.  The  most  patient  of  mor- 
tals feels  himself  sick  at  heart  when  he 
has  swallowed  a  thousand  pages  of  this 
sentimental  twaddle,  and  all  the  milk 
and  water  of  love.  To  crown  all,  Sir 
Charles,  seeing  Harriet  embrace  her 
rival,  sketches  the  plan  of  a  little  tem- 
ple, dedicated  to  Friendship,  to  be 
built  on  the  very  spot ;  it  is  the  triumph 
of  mythological  bad  taste.  At  the  end, 
bouquets  shower  down  as  at  the 
opera  ;  all  the  characters  sing  in  unison 
a  chorus  in  praise  of  Sir  Charles,  and 
his  wife  says  :  "  But  could  he  be  other- 
wise than  the  best  of  husbands,  who 
was  the  most  dutiful  of  sons,  who  is  the 
most  affectionate  of  brothers  ;  the  most 
faithful  of  friends :  who  is  good  upon 
principle  in  every  relation  of  life  !  "  t 
He  is  great,  he  is  generous,  delicate, 
pious,  irreproachable;  he  has  never 
done  a  mean  action,  nor  made  a  wrong 
gesture.  His  conscience  and  his  wig 
are  unsullied.  Amen !  Let  us  canon- 
ize him,  and  stuff  him  with  straw. 

Nor,  my  dear  Richardson,  have  you, 
great  as  you  are,  exactly  all  the  wit 
which  is  necessary  in  order  to  have 
enough.  By  seeking  to  serve  morality, 
you  prejudice  it.  Do  you  know  the 
effect  of  these  edifying  advertisements 
which  you  stick  on  at  the  beginning  or 
end  of  your  books  ?  We  are  repelled, 
feel  our  emotion  diminish,  see  the  black- 
gowned  preacher  come  snuffling  out  of 
the  worldly  dress  which  he  had  as- 
sumed for  an  hour  ;  we  are  annoyed  by 
the  deceit.  Insinuate  morality,  but  do 
not  inflict  it.  Remember  there  is  a 
substratum  of  rebellion  in  the  human 

*  Ibid.  vi.  Letter  xxxi.  233. 
t  Ibid.  vii.  Letter  Ixi.  336. 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


469 


heart,  and  that  if  we  too  openly  set  our 
selves  to  wall  it  up  with  discipline,  it 
escapes  and  looks  for  free  air  outside. 
You  print  at  the  end  of  Pamela  the 
catalogue  of  the  virtues  of  which  she 
is  an  example ;  the  reader  yawns,  for- 
gets  his  pleasure,  ceases  to  believe, 
and  asks  himself  if  the  heavenly  heroine 
was  not  an  ecclesiastical  puppet,  trotted 
out  to  give  him  a  lesson.  You  relate 
at  the  end  of  Clarissa  Harlowe  the  pun- 
ishment of  all  the  wicked,  great  and 
small,  sparing  none  ;  the  reader  laughs, 
says  that  things  happen  otherwise  in 
this  world,  and  bids  you  put  in  here 
like  Arnolphe,*  a  description  "  of  the 
cauldrons  in  which  the  souls  of  those 
who  have  led  evil  lives  are  to  boil  in 
the  infernal  regions."  We  are  not 
such  fools  as  you  take  us  for.  There 
is  no  need  that  you  should  shout  to 
make  us  afraid  ;  that  you  should  write 
put  the  lesson  by  itself,  and  in  capitals, 
in  order  to  distinguish  it.  We  love 
art,  and  you  have  a  scant  amount  of  it ; 
we  want  to  be  pleased,  and  you  don't 
care  to  please  us.  You  copy  all  the 
letters,  detail  the  conversations,  tell 
every  thing,  prune  nothing ;  your  novels 
fill  many  volumes  ;  spare  us,  use  the 
scissors  ;  be  a  skilled  literary  workman, 
not  a  registrar  of  the  Rolls  office.  Do 
not  pour  out  your  library  of  documents 
on  the  high-road.  Art  is  different 
from  nature  ;  the  latter  draws  out,  the 
first  condenses.  Twenty  letters  of 
twenty  pages  do  not  display  a  character  ; 
but  one  brilliant  saying  does.  You 
are  weighed  down  by  your  conscience, 
which  compels  you  to  move  step  by 
step  and  slow ;  you  are  afraid  of  your 
genius  ;  you  rein  it  in ;  you  dare  not 
use  loud  cries  and  free  speech  at  the 
very  moment  when  passion  is  most 
virulent.  You  flounder  into  emphatic 
and  well-written  phrases ;  f  you  will 
not  show  nature  as  it  is,  as  Shakspeare 
shows  it,  when,  stung  by  passion  as  by 
a  hot  iron,  it  cries  out,  rears,  and 
bounds  over  your  barriers.  You  can- 
not love  it,  and  your  punishment  is 
that  you  cannot  see  it.J 

^  *  A  selfish  and  misanthropical  cynic  in  Mol- 
lere's  Ecole  des  Femmes. — TR. 

t  Clarissa  and  Pamela  employ  too  many. 

J  In  Novels  and  Novelists,  by  W.  Forsyth, 
ES7if.it  is  said,  ch.  vii. :  "To  me,  I  confess, 
Clarissa  Harlowe  is  an  unpleasant,  not  to  say 
odious  book.  ...  If  any  book  deserved  the 


V. 


Fielding  protests  on  behalf  of  nature , 
and  certainly,  to  see  his  actions  and 
his  persons,  we  might  think  him  made 
expressly  for  that  purpose  :  a  robust 
strongly  built  man,  above  six  feet  high, 
sanguine,  with  an  excess  of  good  humor 
and  animal  spirits,  loyal,  generouSj 
affectionate,  and  brave,  but  imprudent; 
extravagant,  a  drinker,  a  roysterer 
ruined  as  his  father  was  before  him, 
having  seen  the  ups  and  downs  of  life, 
not  always  clean  but  always  jolly.  Lady 
Wortley  Montague  says  of  him  ,  "  His 
happy  constitution  made  him  .orget 
every  thing  when  he  was  before  a  ven- 
ison pasty,  or  over  a  flask  of  cham- 
pagne." *  Natural  impulse,  somewhat 
coarse  but  generous,  sways  him.  It 
does  not  restrain  itself,  it  flows  freely, 
it  follows  its  own  bent,  not  too  choice  in 
its  course,  not  confining  itself  to  banks, 
miry  but  copious,  and  in  a  broad  chan- 
nel. From  the  outset  an  abundance  of 
health  and  physical  impetuosity  plunges 
Fielding  into  gross  jovial  excess,  and 
the  immoderate  sap  of  youth  bubbles 
up  in  him  until  he  marries  and  becomes 
ripe  in  years.  He  is  gay,  and  seeks 
gayety ;  he  is  careless,  and  has  not  even 
literary  vanity.  One  day  Garrick  beg- 
ged him  to  cut  down  an  awkward  scene, 
and  told  him  "  that  a  repulse  would 
flurry  him  so  much,  he  should  not 
be  able  to  do  justice  to  the  part."  "  If 
the  scene  is  not  a  good  one,  let  them 
find  that  out,"  said  Fielding ;  just  as 
was  foreseen,  the  house  made  a  violent 
uproar,  and  the  performer  tried  to  quell 
it  by  retiring  to  the  green-room,  where 
the  author  was  supporting  his  spirits 

charge  of  sickly  sentimentality,  it  is  this  :  and 
that  it  should  have  once  been  so  widely  popular, 
and  thought  admirably  adapted  to  instruct 
young  women  in  lessons  of  virtue  and  religion 
shows  a  strange  and  perverted  state  of  the  pub- 
ic taste,  not  to  say  public  morals."  Mrs, 
Oliphant,  in  her  Historical  Sketches  (f  the 
Reign  of  George  Second,  1869,  says  <  f  the 
same  novel  (ii.  x.  264) :  "  Richardson  was  a  re- 
spectable tradesman.  ...  a  good  printer,  .  .  . 
a  comfortable  soul,  .  .  .  never  owing  a  guinea 
nor  transgressing  a  rule  of  morality ;  and  yet 
so  much  a  poet,  that  he  has  added  at  least  one 
character  (Clarissa  Harlowe)  to  the  inheritance 
of  the  world,  of  which  Shakspeare  need  not  have 
seen  ashamed — the  most  celestial  thing,  the 
lighest  effort  of  his  generation." — TR. 

*  Lady  Montague's  Letters,  ed.  Lord 
Wharncliffe,  zA  ed.  3  vols.  1837  '•  Letter  to  the 
Countess  of  Bute,  iii.  120. 


470 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


with  a  bottle  of  champagne.  "  What 
is  the  matter,  Garrick  ?  are  they  hissing 
me  now  ? "  "  Yes,  just  the  same  pas- 
sage that  I  wanted  you  to  retrench." 
"  Oh,"  replied  the  author,  "  I  did  not 
give  them  credit  for  it :  they  have 
found  it  out,  have  they  ? "  *  In  this 
easy  manner  he  took  all  mischances. 
He  went  ahead  without  feeling  the 
bruises  much,  like  a  confident  man, 
whose  heart  expands  and  whose  skin 
is  thick.  When  he  inherited  some 
money  he  feasted,  gave  dinners  to  his 
neighbors,  kept  a  pack  of  hounds  and 
a  lot  of  magnificent  lackeys  in  yellow 
livery.  In  three  years  he  had  spent  it 
all ;  but  courage  remained,  he  finished 
his  law  studies,  prepared  a  voluminous 
Digest  of  the  Statutes  at  Large,  in  two 
folio  volumes,  which  remained  unpub- 
lished, became  a  magistrate,  destroyed 
bands  of  robbers,  and  earned  in  the 
most  insipid  of  labors  "  the  dirtiest 
money  upon  earth."  Disgust,  weari- 
ness did  not  affect  him ;  he  was  too 
solidly  made  to  have  the  nerves  of  a 
woman.  Force,  activity,  invention, 
tenderness,  all  overflowed  in  him.  He 
had  a  mother's  fondness  for  his  chil- 
dren, adored  his  wife,  became  almost 
mad  when  he  lost  her,  found  no  other 
consolation  than  to  weep  with  his  maid- 
servant, and  ended  by  marrying  that 
good  and  honest  girl,  that  he  might  give 
a  mother  to  his  children  ;  the  last  trait 
in  the  portrait  of  this  valiant  plebeian 
heart,  quick  in  telling  all,  having  no 
dislikes,  but  all  the  best  parts  of  man, 
except  delicacy.  We  read  his  books 
as  we  drink  a  pure,  wholesome,  and 
rough  wine,  which  cheers  and  fortifies 
us,  and  which  wants  nothing  but  bou- 
quet. 

Such  a  man  was  sure  to  dislike 
Richardson.  He  who  loves  expansive 
and  liberal  nature,  drives  from  him  like 
foes  the  solemnity,  sadness,  and  pru- 
deries of  the  Puritans.  His  first  liter- 
ary work  was  to  caricature  Richardson. 
His  first  hero,  Joseph,  is  the  brother  of 
Pamela,  and  resists  the  proposals  of 
his  mistress,  as  Pamela  does  those  of 
her  master.  The  temptation,  touching 
in  the  case  of  a  girl,  becomes  comical 
m  that  of  a  young  man,  and  the  tragic 
turns  into  the  grotesque.  Fielding 
heartily,  like  Rabelais,  or  Scar- 
*  Roscoe's  Life  of  Fielding %  p.  xxv. 


ron.  He  imitates  the  emphatic  style  ; 
ruffles  the  petticoats  and  bobs  the 
wigs  ;  upsets  with  his  rude  jests  all  the 
seriousness  of  conventionality.  If  we 
are  refined,  or  simply  well  dressed 
don't  let  us  go  along  with  him.  He 
will  take  us  to  prisons,  inns,  dunghills, 
the  mud  of  the  roadside  ;  he  will  make 
us  flounder  among  rollicking,  scandal- 
ous, vulgar  adventures,  and  crude  pic- 
tures. He  has  plenty  of  words  at  com* 
mand,  and  his  sense  of  smell  is  not 
delicate.  Mr.  Joseph  Andrews,  after 
leaving  Lady  Booby,  is  felled  to  the 
ground,  left  naked  in  a  ditch,  for  dead ; 
a  stage-coach  came  by;  a  lady  obj jets 
to  receive  a  naked  man  inside  ;  and  the 
gentlemen,  "  though  there  were  several 
greatcoats  about  the  coach,"  could  not 
spare  them  ;  the  coachman,  who  had 
two  greatcoats  spread  under  him,  re- 


lend  either,  lest  they  should 


two  grea 
fused  to 

be  made  bloody.*  This  is  but  the  out- 
set, judge  of  the  rest.  Joseph  and  his 
friend,  the  good  Parson  Adams,  give 
and  receive  a  vast  number  of  cuffs  ; 
blows  resound ;  cans  of  pig's  blood 
are  thrown  at  their  heads ;  dogs  tear 
their  clothes  to  pieces ;  they  lose  their 
horse.  Joseph  is  so  good-looking, 
that  he  is  assailed  by  the  maid-servant, 
"  obliged  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and 
to  shut  her  out  of  the  room  ;  "  t  they 
have  never  any  money ;  they  are  threat- 
ened with  being  sent  to  prison.  Yet 
they  go  on  in  a  merry  fashion,  like 
their  brothers  in  Fielding's  other  nov- 
els, Captain  Booth  and  Tom  Jones. 
These  hailstorms  of  blows,  these  tav- 
ern brawls,  this  noise  of  broken  warm- 
ing-pans and  basins  flung  at  heads, 
this  medley  of  incidents  and  downpour- 
ing  of  mishaps,  combine  to  make  the 
most  joyous  music.  All  these  honest 
folk  fight  well,  walk  well,  eat  well, 
drink  still  better.  It  is  a  pleasure  tD 
observe  these  potent  stomachs ;  roast- 
beef  goes  down  into  them  as  to  its 
natural  place.  Let  us  not  say  that 
these  good  arms  practise  too  much  on 
their  neighbors' skins:  the  neighbors' 
hides  are  tough,  and  always  heal  quick- 
ly. Decidedly  life  is  a  good  thing, 
and  we  will  go  along  with  Fielding 
smiling  by  the  way,  with  a  broken  head 
and  a  bellyful. 

*  The  A  dventures  of  Joseph  A  ndreivs,  bk 
i.  ch.  xii.  t  Ibid.  i.  cb.  xviii. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


47  * 


Shall  we  merely  laugh  ?  There  are 
many  things  to  be  seen  on  our  journey  : 
the  sentiment  of  nature  is  a  talent, 
like  the  understanding  of  certain  rules ; 
and  Fielding,  turning  his  back  on 
Richardson,  opens  up  a  domain  as 
wide  as  that  of  his  rival.  What  we 
call  nature  is  this  brood  of  secret  pas- 
sions, often  malicious,  generally  vulgar, 
always  blind,  which  tremble  and  fret 
within  us,  ill-covered  by  the  cloak  of 
decency  and  reason  under  which  we 
try  to  disguise  them  ;  we  think  we  lead 
them,  and  they  lead  us  ;  we  think  our 
actions  our  own,  they  are  theirs.  They 
are  so  many,  so  strong,  so  interwoven, 
so  leady  to  rise,  break  forth,  be  carried 
away,  that  their  movements  elude  all 
our  reasoning  and  our  grasp.  This  is 
Fielding's  domain  ;  his  art  and  pleas- 
ure, like  Moliere's,  are  in  lifting  a  cor- 
ner of  the  cloak ;  his  characters  parade 
with  a  rational  air,  and  suddenly, 
through  a  vista,  the  reader  perceives  the 
inner  turmoil  of  vanities,  follies,  lusts, 
and  secret  rancors  which  make  them 
move.  Thus,  when  Tom  Jones'  arm 
is  broken,  philosopher  Square  comes 
to  console  him  by  an  application  of 
stoical  maxims  ;  but  in  proving  to  him 
that  "pain  was  the  most  contemptible 
thing  in  the  world,"  he  bites  his  tongue, 
and  lets  slip  an  oath  or  two  ;  where- 
upon Parson  Thwacjkum,  his  opponent 
and  rival,  assures  him  that  his  mishap 
is  a  warning  of  Providence,  and  both 
in  consequence  are  nearly  coming  to 
blows.*  In  the  Life  of  Mr.  Jonathan 
Wild,  the  prison  chaplain  having  air- 
ed his  eloquence,  and  entreated  the 
condemned  man  to  repent,  accepts 
from  him  a  bowl  of  punch,  because  "  it 
is  nowhere  spoken  against  in  Scrip- 
ture ;  "  and  after  drinking,  repeats  his 
last  sermon  against  the  pagan  philoso- 

Ehers.  Thus  unveiled,  natural  impulse 
as  a  grotesque  appearance  ;  the  peo- 
ple advance  gravely,  cane  in  hand,  but 
in  our  eyes  they  are  all  naked.  Un- 
derstand, they  are  every  whit  naked  ; 
and  some  of  their  attitudes  are  very 
lively.  Ladies  will  do  well  not  to  en- 
ter here.  This  powerful  genius,  frank 
and  joyous,  loves  boorish  feasts  like 
Rubens  ;  the  red  faces,  beaming  with 
good  humor,  sensuality,  and  energy, 
move  about  his  pages,  flutter  hither  and 
*  History  of  a  Foundling^  bk.  v.  ch.  ii. 


thither,  and  jostle  each  other,  and  their 
overflowing  instincts  break  forth  in 
violent  actions.  Out  of  such  he  creates 
his  chief  characters.  He  has  none 
more  lifelike  than  these,  more  broadly 
sketched  in  bold  and  dashing  outline, 
with  a  more  wholesome  color.  If  so- 
ber people  like  Allworthy  remain  in  a 
corner  of  his  vast  canvas,  characters 
full  of  natural  impulse,  like  Western, 
stand  out  with  a  relief  and  brightness, 
never  seen  since  Falstaff.  Western  is 
a  country  squire,  a  good  fellow  in  the 
main,  but  a  drunkard,  always  in  the 
saddle,  full  of  oaths,  ready  with  coarse 
language,  blows,  a  sort  of  dull  carter, 
hardened  and  excited  by  the  brutality 
of  the  race,  the  wildness  of  a  country 
life,  by  violent  exercise,  by  abuse  of 
coarse  food  and  strong  drink,  full  of 
English  and  rustic  pride  and  prejudice, 
having  never  been  disciplined  by  the 
constraint  of  the  world,  because  he 
lives  in  the  country;  nor  by  that  of 
education,  since  he  can  hardly  read  ; 
nor  of  reflection,  since  he  cannot  pat 
two  ideas  together ;  nor  of  authority, 
because  he  is  rich  and  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  and  given  up,  like  a  noisy  and 
creaking  weathercock,  to  every  gust  of 
passion.  When  contradicted,  he  grows 
red,  foams  at  the  mouth,  wishes  to 
thrash  some  one.  "  Doff  thy  clothes." 
They  are  even  obliged  to  stop  him  by 
main  force.  He  hastens  to  go  to  All 
worthy  to  complain  of  Tom  Jones,  who 
has  dared  to  fall  in  love  with  his 
daughter  :  "  It's  well  for  un  I  could 
not  get  at  un  :  I'd  a  licked  un  ;  I'd  a 
spoiled  his  caterwauling  ;  I'd  a  taught 
the  son  of  a  whore  to  meddle  witt 
meat  for  his  master.  He  shan't  eve 
have  a  morsel  of  meat  of  mine,  or  u 
varden  to  buy  it.  If  she  will  ha  un, 
one  smock  shall  be  her  portion.  I'd 
sooner  give  my  estate  to  the  sinking 
fund,  that  it  may  be  sent  to  Hanover,  to 
corrupt  our  nation  with."*  Allworthy 
says  he  is  very  sorry  for  it  :  "  Pox  o' 
your  sorrow.  It  will  do  me  abundance 
of  good,  when  I  have  lost  my  only 
child,  my  poor  Sophy  that  was  the  joy 
of  my  heart,  and  all  the  hope  and  com- 
fort of  my  age.  But  I  am  resolved  I 
will  turn  her  out  o'  doors  ;  she  shall  beg, 
and  starve,  and  rot  in  the  streets.  Nol 
one  hapenny,  not  a  hapenny  shall  she 
*  Ibid.  bk.  vi.  ch.  x. 


472 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


ever  hae  o'  mine.  The  son  of  a  bitch 
was  always  good  at  finding  a  hare  sit- 
ting and  be  rotted  to'n  ;  I  little  thought 
what  puss  he  was  looking  after.  But 
it  shall  be  the  worst  he  ever  vound  in 
his  life.  She  shall  be  no  better  than 
carrion ;  the  skin  o'er  it  is  all  he  shall 
ha,  and  zu  you  may  tell  un."  *  His 
daughter  tries  to  reason  with  him  ;  he 
storms.  Then  she  speaks  of  tender- 
ness and  obedience  ;  he  leaps  about 
the  room  for  joy,  and  tears  come  to  his 
eyes.  Then  she  recommences  her 
prayers  ;  he  grinds  his  teeth,  clenches 
his  fists,  stamps  his  feet ;  "  I  am  deter- 
mined upon  this  match,  and  ha  him  t 
you  shall,  damn  me,  if  shat  unt.  Damn 
me,  if  shat  unt,  though  dost  hang  thy- 
self the  next  morning."  }  He  can  find 
no  reason ;  he  can  only  tell  her  to  be  a 
good  girl.  He  contradicts  himself,  de- 
feats his  own  plans ;  is  like  a  blind 
bull,  which  butts  to  right  and  left, 
doubles  on  his  path,  touches  no  one, 
and  paws  the  ground.  At  the  least 
sound  he  rushes  head  foremost,  offen- 
sively, not  knowing  why.  His  ideas 
are  only  starts  or  transports  of  flesh 
and  blood.  Never  has  the  animal  so 
completely  covered  and  absorbed  the 
man.  It  makes  him  grotesque  ;  he  is 
so  natural  and  so  brute-like  :  he  allows 
himself  to  be  led,  and  speaks  like  a 
child.  He  says  :  "  I  don't  know  how 
'tis,  but,  Allworthy,  you  make  me  do 
always  just  as  you  please  ;  and  yet  I 
have  as  good  an  estate  as  you,  and  am 
in  the  commission  of  the  peace  just  as 
yourself."  §  Nothing  holds  or  lasts 
with  him;  he  is  impulsive  in  every 
thing;  he  lives  but  for  the  moment. 
Rancor,  interest,  no  passions  of  long 
continuance  affect  him.  He  embraces 
people  whom  he  just  before  wanted 
to  knock  down.  Every  thing  with  him 
disappears  in  the  fire  of  the  momenta- 
ry passion,  which  floods  his  brain,  as  it 
were,  in  sudden  waves,  and  drowns  the 
rest.  Now  that  he  is  reconciled  to 
Tom  Jones,  he  cannot  rest  until  Tom 
marries  his  daughter:  "To  her,  boy, 
to  her,  go  to  her.  That's  it,  little  hon- 
eys, O  that's  it.  Well,  what,  is  it  all 
over?  Hath  she  appointed  the  day, 

*  History  of  a  Foundling,  bk.  vi.  ch.  x. 
t  Blifil. 

\  History  of  a  Foundling^  xvi.  ch.  ii 
§  Ibid,  xviii.  ch.  ix« 


boy  ?  What,  shall  it  be  to-morrow  01 
next  day  ?  I  shan't  be  put  off  a  min- 
ute longer  than  next  day  ;  I  am  re- 
solved. ...  I  tell  thee  it  is  all  flim- 
flam. Zoodikers !  she'd  have  the 
wedding  to-night  with  all  her  heart. 
Would'st  not,  Sophy  ?  .  .  .  Where  the 
devil  is  Allworthy ;  .  .  .  Harkee,  All- 
worthy,  I'll  bet  thee  five  pounds  to  a 
crown,  we  have  a  boy  to-morrow  nine 
months.  But  prithee,  tell  me  what 
wut  ha  ?  Burgundy,  champagne,  or 
what  ?  For  please  Jupiter,  we'll  make 
a  night  on't."*  And  when  he  be- 
comes a  grandfather,  he  spends  his 
time  in  the  nursery,  "  where  he  declares 
the  tattling  of  his  little  granddaughter, 
who  is  above  a  year  and  a  half  old,  is 
sweeter  music  than  the  finest  cry  of 
dogs  in  England."!  This  is  pure  na- 
ture, and  no  one  has  displayed  it  more 
free,  more  impetuous,  ignoring  all 
rule,  more  abandoned  to  physical  pas- 
sions than  Fielding. 

It  is  not  because  he  loves  it  like 
the  great  impartial  artists,  Shakspeare 
and  Goethe  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  is 
eminently  a  moralist ;  and  it  is  one  of 
the  great  marks  of  the  age,  that  refor- 
matory designs  are  as  decided  with 
him  as  with  others.  He  gives  his  fic- 
tions a  practical  aim,  and  commends 
them  by  saying  that  the  serious  and 
tragic  tone  sours,  whilst  the  comic 
style  disposes  men  to  be  "  more  full  of 
good  humor  and  benevolence."f  More- 
over, he  satirizes  vice  ;  he  looks  upon 
the  passions  not  as  simple  forces,  but 
as  objects  of  approbation  or  blame. 
At  every  step  he  suggests  moral  con- 
clusions ;  he  wants  us  to  take  sides ; 
he  discusses,  excuses,  or  condemns. 
He  writes  an  entire  novel  in  an  ironi- 
cal style, §  to  attack  and  destroy  rascal- 
ity and  treason.  He  is  more  than  a 
painter,  he  is  a  judge,  and  the  two 
parts  agree  in  him.  For  a  psychology 
produces  a  morality :  where  there  is  an 
idea  of  man,  there  is  an  ideal  of  man ; 
and  Fielding,  who  has  seen  in  man  na- 
ture as  opposed  to  rule,  praises  in  man 
nature  as  opposed  to  rule  ;  so  that,  ac- 
cording to  him,  virtue  is  but  an  in- 
stinct. Generosity  in  his  eyes  is,  like 

*  Ibid,  xviii.  ch.  xii. 

t  Last  chapter  of  the  History  of  a  Found* 
ling.  \  Preface  to  Joseph  A  ndrews. 

f  Jonathan  Wild. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


473 


all  sources  of  action,  a  primitive  incli- 
nation ;  like  all  sources  of  action,  it 
flows  on  receiving  no  good  from  cate- 
chisms and  phrases  ;  like  all  sources 
of  action,  it  flows  at  times  too  copious 
and  quick.  Take  it  as  it  is,  and  do 
not  try  to  oppress  it  under  a  discipline, 
or  to  replace  it  by  an  argument.  Mr. 
Richardson,  your  heroes,  so  correct, 
constrained,  so  carefully  made  up  with 
their  impedimenta  of  maxims,  are  cathe- 
dral vergers,  of  use  but  to  drone  in  a 
procession.  Square  or  Thwackum, 
your  tirades  on  philosophical  or  Chris- 
tian virtue  are  mere  words,  only  fit  to 
be  heard  after  dinner.  Virtue  is  in 
the  mood  and  the  blood  ;  a  gossipy 
education  and  cloistral  severity  do  not 
assist  it.  Give  me  a  man,  not  a  show- 
mannikin  or  a  mere  machine,  to  spout 
phrases.  My  hero  is  the  man  who  is 
born  generous,  as  a  dog  is  born  affec- 
tionate, ami  a  horse  brave.  I  want  a 
living  heart,  full  of  warmth  and  force, 
not  a  dry  pedant,  bent  on  squaring  all 
his  actions.  This  ardent  and  impulsive 
character  will  perhaps  carry  the  hero 
too  far  ;  I  pardon  his  escapades.  He 
will  get  drunk  unawares  ;  he  will  pick 
up  a  girl  on  his  way ;  he  will  hit  out 
with  a  zest ;  he  will  not  refuse  a  duel ; 
he  will  suffer  a  fine  lady  to  appreciate 
him, and  will  accept  her  purse;  he  will 
be  imprudent,  will  injure  his  reputa- 
tion, like  Tom  Jones  ;  he  will  be  a  bad 
manager,  and  will  get  into  debt,  like 
Captain  Booth.  Pardon  him  for  hav- 
ing muscles,  nerves,  senses,  and  that 
overflow  of  anger  or  ardor  which  urges 
forward  animals  of  a  noble  breed.  But 
he  will  let  himself  be  beaten  till  the 
blood  flows,  before  he  betrays  a  poor 
gamekeeper.  He  will  pardon  his  mor- 
tal enemy  readily,  from  sheer  kindness, 
and  will  send  him  money  secretly.  He 
will  be  loyal  to  his  mistress,  and  will 
be  faithful  to  her,  spite  of  all  offers,  in 
the  worst  destitution,  and  without  the 
least  hope  of  winning  her.  He  will  be 
liberal  with  his  purse,  his  trouble,  his 
sufferings,  his  blood  ;  he  will  not  boast 
of  it ;  he  will  have  neither  pride,  vanity, 
affectation,  nor  dissimulation;  brave- 
ry and  kindness  will  abound  in  his 
heart,  as  good  water  in  a  good  spring. 
He  may  be  stupid  like  Captain  Booth, 
a  gambler  even,  extravagant,  unable  to 
manage  his  affairs,  liable  one  day 


through  temptation  to  be  unfaithful  to 
his  wife  ;  but  he  will  be  so  sincere  in 
his  repentance,  his  error  will  be  so  in- 
voluntary, he  will  be  so  carefully,  gen- 
uinely tender,  that  she  will  love  hin. 
exceedingly,*  and  in  good  truth  he 
will  deserve  it.  He  will  be  a  nurse 
to  her  when  she  is  ill,  behave  as  a 
mother  to  her  ;  he  will  himself  see 
to  her  lying-in ;  he  will  feel  towards 
her  the  adoration  of  a  lover,  always, 
before  all  the  world,  even  before 
Miss  Matthews,  who  seduced  him. 
He  says  "  If  I  had  the  world,  I  was 
ready  to  lay  it  at  my  Amelia's  feet ; 
and  so,  heaven  knows,  I  would  ten 
thousand  worlds."  t  He  weeps  like  a 
child  on  thinking  of  her ;  he  listens  to 
her  like  a  little  child.  "  I  believe  I 
am  able  to  recollect  much  the  greatest 
part  (of  what  she  uttered) ;  for  the 
impression  is  never  to  be  effaced  from 
my  memory."  \  He  dressed  himself 
"  with  all  the  expedition  imaginable, 
singing,  whistling,  hurrying,  attempting 
by  every  method  to  banish  thought,"  § 
and  galloped  away,  whilst  his  wife  was 
asleep,  because  he  cannot  endure  her 
tears.  In  this  soldier's  body,  under 
this  brawler's  thick  breastplate,  there 
is  a  true  woman's  heart,  which  melts, 
which  a  trifle  disturbs,  when  she  whom 
he  loves  is  in  question  ;  timid  in  its 
tenderness,  inexhaustible  in  devotion, 
in  trust,  in  self-denial,  in  the  communi- 
cation of  its  feelings.  When  a  man 
possesses  this,  overlook  the  rest  ;  with 
all  his  excesses  and  his  follies,  he  is 
better  than  your  well-dressed  devotees. 
To  this  we  reply:  You  do  well  to 
defend  nature,  but  let  it  be  on  condition 
that  you  suppress  nothing.  One  thing 
is  wanting  in  your  strongly-built  folks 
— refinement:  delicate  dreams, enthusi- 
astic elevation,  and  trembling  delicacy 
exist  in  nature  equally  with  coarse  vig- 

*  Amelia  is  the  perfect  English  wife,  an  ex« 
cellent  cook,  so  devoted  as  to  pardon  her  hus- 
band his  accidental  infidelities,  always  looking 
forward  to  the  accoucheur.  She  says  even 
(bk.  iv.  ch.  vi.),  "  Dear  Billy,  though  my  un« 
derstanding  be  much  inferior  to  yours."  She 
is  excessively  modest,  always  blushing  and 
tender.  Bagillard  having  written  her  some 
love-letters,  she  throws  them  away,  and  says 
(bk.  iii.  ch.  ix.)  :  "  I  would  not  have  such  a 
letter  in  my  possession  for  the  universe  ;  I 
thought  my  eyes  contaminated  with  reading 
it."  f  Amelia,  bk.  ii.  ch.  viii. 

\  Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  i.        §  Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  ii. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


or,  noisy  hilarity,  and  frank  kindness. 
Poetry  is  true,  like  prose  ;  and  if  there 
are  eaters  and  boxers,  there  are  also 
knights  and  artists.  Cervantes,  whom 
you  imitate,  and  Shakspeare,  whom 
you  recall,  had  this  refinement,  and 
they  have  painted  it ;  in  this  abundant 
harvest,  which  you  have  gathered  so 
plentifully,  you  have  forgotten  the 
flowers.  We  tire  at  last  of  your  fisti- 
cuffs and  tavern  bills.  You  flounder  too 
readily  in  cowhouses,  among  the  eccle- 
siastical pigs  of  Parson  Trulliber.  We 
would  fain  see  you  have  more  regard 
for  the  modesty  of  your  heroines  ;  way- 
side accidents  raise  their  tuckers  too 
often;  and  Fanny,  Sophia,  Mrs.  Hart- 
free,  may  continue  pure,  yet  we  cannot 
help  remembering  the  assaults  which 
have  lifted  their  petticoats.  You  are 
so  coarse  yourself,  that  you  are  insen- 
sible to  what  is  atrocious.  You  per- 
suade Tom  Jones  falsely,  yet  for  an  in- 
stant, that  Mrs.  Waters,  whom  he  has 
made  his  mistress,  is  his  own  mother, 
and  you  leave  the  reader  during  a  long 
time  buried  in  the  shame  of  this  suppo- 
sition. And  then  you  are  obliged  to 
become  unnatural  in  order  "to  depict 
love  ;  you  can  give  but  constrained  let- 
ters ;  the  transports  of  your  Tom 
Jones  are  only  the  author's  phrases. 
For  want  of  ideas  he  declaims  odes. 
You  are  only  aware  of  the  impetuosity 
of  the  senses,  the  upwelling  of  the 
blood,  the  effusion  of  tenderness,  but 
you  are  unacquainted  with  nervous  ex- 
altation and  poetic  rapture.  Man, 
such  as  you  conceive  him,  is  a  good 
buffalo ;  and  perhaps  he  is  the  hero 
required  by  a  people  which  gives  itself 
the  nickname  "John  Bull." 

VI. 

At  all  events  this  hero  is  powerful 
ar.d  formidable;  and  if  at  this  period 
we  collect  in  our  mind  the  scattered 
features  of  the  faces  which  the  novel- 
writers  have  made  pass  before  us,  we 
will  feel  ourselves  transported  into  a 
half-barbarous  world,  and  to  a  race 
whose  energy  must  terrify  or  revolt  all 
our  gentleness.  Now  let  us  open  a 
more  literal  copyist  of  life :  they  are 
doubtless  all  such,  and  declare — Field- 
ing amongst  them — that  if  they  imagine 
*  feature,  it  is  because  they  have  seen 


it ;  but  Smollett  has  this  advantage, 
that,  being  mediocre,  he  chalks  out 
the  figures  tamely,  prosaically,  without 
transforming  them  by  the  illumination 
of  genius  :  the  joviality  of  Fielding  ana 
the  rigor  of  Richardson  are  not  there 
to  light  up  or  ennoble  the  pictures.  Let 
us  observe  carefullySmollett's  manners; 
let  us  listen  to  the  confessions  of  this 
imitator  of  Le  Sage,  who  reproaches 
that  author  with  being  gay,  and  jesting 
with  the  mishaps  of  his  hero.  He  says  : 
"  The  disgraces  of  Gil  Bias  are,  for  the 
most  part,  such  as  rather  excite  mirth 
than  compassion :  he  himself  laughs  at 
them,  and  his  transitions  from  distress 
to  happiness,  or  at  least  ease,  are  so 
sudden  that  neither  the  reader  has 
time  to  pity  him,  nor  himself  to  be  ac- 
quainted with  affliction.  This  conduct 
.  .  .  prevents  that  generous  indignation 
which  ought  to  animate  the  reader 
against  the  sordid  and  vicious  disposi- 
tion of  the  world.  I  have  attempted 
to  represent  modest  merit  struggling 
with  every  difficulty  to  which  a  friend- 
less orphan  is  exposed  from  his  own 
want  of  experience  as  well  as  from  the 
selfishness,  envy,  malice,  and  base  in- 
difference of  mankind."  *  We  hear  no 
longer  merely  showers  of  blows,  but 
also  knife  and  sword  thrusts,  as  well 
as  pistol  shots.  In  such  a  world,  when 
a  girl  goes  out  she  runs  the  risk  of 
coming  back  a  woman ;  and  when  a 
man  goes  out,  he  runs  the  risk  of  not 
coming  back  at  all.  The  women  bury 
their  nails  in  the  faces  of  the  men ;  the 
well-bred  gentlemen,  like  Peregrine 
Pickle,  whip  other  gentlemen  soundly. 
Having  deceived  a  husband,  who  re- 
fuses to  demand  satisfaction,  Peregrine 
calls  his  two  servants,  "and  ordered 
them  to  duck  him  in  the  canal."  t  Mis- 
represented by  a  curate,  whom  he  has 
horsewhipped,  he  gets  an  innkeeper 
"  to  rain  a  shower  of  blows  upon  his 
(the  parson's)  carcase/'  who  also  "laid 
hold  of  one  of  his  ears  with  his  teeth, 
and  bit  it  unmercifully."!  I  could  quote 
from  memory  a  score  more  of  outrages 
begun  or  completed.  Savage  insults, 
broken  jaws,  men  on  the  ground  beaten 
with  sticks,  the  churlish  sourness  of 
conversations,  the  coarse  brutality  of 

*  Preface  to  Roderick  Random* 
t  Peregrine  Pickle^  ch.  Ix. 
j  Ibid.  ch.  xxix. 


CHAP.  VL] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


475 


jests,  give  an  idea  of  a  pack  of  bull- 
dogs eager  to  fight  each  other,  who, 
when  they  begin  to  get  lively,  still 
rfmuse  themselves  by  tearing  away 
pieces  of  flesh.  A  Frenchman  can 
hardly  endure  the  story  of  Roderick 
Random,  or  rather  that  of  Smollett, 
when  he  is  on  board  a  man-of-war. 
He  is  pressed,  that  is  to  say,  carried 
off  by  force,  knocked  down,  attacked 
with  "  cudgels  and  drawn  cutlasses," 
"pinioned  like  a  malefactor,"  and 
rolled  on  board,  covered  with  blood, 
before  the  sailors,  who  laugh  at  his 
wounds  ;  and  one  of  them,  "  seeing  my 
hair  clotted  together  with  blood,  as  it 
were,  into  distinct  cords,  took  notice 
that  my  bows  were  manned  with  the 
red  ropes,  instead  of  my  side."  *  Rod- 
erick "desired  one  of  his  fellow-cap- 
tives, who  was  unfettered,  to  take  a 
handkerchief  out  of  his  pocket,  and 
tie  it  round  his  head  to  stop  the  bleed- 
ing; he  (the  fellow)  pulled  out  my 
handkerchief,  'tis  true,  but  sold  it  be- 
fore my  face  to  a  bum-boat  woman  for 
a  quart  of  gin."  Captain  Oakum  de- 
clares he  will  have  no  more  sick  in  his 
ship,  ordered  them  to  be  brought  on 
the  quarter-deck,  commanded  that 
some  should  receive  a  round  dozen : 
some  spitting  blood,  others  fainting 
from  weakness,  whilst  not  a  few  be- 
came delirious  ;  many  died,  and  of  the 
sixty-one  sick,  only  a  dozen  remained 
alive. t  To  get  into  this  dark,  suffo- 
cating hospital,  swarming  with  vermin, 
it  is  necessary  to  creep  under  the  close 
hammocks,  and  forcibly  separate  them 
with  the  shoulders,  before  the  doctor 
can  reach  his  patients.  Read  the  story 
of  Miss  Williams,  a  wealthy  young  girl, 
of  good  family,  reduced  to  become  a 
prostitute,  robbed,  hungry,  sick,  shiv- 
ering, strolling  about  the  streets  in  the 
long  winter  nights,  amongst  "  a  num- 
ber of  naked  wretches  reduced  to  rags 
and  filth,  huddled  together  like  swine, 
ir  the  corner  of  a  dark  alley,"  who  de- 
pend "  upon  the  addresses  of  the  lowest 
class,  and  are  fain  to  allay  the  rage  of 
hunger  and  cold  with  gin  ;  degenerate 
into  a  brutal  insensibility,  rot  and  die 
upon  a  dunghill."  \  She  was  thrown 
into  Bridewell,  where,  she  says,  "  in  the 
midst  of  a  hellish  crew  I  was  subjected 

*  Peregrine  Pickle,  ch.  xxiv. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  xxvii.  \  Ibid.  ch.  xxiii. 


to  the  tyranny  of  a  barbarian,  who  im- 
posed upon  me  tasks  that  I  could  not 
possibly  perform,  and  then  punished 
my  incapacity  with  the  utmost  rigor 
and  inhumanity.  I  was  often  whipped 
into  a  swoon,  and  lashed  out  of  it,  dur- 
ing which  miserable  intervals  I  was 
robbed  by  my  fellow-prisoners  of  every 
thing  about  me,  even  to  my  cap,  shoes, 
and  stockings  :  I  was  not  only  destitute 
of  necessaries,  but  even  of  food,  so 
that  my  wretchedness  was  extreme." 
One  night  she  tried  to  hang  herself. 
Two  of  her  fellow-prisoners,  who 
watched  her,  prevented  her.  "  In  the 
morning  my  attempt  was  published 
among  the  prisoners,  and  punished 
with  thirty  stripes,  the  pain  of  which, 
co-operating  with  my  disappointment 
and  disgrace,  bereft  me  of  my  senses, 
and  threw  me  into  an  ecstasy  of  mad- 
ness, during  which  I  tore  the  flesh  from 
my  bones  with  my  teeth,  and  dashed 
my  head  against  the  pavement."  *  In 
vain  we  turn  our  eyes  on  the  hero  of 
the  novel,  Roderick  Random,  to  repose 
a  little  after  such  a  spectacle.  He  is 
sensual  and  coarse,  like  Fielding's  he- 
roes, but  not  good  and  jovial  as  these. 
Pride  and  resentment  are  the  two  prin- 
cipal points  in  his  character.  The  gen- 
erous wine  of  Fielding,  in  Smollett's 
hands  becomes  common  brandy.  His 
heroes  are  selfish  ;  they  revenge  them- 
selves barbarously.  Roderick  oppresses 
the  faithful  Strap,  and  ends  by  marry- 
ing him  to  a  prostitute.  Peregrine 
Pickle  attacks  by  a  most  brutal  and 
cowardly  plot  the  honor  of  a  young 
girl,  whom  he  wants  to  marry,  and  who 
is  the  sister  of  his  best  friend.  We 
get  to  hate  his  rancorous,  concentrated 
obstinate  character,  which  is  at  once 
that  of  an  absolute  king,  accustomed, 
to  please  himself  at  the  expense  of  oth- 
ers' happiness,  and  that  of  a  boor  with 
only  the  varnish  of  education.  We 
should  be  uneasy  at  living  near  him  ; 
he  is  good  for  nothing  but  to  shock  or 
tyrannize  over  others.  We  avoid  him 
as  we  would  a  dangerous  beast  ;  the 
sudden  rush  of  animal  passion  and 
the  force  of  his  firm  will  are  so  over- 
powering in  him,  that  when  he  fails  he 
becomes  outrageous.  He  draws  his 
sword  against  an  innkeeper ;  he  must 
bleed  him,  grows  mad.  Every  thing, 
*Ibid. 


47  6 


even  to  his  generosities,  is  spoilt  by 
pride ;  all,  even  to  his  gayeties,  is 
clouded  by  harshness.  Peregrine's 
amusements  are  barbarous,  and  those 
of  Smollett  are  after  the  same  style. 
He  exaggerates  caricature ;  he  thinks 
to  amuse  us  by  showing  us  mouths  ga- 
ping to  the  ears,  and  noses  half-a-foot 
long  ;  he  magnifies  a  national  prejudice 
or  a  professional  trick  until  it  absorbs 
the  whole  character  ;  he  jumbles  to- 
gether the  most  repulsive  oddities, — a 
Lieutenant  Lismahago  half  roasted  by 
Red  Indians ;  old  jack-tars  who  pass 
their  life  in  shouting  and  travestying 
all  sorts  of  ideas  into  their  nautical  jar- 
gon ;  old  maids  as  ugly  as  monkeys,  as 
fleshless  as  skeletons,  and  as  sour  as 
vinegar ;  eccentric  people  steeped  in 
pedantry,  hypochondria,  misanthropy, 
and  silence.  Far  from  sketching  them 
slightly,  as  Le  Sage  does  in  Gil  Bias, 
he  brings  into  prominent  relief  each 
disagreeable  feature,  overloads  it  with 
details,  without  considering  whether 
they  are  too  numerous,  without  recog- 
nizing that  they  are  excessive,  without 
feeling  that  they  are  odious,  without 
perceiving  that  they  are  disgusting. 
The  public  whom  he" addresses  is  on  a 
level  with  his  energy  and  his  coarseness; 
and  in  order  to  move  such  nerves,  a 
writer  cannot  strike  too  hard.  * 

But,  at  the  same  time,  to  civilize  this 
barbarity  and  to  control  this  violence, 
a  faculty  appears,  common  to  all,  au- 
thors and  public:  serious  reflection 
intent  to  observe  character.  Their 

*  In  Novels  and  Novelists,  by  W.  Forsyth, 
the  author  says,  ch.  v.  159:  "What  is  the 
character  of  most  of  these  books  (novels)  which 
were  to  correct  follies  and  regulate  morality? 
Of  a  great  many  of  them,  and  especially  those 
of  Fielding  and  Smollett,  the  prevailing  fea- 
tures are  grossness  and  licentiousness.  Love 
degenerates  into  a  mere  animal  passion.  .  .  . 
The  language  of  the  characters  abounds  in 
oaths  and  gross  expressions.  .  .  .  The  heroines 
allow  themselves  to  take  part  in  conversations 
which  no  modest  woman  would  have  heard 
without  a  blush.  And  yet  these  novels  were 
the  delight  of  a  bygone  generation,  and  were 
greedily  devoured  by  women  as  well  as  men. 
Are  we  therefore  to  conclude  that  our  great- 
great-grandmothers  .  .  .  were  less  chasie  and 
moral  than  their  female  posterity  ?  I  answer, 
certainly  not ;  but  we  must  infer  that  they  were 
inferior  to  them  in  delicacy  and  refinement. 
They  were  accustomed  to  hear  a  spade  called  a 
*pade,  and  words  which  would  shock  the  more 
fastidious  ear  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria 
were  then  in  common  and  daily  use." — TR. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK   III 


eyes  are  turned  toward  the  inner  man. 
They  note  exactly  the  individual  pecu- 
liarities, and  stamp  them  with  such  a 
precise  mark  that  their  personage  be- 
comes a  type,  which  cannot  be  forgot- 
ten. They  are  psychologists.  The 
title  of  a  comedy  of  old  Ben  Jonson's 
Every  Man  in  his  Humor,  indicates 
how  old  and  national  this  taste  is 
amongst  them.  Smollett  writes  a  whole 
novel,  Humphrey  Clinker,  on  this  idea. 
There  is  no  action  in  it ;  the  book  is  a 
collection  of  letters  written  during  a 
tour  in  Scotland  and  England.  Each 
of  the  travellers,  after  his  bent  of  mind, 
judges  variously  of  the  same  objects. 
A  generous,  grumbling  old  gentleman, 
who  employs  his  spare  time  by  think- 
ing himself  ill,  a  crabbed  old  maid  in 
search  of  a  husband,  a  lady's  maid, 
simple  and  vain,  who  bravely  bungles 
her  spelling  ;  a  series  of  eccentric  peo- 
ple, who  one  after  another  bring  their 
oddities  on  the  scene, — such  are  the 
characters :  the  pleasure  of  the  reader 
consists  in  recognizing  their  humor  in 
their  style,  in  foreseeing  their  follies, 
in  perceiving  the  thread  which  pulls 
each  of  their  motions,  in  verifying  the 
connection  between  their  ideas  and 
their  actions.  When  we  push  this 
study  of  human  peculiarities  to  excess 
we  will  come  upon  the  origin  of  Sterne's 
talent. 

VII. 

Let  us  figure  to  ourselves  a  man  who 
goes  on  a  journey,  with  a  pair  of  mar- 
vellously magnifying  spectacles  on  his 
eyes.  A  hair  on  his  hand,  a  speck  on  a 
table-cloth,  a  fold  of  a  moving  garment, 
will  interest  him  :  at  this  rate  he  will 
not  go  very  far ;  he  will  go  six  steps 
in  a  day,  and  will  not  quit  his  room. 
So  Sterne  writes  four  volumes  to 
record  the  birth  of  his  hero.  He  per- 
ceives the  infinitely  little,  and  describes 
the  imperceptible.  A  man  parts  his 
hair  on  one  side ;  this,  according  to 
Sterne,  depends  on  his  whole  charac- 
ter, which  is  of  a  piece  with  that  of  his 
father,  his  mother,  his  uncle,  and  his 
whole  ancestry;  it  depends  on  the 
structure  of  his  brain,  which  depends 
on  the  circumstances  of  his  conception 
and  his  birth,  and  these  on  the  hobbies 
of  his  parents,  the  humor  of  the  mo- 
ment, the  talk  of  the  preceding  hour 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


477 


the  difficulties  of  the  parson,  a  cut 
thumb,  twenty  knots  made  on  a  bag ; 
1  know  not  how  many  things  besides. 
The  six  or  eight  volumes  of  Tristram 
Shandy  are  employed  in  summing 
them  up ;  for  the  smallest  and  dullest 
incident,  a  sneeze,  a  badly-shaven  beard, 
drags  after  it  an  inextricable  network 
of  inter-involved  causes,  which  from 
above,  below,  right  and  left,  by  invisi- 
ble prolongations  and  ramifications, 
sink  Into  the  depths  of  a  character  and 
in  the  remote  vistas  of  events.  In- 
stead of  extracting,  like  the  novel- 
writers,  the  principal  root,  Sterne,  with 
marvellous  devices  and  success,  devotes 
himself  to  drawing  out  the  tangled 
skein  of  numberless  threads,  which  are 
sinuously  immersed  and  dispersed,  so 
as  to  suck  in  from  all  sides  the  sap  and 
the  life.  Slender,  intertwined,  buried 
as  they  are,  he  finds  them ;  he  extri- 
cates them  without  breaking,  brings 
them  to  the  light,  and  there,  where  we 
fancied  but  a  stalk,  we  see  with  won- 
der the  underground  mass  and  vegeta- 
tion of  the  multiplied  fibres  and  fibrils, 
by  which  the  visible  plant  grows  and 
is  supported. 

This  is  truly  a  strange  talent,  made 
up  of  blindness  and  insight,  which  re- 
sembles those  diseases  of  the  retina  in 
which  the  over-excited  nerve  becomes 
at  once  dull  and  penetrating,  incapable 
of  seeing  what  the  most  ordinary  eyes 
perceive,  capable  of  observing  what 
the  most  piercing  sight  misses.  In 
fact,  Sterne  is  a  sickly  and  eccentric 
humorist,  a  clergyman  and  a  libertine, 
a  fiddler  and  a  philosopher,  who  pre- 
ferred "whining  over  a  dead  ass  to 
relieving  a  living  mother,"  *  selfish  in 
act,  selfish  in  word,  who  in  every  thing 
takes  a  contrary  view  of  himself  and  of 
others.  His  book  is  like  a  great  store- 
house of  articles  of  virtu,  where  curios- 
ities of  all  ages,  kinds,  and  countries 
lie  jumbled  in  a  heap  ;  forms  of  ex- 
communication, medical  consultations, 
passages  of  unknown  or  imaginary  au- 
thors, scraps  of  scholastic  erudition, 
strings  of  absurd  histories,  disserta- 
tions, addresses  to  the  reader.  His 
pen  leads  him  ;  he  has  neither  sequence 
nor  plan  ;  nay,  when  he  lights  upon 
any  thing  orderly,  he  purposely  con- 

*  Byron's  Works,  ed.  Moore,  17  vols.  1832  ; 
Life)  iii.  127,  note. 


torts  it ;  with  a  kick  he  sends  the  pile 
of  folios  next  to  him  over  the  history  he 
has  commenced,  and  dances  on  the  top 
of  them.  He  delights  in  disappointing 
us,  in  sending  us  astray  by  interrup- 
tions and  delays.*  Gravity  displeases 
him,  he  treats  it  as  a  hypocrite :  to  his 
liking  folly  is  better,  and  he  paints 
himself  in  Yorick.  In  a  well-consti- 
tuted mind  ideas  march  one  after  an- 
other, with  uniform  motion  or  accelera- 
tion ;  in  this  odd  brain  they  jump 
about  like  a  rout  of  masks  at  a  carnival, 
in  troops,  each  dragging  his  neighbor 
by  the  feet,  head,  coat,  amidst  the 
most  general  and  unforeseen  hubbub. 
All  his  little  lopped  phrases  are  somer- 
saults ;  we  pant  as  we  read.  The  tone 
is  never  for  two  minutes  the  same  ; 
laughter  comes,  then  the  beginning  of 
emotion,  then  scandal,  then  wonder, 
then  sensibility,  then  laughter  again. 
The  mischievous  joker  pulls  and  en- 
tangles the  threads  of  all  our  feelings, 
and  makes  us  go  hither,  thither,  in 
a  whimsical  manner,  like  puppets. 
Amongst  these  various  threads  there 
are  two  which  he  pulls  more  willingly 
than  the  rest.  Like  all  men  who  have 
nerves,  he  is  subject  to  sensibility  ;  not 
that  he  is  really  kindly  and  tender- 
hearted; on  the  contrary,  his  life  is 
that  of  an  egotist ;  but  on  certain  days 
he  must  needs  weep,  and  he  makes  us 
weep  with  him.  He  is  moved  on  be- 
half of  a  captive  bird,  of  a  poor  ass, 
which,  accustomed  to  blows,  "  looked 
up  pensive,"  and  seemed  to  say,  "  Don't 
thrash  me  with  it  (the  halter)  ;  but  if 
you  will,  you  may."  t  He  will  write 
a  couple  of  pages  on  the  attitude  of 
this  donkey,  and  Priam  at  the  feet  of 
Achilles  was  not  more  touching.  Thus 
in  a  silence,  in  an  oath,  in  the  most 
trifling  domestic  action,  he  hits  upon 
exquisite  refinements  and  little  hero- 
isms, a  variety  of  charming  flowers, 
invisible  to  everybody  else,  which  grow 
in  the  dust  of  the  driest  road.  One 

*  There  is  a  distinct  trace  of  a  spirit  similar 
to  that  which  is  here  sketched,  in  a  select  few 
of  the  English  writers.  Pultock's  Peter  Wil- 
kins  the  Flying  Man,  Amory's  Life  of  John 
Bunde,  and  Southey's  Doctor,  are  instances 
of  this.  Rabelais  is  probably  their  prototype. 
— TR. 

t  Sterne's  Works,  7  vols.,  1783,  3  ;  The  Life 
and  Opinions  of  Tristram  SJtandy,  vii.  ch* 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


478 


day  Uncle  Toby,  the  invalided  captain, 
catches,  after  "  infinite  attempts,"  a  big 
buzzing  fly,  who  has  cruelly  tormented 
him  all  dinner-time  ;  he  gets  up,  crosses 
the  room  on  his  suffering  leg,  and 
opening  the  window,  cries  :  "  Go,  poor 
devil,  get  thee  gone  ;  why  should  I  hurt 
thee  ?  This  world  surely  is  wide 
enough  to  hold  both  thee  and  me."* 
This  womanish  sensibility  is  too  fine  to 
be  described ;  we  should  have  to  give 
a  whole  story — that  of  Lefevre,  for  in- 
stance— that  the  perfume  might  be 
inhaled ;  this  perfume  evaporates  as 
soon  as  we  touch  it,  and  is  like  the 
weak  fleeting  odor  of  flowers,  brought 
for  one  moment  into  a  sick-chamber. 
What  still  more  increases  this  sad 
sweetness  is  the  contrast  of  the  free 
aiid  easy  waggeries  which,  like  a  hedge 
of  nettles,  encircles  them  on  all  sides. 
Sterne,  like  all  men  whose  mechanism  is 
over-excited,  has  odd  desires.  He  loves 
the  nude,  not  from  a  feeling  of  the  beau- 
tiful, and  in  the  manner  of  painters,  not 
from  sensuality  and  frankness  like 
Fielding,  not  from  a  search  after  pleas- 
ure like  Dorat,  Boufflers,  and  all  those 
refined  epicures,  who  at  that  time  were 
rhyming  and  enjoying  themselves  in 
France.  If  he  goes  into  dirty  places, 
it  is  because  they  are  forbidden  and 
not  frequented.  What  he  seeks  there 
is  singularity  and  scandal.  The  allure- 
ment of  this  forbidden  fruit  is  not  the 
fruit,  but  the  prohibition  ;  for  he  bites 
by  preference  where  the  fruit  is  half 
rotten  or  worm-eaten.  That  an  epi- 
curean delights  in  detailing  the  pretty 
sins  of  a  pretty  woman"  is  nothing 
wonderful ;  but  that  a  novelist  takes 
pleasure  in  watching  the  bedroom  of  a 
musty,  fusty  old  couple,  in  observing 
the  consequences  of  the  fall  of  a  burn- 
ing chestnut  in  a  pair  of  breeches,!  in 
detailing  the  questions  of  Mrs.  Wad- 
man  on  the  consequences  of  wounds  in 
the  groin. \  can  only  be  explained  by 
the  aberration  of  a  perverted  fancy, 
which  finds  its  amusement  in  repug- 
nant ideas,  as  spoiled  palates  are 
pleased  by  the  pungent  flavor  of  de- 
cayed cheese.  §  Thus,  to  read  Sterne 

*  Sterne's  Works,  7  vols.,  1783,  3  ;  The  Life 
and  Opinions  of  Tristram  Shandy,  i,  ii.  ch. 
tii.  t  Tristram  Shandy^  2,  iv.  ch.  xxvii. 

\  Ibid.  3,  ix.  ch.  xx. 

§  Sterne,  Goldsmith,  Burke,  Sheridan, 
Moore,  have  a  tone  of  their  own,  which  comes 


[BOOK  III 


we  should  wait  for  days  when  we  are  in 
a  peculiar  kind  of  humor,  days  of 
spleen,  rain,  or  when  through  nervous 
irritation  we  are  disgusted  with  ration- 
ality. In  fact  his  characters  are  as  un- 
reasonable as  himself.  He  sees  in 
man  nothing  but  fancy,  and  what  he 
calls  the  hobby-horse — Uncle  Toby's 
taste  for  fortifications,  Mr.  Shandy's 
fancy  for  oratorical  tirades  and  philo- 
sophical systems.  This  hobby-horse, 
according  to  him,  is  like  a  wart,  so 
small  at  first  that  we  hardly  perceive 
it,  and  only  when  it  is  in  a  strong 
light ;  but  it  gradually  increases,  be- 
comes covered  with  hairs,  grows  red, 
and  buds  out  all  around  :  its  possessor, 
who  is  pleased  with  and  admires  it, 
nourishes  it,  until  at  last  it  is  changed 
into  a  vast  wen,  and  the  whole  face 
disappears  under  the  invasion  of  the 
parasite  excrescence.  No  one  has 
equalled  Sterne  in  the  history  of  these 
human  hypertrophies ;  he  puts  down 
the  seed,  feeds  it  gradually,  makes  the 
propagating  threads  creep  round  about, 
shows  the  little  veins  and  microscopic 
arteries  which  inosculate  within,  counts 
the  palpitations  of  the  blood  which 
passes  through  them,  explains  their 
changes  of  color  and  increase  of  bulk. 
Psychological  observation  attains  here 
one  of  its  extreme  developments.  A 
far  advanced  art  is  necessary  to  de- 
scribe, beyond  the  confines  of  regularity 
and  health,  the  exception  or  the  degen- 
eration ;  and  the  English  novel  is  com- 
pleted here  by  adding  to  the  represent- 
ation of  form  the  picture  of  malforma- 
tions. 

VIII. 

The  moment  approaches  when  puri- 
fied manners  will,  by  purifying  the 
novel,  give  it  its  final  impress  and 
character.  Of  the  two  great  tenden- 
cies manifested  by  it,  native  brutality 
and  intense  reflection,  one  at  last 
conquers  the  other ;  when  literature 

from  their  blood,  or  from  tHeir  proximate  or 
distant  parentage — the  Irish  tone.  So  Hume, 
Robertson,  Smollett,  Scott,  Burns,  Beattie, 
Reid,  D.  Stewart,  and  others,  have  the  Scot- 
tish tone.  In  the  Irish  or  Celtic  tone  we  find 
an  excess  of  chivalry,  sensuality,  expansion  ; 
in  short,  a  mind  leso  equally  balanced,  more 
sympathetic  and  less  practical.  The  Scotsman, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  an  Englishman,  either 
slightly  refined  or  narrowed,  because  he  hat 
suffered  more  and  fasted  more. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


479 


became  severe  it  expelled  from  fiction 
the  coarseness  of  Smollett  and  the 
indecencies  of  Sterne  ;  and  the  novel, 
in  every  respect  moral,  before  falling 
into  the  almost  prudish  hands  of  Miss 
Burney,  passes  into  the  noble  hands  of 
Goldsmith.  His  Vicar  of  Wakefield  is 
"  a  prose  idyl/'  somewhat  spoilt  by 
phrases  too  rhetorical,  but  at  bottom 
as  homely  as  a  Flemish  picture.  Ob- 
serve in  Terburg's  or  Mieris'  paintings 
a  woman  at  market  or  a  burgomaster 
emptying  his  long  glass  of  beer  :  the 
faces  are  vulgar,  the  ingenuousness  is 
comical,  the  cookery  occupies  the  place 
of  honor ;  yet  these  good  folks  are  so 
peaceful,  so  contented  with  their  small 
ordinary  happiness,  that  we  envy  them. 
The  impression  left  by  Goldsmith's 
book  is  pretty  much  the  same.  The 
excellent  Dr.  Primrose  is  a  country 
clergyman,  the  whole  of  whose  adven- 
tures have  for  a  long  time  consisted  in 
"  migrations  from  the  blue  bed  to  the 
brown."  He  has  cousins,  "  even  to  the 
fortieth  remove,"  who  come  to  eat  his 
dinner  and  sometimes  to  borrow  a  pair 
of  boots.  His  wife,  who  has  all  the 
education  of  the  time,  is  a  perfect  cook, 
can  almost  read,  excels  in  pickling  and 
preserving,  and  at  dinner  gives  the 
history  of  every  dish.  His  daughters 
aspire  to  elegance  and  even  "  make  a 
wash  for  the  face  over  the  fire."  His 
son  Moses  gets  cheated  at  the  fair,  and 
sells  a  colt  for  a  gross  of  green  spec- 
tacles. Dr.  Primrose  himself  writes 
pamphlets,  which  no  one  buys,  against 
second  marriages  of  the  clergy  ;  writes 
beforehand  in  his  wife's  epitaph,  though 
she  was  still  living,  that  she  was  "  the 
only  wife  of  Dr.  Primrose,"  and  by  way 
of  encouragement,  places  this  piece 
of  eloquence  in  an  elegant  frame  over 
the  chimney-piece.  But  the  household 
continues  the  even  tenor  of  its  way; 
the  daughters  and  the  mother  slightly 
domineer  over  the  father  of  the  family; 
he  lets  them  do  so,  because  he  is  an 
easy-going  man  ;  now  and  again  fires 
off  an  innocent  jest,  and  busies  himself 
in  his  new  farm,  with  his  two  horses, 
wall-eyed  Blackberry  and  the  other 
without  a  tail  :  "  Nothing  could  ex- 
ceed the  nea  ness  of  my  enclosures, 
the  elms  and  hedge-rows  appearing 
with  inexpressible  beauty.  .  .  .  Our 
little  habitation  was  situated  at  the 


foot  of  a  sloping  hill,  sheltered  with  a 
beautiful  underwood  behind,  and  a. 
prattling  river  before ;  on  one  side  a 
meadow,  on  the  other  a  green.  .  .  . 
(It)  consisted  but  of  one  storey,  and 
w^as  covered  with  thatch,  which  gave  it 
an  air  of  great  snugness  ;  the  walls  on 
the  inside  were  nicely  whitewashed. 
.  .  .  Though  the  same  room  served  us 
for  parlor  and  kitchen,  that  only  made 
it  the  warmer.  Besides,  as  it  was  kept 
with  the  utmost  neatness,  the  dishes, 
plates,  and  coppers,  being  well  scoured} 
and  all  disposed  in  bright  rows  on  the 
shelves,  the  eye  was  agreeably  relieved, 
and  did  not  want  richer  furniture."  * 
They  make  hay  all  together,  sit  under 
the  honeysuckle  to  drink  a  bottle  of 
gooseberry  wine  ;  the  girls  sing,  the 
two  little  ones  read ;  and  the  parents 
"  would  stroll  down  the  sloping  field, 
that  was  embellished  with  blue  bells 
and  centaury  :  "  "  But  let  us  have  one 
bottle  more,  Deborah,  my  life,  and 
Moses,  give  us  a  good  song.  What 
thanks  do  we  not  owe  to  heaven  for 
thus  bestowing  tranquillity,  health,  and 
competence !  I  think  myself  happier 
now  than  the  greatest  monarch  upon 
earth.  He  has  no  such  fireside,  nor 
such  pleasant  faces  about  it."  t 

Such  is  moral  happiness.  Their 
misfortune  is  no  less  moral.  The  poor 
vicar  has  lost  his  fortune,  and,  remov- 
ing to  a  small  living,  turns  farmer. 
The  squire  of  the  neighborhood  se- 
duces and  carries  off  his  eldest  daugh- 
ter; his  house  takes  fire  ;  his  arm  was 
burnt  in  a  terrible  manner  in  saving 
his  two  little  children.  He  is  put  in 
prison  for  debt,  amongst  wretches  and 
rogues,  who  swear  and  blaspheme,  in 
a  vile  atmosphere,  sleeping  on  straw, 
feeling  that  his  illness  increases,  fore- 
seeing that  his  family  will  soon  be 
without  bread,  learning  that  his  daugh- 
ter is  dying.  Yet  he  does  not  give 
way:  he  remains  a  priest  and  the  head 
of  a  family,  prescribes  to  each  of  them 
his  duty;  encourages,  consoles,  pro- 
vides for,  orders,  preaches  to  the  pris- 
oners, endures  their  coarse  jests,  re- 
forms them  ;  establishes  in  the  prison 
useful  work,  and  "  institutes  fines  for 
punishment  and  rewards  for  industry." 
It  is  not  hardness  of  heart  nor  a  mo 

*  The  ^icar  of  Wakefield,  ch.  iv. 
t  Ibid.  ch.  xvii. 


480 

rose  temperament  which  gives  him 
strength;  he  has  the  most  paternal 
soul,  the  most  sociable,  humane,  open 
to  gentle  emotions  and  familiar  tender- 
ness. He  says:  "I  have  no  resent- 
ment now;  and  though  he  (the  squire) 
has  taken  from  me  what  I  held  dearer 
than  all  his  treasures,  though  he  has 
wrung  my  heart  (for  I  am  sick  almost 
to  fainting,  very  sick,  my  fellow-pris- 
oner), yet  that  shall  never  inspire  me 
with  vengeance.  ...  If  this  (rny)  sub- 
mission can  do  him  any  pleasure,  let 
him  know,  that  if  I  have  done  him  any 
injury,  I  am  sorry  for  it.  ...  I  should 
detest  my  own  heart,  if  I  saw  either 
pride  or  resentment  lurking  there.  On 
the  contrary,  as  my  oppressor  has  been 
once  my  parishioner,  I  hope  one  day 
to  present  him  up  an  unpolluted  soul 
at  the  eternal  tribunal."  *  But  the 
hard-hearted  squire  haughtily  repulses 
the  noble  application  of  the  vicar,  and 
in  addition  causes  his  second  daughter 
to  be  carried  off,  and  the  eldest  son  to 
be  thrown  into  prison  under  a  false 
accusation  of  murder.  At  this  mo- 
ment all  the  affections  of  the  father 
are  wounded,  all  his  consolations  lost, 
all  his  hopes  ruined.  "  His  heart 
weeps  to  behold  "  all  this  misery,  he 
was  going  to  curse  the  cause  of  it  all ; 
but  soon,  returning  to  his  profession 
and  his  duty,  he  thinks  how  he  will 
prepare  to  fit  his  son  and  himself  for 
eternity,  and  by  way  of  being  useful  to 
as  many  people  as  he  can,  he  wishes 
at  the  same  time  to  exhort  his  fellow- 
prisoners.  He  "made  an  effort  to 
rise  on  the  straw,  but  wanted  strength, 
and  was  able  only  to  recline  against 
the  wall ;  my  son  and  his  mother  sup- 
ported me  on  either  side."  t  In  this  con- 
dition he  speaks,  and  his  sermon,  con- 
trasting with  his  condition,  is  the  more 
moving.  It  is  a  dissertation  in  the  Eng- 
lish style,  made  up  of  close  reasoning, 
seeking  only  to  establish  that  "  Prov- 
idence has  given  to  the  wretched  two 
advantages  over  the  happy  in  this 
life,"  greater  felicity  in  dying ;  and  in 
heaven  all  that  superiority  of  pleasure 
which  arises  from  contrasted  enjoy- 
ments. J  We  see  the  sources  of  this 
virtue,  born  of  Christianity  and  natural 
kindness,  but  long  nourished  by  inner 

*  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  ch.  xxviii. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  xxviii.  \  Ibid.  ch.  xxix. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


reflection.  Meditation,  which  usually 
produces  only  phrases,  results  with  Dr. 
Primrose  in  actions.  Verily  reason 
has  here  taken  the  helm,  and  it  has 
taken  it  without  oppressing  other  feel- 
ings;  a  rare  and  eloquent  spectacle, 
which,  uniting  and  harmonizing  in  one 
character  the  best  features  of  the  man- 
ners and  morals  of  that  time  and 
country,  creates  an  admiration  and  love 
for  pious  and  orderly,  domestic  and 
disciplined,  laborious  and  rural  life. 
Protestant  and  English  virtue  has  not 
a  more  approved  and  amiable  exemp- 
lar. Religious,  affectionate,  rational, 
the  Vicar  unites  predilections  which 
seemed  irreconcilable  ;  a  clergyman,  a 
farmer,  a  head  of  a  family,  he  enhances 
those  characters  which  appeared  fit 
only  for  comic  or  homely  parts. 

IX. 

We  now  come  upon  a  strange  char- 
acter, the  most  esteemed  of  his  time, 
a  sort  of  literary  dictator.  Richardson 
was  his  friend,  and  gave  him  essays  for 
his  paper ;  Goldsmith,  with  an  artless 
vanity,  admires  him,  whilst  suffering  to 
be  continually  outshone  by  him  ;  Miss 
Burney  imitates  his  style,  and  reveres 
him  as  a  father.  Gibbon  the  historian, 
Reynolds  the  painter,  Garrick  the  ac- 
tor, Burke  the  orator,  Sir  William 
Jones  the  Orientalist,  come  to  his 
club  to  converse  with  him.  Lord  Ches- 
terfield, who  had  lost  his  favor,  vainly 
tried  to  regain  it  by  proposing  to  as- 
sign to  him,  on  every  word  in  the  lan- 
guage, the  authority  of  a  dictator.* 
Boswell  dogs  his  steps,  sets  down  his 
opinions,  and  at  night  fills  quartos 
with  them.  His  criticism  becomes 
law  ;  men  crowd  to  hear  him  talk  ;  he 
is  the  arbiter  of  style.  Let  us  transport 
in  imagination  this  ruler  of  mind,  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson,  into  France,  among 
the  pretty  drawing-rooms,  full  of  ele- 
gant philosophers  and  epicurean  man- 
ners ;  the  violence  of  the  contrast  will 
mark  better  than  all  argument  the  bent 
and  predilections  of  the  English  mind. 

There  appears  then  before  us  a  man 
whose  "  person  was  large,  robust,  ap- 
proaching to  the  gigantic,  and  grown 

*  See,  in  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  ed. 
Croker,  1853,  ch.  v.i.  p.  85,  Chesterfield's  com- 
plimentary paper  on  Johnson's  Dictionary^ 
printed  in  the  World* 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


481 


unwieldy  from  corpulency,"*   with   a 
gloomy  and  unpolished  air,  "  his  coun- 
tenance disfigured  by  the  king's  evil/' 
and  blinking  with  one  of  his  eyes,  "in 
a  full  suit  of  plain  brown  clothes,"  and 
with  not  overclean  linen,  suffering  from 
morbid  melancholy  since  his  birth,  and 
moreover  a  hypochondriac,  t     In  com- 
pany he  would  sometimes  retire  to  a 
window  or  corner  of  a  room,  and  mut- 
ter a  Latin  verse    or  a  prayer.  \     At 
other  times,  in  a  recess,  he  would  roll 
his  head,  sway  his  body  backward  and 
forward,  stretch  out  and  then  convul- 
sively draw  back  his  leg.     His  biogra- 
pher relates  that  it  "  was  his   constant 
anxious  care  to  go  out  or  in  at  a  door 
or  passage,  ...  so  as  that  either  his 
right  or  his  left  foot  should  constantly 
make  the  first  actual   movement ;  .  .  . 
when  he  had  neglected  or  gone  wrong 
in   this  sort  of  magical  movement,  I 
have  seen  him  go  back  again,  put  him- 
self in  the  proper  posture  to  begin  the 
ceremony,  and  having  gone  through  it, 
walk  briskly  on  and  join  his   compan- 
ion/^     People   are  sitting   at   table, 
when  suddenly,  in  a  moment  of  abstrac- 
tion, he  stoops,  and  clenching  hold  of 
the  foot  of  a  lady,  draws  off  her  shoe.]) 
Hardly  is  the  dinner  served  when  he 
darts  on  the  food;  "his  looks   seemed 
rivetted  to  his  plate  ;  nor  would  he,  un- 
less when  in  very  high  company,  say 
one  word,  or  even  pay  the  least  atten- 
tion to  what  was  said  by  others ;  (he) 
indulged  with  such  intenseness,  that, 
while  in  the  act  of  eating,  the  veins  of 
his  forehead  swelled,  and  generally  a 
strong  perspiration  was  visible."  If     If 
by  chance  the   hare  was  high,  or  the 
pie  had  been  made  with  rancid  butter, 
he  no  longer  ate,  but  devoured.    When 
at  last  his   appetite   was  satisfied,  and 
he  consented  to  speak,   he  disputed, 
shouted,  made  a  sparring  match  of  his 
conversation,  triumphed  no  matter  how, 
»aid   down    his   opinion   dogmatically, 
and  ill-treated  those  whom  he  was  re- 
futing.    "  Sir,  I  perceive  you  are  a  vile 
Whig."  **     "  My  dear  lady   (to  Mrs. 
*  See,   in    Boswell's   Life   of  Johnson,  ed. 
Croker,  1853,  ch.  xxx.  269,  Chesterfield's  com- 
plimentary paper    on   Johnson's  Dictionary, 
printed  in  the  World. 

t  Life  of  Johnson,  ch.  iii.  14  and  15. 

T  Ibid.  ch.  xviii.  165,  n.  4, 

§  Ibid.  ch.  xviii.  166. 

I!  Ibid.  ch.  xlviii.  439,  n.  3. 

\  Ibid.  ch.  xvii.  159.    **  Ibid.  ch.  xxvi.  236. 


Thrale),  talk  no  more  of  this  ;  non&ense 
can  be  defended  but  by  nonsense."* 
"  One  thing  I  know,  which  you  don't 
seem  to  know,  that  you  are  very  un- 
civil." t  "  In  the  intervals  of  articu- 
lating he  made  various  sounds  with  his 
mouth,  sometimes  as  if  ruminating, 
.  .  .  sometimes  giving  a  half  whistle, 
sometimes  making  his  tongue  play  back- 
wards from  the  roof  of  his  mouth,  as 
if  clucking  like  a  hen.  .  .  .  Generally, 
when  he  had  concluded  a  period,  in  the 
course  of  a  dispute,  ...  he  used  to 
blow  out  his  breath  like  a  whale,"  J  and 
swallow  several  cups  of  tea. 

Then  in  a  low  voice,  cautiously,  men 
would  ask  Garrick  or  Boswell  the  his- 
tory and  habits  of  this  strange  being. 
He  had  lived  like  a  cynic  and  an  eccen- 
tric, having  passed  his  youth  reading 
miscellaneously,  especially  Latin  folios, 
even  those  least  known,  such  as  Ma- 
crobius  ;  he  had  found  on  a  shelf  in  his 
father's  shop  the  Latin  works  of  Pe- 
trarch,whilst  he  was  looking  for  apples, 
and  had  read  them  ;  §  "  he  published 
proposals  for  printing  by  subscription 
the  Latin  poems  of  Politian."  ||  At 
twenty-five  he  had  married  for  love  a 
woman  of  about  fifty,  "  very  fat,  with 
swelled  cheeks,  of  a  florid  red,  produced 
by  thick  painting,  flaring  and  fantastic 
in  her  dress,"  1[  and  who  had  children  as 
old  as  himself.  Having  come  to  Lon- 
don to  earn  his  bread,  some  people,  see- 
ing his  convulsive  grimaces,  took  him 
for  an  idiot ;  others,  seeing  his  robust 
frame,  advised  him  to  buy  a  porter's 
knot.**  For  thirty  years  he  worked 
like  a  hack  for  the  publishers,  whom 
he  used  to  thrash  when  they  became 
impertinent ;  ft  always  shabby,  having 
once  fasted  two  days  ;  J  J  content  when 
he  could  dine  on  "  a  cut  of  meat  for 
sixpence,  and  bread  for  a  penny  ;  "  §§ 
having  written  Rassdas  in  eight  nights, 
to  pay  for  his  mother's  funeral.  Now 
pensioned  ||  ||  by  the  king,  freed  from 

*  Ibid.  ch.  xxii.  201.     t  Ibid.  ch.  Ixviii.  628. 

$  Ibid.  ch.  xviii.  166.         §  Ibid.  ch.  ii.  12. 

||  Ibid.  ch.  iv.  22.  H  Ibid.  ch.  iv.  26. 

**Ibid.  ch.  v.  28,  note  2.      tt  Ib id.  ch .  vii.  46. 

U  Ibid.  ch.  xvii.  159.  §§  Ibid.  ch.  v.  28. 

Illl  He  had  formerly  put  in  his  Dictionary 
:he  following  definition  of  the  word  pension  : 
'•'•Pension — an  allowance  made  to  any  one 
without  an  equivalent.  In  England  it  is  gen- 
erally understood  to  mean  pay  given  to  a  stnte- 
lireling  for  treason  to  his  country.''  This 
irew  of  course  afterwards  all  the  sarcasms  of 
his  adversaries  upon  himself. 
21 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


his  daily  labois,  he  gave  way  to  his 
natural  indolence,  lying  in  bed  often 
till  mid-day  and  after.  He  is  visited 
at  that  hour.  We  mount  the  stairs  of 
a  gloomy  house  on  the  north  side  of 
Fleet  Street,  the  busy  quarter  of  Lon- 
don, in  a  narrow  and  obscure  court ; 
and  as  we  enter,  we  hear  the  scoldings 
of  four  old  women  and  an  old  quack 
doctor,  poor  penniless  creatures,  bad 
in  health  and  in  disposition,  whom  he 
has  rescued,  whom  he  supports,  who 
vex  or  insult  him.  We  ask  for  the 
doctor,  a  negro  opens  the  door ;  we 
gather  round  the  master's  bed ;  there 
are  always  many  distinguished  people 
at  his  levee,  including  even  ladies. 
Thus  surrounded,  "he  declaims,  then 
went  to  dinner  at  a  tavern,  where  he 
commonly  stays  late,"  *  talks  all  the 
evening,  goes  out  to  enjoy  in  the  streets 
the  London  IT 'id  and  fog,  picks  up  a 
friend  to  talk  again,  and  is  busy  pro- 
nouncing oracles  and  maintaining  his 
opinion  till  four  in  the  morning. 

Whereupon  we  ask  if  it  is  the  free- 
dom of  his  opinions  which  is  fascina- 
ting. His  friends  answer,  that  there  is 
no  more  indomitable  partisan  of  order. 
He  is  called  the  Hercules  of  Toryism. 
From  infancy  he  detested  the  Whigs, 
and  he  never  spoke  of  them  but  as 
public  malefactors.  He  insults  them 
even  in  his  Dictionary.  He  exalts 
Charles  the  Second  and  James  the 
Second  as  two  of  the  best  kings  who 
have  ever  reigned. t  He  justifies  the 
arbitrary  taxes  which  Government  pre- 
sumes to  levy  on  the  Americans.  \  He 
declares  that  "  Whiggism  is  a  negation 
of  all  principle  ;  "  §  that  "  the  first  Whig 
was  the  devil ;  "  ||  that  "  the  Crown  has 
not  power  enough ;  "  f  that  "  mankind 
are  happier  in  a  state  of  inequality  and 
subordination."  **  Frenchmen  of  the 
present  time,  admirers  of  the  Contrat 
Social,  soon  feel,  on  reading  or  hearing 
all  this,  that  they  are  no  longer  in 
France.  And  what  must  they  feel  when 
a  few  moments  later  the  Doctor  says  : 
"  I  think  him  (Rousseau)  one  of  the 
worst  of  men  ;  a  rascal  who  ought  to  be 
hunted  out  of  society,  as  he  has  been. 

*  Boswell's  Life,  ch.  xxiv.  216. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  xlix.  444. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  xlviii.  435.   §  Ibid.  ch.  xvi.  148. 

II  Ibid.  ch.  Ixvi.  606.   If  Ibid.  ch.  xxvi.  236. 

**  Ibid.  ch.  xxviii.  252. 


...  I  would  sooner  sign  a  sentence 
for  his  transportation,  than  that  of  any 
felon  who  has  gone  from  the  Old  Bai- 
ley these  many  years.  Yes,  I  should 
like  to  have  him  work  in  the  planta- 
tions." *  .... 

It  seems  that  in  England  people  do 
not  like  philosophical  innovators.  Let 
us  see  if  Voltaire  will  be  treated  better : 
"  It  is  difficult  to  settle  the  proportion 
of  iniquity  between  them  (Rousseau 
and  Voltaire)."  t  In  good  sooth,  this 
is  clear.  But  can  we  not  look  for  truth 
outside  an  Established  Church  ?  No ; 
"  no  honest  man  could  be  a  Deist ;  for 
no  man  could  be  so  after  a  fair  exami- 
nation of  the  proofs  of  Christianity."  J 
Here  is  a  peremptory  Christian;  there 
are  scarcely  any  in  France  so  decisive. 
Moreover,  he  is  an  Anglican,  with  a 
passion  for  the  hierarchy,  an  admirer 
of  established  order,  an  enemy  of  Dis- 
senters. We  see  him  bow  to  an  arch- 
bishop with  peculiar  veneration. §  We 
hear  him  reprove  one  of  his  friends 
"  for  saying  grace  without  mention  of 
the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  |j 
If  we  speak  to  him  of  a  Quaker's  meet- 
ing, and  of  a  woman  preaching,  he  will 
tell  us  that  "  a  woman  preaching  is  like 
a  dog's  walking  on  his  hind  legs  ;  it  is 
not  done  well,  but  you  are  surprised  to 
find  it  done  at  all."  If  He  is  a  Conser- 
vative, and  does  not  fear  being  con- 
sidered antiquated.  He  went  at  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning  into  St.  John's 
Church,  Clerkenwell,  to  interrogate  a 
tormented  spirit,  which  had  promised 
to  "  give  a  token  of  her  presence  there 
by  a  knock  upon  her  coffin."  **  If  we 
look  at  Boswell's  life  of  him,  we  will 
find  there  fervent  prayers,  examinations 
of  conscience,  and  rules  of  conduct. 
Amidst  prejudices  and  ridicule  he  has 
a  deep  conviction,  an  active  faith,  a 
severe  moral  piety.  He  is  a  Christian 
from  his  heart  and  conscience,  reason 
and  practice.  The  thought  of  God,  the 
fear  of  the  last  judgment,  engross  and 
reform  him.  He  said  one  day  to  Gar- 
rick  :  "  I'll  come  no  more  behind  your 
scenes,  David,  for  the  silk  stockings 
and  white  bosoms  of  your  actresses 

*  Ibid,  ch.  xix.  175. 

t  Ib id.  ch.  xix.  176.  %  Ibid.  ch.  xix.  174, 

§  Ibid.  ch.  Ixxy.  723.      ||  Ibid.  ch.  xxiv.  218. 

If  Ibid.  ch.  xvii.  157. 

**  Ibid.  ch.  xv.  138,  note  3. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


excite  my  amorous  propensities."  He 
reproaches  himself  with  his  indolence, 
implores  God's  pardon,  is  humble,  has 
scruples.  All  this  is  very  strange.  We 
ask  men  what  can  please  them  in  this 
grumbling  bear,  with  the  manners  of  a 
beadle  and  the  inclinations  of  a  con- 
stable ?  They  answer,  that  in  London 
people  are  less  exacting  than  in  Paris, 
as  to  manners  and  politeness ;  that  in 
England  they  allow  energy  to  be  rude 
and  virtue  odd  ;  that  they  put  up  with 
a  combative  conversation  ;  that  public 
opinion  is  all  on  the  side  of  the  consti- 
tution and  Christianity ;  and  that  so- 
ciety was  right  to  take  for  its  master  a 
man  who,  by  his  style  and  precepts, 
best  suited  its  bent. 

We  now  send  for  his  books,  and 
after  an  hour  we  observe,  that  whatever 
the  work  be,  tragedy  or  dictionary, 
biography  or  essay,  he  always  writes  in 
the  same  style.  '*  Dr.  Johnson,''  Gold- 
smith said  one  day  to  him,  "  if  you 
were  to  make  little  fishes  talk,  they 
would  talk  like  whales."  *  In  fact,  his 
phraseology  rolls  ever  in  solemn  and 
majestic  periods,  in  which  every  sub- 
stantive marches  ceremoniously,  ac- 
companied by  its  epithet ;  grand,  pom- 
pous words  peal  like  an  organ  ;  every 
proposition  is  set  forth  balanced  by  a 
proposition  of  equal  length  ;  thought 
is  developed  with  the  compassed  reg- 
ularity and  official  splendor  of  a  pro- 
cession. Classical  prose  attains  its 
perfection  in  him,  as  classical  poetry 
in  Pope.  Art  cannot  be  more  finished, 
or  nature  more  forced.  No  one  has 
confined  ideas  in  more  strait  compart- 
ments ;  none  has  given  stronger  relief 
to  dissertation  and  proof ;  none  has 
imposed  more  despotically  on  story  and 
dialogue  the  forms  of  argumentation 
and  violent  declamation  ;  none  has 
more  generally  mutilated  the  flowing 
liberty  of  conversation  and  life  by  an- 
titheses and  technical  words.  It  is  the 
completion  and  the  excess,  the  triumph 
\nd  the  tyranny  of  oratorical  style.t 
We  understand  now  that  an  oratorical 

*  Boswell's  Life,  ch.  xxviii.  256. 

t  Here  is  a  celebrated  phrase,  which  will 
give  some  idea  of  his  style  (Boswell's  Journal, 
ch.  xlni.  381):  "We  were  now  treading  that 
illustrious  island,  which  was  once  the  luminary 
of  the  Caledonian  regions,  whence  savage  clans 
and  roving  barbarians  derived  the  benefits  of 
knowledge  and  the  blessings  of  religion.  To 


age  would  recognize  him  as  a  master 
and  attribute  to  him  in  eloquence  the 
mastery  which  it  attributed  to  Pope  in 
verse. 

We  wish  to  know  what  ideas  have 
made  him  popular.  Here  the  astonish- 
ment of  a  Frenchman  redoubles.  We 
vainly  turn  over  the  pages  of  his  Dic- 
tionary, his  eight  volumes  of  essays, 
his  many  volumes  of  biographies,  his 
numberless  articles,  his  conversation 
so  carefully  collected  ;  we  yawn.  His 
truths  are  too  true  ;  we  already  know 
his  precepts  by  heart.  We  learn  from 
him  that  life  is  short,  and  we  ought  to 
improve  the  few  moments  granted  to 
us ;  *  that  a  mother  ought  not  to  bring 
up  her  son  as  a  fop  ;  that  a  man  ought 
to  repent  of  his  faults,  and  yet  avoid 
superstition;  that  in  every  thing  we 
ought  to  be  active,  and  not  hurried. 
We  thank  him  for  these  ^ age  counsels, 
but  we  mutter  to  ourselves  that  we 
could  have  done  very  well  without 
them.  We  should  like  to  know  who 
could  have  been  the  lovers  of  ennui 
who  have  bought  up  thirteen  thousand 
copies  of  his  works.  We  then  remem- 
ber that  sermons  are  liked  in  England, 
and  that  these  Essays  are  sermons. 
We  discover  that  men  of  reflection  do 
not  need  bold  or  striking  ideas,  but 
palpable  and  profitable  truths.  They 
desire  to  be  furnished  with  a  useful 
provision  of  authentic  examples  on  man 
and  his  existence,  and  demand  nothing 
more.  No  matter  if  the  idea  is  vulgar ; 
meat  and  bread  are  vulgar  too,  and  are 
no  less  good.  They  wish  to  be  taught 
the  kinds  and  degrees  of  happiness  and 
unhappiness,  the  varieties  and  results  of 
character  and  condition,  the  advantages 
and  inconveniences  of  town  and  coun- 
try, knowledge  and  ignorance,  wealth 
and  moderate  circumstances,  because 
they  are  moralists  and  utilitarians  ;  be- 
cause they  look  in  a  book  for  the  knowl- 
edge to  turn  them  from  folly,  and 

abstract  the  mind  from  all  local  emotion  would 
be  impossible  if  it  were  endeavoured,  and 
would  be  foolish  if  it  were  possible.  .  .  .Far 
from  me  and  from  my  friends  be  such  frigid 
philosophy  as  may  conduct  us  indifferent  and 
unmoved  over  any  ground  which  has  been  dig- 
nified by  wisdom,  bravery,  or  virtue.  That 
man  is  little  to  be  envied,  whose  patriotism 
would  not  gain  force  upon  the  plain  cf  Mara- 
thon, or  whose  piety  would  not  grow  warmer 
among  the  ruins  of  lona." 

*  Rambler,  108,  109,  no,  in. 


484 


SHE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III. 


motives  to  Cuvifirm  the..i  in  upright- 
ness ;  because  they  cultivate  in  them- 
selves sense,  that  is  common,  practical 
reason.  A  little  fiction,  a  few  portraits, 
the  least  amount  of  amusement,  will 
suffice  to  adorn  it.  This  substantial 
food  only  needs  a  very  simple  seasoning. 
It  is  not  the  novelty  of  the  dishes,  nor 
dainty  cookery,  but  solidity  and  whole- 
someness,  which  they  seek.  For  this 
reason  Essays  are  Johnson's  national 
food.  It  is  because  they  are  insipid 
and  dull  for  Frenchmen  that  they  suit 
the  taste  of  an  Englishman.  We  un- 
derstand now  why  they  take  for  a  fa- 
vorite the  respectable,  the  tiresome 
Dr.  Samuel  Johnson. 


X. 

I  would  fain  bring  together  all  these 
features,  see  these  figures  ;  only  colors 
and  forms  complete  an  idea  ;  in  order 
to  know,  we  must  see.  Let  us  go  to 
the  picture-gallery.  Hogarth,  the  na- 
tional painter,  the  friend  of  Fielding, 
the  contemporary  of  Johnson,  the  exact 
imitator  of  manners,  will  show  us  the 
outward,  as  these  authors  have  shown 
us  the  inward. 

We  enter  these  great  galleries  of  art. 
Painting  is  a  noble  thing !  It  embel- 
lishes all,  even  vice.  On  the  four  walls, 
under  transparent  and  brilliant  glass, 
the  torsos  rise,  flesh  palpitates,  the 
blood's  warm  current  circulates  under 
the  veined  skin,  speaking  likenesses 
stand  out  in  the  light ;  it  seems  that  the 
ugly,  the  vulgar,  the  odious,  have  dis- 
appeared from  the  world.  I  no  more 
criticise  characters  ;  I  have  done  with 
moral  rules.  I  am  no  longer  tempted 
to  approve  or  to  hate.  A  man  here  is 
but  a  smudge  of  color,  at  most  a  handful 
of  muscles  ;  I  know  no  longer  if  he  be 
a  murderer. 

Life,  the  happy,  complete,  overflowing 
display,  the  expansion  of  natural  and 
corporal  powers  ;  this  from  all  sides 
iloods  and  rejoices  our  eyes.  Our  limbs 
instinctively  move  by  contagious  imita- 
tion of  movements  and  forms.  Before 
these  lions  jf  Rubens,  whose  deep 
growls  rise  like  thunder  to  the  mouth 
of  the  cave,  before  these  colossal  writh- 
ing torsos,  these  snouts  which  grope 
about  skulls,  the  animal  within  us  quiv- 


ers through  sympathy,  and  it  seems  as 
if  we  were  about  to  emit  from  oui 
chests  a  roar  to  equal  their  own. 

What  though  art  has  degenerated 
even  amongst  Frenchmen,  epigramma* 
tists,  the  bepowdered  abbes  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  it  is  art  still.  Beauty  is 
gone,  elegance  remains.  These  pretty 
arch  faces,  these  slender  waspish  waists, 
these  delicate  arms  buried  in  a  nest  of 
lace,  these  careless  wanderings  amongst 
thickets  and  warbling  fountains,  these 
gallant  dreams  in  a  lofty  chamber  fes- 
tooned with  garlands,  all  this  refined 
and  coquettish  society  is  still  charming. 
The  artist,  then  as  always,  gathers  the 
flower  of  things,  and  cares  not  for  the 
rest. 

But  what  was  Hogarth's  aim  ?  who 
ever  saw  such  a  painter  ?  Is  he  a 
painter  ?  Others  make  us  wish  to  see 
what  they  represent ;  he  makes  us  wish 
not  to  see  it. 

Is  there  any  thing  more  agreeable  to 
paint  than  a  drunken  debauch  by  night  ? 
the  jolly,  careless  faces  ;  the  rich  light, 
drowned  in  shadows  which  flicker  over 
rumpled  garments  and  weighed-down 
bodies.  With  Hogarth,  on  the  other 
hand,  what  figures!  Wickedness, 
stupidity,  all  the  vile  poison  of  the 
vilest  human  passions,  drops  and  distils 
from  them.  One  is  snaking  on  his  legs 
as  he  stands,  sick,  whilst  a  hiccup  half 
opens  his  belching  lips  ;  another  howls 
hoarsely,  like  a  wretched  cur;  another, 
with  bald  and  broken  head,  patched  up 
in  places,  falls  forward  on  his  chest, 
with  the  smile  of  a  sick  idiot.  We 
turn  over  the  leaves  of  Hogarth's  works 
and  the  train  of  odious  or  bestial  faces 
appears  to  be  inexhaustible  ;  features 
distorted  or  deformed,  foreheads  lumpy 
or  puffed  out  with  perspiring  flesh, 
hideous  grins  distended  by  ferocious 
laughter  :  one  has  had  his  nose  bitten 
off ;  the  next,  one-eyed,  square-headed, 
spotted  over  with  bleeding  warts,  whose 
red  face  looks  redder  under  the  dazzling 
white  wig,  smokes  silently,  full  of  ran- 
cor and  spleen  ;  another,  an  old  man 
with  a  crutch,  scarlet  and  bloated,  his 
chin  falling  on  his  breast,  gazes  with  the 
fixed  and  starting  eyes  of  a  crab.  Ho- 
garth shows  the  beast  in  man, and  worse, 
a  mad  and  murderous,  a  feeble  or  en 
raged  beast.  Look  at  this  murderei 
standing  over  the  body  of  his  butchered 


CHAP.  VI.] 


THE  NOVELISTS. 


mistress,  with  squinting  eyes,  dis- 
torted mouth,  grinding  his  teeth  at  the 
thought  of  the  blood  which  stains  and 
denounces  him  ;  or  this  ruined  gambler, 
who  has  torn  off  his  wig  and  kerchief, 
and  is  crying  on  his  knees,  with  closed 
teeth,  and  fist  raised  against  heaven. 
Look  again  at  this  madhouse  :  the  dirty 
idiot,  with  muddy  face,  filthy  hair, 
stained  claws,  who  thinks  he  is  playing 
on  the  violin,  and  has  a  sheet  of  music 
for  a  cap ;  the  religious  madman,  who 
writhes  convulsively  on  his  straw,  with 
clasped  hands,  feeling  the  claws  of  the 
devil  in  his  bowels  ;  the  naked  and 
haggard  raving  lunatic  whom  they  are 
chaining  up,  and  who  is  tearing  out  his 
flesh  with  his  nails.  Detestable  Yahoos 
who  presume  to  usurp  the  blessed  light 
of  heaven,  in  what  brain  can  you  have 
arisen,  and  why  did  a  painter  sully  our 
eyes  with  your  picture  ? 

It  is  because  his  eyes  were  English,  t 
and  because  the  senses  in  England  are 
barbarous.  Let  us  leave  our  repug- 
nance behind  us,  and  look  at  things  as 
Englishmen  do,  not  from  without  but 
from  within.  The  whole  current  of 
public  thought  tends  here  towards  ob- 
servation of  the  soul,  and  painting  is 
dragged  along  with  literature  in  the 
same  course.  Forget  then  the  forms, 
they  are  but  lines ;  the  body  is  here 
only  to  translate  the  mind.*  This 
twisted  nose,  these  pimples  on  a  vinous 
cheek,  these  stupefied  gestures  of  a 
drowsy  brute,  these  wrinkled  features, 
these  degraded  forms,  only  make  the 
character,  the  trade,  the  whim,  the 
habit  stand  out  more  clearly.  The 
artist  shows  us  no  longer  limbs  and 
heads,  but  debauchery,  drunkenness, 
brutality,  hatred,  despair,  all  the  dis- 
eases and  deformities  of  these  too 
harsh  and  unbending  wills,  the  mad 
menagerie  of  all  the  passions.  Not 
that  he  lets  them  loose  ;  this  rude,  dog- 
matic, and  Christian  citizen  handles 
more  vigorously  than  any  of  his  breth- 
ren the  heavy  club  of  morality.  He  is 
a  beef-eating  policeman  charged  with 
instructing  and  correcting  drunken  pu- 
gilists. From  such  a  man  to  such  men 

*  When  a  character  is  strongly  marked  in 
the  living  face,  it  may  be  considered  as  an  in- 
dex to  the  mind,  to  express  which  with  any  de- 
gree of  justness  in  painting,  requires  the  ut- 
most efforts  of  a  great  master. — A  nalysis  of 
Beauty, 


485 


ceremony  would  be  superfluous.  At 
the  bottom  of  every  cage  where  he  im- 
prisons a  vice,  he  writes  its  name  ana 
adds  the  condemnation  pronounced  by 
Scripture  ;  he  displays  that  vice  in  its 
ugliness,  buries  it  in  its  filth,  drags  it 
to  its  punishment,  so  that  there  is  no 
conscience  so  perverted  as  not  to  rec- 
ognize it,  none  so  hardened  as  not  to 
be  horrified  at  it. 

Let  us  look  well,  these  are  lessons 
which  bear  fruit.  This  one  is  against 
gin :  on  a  step,  in  the  open  street,  lies 
a  drunken  woman,  half  naked,  with 
hanging  breasts,  scrofulous  legs ;  she 
smiles  idiotically,  and  her  child,  which 
she  lets  fall  on  the  pavement,  breaks 
its  skull.  Underneath,  a  pale  skeleton, 
with  closed  eyes,  sinks  down  with  a 
glass  in  his  hand.  Round  about,  dissi- 
pation and  frenzy  drive  the  tattered 
spectres  one  against  another.  A  wretch 
who  has  hung  himself  sways  to  and  fro 
in  a  garret.  Gravediggers  are  putting 
a  naked  woman  into  a  coffin.  A  starve- 
ling is  gnawing  a  bare  bone  side  by  side 
with  a  dog.  By  his  side  little  girls  are 
drinking  with  one  another,  and  a  young 
woman  is  making  her  suckling  swallow 
gin.  A  madman  pitchforks  his  child, 
and  raises  it  aloft ;  he  dances  and 
laughs,  and  the  mother  sees  it. 

Another  picture  and  lesson,  this  time 
against  cruelty.  A  young  murderer  has 
been  hung,  and  is  being  dissected.  He 
is  there,  on  a  table,  and  the  lecturer 
calmly  points  out  with  his  wand  the 
places  where  the  students  are  to  work. 
At  his  sign  the  dissectors  cut  the  flesh 
and  pull.  One  is  at  the  feet;  the 
second  man  of  science,  a  sardonic  old 
butcher,  seizes  a  knife  with  a  hand  that 
looks  as  if  it  would  do  its  duty,  and 
thrusts  the  other  hand  into  the  entrails, 
which,  lower  down,  are  being  taken 
out  to  be  put  into  a  bucket.  The  last 
medical  student  takes  out  the  eye,  and 
the  distorted  mouth  seems  to  howl  under 
his  hand.  Meanwhile  a  dog  seizes  the 
heart,  which  is  trailing  on  the  ground ; 
thigh  bones  and  skull  boil  by  way  of 
concert,  in  a  copper ;  and  the  doctors 
around  coolly  exchange  surgical  jokes 
on  the  subject  which,  piecemeal,  is  pass- 
ing away  under  their  scalpels. 

Frenchmen  will  say  that  such  lessons 
are  good  for  barbarians,  and  that  they 
only  half  -  like  these  official  or  lay 


486 


preachers,  De  Foe,  Hogarth,  Smollett, 
Kichardson,  Johnson,  and  the  rest.  I 
reply  that  moralists  are  useful,  and 
that'  these  have  changed  a  state  of 
barbarism  into  one  of  civilization. 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


CHAPTER  VII. 


i. 

WHEN  we  take  in  at  one  view  the 
vast  literary  region  in  England,  extend- 
ing from  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts 
to  the  French  Revolution,  we  perceive 
that  all  the  productions,  independently 
of  the  English  character,  bear  a  classical 
impress,  and  that  this  impress,  special 
to  this  region,  is  met  with  neither  in  the 
preceding  nor  in  the  succeeding  time. 
This  dominant  form  of  thought  is  im- 
posed on  all  writers  from  Waller  to 
Johnson,  from  Hobbes  and  Temple  to 
Robertson  and  Hume  :  there  is  an  art 
to  which  they  all  aspire  ;  the  work  of 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  practice  and 
theory,  inventions  and  imitations,  ex- 
amples and  criticism,  are  employed  in 
attaining  it.  They  comprehend  only 
one  kind  of  beauty  ;  they  establish  only 
the  precepts  which  may  produce  it; 
they  re-write,  translate,  and  disfigure 
on  its  pattern  the  great  works  of  other 
ages  ;  they  carry  it  into  all  the  different 
kinds  of  literature,  and  succeed  or  fail 
in  them  according  as  it  is  adapted  to 
them  or  not.  The  sway  of  this  style 
is  so  absolute,  that  it  is  imposed  on  the 
greatest,  and  condemns  them  to  impo- 
tence when  they  would  apply  it  beyond 
its  domain.  The  possession  of  this 
style  is  so  universal,  that  it  is  met 
with  in  the  weakest  authors,  and  raises 
them  to  the  height  of  talent  when  they 
apply  it  in  its  domain.*  This  it  is 
which  brings  to  perfection  prose,  dis- 
course, essay,  dissertation,  narration, 
and  all  the  productions  which  form 
part  of  conversation  and  eloquence. 
This  it  is  which  destroyed  the  old 
drama,  debased  the  new,  impoverished 
and  diverted  poetry,  produced  a  cor- 

*  Paul  Louis  Courier  (1772-1825)  says,  "a 
lady's  maid,  in  Louis  XIV.'s  time,  wrote  bet- 
ter than  the  greitest  of  modern  writers." 


rect,  agreeable,  sensible,  colorless,  and 
narrow-minded  history.  This  spirit, 
common  to  England  and  France,  im- 
pressed its  form  on  an  infinite  diversity 
of  literary  works,  so  that  in  its  univer- 
sal manifest  ascendency  we  cannot  but 
recognize  the  presence  of  one  of  those 
internal  forces  which  bend  and  govern 
the  course  of  human  genius. 

In  no  branch  was  it  displayed  more 
manifestly  than  in  poetry,  and  at  no  time 
did  it  appear  more  clearly  than  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne.  The  poets  have 
just  attained  to  the  art  which  they  had 
before  dimly  discerned.  For  sixty 
years  they  were  approaching  it ;  now 
they  possess  it,  handle  it ;  they  use  and 
exaggerate  it.  The  style  is  at  the  same 
time  finished  and  artificial.  Let  us  open 
the  first  that  comes  to  hand,  Parnell 
or  Philips,  Addison  or  Prior,  Gay  or 
Tickell,  we  find  a  certain  turn  of  mind, 
versification,  language.  Let  us  pass 
to  a  second,  the  same  form  reappears  ; 
we  might  say  that  they  were  imitations 
of  one  another.  Let  us  go  on  to  a 
third  ;  the  same  diction,  the  same  apos- 
trophes, the  same  fashion  of  arranging 
an  epithet  and  rounding  a  period.  Let 
us  turn  over  the  whole  lot ;  with  little 
individual  differences,  they  seem  to 
be  all  cast  in  the  same  mould  ;  one 
is  more  epicurean,  another  more  mor- 
al, another  more  biting ;  but  a  noble 
language,  an  oratorical  pomp,  a  clas- 
sical correctness,  reign  throughout; 
the  substantive  is  accompanied  by 
its  adjective,  its  knight  of  honor ;  an- 
tithesis balances  its  symmetrical  ar 
chitecture  ;  the  verb,  as  in  Lucan  or 
Statius,  is  displayed,  flanked  on  each 
side  by  a  noun  decorated  by  an  epithet ; 
we  would  say  that  it  is  of  a  uniform 
make,  as  if  fabricated  b>  a  machine  ; 
we  forget  what  it  wishes  to  make 
known  ;  we  are  tempted  to  count  the 
measure  on  our  fingers ;  we  know  be- 
forehand what  poetical  ornaments  are 
to  embellish  it.  There  is  a  theatrical 
dressing,  contrasts,  allusions,  mytholo- 
gical elegance,  Greek  or  Latin  quota- 
tions. There  is  a  scholastic  solidity, 
sententious  maxims,  philosophic  com- 
monplaces, moral  developments,  ora- 
torical exactness.  We  might  imagine 
ourselves  to  be  before  a  family  of 
plants ;  if  the  size,  color,  accessories, 
names  differ,  the  fundamental  type 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS.  487 


does  not  vary ;  the  stamens  are  of 
the  same  number,  similarly  inserted 
around  similar  pistils,  above  leaves 
arranged  on  the  same  plan ;  a  man  who 
knows  one  knows  all ;  there  is  a  com- 
mon organism  and  structure  which  in- 
volves the  uniformity  of  the  rest.  If 
we  review  the  whole  family  we  will 
doubtless  find  there  some  characteris- 
tic plant  which  displays  the  type  in  a 
clear  light,  whilst  all  around  it  and  by 
degrees  it  alters,  degenerates,  and  at 
last  loses  itself  in  the  surrounding  fami- 
lies. So  here  we  see  classical  art  find 
its  centre  in  the  neighbors  of  Pope,  and 
above  all  in  Pope  himself  ;  then,  after 
being  half  effaced,  mingle  with  foreign 
elements  until  it  disappears  in  the 
poetry  which  succeeded  it.  * 

II. 

In  1688,  at  a  linen  draper's  in  Lom- 
bard Street,  London,  was  born  a  little, 
delicate,  and  sickly  creature,  by  nature 
artificial,  constituted  beforehand  for  a 
studious  existence,  having  no  taste  but 
for  books,  who  from  his  early  youth  de- 
rived his  whole  pleasure  from  the  con- 
templation of  printed  books.  He  cop- 
ied the  letters,  and  thus  learned  to 
write.  He  passed  his  infancy  with 
them,  and  was  a  verse-maker  as  soon 
as  he  knew  how  to  speak.  At  the  age 
of  twelve  he  had  written  a  little  tragedy 
out  of  the  Iliad,  and  an  Ode  on  Solitude. 
From  thirteen  to  fifteen  he  composed  a 
long  epic  of  four  thousand  verses,  call- 

*  The  Rev.  Whitwell  Elwin,  in  his  second 
volume  of  the  Works  of  Alexander  Pope,  at 
the  end  of  his  introduction  to  A  n  Essay  on 
Man,  p.  338,  says:  "  M.  Taine  asserts  that 
from  the  Restoration  to  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, from  Waller  to  Johnson,  from  Hobbes 
and  Temple  to  Robertson  and  Hume,  all  our 
literature,  both  prose  and  verse,  bears  the  im- 
press of  classic  art.  The  mode,  he  says,  cul- 
minated in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  and  Pope, 
he  considers,  was  the  extreme  example  of  it. 
.  .  .  Many  of  the  most  eminent  authors  who 
flourished  between  the  English  Restoration 
wrote  in  a  style  far  removed  from  that  which 
M.  Taine  calls  classical.  .  .  .  The  verse  dif- 
fers like  the  prose,  though  in  a  less  degree, 
and  is  not  "  of  a  uniform  make,  as  if  fabricated 
by  a  machine."  .  .  .  Neither  is  the  substance 
of  the  prose  and  verse,  from  the  Restoration  to 
the  French  Revolution,  an  invariable  common- 
sense  mediocrity.  .  .  .  There  is  much  truth  in 
his  (M.  Taine's)  view,  that  there  was  a  grow- 
ing tend  ?ncy  to  cultivate  style,  and  in  some 
writers  the  art  degenerated  into  the  artificial." 

TR. 


ed  Alcander.  For  eight  years  shut  up  IP 
a  little  house  in  Windsor  Forest,  he 
read  all  the  best  critics,  almost  all  the 
English,  Latin,  and  French  poets  who 
had  a  reputation,  Homer,  the  Greek 
poets,  and  a  few  of  the  great  ones  in  the 
original,  Tasso  and  Ariosto  in  transla- 
tions, with  such  assiduity,  that  he 
nearly  died  from  it.  He  did  not  search 
in  them  for  passions,  but  style :  there 
was  never  a  more  devoted  adorer,  never 
a  more  precocious  master  of  form. 
Already  his  taste  showed  itself : 
amongst  all  the  English  poets  his  favor- 
ite was  Dryden,  the  least  inspired  and 
the  most  classical.  He  perceived  his 
career.  He  states  that  Mr.  Walsh 
told  him  there  was  one  way  left  of 
excelling.  "  We  had  several  great 
poets,"  he  said,  "  but  we  never  had  one 
great  poet  that  was  cerrect ;  and  he 
advised  me  to  make  that  my  study  and 
aim."  *  He  followed  this  advice,  tried 
his  hand  in  translations  of  Ovid  and 
Statius,  and  in  recasting  parts  of  old 
Chaucer.  He  appropriated  all  the 
poetic  elegancies  and  excellences,  stored 
them  up  in  his  memory ;  he  arranged 
in  his  head  a  complete  dictionary  of  all 
happy  epithets,  all  ingenious  turns  of 
expression,  all  sonorous  rhythms  by 
which  a  poet  may  exalt,  render  precise, 
illuminate  an  idea.  He  was  like  those 
little  musicians,  infant  prodigies,  who, 
brought  up  at  the  piano,  suddenly  ac- 
quire a  marvellous  touch,  roll  out 
scales,  brilliant  shakes,  make  the  oc- 
taves vault  with  an  agility  and  accuracy 
which  drive  off  the  stage  the  most  fa- 
mous performers.  At  seventeen,  becom- 
ing acquainted  with  old  Wycherley,who 
was  sixty-nine,  he  undertook,  at  his  re- 
quest, to  correct  his  poems,  and  cor- 
rected them  so  well,  that  the  other  was 
at  once  charmed  and  mortified.  Pope 
blotted  out,  added,  recast,  spoke  frank- 
ly, and  eliminated  firmly.  The  author, 
in  spite  of  himself,  admired  the  cor- 
rections secretly,  and  tried  openly  to 
make  light  of  them,  until  at  last,  his 
vanity,  wounded  at  owing  so  much  to 
so  young  a  man,  and  at  finding  a  mas- 
ter in  a  scholar,  ended  by  breaking 
off  an  intercourse  by  which  he  profited 
and  suffered  too  much.  For  the  scholar 
had  at  the  outset  carried  the  art  be- 

*R.  Carruthers,  Life  of  Alexander 
zd  ed.  1857,  ch.  i.  33. 


488 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[Booi    III 


vond  any  of  the  masters.  At  sixteen  * 
his  Pastorals  bore  witness  to  a  correct- 
ness which  no  one  had  possessed,  not 
even  Dryden.  When  people  observed 
these  choice  words,  these  exquisite 
arrangements  of  melodious  syllables, 
this  science  of  division  and  rejection, 
this  style  so  fluent  and  pure,  these 
graceful  images  rendered  still  more 
graceful  by  the  diction,  and  all  this 
artificial  and  many-tinted  garland  of 
flowers  which  Pope  called  pastoral, 
they  thought  of  the  first  eclogues  of 
Virgil.  Mr.  Walsh  declared  "  that  it 
is  not  flattery  at  all  to  say  that  Virgil 
had  written  nothing  so  good  at  his 
age."  t  When  later  they  appeared  in  a 
volume,  the  public  was  dazzled.  "  You 
have  only  displeased  the  critics,"  wrote 
Wycherley,  "by  pleasing  them  too 
well."  \  The  same  year  the  poet  of 
twenty-one  finished  his  Essay  on  Criti- 
cism, a  sort  of  Ars  Poetica :  it  is  the 
kind  of  poem  a  man  might  write  at  the 
end  of  his  career,  when  he  has  handled 
all  modes  of  writing  and  has  grown 
grey  in  criticism  ;  and  in  this  subject, 
of  which  the  treatment  demands  the 
experience  of  a  whole  literary  life,  he 
was  at  the  first  onset  as  ripe  as  Boi- 
leau. 

What  will  this  consummate  musician, 
who  begins  by  a  treatise  on  harmony, 
make  of  his  incomparable  mechanism 
and  his  science  as  a  teacher?  It  is 
well  to  feel  and  think  before  writing  ; 
a  full  source  of  living  ideas  and  real 
passions  is  necessary  to  make  a  genuine 
poet,  and  in  him,  seen  closely,  we  find 
that  every  thing,  to  his  very  person,  Js 
scanty  and  artificial  ;  he  was  a  dwarf, 
four  feet  high,  contorted,  hunchbacked, 
thin,  valetudinarian,  appearing,  when 
he  arrived  at  maturity,  no  longer  ca- 
pable of  existing.  He  could  not  get 
up  himself,  a  woman  dressed  him  ;  he 
wore  three  pairs  of  stockings,  drawn 
on  ^ne  over  the  other,  so  slender  were 
his  legs ;  "  when  he  rose,  he  was  in- 
vested in  bodice  made  of  stiff  canvas, 
bain;  scarce  able  to  hold  himself  erect 
till  they  were  laced,  and  he  then  put 

*  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  Pope  was  not 
older  than  sixteen  when  he  wrote  the  Pasto- 
rals. See,  on  this  subject,  Pope's  Works,  ed. 
Elwin,  London  1871,  i.  239  et passim. — TB. 

t  Pope's  Works,  ed.  Elwiu,  i.  233. 

t  Ibid.  i.  242. 


on  a  flannel  waistcoat ; "  *  next  came  a 
sort  of  fur  doublet,  for  the  least  thing 
made  him  shiver  ;  and  lastly,  a  thick 
linen  shirt,  very  warm,  with  fine 
sleeves.  Over  all  this  he  wore  a  black 
garment,  a  tye-wig,  a  little  sword ; 
thus  equipped,  he  went  and  took  his 
place  at  the  table  of  his  great  friend, 
the  Earl  of  Oxford.  He  was  so  small, 
that  he  had  to  be  raised  on  a  chair  of 
his  own ;  so  bald,  that  when  he  had  no 
company  he  covered  his  head  with  a 
velvet  cap ;  so  punctilious  and  exact- 
ing, that  the  footmen  evaded  going  his 
errands,  and  the  Earl  had  to  discharge 
several  "  for  their  resolute  refusal  of 
his  messages."  At  dinner  he  ate  too 
much  ;  like  a  spoiled  child,  he  would 
have  highly  seasoned  dishes,  and  thus 
"would  oppress  his  stomach  with  re- 
pletion." When  cordials  were  offered 
him,  he  got  angry,  but  did  not  refuse 
them.  He  had  all  the  appetite  and 
whims  of  an  old  child,  an  old  invalid, 
an  old  author,  an  old  bachelor.  We 
are  prepared  to  find  him  whimsical 
and  susceptible.  He  often,  without 
saying  a  word,  and  without  any  known 
cause,  quitted  the  house  of  Lord  Ox- 
ford, and  the  footmen  had  to  go  re- 
peatedly with  messages  to  bring  him 
back.  If  Lady  Mary  Wortley,  his  for- 
mer poetical  divinity,  were  ,unf ortunate- 
ly  at  table,  there  was  no  dining  in 
peace ;  they  would  not  fail  to  contra- 
dict, peck  at  each  other,  quarrel ;  and 
one  or  other  would  leave  the  room.  He 
would  be  sent  for  and  would  return, 
but  he  brought  his  hobbies  back  with 
him.  He  was  as  crafty  and  malignant  as 
a  nervous  abortion,  which  he  was  ;  when 
he  wanted  any  thing,  he  dared  not  ask 
for  it  plainly  ;  with  hints  and  contriv- 
ances of  speech  he  induced  people  to 
mention  it,  to  bring  it  forward,  after 
which  he  would  make  use  ^f  it.  "  Thus 
he  teased  Lord  Orrery  till  he  obtained 
a  screen.  He  hardly  drank  tea  with- 
out  a  stratagem.  Lady  Bolingbroke 
used  to  say  that  *  he  played  the  poli- 
tician about  cabbages  and  turnips.'  "  t 
The  rest  of  his  life  is  not  much  more 
noble.  He  wrote  libels  on  the  Duke 
of  Chandos,  Aaron  Hill,  Lady  Mary 
Wortley,  and  then  lied  or  equivocated 

*  Johnson,  Lives  of  the  most  eminent  Eng- 
lish Poets,  3  vols.,  ed.  Cunningham,  1854.  A, 
Pope,  iii.  96.  f  Ibid.  A.  Pope,  lii.  99. 


CHAP.  VII.] 


to  disavow  them.  He  -had  an  ugly 
liking  for  artifice,  and  played  a  disloyal 
trick  on  Lord  Bolingbroke,  his  greatest 
friend.  He  was  never  frank,  always 
acting  a  part ;  he  aped  the  blase  man, 
the  impartial  great  artist,  a  contemner 
of  the  great,  of  kings,  of  poetry  itself. 
The  truth  is,  that  he  thought  of  noth- 
ing but  his  phrases,  his  author's  reputa- 
tion, and  "  a  little  regard  shown  him 
by  the  Prince  of  Wales  melted  his 
obduracy."*  When  we  read  his  cor- 
respondence, we  find  that  there  are  not 
more  than  about  ten  genuine  letters  ;  he 
is  a  literary  man  even  in  the  moments 
when  he  opened  his  heart ;  his  confiden- 
ces are  formal  rhetoric ;  and  when  he 
conversed  with  a  friend  he  was  always 
thinking  of  the  printer,  who  would  give 
his  effusions  to  the  public.  Through  this 
very  pretentiousness  he  grew  awkward, 
and  unmasked  himself.  One  day  Rich- 
ardson and  his  father,  the  painter,  found 
him  reading  a  pamphlet  that  Gibber 
had  written  against  him.  "  These 
things,"  said  Pope,  "  are  my  diversion." 
"  They  sat  by  him  while  he  perused  it, 
and  saw  his  features  writhing  with  an- 
guish ;  and  young  Richardson  said  to 
his  father,  when  they  returned,  that  he 
hoped  to  be  preserved  from  such  diver- 
sion." t  After  all,  his  great  cause  for 
writing  was  literary  vanity  :  he  wished 
to  be  admired,  and  nothing  more  ;  his 
life  was  that  of  a  coquette  studying 
herself  in  a  glass,  painting  her  face, 
smirking,  receiving  compliments  from 
any  one,  yet  declaring  that  compliments 
weary  her,  that  paint  makes  her  dirty, 
and  that  she  has  a  horror  of  affectation. 
Pope  has  no  dash,  no  naturalness  or 
manliness ;  he  has  no  more  ideas  than 
passions ;  at  least  such  ideas  as  a  man 
feels  if  necessary  to  write,  and  in  con- 
nection with  which  we  lose  thought  of 
words.  Religious  controversy  and 
party  quarrels  resound  about  him  ;  he 
studiously  avoids  them;  amidst  all 
these  shocks  his  chief  care  is  to  pre- 
serve his  writing-desk;  he  is  a  very 
lukewarm  Catholic,  all  but  a  deist,  not 
well  aware  what  deism  means  ;  and  on 
this  point  he  borrows  from  Bolingbroke 
ideas  whose  scope  he  cannot  see,  but 
which  he  thinks  suitable  to  be  put  into 
verse.  In  a  letter  to  Atterbury  (1717) 

*  Boswell's  Life  ofjohnson,  ch.  Ixxi.  670. 
t  Carruthen'  Life  o/Pofe,  ch.  x.  377. 


THE  POETS.  489 

he  says :  "  In  my  politics,  I  think  no 
further  than  how  to  prefer  the  peace 
of  my  life,  in  any  government  under 
which  I  live  ;  nor  in  my  religion,  than 
to  preserve  the  peace  of  my  conscience 
in  any  church  with  which  I  communi- 
cate. I  hope  all  churches  and  govern- 
ments are  so  far  of  God,  as  they  are 
rightly  understood  and  rightly  adminis- 
tered ;  and  where  they  err,  or  may  be 
wrong,  I  leave  it  to  God  alone  to  mend 
or  reform  them."*  Such  convictions 
do  not  torment  a  man.  In  reality,  he 
did  not  write  because  he  thought,  but 
thought  in  order  to  write  ;  manuscript 
and  the  noise  it  makes  in  the  world, 
when  printed,  was  his  idol ;  if  he  wrote 
verses,  it  was  merely  for  the  sake  of 
doing  so. 

This  is  the  best  training  for  versifica- 
tion. Pope  gave  himself  up  to  it ;  he 
was  a  man  of  leisure,  his  father  had  left 
him  a  very  fair  fortune ;  he  earned  a 
large  sum  by  translating  the  Iliad  and 
Odysse ;  he  had  an  income  of  eight 
hundred  pounds.  He  was  never  in  the 
pay  of  a  publisher  ;  he  looked  from  an 
eminence  upon  the  beggarly  authors 
grovelling  in  their  free  and  easy  life, 
and,  calmly  seated  in  his  pretty  house 
at  Twickenham,  in  his  grotto,  or  in  the 
fine  garden  which  he  had  himself  plan- 
ned, he  could  polish  and  file  his  writ- 
ings as  long  as  he  chose.  He  did  not 
fail  to  do  so.  When  he  had  written  a 
work,  he  kept  it  at  least  two  years  in 
his  desk.  From  time  to  time  he  re- 
read and  corrected  it ;  took  counsel 
of  his  friends,  then  of  his  enemies  ;  no 
new  edition  was  unamended  ;  he  alter- 
ed without  wearying.  His  first  out- 
burst became  so  recast  and  transform- 
ed, that  it  could  not  be  recognized  in 
the  final  copy.  The  pieces  which  seem 
least  retouched  are  two  satires,  and 
Dodsley  says  that  in  the  manuscript 
"  almost  every  line  was  written  twice 
over  ;  I  gave  him  a  clean  transcript, 
which  he  sent  some  time  afterwards  to 
me  for  the  press,  with  almost  every 
line  written  twice  over  a  second  time."  t 
Dr.  Johnson  says  :  "  From  his  attention 
to  poetry  he  was  never  diverted.  If 
conversation  offered  any  thing  that 
could  be  improved,  he  committed  it  to 

*  Ibid.  ch.  iv-  164. 

t  Johnson,  The  Lives  of  the  English  Poets  i 
Alexander  Pope,  ill.  114. 
21* 


49° 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


paper  ;  if  a  thought,  or  perhaps  an  ex- 
pression, more  happy  than  was  com- 
mon, rose  to  his  mind,  he  was  careful 
to  write  it ;  an  independent  distich  was 
preserved  for  an  opportunity  of  in- 
sertion ;  and  some  little  fragments 
have  been  found  containing  lines,  or 
parts  of  lines,  to  be  wrought  upon  at 
some  other  time."  *  His  writing-desk 
had  to  be  placed  upon  his  bed  before 
he  rose.  "  Lord  Oxford's  domestic  re- 
lated that,  in  the  dreadful  winter  of 
1740,  she  was  called  from  her  bed  by 
him  four  times  in  one  night  to  supply 
him  with  paper,  lest  he  should  lose  a 
thought."  t  Swift  complains  that  he 
was  never  at  leisure  for  conversation, 
because  he  "  had  always  some  poetical 
scheme  in  his  head."  Thus  nothing 
was  lacking  for  the  attainment  of  per- 
fect expression  ;  the  practice  of  a  life- 
time, the  study  of  every  model,  an  in- 
dependent fortune,  the  company  of  men 
of  the  world,  an  immunity  from  tur- 
bulent passions,  the  absence  of  domi- 
nant ideas,  the  facility  of  an  infant  pro- 
digy, the  assiduity  of  an  old  man  of 
letters.  It  seems  as  though  he  were 
expressly  endowed  with  faults  and  good 
qualities,  here  enriched,  there  impover- 
ished, at  once  narrowed  and  developed, 
to  set  in  relief  the  classical  form  by  the 
diminution  oi  the  classical  depth,  to 
present  the  public  with  a  model  of  a 
worn-out  and  accomplished  art,  to 
reduce  to  a  brilliant  and  rigid  crystal 
the  flowing  sap  of  an  expiring  literature. 

III. 

It  is  a  great  misfortune  for  a  poet  to 
know  his  business  too  well ;  his  poetry 
then  shows  the  man  of  business,  and 
not  the  poet.  I  wish  I  could  admire 
Pope's  works  of  imagination,  but  I 
cannot.  In  vain  I  read  the  testimony 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  even  that  of 
the  moderns,  and  repeat  to  myself  that 
in  his  time  he  was  the  prince  of  poets ; 
that  his  Epistle  from  Eloisa  to  Abelard 
was  received  with  a  cry  of  enthusi- 
asm ;  that  a  man  could  not  then  imag- 
ine a  finer  expression  of  true  passion  ; 
that  to  this  very  day  it  is  learned  by 
heart,  like  the  speech  of  Hippolyte  in 
the  Pkidre  of  Racine ;  that  Johnson, 
the  great  literary  critic,  ranked  it 

*  Johnson,  The  Liv>s  of  the  English  Poets  ; 
Alexander  Pope,  iii.  in.  |  Ibid.  iii.  105. 


amongst  "  the  happiest  productions  of 
the  human  mind  ;  "  tl  at  Lord  Byron 
himself  preferred  it  to  the  celebrated 
ode  of  Sappho.  I  read  it  again  and 
am  bored  :  this  is  not  as  it  ought  to  be  ; 
but,  in  spite  of  myself,  I  yawn,  and  I 
open  the  original  letters  of  Eloisa  to 
find  the  cause  of  my  weariness. 

Doubtless  poor  Eloisa  is  a  barbarian, 
nay  worse,  a  literary  barbarian  ;  she 
puts  down  learned  quotations,  argu- 
ments, tries  to  imitate  Cicero,  to  ar- 
range her  periods  ;  she  could  not  do 
otherwise,  writing  a  dead  language, 
with  an  acquired  style ;  perhaps  the 
reader  would  do  as  much  if  he  were 
obliged  to  write  to  his  mistress  in 
Latin.*  But  how  does  true  feeling 
pierce  through  the  scholastic  form ! 
"  Thou  art  the  only  one  who  can  sad- 
den me,  console  me,  make  me  joyful. 
...  I  should  be  happier  and  prouder 
to  be  called  thy  mistress  than  to  be  the 
lawful  wife  of  an  emperor.  .  .  .  Never, 
God  knows,  have  I  wished  for  any  thing 
else  in  thee  but  thee.  It  is  thee  alone 
whom  I  desire ;  nothing  that  thou 
couldst  give  ;  not  marriage,  not  dowry  : 
I  never  dreamt  of  doing  my  own  pleas- 
ure or  my  own  will,  thou  knowest  it, 
but  thine."  Then  come  passionate 
words,  genuine  love  words,!  then  the 
unrestrained  words  of  a  penitent,  who 
says  and  dares  everything,  because  she 
wishes  to  be  cured,  to  show  her  wound 
to  her  confessor,  even  her  most  shame- 
ful wound ;  perhaps  also  because  in 
extreme  agony,  as  in  child-birth,  mod- 
esty vanishes.  All  this  is  very  crude, 
very  rude;  Pope  has  more  wit  than 
she,  and  how  he  endues  her  with  it ! 
In  his  hands  she  becomes  an  academi- 
cian, and  her  letter  is  a  repertory  of 
literary  effects.  Portraits  and  descrip- 
tions ;  she  paints  to  Abelard  the  nun- 
nery and  the  landscape : 

*  Rev.  W.  Elwin,  in  his  edition  of  Pope's 
Works,  ii.  224,  says  :  "  The  authenticity  of  the 
Latin  letters  has  usually  been  taken  for  grant- 
ed, but  I  have  a  strong  belief  that  they  are  a 
forgery.  ...  It  is  far  more  likely  that  they  are 
the  fabrication  of  an  unconcerned  romancer, 
who  speaks  in  the  name  of  others  with  a  lati- 
tude which  people,  not  entirely  degraded,  would 
never  adopt  towards  themselves.  The  suspi- 
cion is  strengthened  when  the  second  party  to 
the  correspondence,  the  chief  philosopher  of 
his  generation,  exhibits  the  same  exceptional 
depravity  of  taste." — TR. 

t  "  Vale,  unice." 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS. 


49* 


"  In    these    lone    walls    (their    days    eternal 

bound), 
These  moss-grown  domes  with  spiry  turrets 

crowned, 

Where  awful  arches  make  a  noon-day  night, 
And  the  dim  windows  shed  a  solemn  light.  .  . 
The  wandering  streams  that  shine  between 

the  hills, 

The  grots  that  echo  to  the  tinkling  rills, 
The  dying  gales  that  pant  upon  the  trees, 
The  lakes  that  quiver  to  the  curling  breeze."* 

Declamation  and  commonplace:  she 
sends  Abelard  discourses  on  love  and 
the  liberty  which  it  demands,  on  the 
cloister  and  the  peaceful  life  which  it 
affords,  on  writing  and  the  advantages 
of  the  post,  t  Antitheses  and  contrasts, 
she  forwards  them  to  Abelard  by  the 
dozen  ;  a  contrast  between  the  convent 
illuminated  by  his  presence  and  deso- 
late by  his  absence,  between  the  tran- 
quillity of  the  pure  nun  and  the  anxiety 
of  the  sinful  nun,  between  the  dream  of 
human  happiness  and  the  dream  of 
divine  happiness.  In  fine,  it  is  a 
bravura,  with  contrasts  of  forte  and 
piano,  variations  and  change  of  key. 
Eloisa  makes  the  most  of  her  theme, 
and  sets  herself  to  crowd  into  it  all  the 
powers  and  effects  of  her  voice.  Ad- 
mire the  crescendo,  the  shakes  by  which 
she  ends  her  brilliant  morceaux  ;  to 
transport  the  hearer  at  the  close  of  the 
portrait  of  the  innocent  nun,  she  says  : 

"  How  happy  is  the  blameless  vestal's  lot  ! 
The  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot  : 
Eternal  sunshine  of  the  spotless  mind  ! 
Each  prayer  accepted  and  each    wish    re- 

signed ; 

Labour  and  rest,  that  equal  periods  keep  ; 
'  Obedient  slumbers  that  can  wake  and  weep  ;  ' 
Desires  composed,  affections  ever  even  ; 
Tears  that  delight,   and  sighs  that  waft  to 

heav'n. 

Grace  shines  around  her  with  serenest  beams, 
And  whisp'ring  angels  prompt  her  golden 

dreams. 

For  her,  th'  unfading  rose  of  Eden  blooms, 
And  wings  of  seraphs  shed  divine  perfumes, 
For  her  the  spouse  prepares  the  bridal  ring, 
For  her  white  virgins  hymeneals  sing, 


*  Pope's  Works,  ed.  Elwin  ;  Eloisa 

lard,  ii.  245,  /.  141-160. 

t  Eloisa  to  Abelard,  ii.  240,  /.  51-58  : 

*'  Heav'n  first  taught  letters  for  some  wretch's 

aid, 

Some  banished  lover,  or  some  captive  maid  ; 
They  live,  they  speak,  they  breathe  what  love 

inspires, 

Warm  from  the  soul,  and  faithful  to  its  fires, 
The  virgin's  wish  without  her  fears  impart, 
Excuse  the  blush,  and  pour  out  all  the  heart, 
Speed  the  soft  intercourse  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  waft  a  sigh  from  Indus  to  the  Pole." 


To  sounds  of  heavenly  harps  she  dies  away, 
And  melts  in  visions  of  eternal  day."  * 

Observe  the  noise  of  the  big  drum  ;  I 
mean  the  grand  contrivances,  for  so 
may  be  called  all  that  a  person  says 
who  wishes  to  rave  and  cannot  ;  for 
instance,  speaking  to  rocks  and  walls, 

E  raying  the  absent  Abelard   to   come, 
in  eying   him   present,  apostrophizing 
grace  and  virtue  : 

"  O  grace  serene  !     O  virtue  heavenly  fair ! 
Divine  oblivion  of  low-thoughted  care ! 
Fresh-blooming  hope,  gay  daughter  of  the 

sky! 

And  faith,  our  early  immortality  ! 
Enter,  each  mild,  each  amicable  guest  ; 
Receive,  and  wrap  me  in  eternal  rest !  "  t 

Hearing  the  dead  speaking  to  her,  tell- 
ing the  angels  : 

"  I   come !    I  come  !      Prepare  your  roseate 

bow'rs, 
Celestial  palms,  and  ever-blooming  flow'rs."J 

This  is  the  final  symphony  with  modula- 
tions of  the  celestial  organ.  I  presume 
that  Abelard  cried  "  Bravo  "  when  he 
heard  it. 

But  this  is  nothing  in  comparison 
with  the  art  exhibited  by  her  in  every 
phrase.  She  puts  ornaments  into  every 
line.  Imagine  an  Italian  singer  trilling 
every  word.  O  what  pretty  sounds  ! 
how  nimbly  and  brilliantly  they  roll 
along,  how  clear,  and  always  exquisite  ! 
it  is  impossible  to  reproduce  them  in 
another  tongue.  Now  it  is  a  happy 
image,  filling  up  a  whole  phrase  ;  now 
a  series  of  verses,  full  of  symmetrical 
contrasts ;  two  ordinary  words  set  in 
relief  by  strange  conjunction  ;  an  imi- 
tative rhythm  completing  the  impres- 
sion of  the  mind  by  the  emotion  of  the 
senses  ;  the  most  elegant  comparisons 
and  the  most  picturesque  epithets  ;  the 
closest  style  and  the  most  ornate.  Ex- 
cept truth,  nothing  is  wanting.  Eloisa 
is  worse  than  a  singer,  she  is  an  author : 
we  look  at  the  back  of  her  epistle  to 
Abelard  to  see  if  she  has  not  written 
on  it  "  For  Press." 

Pope  has  somewhere  given  a  rece'pt 
for  making  an  epic  poem  :  take  a  storm, 
a  dream,  five  or  six  battles,  three  sacri- 
fices, funeral  games,  a  dozen  gods  in 
two  divisions  ;  shake  together  until 
there  rises  the  froth  of  a  lofty  style. 
We  have  just  seen  the  receipt  for  mak« 

*  Eloisa  to  Abelard,  ii.  249,  /.  207-222. 

t  Ibid.  ii.  254,  /.  297-302.     \Ibid.  255,  /.  3iy 


492 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


ing  a  love-letter.  This  kind  of  poetry 
resembles  cookery  ;  neither  heart  nor 
genius  is  necessary  to  produce  it,  but  a 
light  hand,  an  attentive  eye,  and  a  culti- 
vated taste. 

It  seems  that  this  kind  of  talent  is 
made  for  light  verses.  It  is  factitious, 
and  so  are  the  manners  of  society.  To 
make  pretty  speeches,  to  prattle  with 
ladies,  to  speak  elegantly  of  their 
chocolate  or  their  fan,  to  jeer  at  fools, 
to  criticise  the  last  tragedy,  to  be  good 
at  insipid  compliments  or  epigrams, — 
this  it  see  ns,  is  the  natural  employ- 
ment of  a  mind  such  as  this,  but  slight- 
ly impassioned,  very  vain,  a  perfect 
master  of  style,  as  careful  of  his  verses 
as  a  dandy  of  his  coat.  Pope  wrote 
the  Rape  of  the  Lock  and  the  Dunciad  ; 
his  contemporaries  went  into  ecstasies 
about  the  charm  of  his  badinage  and 
the  precision  of  his  raillery,  and  believed 
that  he  had  surpassed  Boileau's  Lutrin 
and  Satires. 

That  may  well  be ;  at  all  events 
the  praise  would  be  scanty.  In  Boileau 
there  are,  as  a  rule,  two  kinds  of  verse, 
as  was  said  by  a  man  of  wit ;  *  most  of 
which  seem  to  be  those  of  a  sharp 
schoolboy  in  the  third  class,  the  rest 
those  of  a  good  schoolboy  in  the  upper 
division.  Boileau  wrote  the  second 
verse  before  the  first  :  this  is  why  once 
out  of  four  times  his  first  verse  only 
serves  to  stop  a  gap.  Doubtless  Pope 
had  a  more  brilliant  and  adroit  mech- 
anism ;  but  this  facility  of  hand  does 
not  suffice  to  make  a  poet,  even  a  poet 
of  the  boudoir.  There,  as  elsewhere, 
we  need  genuine  passion,  or  at  least 
genuine  taste.  When  we  wish  to  paint 
the  pretty  nothings  of  conversation  and 
the  world,  we  must  at  least  like  them. 
We  can  only  paint  well  what  we  love.t 
Is  there  no  charming  grace  in  the  prat- 
tle and  frivolity  of  a  pretty  woman  ? 
Painters,  like  Watteau,  have  spent  their 
lives  in  feasting  on  them.  A  lock  of 
hair  raised  by  the  wind,  a  pretty  arm 
peeping  from  underneath  a  great  deal 
of  lace,  a  stooping  figure  making  the 
bright  folds  of  a  petticoat  sparkle,  and 
the  arch,  half-engaging,  half-mocking 
smile  of  the  pouting  mouth, — these  are 

*  M.  Guillaume  Guizot. 
t  Goethe  sings — 

'  Liebe  sei  vor  illen  Dingen, 
Uuser  Thema  wenn  wir  singen." 


enough  to  transpoit  an  artist.  Certain 
ly  he  will  be  aware  of  the  influence  ol 
the  toilet,  as  much  so  as  the  lady  her« 
self,  and  will  never  scold  her  for  pass- 
ing three  hours  at  her  glass  ;  there  is 
poetry  in  elegance.  He  enjoys  it  as  a 
picture  ;  delights  in  the  refinements  of 
worldly  life,  the  grand  quiet  lines  of 
the  lofty,  wainscoted  drawing-room,  the 
soft  reflection  of  the  high  mirrors  and 
glittering  porcelain,  the  careless  gayety 
of  the  little  sculptured  Loves,  locked 
in  embrace  above  the  mantelpiece,  the 
silvery  sound  of  these  soft  voices,  buz- 
zing scandal  round  the  tea-table.  Pope 
hardly  if  at  all  rejoices  in  them  ;  he  is 
satirical  and  English  amidst  this  ami- 
able luxury,  introduced  from  France. 
Although  he  is  the  most  worldly  of  Eng- 
lish poets,  he  is  not  enough  so  :  nor 
is  the  society  around  him.  Lady  Mary 
Wortley  Montague,  who  was  in  her  time 
"  the  pink  of  fashion/'  and  who  is  com- 
pared to  Madame  de  Sevigne,  has  such 
a  serious  mind,  such  a  decided  style, 
such  a  precise  judgment,  and  such  a 
harsh  sarcasm,  that  we  would  take  her 
for  a  man.  In  reality  the  English,  even 
Lord  Chesterfield  and  Horace  Walpole, 
never  mastered  the  true  tone  of  the 
salon.  Pope  is  like  them  ;  his  voice  is 
out  of  tune,  and  then  suddenly  becomes 
biting.  Every  instant  a  harsh  mockery 
blots  out  the  graceful  images  which  he 
began  to  awaken.  Consider  The  Rape 
of  the  Lock  as  a  whole  ;  it  is  a  buffoon- 
ery in  a  noble  style.  Lord  Petre  had 
cut  off  a  lock  of  hair  of  a  fashionable 
beauty,  Mrs.  Arabella  Fermor ;  out  of 
this  trifle  the  problem  is  to  make  an 
epic,  with  invocations,  apostrophes,  the 
intervention  of  supernatural  beings,  and 
the  rest  of  poetic  mechanism  ;  the 
solemnity  of  style  contrasts  with  the 
littleness  of  the  events ;  we  laugh  at 
these  bickerings  as  at  insects  quarrelling 
Such  has  always  been  the  case  in  Eng- 
land ;  whenever  Englishmen  wish  to 
represent  social  life,  it  is  with  a  super- 
ficial and  assumed  politeness  ;  at  the 
bottom  of  their  admiration  there  is 
scorn.  Their  insipid  compliments  con« 
ceal  a  mental  reservation ;  let  us  ob- 
serve them  well,  and  we  will  see  that 
they  look  upon  a  pretty,  well-dressed, 
and  coquettish  woman  as  a  pink  doll, 
fit  to  amuse  people  for  half-an-hour  by 
her  outward  show.  Pope  dedicates  his 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS. 


493 


•7- 

id  : 


poem  to  Mrs.  Arabella  Fermor  with 
every  kind  of  compliment.  The  truth 
is,  he  is  not  polite  ;  a  Frenchwoman 
would  have  sent  him  back  his  book,  and 
advised  him  to  learn  manners  ;  for  one 
commendation  of  her  beauty  she  would 
find  ten  sarcasms  upon  her  frivolit 
It  is  very  pleasant  to  have  it  sa:  ' 
"  You  have  the  prettiest  eyes  in  the 
world,  but  you  live  in  the  pursuit  of 
trifles  ?  "  Yet  to  this  all  his  homage 
is  reduced.*  His  complimentary  em- 
phasis, his  declaration  that  the  "  ravish'd 
hair  .  .  .  adds  new  glory  to  the  shining 
sphere,"  t  all  his  stock  of  phrases  is 
bu:  a  parade  of  gallantry  which  betrays 
indelicacy  and  coarseness.  Will  she 

"  Stain  her  honour,  or  her  new  brocade, 
Forget  her  pray'rs  or  miss  a  masquerade, 
Or  lose  her  heart,  or  necklace  at  a  bail  ?  "  $ 

No  Frenchman  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury would  have  imagined  such  a  com- 
pliment. At  most,  that  bearish  Rous- 
seau, that  former  lackey  and  Geneva 
moralist,  might  have  delivered  this  dis- 
agreeable thrust.  In  England  it  was 
not  found  too  rude.  Mrs.  Arabella 
Fermor  was  so  pleased  with  the  poem, 
that  she  gave  away  copies  of  it.  Clear- 
ly she  was  not  hard  to  please,  for  she 
had  heard  much  worse  compliments. 
If  we  read  in  Swift  the  literal  transcript 
of  a  fashionable  conversation,  we  shall 
see  that  a  woman  of  fashion  of  that 
time  could  endure  much  before  she  was 
angry. 

But  the  strangest  thing  is,  that  this 
trifling  is,  for  Frenchmen  at  least,  no 
badinage  at  all.  It  is  not  at  all  like 
lightness  or  gayety.  Dorat,  Cresset, 
would  havebeen^stupefied  and  shocked 
by  it.  We  remain  cold  under  its  most 
brilliant  hits.  Now  and  then  at  most  a 
crack  of  the  whip  arouses  us,  but  not 
to  laughter.  These  caricatures  seem 
strange  to  us,  but  do  not  amuse.  The 
wit  is  no  wit  :  all  is  calculated,  com- 
bined, artificially  prepared  ;  we  expect 
flashes  of  lightning,  but  at  the  last  mo- 
ment they  do  not  descend.  Thus  Lord 
Petre,  to  "  implore  propitious  heaven, 
and  every  power," 

*  See  his  Epistle  of  the  Characters  of  Wo- 
men. According  to  Pope,  this  character  is 
composed  of  love  of  pleasure  and  love  of 
power. 

t  Rape  of  the  Lock,  c.  v.  181,  /.  141. 

t  Ibid.  c.  ii.  156,  /.  107. 


"  To  Love  an  altar  built 
Of  twelve  vast  French  romances,  neatly  gilt. 
There  lay  three  garters,  half  a  pair  of  gloves, 
And  all  the  trophies  of  his  former  loves  ; 
With  tender  billets-doux  he  lights  the  pyre, 
And  breathes  three  am'rous  sighs  to  raise  the 
fire."  * 

We  remain  disappointed,  not  seeing 
the  comicality  of  the  description.  We 
go  on  conscientiously,  and  in  the  pic- 
ture of  melancholy  and  her  palace  find 
figures  much  stranger  : 

"  Here   sighs  a   jar,   and    there  a  goose-pye 

talks  ; 
Men  proved  with  child,  as  pow'rful  fancy 

works, 

And    maids    turned    bottles,  call  aloud  for 
corks."  t 

We  say  to  ourselves  now  that  we  are 
in  China  ;  that  so  far  from  Paris  and 
Voltaire  we  must  be  surprised  at  noth- 
ing, that  these  folk  have  ears  different 
from  ours,  and  that  a  Pekin  mandarin 
vastly  relishes  kettle-music.  Finally, 
we  comprehend  that,  even  in  this  cor- 
rect age  and  this  artificial  poetry,  the 
old  style  of  imagination  exists  ;  that  it 
is  nourished  as  before,  by  oddities  and 
contrasts ;  and  that  taste,  in  spite  of 
all  culture,  will  never  become  acclima- 
tized ;  that  incongruities,  far  from  shock- 
ing, delight  it ;  that  it  is  insensible  to 
French  sweetness  and  refinements ; 
that  it  needs  a  succession  of  expressive 
figures,  unexpected  and  grinning,  to 
pass  before  it ;  that  it  prefers  this  coarse 
carnival  to  delicate  insinuations;  that 
Pope  belongs  to  his  country,  in  spite  of 
his  classical  polish  and  his  studied 
elegances,  and  that  his  unpleasant  and 
vigorous  fancy  is  akin  to  that  of  Swift. 
We  are  now  prepared  and  can  enter 
upon  his  second  poem,  The  Dunciad. 
We  need  much  self-command  not  to 
throw  down  this  masterpiece  as  insipid, 
and  even  disgusting.  Rarely  has  so 
much  talent  been  spent  to  produce 
greater  tedium.  Pope  wished  to  be 
avenged  on  his  literary  enemies,  and 
sang  of  Dulness,  the  sublime  goddess 
of  literature,  "  daughter  of  Chaos  and 
eternal  Night  .  .  .  gross  as  her  sire, 
and  as  her  mother  grave,"  \  queen  of 
hungry  authors,  who  chooses  for  her 
son  and  favorite,  first  Theobald  an-J 
afterwards  Gibber.  There  he  is,  a 

*  Ibid,  c.  ii.  153,  /.  37-42. 

t  Ibid.  c.  iv.  169,  /.  52. 

t  Pope's  Works,  The  Dunciadt  bk.  i. 


494 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III 


king,  and  to  celebrate  his  accession  she 
institutes  public  games  in  imitation  of 
the  ancients  ;  first  a  race  of  booksel- 
lers, trying  to  seize  a  poet ;  then  the 
struggle  of  the  authors,  who  first  vie 
with  each  other  in  braying,  and  then 
dash  into  the  Pleet-ditch  filth ;  then  the 
strife  of  critics,  who  have  to  under- 
go the  reading  of  two  voluminous  au- 
thors, without  falling  asleep.*  Strange 
parodies,  to  be  sure,  and  in  truth  not 
very  striking.  Who  is  not  deafened  by 
these  hackneyed  and  bald  allegories, 
Dulness,  poppies,  mists,  and  Sleep ! 
What  if  I  entered  into  details,  and  de- 
scribed the  poetess  offered  for  a  prize, 
"  with  cow-like  udders,  and  with  ox-like 
eyes  ;  "  if  I  related  the  plunges  of  the 
authors,  floundering  in  the  Fleet-ditch, 
the  vilest  sewer  in  the  town  ;  if  I  tran- 
scribed all  the  extraordinary  verses  in 
which 

"  First  he  relates,  how  sinking  to  the  chin, 
Smit  with  his  mien,  the  mud-nymphs  suck'd 

him  in : 

How  young  Lutetia,  softer  than  the  down, 
Nigrina  black,  and  Merdamante  brown, 
Vied  for  his  love  in  jetty  bow'rs  below.". . .  t 

I  must  stop.  Swift  alone  might  have 
seemed  capable  of  writing  some  pas- 
sages, for  instance  that  on  the  fall  of 
Curl.  We  might  have  excused  it  in 
Swift  ;  the  extremity  of  despair,  the 
rage  of  misanthropy,  the  approach  of 
madness,  might  have  carried  him  to 
such  excess.  But  Pope,  who  lived 
calm  and  admired  in  his  villa,  and  who 
was  only  urged  by  literary  rancor !  He 
can  have  had  no  nerves  !  How  could 
a  poet  have  dragged  his  talent  wantonly 
through  such  images  and  so  constrained 
his  ingeniously  woven  verses  to  receive 
such  dirt  ?  Picture  a  pretty  drawing- 
room  basket,  destined  only  to  contain 
flowers  and  fancy-work,  sent  down  to 
the  kitchen  to  be  turned  into  a  recepta- 
cle for  filth.  In  fact,  all  the  filth  of 
literary  life  is  here  ;  and  heaven  knows 
what  it  then  was  !  In  no  age  were 
hack-writers  so  beggarly  and  so  vile. 
Poor  fellows,  like  Richard  Savage,  who 
slept  during  one  winter  in  the  open  air 
on  the  cinders  of  a  glass  manufactory, 
•  ived  on  what  he  received  for  a  dedica- 
tion, knew  the  inside  of  a  prison,  rarely 
dined,  and  drank  at  the  expense  of  his 

*  Pope's  Works.  The  Dunciad,  bk.  ii. 
t  Ibid. 


friends;  pamphleteers  like  Tutchin, 
who  was  soundly  whipped  ;  plagiarists 
like  Ward,  exposed  in  the  pillory  anc 
pelted  with  rotten  eggs  and  apples  ; 
courtesans  like  Eliza  Heywood,  noto- 
rious by  the  shamelessness  of  their 
public  confessions  ;  bought  journalists, 
hired  slanderers,  vendors  of  scandal 
and  insults,  half  rogues,  complete  roy- 
sterers,  and  all  the  literary  vermin 
which  haunted  the  gambling-houses,  the 
stews,  the  gin-cellars,  and  at  a  signal 
from  a  bookseller  stung  honest  folk  for  a 
crownpiece.  These  villanies,  this  foul 
linen,  the  greasy  coat  six  years  old,  the 
musty  pudding,  and  the  rest,  are  to  be 
found  in  Pope  as  in  Hogarth,  with  Eng- 
lish coarseness  and  precision.  This  is 
their  error,  they  are  realists,  even  under 
the  classical  wig ;  they  do  not  disguise 
what  is  ugly  and  mean  ;  they  describe 
that  ugliness  and  meanness  with  their 
exact  outlines  and  distinguishing  marks; 
they  do  not  clothe  them  in  a  fine  cloak 
of  general  ideas  ;  they  do  not  cover 
them  with  the  pretty  innuendoes  of 
society.  This  is  the  reason  why  their 
satires  are  so  harsh.  Pope  does  not 
flog  the  dunces,  he  knocks  them  down  ; 
his  poem  is  hard  and  malicious  ;  it  is 
so  much  so,  that  it  becomes  clumsy  :  to 
add  to  the  punishment  of  dunces,  he 
begins  at  the  deluge,  writes  historical 
passages,  represents  at  length  the  past, 
present,  and  future  empire  of  Dulness, 
the  library  of  Alexandria  burned  by 
Omar,  learning  extinguished  by  the  inva- 
sion of  the  barbarians  and  by  the  su- 
perstition of  the  middle-age,  the  empire 
of  stupidity  which  extends  over  Eng- 
land and  will  swallow  it  up.  What 
paving-stones  to  crush  flies ! 

"  See  skulking  Truth  to  her  old  cavern  fled, 
Mountains  of  causistry  heap'd  o'er  her  head  I 
Philosophy,  that  leaned  on  Heav'n  before, 
Shrinks  to  her  second  cause,  and  is  no  moi  e. 
Physic  of  Metaphysic  begs  defence, 
And  Metaphysic  calls  for  aid  on  sense  !  .  .  . 
Religion  blushing  veils  her  sacred  fires, 
And  unawares  Morality  expires. 
Nor    public    flame,   nor    private,    dares    to 

shine  ; 
Nor  human  spark  is  left,   nor  glimpse  di 

vine  ! 

Lp  !  thy  dread  empire,  Chaos !  is  restored  ; 
Light  dies  before  thy  uncreating  word  : 
Thy   hand,   great  anarch !    lets   the  curtain 

fall  ; 
And  universal  darkness  buries  all."  * 


*  The  Dnnciad,  the  end. 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS. 


495 


The  last  scene  ends  with  noise,  cym- 
bals and  trombones,  crackers  and  fire- 
works. As  for  me,  I  carry  away  from 
this  celebrated  entertainment  only  the 
remembrance  of  a  hubbub.  Unwitting- 
ly I  have  counted  the  lights,  I  know 
the  machinery,  I  have  touched  the  toil- 
some stage-property  of  apparitions  and 
allegories.  I  bid  fare  well  to  the  scene- 
painter,  the  machinist,  the  manager  of 
literary  effects,  and  go  elsewhere  to 
find  the  poet. 

IV. 

However,  a  poet  exists  in  Pope,  and 
to  discover  him  we  have  only  to  read 
him  by  fragments  ;  if  the  whole  is,  as  a 
rule,  wearisome  or  shocking,  the  details 
are  admirable.  It  is  so  at  the  close  of 
every  literary  age.  Pliny  the  younger, 
and  Seneca,  so  affected  and  so  stiff, 
are  charming  in  small  bits ;  each  of 
their  phrases,  taken  by  itself,  is  a  mas- 
terpiece ;  each  verse  in  Pope  is  a  mas- 
terpiece when  taken  alone.  At  this 
time,  and  after  a  hundred  years  of  cul- 
ture, there  is  no  movement,  no  object, 
no  action,  which  poets  cannot  describe. 
Every  aspect  of  nature  was  observed ; 
a  sunrise,  a  landscape  reflected  in  the 
water,  *  a  breeze  amid  the  foliage,  and 
so  forth.  Ask  Pope  to  paint  in  verse 
an  eel,  a  perch,  or  a  trout ;  he  has  the 
exact  phrase  ready ;  we  might  glean 
from  him  the  contents  of  a  "  Gradus." 
He  gives  the  features  so  exactly,  that 
at  once  we  think  we  see  the  thing  ;  he 
gives  the  expression  so  copiously,  that 
our  imagination,  however  obtuse,  will 
end  by  seeing  it.  He  marks  every 
thing  in  the  flight  of  a  pheasant : 

"  See !  from  the  brake  the  whirring  pheasant 

springs 

And  mounts  exulting  on  triumphant  wings. . 
Ah  !  what  avail  his  glossy,  varying  dyes, 
His  purple  crest,  and  scarlet-circled  eyes, 
The  vivid  green  his  shining  plumes  unfold, 
His   painted   wings,  and  breast  that  flames 

with  gold  ?  "  t 


*  Pope's  Works,  i.  352  ;  Windsor  Forest,  I. 
an. 

J  Oft  in  her  glass  the  musing  shepherd  spies 
The  headlong  mountains  and  the  downward 

skies, 

The  wat'ry  landscape  of  fie  pendant  woods. 
And  absent  trees  that  tremble  in  the  floods, 
t  Pope's  Works,  i.  347  ;  Windsor  Forest,  L 
111-118. 


He  possesses  the  richest  store  of  words 
to  depict  the  sylphs  which  flutter  round 
his  heroine,  Belinda  : 

"  But  now  secure  the  painted  vessel  glides, 
The  sunbeams  trembling  on  the  floating  tidesj 
While  melting  music  steals  upon  the  sky, 
And  softened  sounds  along  the  waters  die  ; 
Smooth  flow  the  waves,  the  zephyrs  gently 

play,  .  .  . 

The  lucid  squadrons  round  the  sails  repair  : 
Soft  o'er  the  shrouds  the  aerial  whispers 

breathe, 

That  seemed  but  zephyrs   to  the  train  be- 
neath. 

Some  to  the  sun  their  insect-wings  unfold, 
Waft  on  the  breeze,  or  sink  in  clouds  oi  gold; 
Transparent  forms,  too  fine  for  mortal  sight« 
Their  fluid  bodies  half  dissolved  in  light. 
Loose  to  the  wind  their  airy  garment  flew, 
Then  glitt'ring  textures  of  the  filmy  dew, 
Dipped  in  the  richest  tincture  of  the  skies, 
Where  light  disports  in  ever-mingling  dyes  ; 
While    ev'ry  beam    new    transient    colours 

flings, 

Colours  that  change  whene'er  they  wave  their 
wings."  * 

Doubtless  these  are  not  Shakspeare's 
sylphs  ;  but  side  by  side  with  a  natural 
and  living  rose,  we  may  still  look  with 
pleasure  on  a  flower  of  diamonds,  as 
they  come  from  the  hand  of  the  jewel- 
ler, a  masterpiece  of  art  and  patience, 
whose  facets  make  the  light  glitter,  and 
cast  a  shower  of  sparkles  over  the  fili- 
gree foliage  in  which  they  are  embed- 
ded. A  score  of  times  in  a  poem  of 
Pope's  we  stop  to  look  with  wonder  on 
some  of  these  literary  adornments. 
He  feels  so  well  in  what  the  strong 
point  of  his  talent  lies,  that  he  'abuses 
it ;  he  delights  to  show  his  skill.  What 
can  be  staler  than  a  card  party,  or  more 
repellant  to  poetry  than  the  queen  o£ 
spades  or  the  king  of  hearts  ?  Yet, 
doubtless  for  a  wager,  he  has  recorded 
in  the  Rape  of  the  Lock  a  game  of  om- 
bre ;  we  follow  it,  hear  it,  recognize  the 
dresses  : 
"  Behold  four  kings  in  majesty  revered, 

With  hoary  whiskers  and  a  forky  beard  ; 

And  four  fair  queens  whose  hands  sustain  4 
flower, 

Th'  expressive  emblem  of  their  softer  powe  ", 

Four  knaves  in  garb  succinct,  a  trusty  band  ; 

Caps    on   their  heads  and  halberts  in  theit 
hand  ; 

And  parti-coloured  troops,  a  shining  train, 

Drawn  forth  to  combat  on  the  velvet  plain."t 
We  see  the  trumps,  the  cuts,  the  tricks, 
and  instantly  afterwards  the  coffee,  the 

*  Ibid.  ii.  154 ;  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  c.  2 
I.  47-68. 

t  Ibid.  ii.  160  ;  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  c.  3 
1 60,  /.  37-44. 


49<5 


china,  the  spoons,  the  fiery  spirits  (to 
wit,  spirits  of  wine) ;  we  have  here  in 
advance  the  modes  and  periphrases  of 
Delille.  The  celebrated  verses  in 
which  Delille  at  once  employs  and  de- 
scribes imitative  harmony,  are  transla- 
ted from  Pope.*  It  is  an  expiring  po- 
etry, but  poetry  still :  an  ornament  to 
put  on  a  mantel-piece  is  an  inferior 
work  of  art,  but  still  it  is  a  work  of  art. 
To  descriptive  talent  Pope  unites  ora- 
torical talent.  This  art,  proper  to  the 
classical  age,  is  the  art  of  expressing 
ordinary  general  ideas.  For  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  men  of  both  the  think- 
ing countries,  England  and  France,  em- 
ployed herein  all  their  study.  They 
seized  those  universal  and  limited 
truths,  which,  being  situated  between 
lofty  philosophical  abstractions  and 
petty  sensible  details,  are  the  subject- 
matter  of  eloquence  and  rhetoric,  and 
form  what  we  now-a-days  call  common- 
places. They  arranged  them  in  com- 
partments ;  methodically  developed 
them  ;  made  them  obvious  by  grouping 
and  symmetry  ;  disposed  them  in  regu- 
lar processions,  which  with  dignity  and 
majesty  advance  well  disciplined,  and 
in  a  body.  The  influence  of  this  ora- 
torical reason  became  so  great,  that  it 
was  imposed  on  poetry  itself.  Buffon 
ends  by  saying,  in  praise  of  certain 
verses,  that  they  are  as  fine  as  fine 
prose.  In  fact,  poetry  at  this  time  be- 
came a  more  affected  prose  subjected 
to  rhyme.  It  was  only  a  higher  kind 
of  conversation  and  more  select  dis- 
course. It  is  powerless  when  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  paint  or  represent  an  action, 
when  the  need  is  to  see  and  make  visi- 
ble living  passions,  large  genuine  emo- 
tions, men  of  flesh  and  blood ;  it  re- 
sults only  in  college  epics  like  the  Hen- 
riade,  freezing  odes  and  tragedies  like 
those  of  Voltaire  and  Jean-Baptiste 
Rousseau,  or  those  of  Addison,  Thom- 
son, Dr.  Johnson,  and  the  rest.  It 
makes  them  up  of  dissertations,  because 
it  is  capable  of  nothing  else  but  disser- 
tations. Here  henceforth  is  its  domain  ; 
and  its  final  task  is  the  didactic  poem, 
which  is  a  dissertation  in  verse.  Pope 
excelled  in  it,  and  his  most  perfect 

*  "  Peins-moi    Increment    1'amant    le*ger    de 

Flore, 

Qu'un  doux  ruisseau  murmure  en  vers  plus 
doux  encore." 


777^  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


poems  are  those  made  up  of  precepts 
and  arguments.  Artifice  in  these  is  less 
shocking  than  elsewhere.  A  poem — I 
am  wrong,essays  like  his  upon  Criticism^ 
on  Man  and  the  Government  of  Provi- 
dence, on  the  Knowledge  and  Characters 
of  Men,  deserve  to  be  written  after  re- 
flection ;  they  are  a  study,  and  almost 
a  scientific  monograph.  We  may,  we 
even  ought,  to  weigh  all  the  words,  and 
verify  all  the  connections  :  art  and  at- 
tention are  not  superfluous,  but  neces- 
sary ;  the  question  concerns  exact  pre- 
cepts and  close  arguments.  In  this 
Pope  is  incomparable.  I  do  not  think 
that  there  is  in  the  world  a  versifi- 
ed prose  like  his ;  that  gf  Boileau  is 
not  to  be  compared  to  it.  Not  that  its 
ideas  are  very  worthy  of  attention ;  we 
have  worn  them  out,  they  interest  us 
no  longer.  The  Essay  on  Criticism  re- 
sembles Boileau's  Epitres  L"1  Art  Pol- 
tique,  excellent  works,  no  longer  read 
but  in  classes  at  school.  It  is  a  collec- 
tion of  very  wise  precepts,  whose  only 
fault  is  their  being  too  true.  To  say 
that  good  taste  is  rare  ;  that  we  ought 
to  reflect  and  learn  before  deciding ; 
that  the  rules  of  art  are  drawn  from 
nature  ;  that  pride,  ignorance,  preju- 
dice, partiality,  envy,  pervert  our  judg- 
ment ;  that  a  critic  should  be  sincere, 
modest,  polished,  kindly, — all  these 
truths  might  then  be  discoveries,  but 
they  are  so  no  longer.  I  suppose  that 
in  the  time  of  Pope,  Dryden,  and  Boi- 
leau, men  had  special  need  of  setting 
their  ideas  in  order,  and  of  seeing  them 
very  distinctly  in  very  clear  phrases. 
Now  that  this  need  is  satisfied,  it  has 
disappeared :  we  demand  ideas,  not  ar- 
rangement of  ideas ;  the  pigeon-holes 
are  manufactured,  fill  them.  Pope  was 
obliged  to  do  it  once  in  the  Essay  on 
Man,  which  is  a  sort  of  Vicaire  Savoy- 
ard, *  less  original  than  the  other.  He 
shows  that  God  made  all  for  the  best, 
that  man  is  limited  in  his  capacity  and 
ought  not  to  judge  God,  that  our  pas- 
sions  and  imperfections  serve  for  the 
general  good  and  for  the  ends  of  Provi- 
dence, that  happiness  lies  in  virtue  and 
submission  to  the  divine  will.  We 
recognize  here  a  sort  of  deism  and 
optimism,  of  which  there  was  much  at 
that  time,  borrowed,  like  those  of  Rous- 

*  A  tale  of  J.  J.  Rousseau,  in  which  he  tries 
to  depict  a  philosophical  clergyman. — TR. 


CHAP.  VII.]  THE  POETS. 

4 

seau,  from  the  Theodicte  of  Leibnitz,  * 
but  tempered,  toned  down  and  arranged 
for  the  use  of  respectable  people.  The 
conception  is  not  very  lofty  :  this  cur- 
tailed deity,  making  his  appearance  at 
the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century, 


497 


is  but  a  resi 


ng  ot  the  e 
iduum  :  n 


•eligion  having  dis- 


appeared, he  remained  at  the  bottom 
of  the  crucible ;  and  the  reasoners  of 
the  time,  having  no  metaphysical  in- 
ventiveness, kept  him  in  their  system 
to  stop  a  gap.  In  this  state  and  at 
this  place  this  deity  resembles  classic 
verse.  He  has  an  imposing  appearance, 
is  comprehended  easily,  is  stripped  of 
power,  is  the  product  of  cold  argu- 
mentative reason,  and  leaves  the  peo- 
ple who  attend  to  him,  very  much  at 
ease ;  on  all  these  accounts  he  is  akin 
to  an  Alexandrine.  This  poor  concep- 
tion is  all  the  more  wretched  in  Pope 
because  it  does  not  belong  to  him,  for 
he  is  only  accidentally  a  philosopher; 
and  to  find  matter  for  his  poem,  three 
or  four  sj^stems,  deformed  and  attenu- 
ated, are  amalgamated  in  his  work. 
He  boasts  of  having  tempered  them 
one  with  the  other,  and  having  "  steered 
between  the  extremes,  "f  The  truth  is, 
that  he  did  not  understand  them,  and 
that  he  jumbles  incongruous  ideas  at 
every  step.  There  is  a  passage  in 
which,  to  obtain  an  effect  of  style,  he 
becomes  a  pantheist  ;  moreover,  he  is 
bombastic,  and  assumes  the  supercili- 
ous, imperious  tone  of  a  young  doctor 
of  theology.  I  find  no  individual  in- 
vention except  in  his  Moral  Essays ; 
in  them  is  a  theory  of  dominant  passion 
which  is  worth  reading.  After  all,  he 
went  farther  than  Boileau,  for  instance, 
in  the  knowledge  of  man.  Psychology 
is  indigenous  in  England  ;  we  meet  it 
there  throughout,  even  in  the  least  crea- 
tive minds.  It  gives  rise  to  the  novel, 
disposesses  philosophy,  produces  the 
essay,  appears  in  the  newspapers,  fills 
current  literature,  like  those  indigenous 
plants  which  multiply  on  every  soil. 

But  if  the  ideas  are  mediocre,  the 
art  of  expressing  them  is  truly  marvel- 
lous :  marvellous  is  the  word.  "  I 
chose  verse,"  says  Pope  in  his  Design 
of  an  Essay  on  Man,  "  because  I  found 

*  The  Thtodicee  was  written  in  French,  and 
published  in  1710  — TR. 

t  These  words  are  taken  from  the  Design  of 
an  Essay  on  Man. 


I  could  express  them  (ideas)  more 
shortly  this  way  than  in  prose  itself."" 
In  fact,  every  word  is  effective  :  everj 
passage  must  be  read  slowly;  every 
epithet  is  an  epitome;  a  more  con- 
densed style  was  never  written ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  no  one  labored  more 
skilfully  in  introducing  philosophical 
formulas  into  the  current  conversation 
of  society.  His  maxims  have  become 
proverbs.  I  open  his  Essay  on  Man  at 
random,  and  fall  upon  the  beginning  of 
his  second  book.  An  orator,  an  author 
of  the  school  of  Buffon,  would  be  trans- 
ported with  admiration  to  see  so  many 
literary  treasures  collected  in  so  small 
a  space  : 

"  Know  then    thyself,  presume  not  God    to 

scan, 

The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man. 
Placed  on  this  isthmus  of  a  middle  state, 
A  being  darkly  wise,  and  rudely  great : 
With  too  much   knowledge  for  the  sceptic 

side, 
With   too    much    weakness  for  the    stoic's 

pride, 

He  hangs  between  ;  in  doubt  to  act,  or  rest ; 
In  doubt  to  deem  himself  a  God  or  beast ; 
In  doubt  his  mind  or  body  to  prefer  ; 
Born  but  to  die,  and  reas'ning  but  to  err  ; 
Alike  in  ignorance,  his  reason  such, 
Whether  he  thinks  too  little  or  too  much  ; 
Chaos  of  thought  and  passion,  all  confused  ; 
Still  by  himself  abused  or  disabused ; 
Created  half  to  rise,  and  half  to  fall  ; 
Great  lord  of  all  things,  yet  a  prey  to  all ; 
Sole  judge  of  truth  in  endless  error  hurled. 
The  glory,  jest,  and  riddle  of  the  world."  * 

The  first  verse  epitomizes  the  whole  of 
the  preceding  epistle,  and  the  second 
epitomizes  the  present  epistle  ;  it  is,  as 
it  were,  a  kind  of  staircase  leading  from 
one  temple  to  another,  regularly  com- 
posed of  symmetrical  steps,  so  aptly 
disposed  that  from  the  first  step  we  see 
at  a  glance  the  whole  building  we  have 
left,  and  from  the  second  the  whole  edi- 
fice we  are  about  to  visit.  Have  we  ever 
seen  a  finer  entrance,  or  one  more  con- 
formable to  the  rules  which  bid  us  unite 
our  ideas,  recall  them  when  developed, 
pre-announce  them  when  not  yet  de- 
veloped ?  But  this  is  not  enough.  Af« 
ter  this  brief  announcement,  which 
premises  that  he  is  about  to  treat  of 
human  nature,  a  longer  announcement, 
is  necessary,  to  paint  beforehand,  with 
the  greatest  possible  splendor,  this  hu- 
man nature  of  which  he  is  about  to 

*  Pope's  Works,  ii. ;  An  Essay   on  Man 
|  Ep.  ii.  375.  I-  1-18. 


498 


treat  This  is  the  proper  oratorical 
exordium,  like  those  which  Bossuet 
places  at  the  beginning  of  his  funeral 
orations ;  a  sort  of  elaborate  portico  to 
receive  the  audience  on  their  entrance, 
and  prepare  them  for  the  magnificence 
of  the  temple.  The  antitheses  follow 
each  other  in  couples  like  a  succession 
of  columns ;  thirteen  couples  form  a 
suite ;  and  the  last  is  raised  above  the 
rest  by  a  word,  which  concentrates  and 
combines  all.  In  other  hands  this  pro- 
longation of  the  same  form  would  be- 
come tedious  ;  in  Pope's  it  interests  us, 
so  much  variety  is  there  in  the  arrange- 
ment and  the  adornments.  In  one 
place  the  antithesis  is  comprised  in  a 
single  line,  in  another  it  occupies  two  : 
now  it  is  in  the  substantives,  now  in 
the  adjectives  and  verbs  ;  now  only  in 
the  ideas,  now  it  penetrates  the  sound 
and  position  of  the  words.  In  vain  we 
see  it  reappear;  we  are  not  wearied, 
because  each  time  it  adds  somewhat  to 
our  idea,  and  shows  us  the  object  in  a 
new  light.  This  object  itself  may  be 
abstract,  obscure,  unpleasant,  opposed 
to  poetry ;  the  style  spreads  over  it  its 
own  light ;  noble  images  borrowed  from 
the  grand  and  simple  spectacles  of  na- 
ture, illustrate  and  adorn  it.  For  there 
is  a  classical  architecture  of  ideas  as 
well  as  of  stones :  the  first,  like  the 
second,  is  a  friend  to  clearness  and  reg- 
ularity, majesty  and  calm;  like  the 
second,  it  was  invented  in  Greece, 
transmitted  through  Rome  to  France, 
through  France  to  England,  and  slight- 
ly altered  in  its  passage.  Of  all  the 
masters  who  have  practised  it  in  Eng- 
land, Pope  is  the  most  skilled. 
t  After  all  is  there  any  thing  in  the 
lines  just  quoted  but  decoration? 
Translate  them  literally  into  prose, 
=md  of  all  those  beauties  there  remains 
no.  one.  If  the  reader  dissects  Pope's 
arguments,  he  will  hardly  be  moved  by 
them  ;  he  would  instinctively  think  of 
Pascal's  Pensees,  and  remark  upon  the 
astonishing  difference  between  a  versi- 
fier and  a  man.  A  good  epitome,  a 
good  bit  of  style,  well  worked  out,  well 
written,  he  would  say,  and  nothing  fur- 
ther. Clearly  the  beauty  of  the  verses 
arose  from  the  difficulty  overcome,  the 
well-chosen  sounds,  the  symmetrical 
rhythms  ;  this  was  all,  and  it  was  not 
much.  A  great  writer  is  a  man  who, 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  IIL 


having  passions,  knows  his  dictionary 
and  grammar  ;  Pope  thoroughly  knew 
his  dictionary  and  his  grammar,  but 
stopped  there. 

People  will  say  that  this  merit  is 
small,  and  that  I  do  not  inspire  them 
with  a  desire  to  read  Pope's  verses. 
True ;  at  least  I  do  not  counsel  them 
to  read  many.  I  would  add,  however, 
by  way  of  excuse,  that  there  is  a  kind 
in  which  he  succeeds,  that  his  descrip- 
tive and  oratorical  talents  find  in  por- 
traiture matter  which  suits  them,  and 
that  in  this  he  frequently  approaches 
La  Bruyere;  that  several  of  his  por- 
traits, those  of  Addison,  Lord  Hervey, 
Lord  Wharton,  the  Duchess  of  Marl- 
borough,  are  medals  worthy  of  finding 
a  place  in  the  cabinets  of  the  curious, 
and  of  remaining  in  the  archives  of  the 
human  race ;  that  when  he  chisels  one 
of  these  heads,  the  comprehensive  im- 
ages, the  unlooked-for  connections  of 
words,  the  sustained  and  multiplied 
contrasts,  the  perpetual  and  extraordi- 
nary conciseness,  the  incessant  and  in- 
creasing impulse  of  all  the  strokes  of 
eloquence  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
same  spot,  stamp  upon  the  memory  an 
impress  which  we  never  forget.  It  is 
better  to  repudiate  these  partial  apolo- 
gies, and  frankly  to  avow  that,  on  the 
whole,  this  great  poet,  the  glory  of  his 
age,  is  wearisome — wearisome  to  us. 
"  A  woman  of  forty,"  says  Stendhal,  "is 
only  beautiful  to  those  who  have  loved 
her  in  their  youth."  The  poor  muse  in 
question  is  not  forty  years  old  for  us  ; 
she  is  a  hundred  and  forty.  Let  us  re- 
member, when  we  wish  to  judge  her 
fairly,  the  time  when  we  made  French 
verses  like  our  Latin  verse.  Taste  be- 
came transformed  an  age  ago,  for  the  hu- 
man mind  has  wheeled  round  ;  with  the 
prospect  the  perspective  has  changed  ; 
we  must  take  this  change  of  place 
into  account.  Now-a-days  we  demand 
new  ideas  and  bare  sentiments;  we 
care  no  longer  for  the  clothing,  we 
want  the  thing.  Exordium,  transitions, 
peculiarities  of  style,  elegances  of  ex- 
pression, the  whole  literary  wardrobe, 
is  sent  to  the  old-clothes  shop;  we 
only  keep  what  is  indispensable;  we 
trouble  ourselves  no  more  about  adorn- 
ment but  about  truth.  The  men  of  the 
preceding  century  were  quite  different. 
This  was  seen  when  Pope  translated 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS. 


499 


the  Iliad  ;  it  was  the  Iliad  written  in 
the  style  of  the  Henriade :  by  virtue  of 
this  travesty  the  public  admired  it. 
They  would  not  have  admired  it  in  the 
simple  Greek  guise  ;  they  only  consent- 
ed to  see  it  in  powder  and  ribbons.  It 
was  the  costume  of  the  time,  and  it 
was  very  necessary  to  put  it  on.  Dr. 
Johnson  in  his  commercial  and  academ- 
ical style  affirms  even  that  the  demand 
for  elegance  had  increased  so  much, 
that  pure  nature  could  no  longer  be 
borne. 

Good  society  and  men  of  letters  made 
a  little  world  by  themselves,  which  had 
been  formed  and  refined  after  the  man- 
ner and  ideas  of  France.  They  adopt- 
ed a  correct  and  noble  style  at  the  same 
time  as  fashion  and  fine  manners.  They 
held  by  this  style  as  by  their  coat ;  it 
was  a  matter  of  propriety  or  ceremony  ; 
there  was  an  accepted  and  unalterable 
pattern ;  they  could  not  change  it  with- 
out indecency  or  ridicule;  to  write, 
not  according  to  the  rules,  especially 
in  verse,  effusively  and  naturally,  would 
have  been  like  showing  oneself  in  the 
drawing-room  in  slippers  and  a  dressing- 
gown.  Their  pleasure  in  reading  verse 
was  to  try  whether  the  pattern  had 
been  exactly  followed,  originality  was 
only  permitted  in  details;  a  man  might 
adjust  here  a  lace,  there  some  embroid- 
ered stripe,  but  he  was  bound  scrupu- 
lously to  preserve  the  conventional 
form,  to  brush  every  thing  minutely, 
and  never  to  appear  without  a  new  gold 
lace  and  glossy  broadcloth.  The  atten- 
tion was  only  bestowed  on  refinements  ; 
a  more  elaborate  braid,  a  more  bril- 
liant velvet,  a  feather  more  gracefully 
arranged ;  to  this  were  boldness  and 
experiment  reduced  ;  the  smallest  in- 
correctness, the  slightest  incongruity, 
would  have  offended  their  eyes  ;  they 
perfected  the  infinitely  little.  Men  of 
letters  acted  like  these  coquettes,  for 
whom  the  superb  goddesses  of  Michael 
Angelo  and  Rubens  are  but  milk-maids, 
but  who  utter  a  cry  of  pleasure  at  the 
sight  of  a  ribbon  at  twenty  francs  a 
yard.  A  division,  a  displacing  of  verses, 
a  metaphor  delighted  them,  and  this 
was  all  which  could  still  charm  them. 
They  went  on  day  by  day  embroider- 
ing, bedizening,  narrowing  the  bright 
classic  robe,  until  at  last  the  human 
mind,  feeling  fettered,  tore  it,  cast  it 


away,  and  began  to  move.  Now  that 
this  robe  is  on  the  ground  the  critics 
pick  it  up,  hang  it  up  in  their  museum 
of  ancient  curiosities,  so  that  every- 
body can  see  it,  shake  it,  and  try  to 
conjecture  from  it  the  feelings  of  the 
fine  lords  and  of  the  fine  speakers  who 
wore  it. 

V. 

It  is  not  everything  to  have  a  beauti- 
ful dress,  strongly  sewn  and  fashion- 
able ;  a  man  must  be  able  to  get  into 
it  easily.  Reviewing  the  whole  train 
of  the  English  poets  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  we  perceive  that  they  do  not 
easily  get  into  the  classical  dress.  This 
gold-embroidered  jacket,  which  fits  a 
Frenchman  so  well,  hardly  suits  their 
figure  ;  from  time  to  time  a  too  power- 
ful, awkward  movement  makes  rents  in 
the  sleeves  and  elsewhere.  For  in- 
stance, Matthew  Prior  seems  at  first 
sight  to  have  all  the  qualities  necessary 
to  wear  the  jacket  well ;  he  has  been 
an  ambassador  to  the  French  court, 
and  writes  pretty  French  impromptus  ; 
he  turns  off  with  facility  little  jesting 
poems  on  a  dinner,  a  lady ;  he  is  gal- 
lant, a  man  of  society,  a  pleasant  story- 
teller, epicurean,  even  skeptical  like  the 
courtiers  of  Charles  II.,  that  is  to  say, 
as  far  as  and  including  political  rog- 
uery ;  in  short,  he  is  an  accomplished 
man  of  the  world,  as  times  went,  with 
a  correct  and  flowing  style,  having  at 
command  a  light  and  a  noble  verse, 
and  pulling,  according  to  the  rules  of 
Bossu  and  Boileau,  the  string  of  my- 
thological puppets.  With  all  this,  we 
find  him  neither  gay  enough  nor  re- 
fined enough.  Bolingbroke  called  him 
wooden-faced,  stubborn,  and  said  there 
was  something  Dutch  in  him.  His 
manners  smacked  very  strongly  of  those 
of  Rochester,  and  the  well-clad  scamps 
whom  the  Restoration  bequeathed  to 
the  Revolution.  He  took  the  first 
woman  at  hand,  shut  himself  up  with 
her  for  several  days,  drank  hard, 
fell  asleep,  and  let  her  make  off  with 
his  money  and  clothes.  Amongst  oth- 
er drabs,  ugly  enough  and  always  dirty, 
he  finished  by  keeping  Elizabeth  Cox, 
and  all  but  married  her  ;  fortunately  he 
died  just  in  time.  His  style  was  like 
his  manners.  When  he  tried  to  imi- 


500 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  lit 


tate  La  Fontaine's  Hans  Carvel,  he 
made  it  dull,  and  lengthened  it;  he 
could  not  be  piquant,  but  he  was  biting  ; 
his  obscenities  have  a  cynical  harsh- 
ness; his  raillery  is  a  satire,  and  in  one 
of  his  poems,  To  a  Young  Gentleman 
in  Love,  the  lash  becomes  a  knock- 
down blow.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
was  not  a  common  roysterer.  Of  his 
two  principal  poems,  one  on  Solomon 
paraphrases  and  treats  of  the  remark 
of  Ecclesiastes,  "  All  is  vanity."  From 
this  picture  we  see  forthwith  that  we 
are  in  a  biblical  land :  such  an  idea 
would  not  then  have  occurred  to  a  boon 
companion  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
Regent  of  France.  Solomon  relates 
how  he  in  vain  "  proposed  his  doubts 
to  the  lettered  Rabbins,"  how  he  has 
been  equally  unfortunate  in  the  hopes 
and  desires  of  love,  the  possession  of 
power,  and  ends  by  trusting  to  an  "  om- 
niscient Master,  omnipresent  King." 
Here  we  have  English  gloom  and  Eng- 
lish conclusions.*  Moreover,  under 
the  rhetorical  and  uniform  composition 
of  his  verses,  we  perceive  warmth  and 
passion,  rich  painting,  a  sort  of  magnif- 
icence, and  the  profusion  of  an  over- 
charged imagination.  The  sap  in  Eng- 
land is  always  stronger  than  in  France  ; 
the  sensations  there  are  deeper,  and 
the  thoughts  more  original.  Prior's 
other  poem,  very  bold  and  philosophi- 
cal, against  conventional  truths  and 
pedantries,  is  a  droll  discourse  on  the 
seat  of  the  soul,  from  which  Voltaire 
has  taken  many  ideas  and  much  foul- 
ness. The  whole  armory  of  the  skep- 
tic and  materialist  was  built  and  fur- 
nished in  England,  when  the  French 
took  to  it.  Voltaire  has  only  selected 
and  sharpened  the  arrows.  This  poem 
is  also  wholly  written  in  a  prosaic  style, 
with  a  harsh  common  sense  and  a 
medical  frankness,  not  to  be  terrified 
by  the  foulest  abominations,  f  Candide 

»  Prior's  Works,  ed.  Gilfillan,  1851: 
'  In  the  remotest  wood  and  lonely  grot, 
Certain  to  meet  that  worst  of  evils,  thought" 
t  Alma,  canto  ii.  /.  937-978  : 
"  Your  nicer  Hottentots  think  meet 
With  guts  and  tripe  to  deck  their  feet ; 
With  downcast  looks  on  Totta's  legs 
The  ogling  youth  most  humbly  begs, 
She  would  not  from  his  hopes  remove 
At  once  his  breakfast  and  his  love.  .  .  . 
Before  you  see,  you  smell  your  toast, 
And  sweetest  she  who  stinks  the  most." 


and  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield's  Ears,  by 
Voltaire,  are  more  brilliant  but  not 
more  genuine  productions.  On  the 
whole,  with  his  coarseness,  want  ot 
taste,  prolixity,  perspicacity,  passion, 
there  is  something  in  this  man  not  in 
accordance  with  classical  elegance. 
He  goes  beyond  it  or  does  not  attain 
it. 

This  dissonance  increases,  and  atten- 
tive eyes  soon  discover  under  the  regu- 
lar cloak  a  kind  of  energetic  and  pre- 
cise imagination,  ready  to  break  through 
it.  In  this  age  lived  Gay,  a  sort  of  La 
Fontaine,  as  near  La  Fontaine  as  an 
Englishman  can  be,  that  is,  not  very 
near,  but  at  least  a  kind  and  amiable 
good  fellow,  very  sincere,  very  frank, 
strangely  thoughtless,  born  to  be  duped, 
and  a  young  man  to  the  last.  Swift 
said  of  him  that  he  ought  never  to  have 
lived  more  than  twenty-two  years.  "  In 
wit  a  man,  simplicity  a  child,"  wrote 
Pope.  He  lived,  like  La  Fontaine,  at 
the  expense  of  the  great,  travelled  as 
much  as  he  could  at  their  charge,  lost 
his  money  in  South-Sea  speculations, 
tried  to  get  a  place  at  court,  wrote 
fables  full  of  humanity  to  form  the 
heart  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,*  and 
ended  as  a  beloved  parasite  and  the  do- 
mestic poet  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess 
of  Queensberry.  He  had  little  of  the 
grave  in  his  character,  and  neither  many 
scruples  nor  manners.  It  was  his  sad 
lot,  he  said,  "  that  he  could  get  nothing 
from  the  court,  whether  he  wrote  for  or 
against  it."  And  he  wrote  his  own 
epitaph : 

"  Life  is  a  jest ;  and  all  things  show  it, 
I  thought  so  once  ;  but  now  I  know  it."  t 

This  laughing  careless  poet,  to  revenge 
himself  on  the  minister,  wrote  the 
Beggars'*  Opera,  the  fiercest  and  dirtiest 
of  caricatures.  J  In  this  opera  they  cut 
the  throats  of  men  in  place  of  scratching 
them  ;  babes  handle  the  knife  like  the 
rest.  Yet  Gay  was  a  laugher,  but  in  a 
style  of  his  own,  or  rather  in  that  of  his 
country.  Seeing  "  certain  young  men 
of  insipid  delicacy,"  §  Ambrose  Philips, 

*  The  same  duke  who  was  afterwards  nick- 
named "  the  Butcher." 

t  Poems  on  Several  Occasions,  by  Mr.  John 
Gay,  1745,  2  vpls.  ii.  141. 

t  See  vol.  iii.  ch.  iii.  p.  81. 

§  Poems  on  Several  Occasions  ;  The  Proeme 
to  The  Shepherd  s  Week,  i.  64, 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS. 


for  instance,  who  wrote  elegant  and 
tender  pastorals,  in  the  manner  of  Fon- 
tenelle,  he  amused  himself  by  parody- 
ing and  contradicting  them,  and  in  the 
Shepherd's  Week  introduced  real  rural 
manners  into  the  metre  and  form  of  the 
visionary  poetry :  *'  Thou  wilt  not  find 
my  shepherdesses  idly  piping  on  oaten 
reeds,  but  milking  the  kine,  tying  up 
the  sheaves,  or  if  the  hogs  are  astray, 
driving  them  to  their  styes.  My  shep- 
herd .  .  .  sleepeth  not  under  myrtle 
shades,  but  under  a  hedge,  nor  doth  he 
vigilantly  defend  his  flocks  from  wolves, 
because  there  are  none."  *  Fancy  a 
shepherd  of  Theocritus  or  Virgil,  com- 
pelled to  put  on  hobnailed  shoes  and 
the  dress  of  a  Devonshire  cowherd ; 
such  an  oddity  would  amuse  us  by  the 
contrast  of  his  person  and  his  garments. 
So  here  The  Magician,  The  Shepherd's 
Struggle,  are  travestied  in  a  modern 
guise.  Listen  to  the  song  of  the  first 
shepherd,  "  Lobbin  Clout :  " 

"  Leek  to  the  Welch,  to   Dutchmen  butter's 

dear, 

Of  Irish  swains  potatoe  is  the  chear  ; 
Oat  for  their  feasts,  the  Scottish  shepherds 

grind,  ^ 

Sweet  turnips  are  the  food  of  Blouzelind. 
While  she  loves  turnips,  butter  I'll  despise, 
Nor  leeks,  nor  oatmeal,  nor  potatoe  prize."* 

The  other  shepherd  answers  in  the 
same  metre ;  and  the  two  continue, 
verse  after  verse,  in  the  ancient  manner, 
but  now  amidst  turnips,  strong  beer,  fat 
pigs,  bespattered  at  will  by  modern 
country  vulgarities  and  the  dirt  of  a 
northern  climate.  Van  Ostade  and 
Teniers  love  these  vulgar  and  clownish 
idyls  ;  and  in  Gay,  as  well  as  with  them, 
unvarnished  and  sensual  drollery  has 
its  sway.  The  people  of  the  north, 
who  are  great  eaters,  always  liked 
country  fairs.  The  vagaries  of  toss- 
pots and  gossips,  the  grotesque  out- 
burst of  the  vulgar  and  animal  mind, 
put  them  into  good  humor.  A  man 
must  be  a  genuine  man  of  the  world  or 
an  artist,  a  Frenchman  or  an  Italian,  to 
be  disgusted  with  them.  They  are  the 
product  of  the  country,  as  well  as  meat 
and  beer :  let  us  try,  in  order  that  we 
may  enjoy  them,  to  forget  wine,  delicate 
fruits,  to  give  ourselves  blunted  senses, 

*  Poems  on  Several  Occasions  ;  The  Proeme 
to  The  Shepherd's  Wfk,  i.  66. 

t  Gay's  Poems  The  Shepherds  Week;  first 
pastoral,  The  Squabble^  p.  80. 


to  become  in  imagination  compatriots 
of  such  men.  We  have  become  used 
to  the  pictures  of  these  drunken  boobies 
whom  Louis  XIV.  called  "  baboons," 
to  these  red-faced  cooks  who  clean  fish, 
and  to  the  like  scenes.  Let  us  get 
used  to  Gay ;  to  his  poem  Trivia,  or 
the  Art  of  Walking  the  Streets  of  Lon- 
don; to  his  advice  as  to  dirty  gutters, 
and  shoes  "  with  firm,  well-hammer'd 
soles ;  "  his  description  of  the  amours 
of  the  goddess  Cloacina  and  a  scaven- 
ger, whence  sprang  the  little  shoe- 
blacks. He  is  a  lover  of  the  real,  has 
a  precise  imagination,  does  not  see  ob- 
jects wholesale  and  from  a  general 
point  of  view,  but  singly,  with  all  their 
outlines  and  surroundings,  whatever 
they  may  be,  beautiful  or  ugly,  dirty  or 
clean.  The  other  literary  men  act 
likewise,  even  the  chief  classical 
writers,  including  Pope.  There  is  in 
Pope  a  minute  description,  with  high- 
colored  words,  local  details,  in  which 
comprehensive  and  characteristic  fea- 
tures are  stamped  with  such  a  liberal 
and  sure  hand,  that  we  would  take  the 
author  for  a  modern  realist,  and  would 
find  in  the  work  an  historical  docu- 
ment.* As  to  Swift,  he  is  the  bitterest 
positivist,  and  more  so  in  poetry  than 
in  prose.  Let  us  read  his  eclogue  on 
Strephon  and  Chloe,  if  we  would  know 
how  far  men  can  debase  the  noble  po- 
etic drapery.  They  make  a  dishclout 
of  it,  or  dress  clodhoppers  in  it ;  the 
Roman  toga  and  Greek  chlamys  do  not 
suit  these  barbarians'  shoulders.  They 
are  like  those  knights  of  the  middle- 
ages,  who,  when  they  had  taken  Con- 
stantinople, muffled  themselves  for  a 
joke,  in  long  Byzantine  robes,  and  went 
riding  through  the  streets  in  these  dis- 
guises, dragging  their  embroidery  in  the 
gutter. 

These  men  will  do  well,  like  the 
knights,  to  return  to  their  manor,  to  the 
country,  the  mud  of  their  ditches,  and 
the  dunghill  of  their  farm-yards.  The 
less  man  is  fitted  for  social  life,  the 
more  he  is  fitted  for  solitary  life.  He 
enjoys  the  country  the  more  for  enjoy- 
ing the  world  less.  Englishmen  have 
always  been  more  feudal  and  more  fond 
of  the  country  than  French  men.  Under 
Louis  XIV.  and  Louis  XV.  the  worst 

*  Epistle  to  Mrs-  Blount%  "  on  her  leaving 
the  town." 


502 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK   III. 


and    gro 
e  smiles  of 


misfortune  for  a  nobleman  was  to  go  to 
his  estate  in  the  countr 
rusty  there  ;  away  from  te  smes  o 
the  king  and  the  fine  conversation  of 
Versailles,  there  was  nothing  left  but  to 
yawn  and  die.  In  England,  in  spite  of 
artificial  civilization  and  the  charms  of 
polite  society,  the  love  of  the  chase  and 
of  bodily  exercise,  political  interests 
and  the  necessities  of  elections  brought 
the  nobles  back  to  their  estates.  And 
there  their  natural  instincts  returned. 
A  sad  and  impassioned  man,  naturally 
self-dependent,  converses  with  objects  ; 
a  grand  gray  sky,  whereon  the  autumn 
mists  slumber,  a  sudden  burst  of  sun- 
shine lighting  up  a  moist  field,  depress 
or  excite  him  ;  inanimate  things  seem 
to  him  instinct  with  life  ;  and  the  faint 
lignt,  which  in  the  morning  reddens  the 
fringe  of  heaven,  moves  him  as  much 
as  the  smile  of  a  young  girl  at  her  first 
ball.  Thus  is  genuine  descriptive 
poetry  born.  It  appears  in  Dryden,  in 
Pope  himself,  even  in  the  writers  of 
elegant  pastorals,  and  shines  forth  in 
Thomson's  Seasons.  This  poet,  the 
son  of  a  clergyman,  and  very  poor, 
lived,  like  most  of  the  literary  men  of 
the  time,  on  donations  and  literary  sub- 
scriptions, on  sinecures  and  political 
pensions  ;  for  lack  of  money  he  did  not 
marry  ;  wrote  tragedies,  because  trage- 
dies brought  in  plenty  of  money  ;  and 
ended  by  settling  in  a  country  house, 
lying  in  bed  till  mid-day,  indolent,  con- 
templative, but  a  simple  and  honest 
man,  affectionate  and  beloved.  He 
saw  and  loved  the  country  in  its  small- 
est details,  not  outwardly  only,  as 
Saint  Lambert,*  his  imitator  ;  he  made 
it  his  joy,  his  amusement,  his  habitual 
occupation  ;  a  gardener  at  heart,  de- 
lighted to  see  the  spring  arrive,  happy 
to  be  able  to  add  another  field  to  his 
garden.  He  paints  all  the  little  things, 
without  being  ashamed,  for  they  inter- 
est him,  and  takes  pleasure  in  "  the 


smell   of   the   dairy."     We   hear 
speak   of  the    "  insect    armies, 


him 
and 


"when  the  envenomed  leaf  begins  to 
curl,"  t  and  of  the  birds  which,  fore- 
seeing the  approaching  rain,  "  streak 
their  wings  with  oil,  to  throw  the  lucid 

•  A  French  pastoral  writer  (1717-1803),  who 
wrote,  in  imitation  of  Thomson,  Les  Saisons. — 
TR. 

t  Poetical  Works  of  J.  Thomson,  ed.  R.  Bell, 
1855,  2  vols. ;  ii.  Spring  18. 


moisture  trickling  off."  *  He  perceives 
objects  so  clearly  that  he  makes  them 
visible  :  we  recognize  the  English  land- 
scape, green  and  moist,  half  drowned 
in  floating  vapors,  blotted  here  and 
there  by  violet  clouds,  which  burst  in 
showers  at  the  horizon,  which  they 
darken,  but  where  the  light  is  delicately 
dimmed  by  the  fog,  and  the  clear 
heavens  show  at  intervals  very  bright 
and  pure : 

"  Th'  effusive  St  uth 

Warms  the  wide  air,  and  o'er  the  void  ot  heaven 
Breathes  the  big  clouds  with  vernal  showers 

distent.t  .  .  . 

Thus  all  day  long  the  full-distended  clouds 
Indulge  their  genial  stores,  and  well-showered 

earth 

Is  deep  enriched  with  vegetable  life  ; 
Till  in  the  western  sky,  the  downward  sun 
Looks  out,  effulgent,  from  amid  the  flush 
Of  broken  clouds,  gay-shifting  to  his  beam. 
The  rapid  radiance  instantaneous  strikes 
The  illumined  mountain ;  through  the  forest 

streams  ; 
Shakes  on  the 

Far  smoking  o!  __  

In  twinkling  myriads  lights  the  dewy  gems, 
Moist,  bright,  and  green,  the  landscape  laughs 

around."  $ 

This  is  emphatic,  but  it  is  also  opulent. 
In  this  air  and  this  vegetation,  in  this 
imagination  and  this  style,  there  is  a 
heaping  up,  and,  as  it  were,  an  impasto 
of  effaced  or  sparkling  tints  ;  they  are 
here  the  glistening  and  lustrous  robe  of 
nature  and  art.  We  must  see  them  in 
Rubens — he  is  the  painter  and  poet  of 
the  teeming  and  humid  clime  ;  but  we 
discover  it  also  in  others ;  and  in  this 
magnificence  of  Thomson,  in  this  ex- 
aggerated, luxuriant,  grand  coloring,  we 
find  occasionally  the  rich  palette  of 
Rubens. 

VI. 
this   suits   ill   the 


floods  ;  and  in  a  yellow  mist, 
>'er  the  interminable  plain, 


All 


classical  em- 


broidery. Thomson's  visible  imitations 
of  Virgil,  his  episodes  inserted  to  fill  up 
space,  his  invocations  to  spring,  to  the 
muse,  to  philosophy,  all  these  pedan- 
tic relics  and  conventionalisms,  produce 
incongruity.  But  the  contrast  is  much 
more  marked  in  another  way.  The 
worldly  artificial  life  such  as  Louis 
XIV.  had  made  fashionable,  began  to 
weary  Europe.  It  was  found  meagre 
and  hollow;  people  grew  tired  of  always 
acting,  submitting  to  etiquette.  They 
felt  that  gallantry  is  not  love,  nor  mad- 
rigals poetry,  nor  amusement  happi- 
ness. They  perceived  that  man  is  not 


*lbid.  19. 


Mbid. 


J  Ibid.  20. 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS. 


5°3 


an  elegant  doll,  or  a  dandy  the  master- 
piece of  nature,  and  that  there  is  a 
world  beyond  the  drawing-room.  A 
Genevese  plebeian  (J.  J.  Rousseau),  a 
Protestant  and  a  recluse,  whom  religion, 
education,  poverty,  and  genius  had  led 
more  quickly-  and  further  than  others, 
spoke  out  the  public  secret  aloud ;  and 
it  was  thought  that  he  had  discovered 
or  re-discovered  the  country,conscience, 
religion,  the  rights  of  man,  and  natural 
sentiments.  Then  appeared  a  new  per- 
sonality, the  idol  and  model  of  his  time, 
the  man  of  feeling,  who,  by  his  grave 
character  and  liking  for  nature,  con- 
trasted with  the  man  at  court.  Doubt- 
less the  man  of  feeling  has  not  escaped 
the  influence  of  the  places  he  has  fre- 
quented. He  is  refined  and  insipid, 
melting  at  the  sight  of  the  young  lambs 
nibbling  the  newly  grown  grass,  blessing 
the  little  birds,  who  give  a  concert  to 
celebrate  their  happiness.  He  is  em- 
phatic and  wordy,  writes  tirades  about 
sentiment,  inveighs  against  the  age, 
apostrophizes  virtue,  reason,  truth,  and 
the  abstract  divinities,  which  are  en- 
graved in  delicate  outline  on  frontis- 
pieces. In  spite  of  himself,  he  con- 
tinues a  man  of  the  drawing-room  and 
the  academy;  after  uttering  sweet 
things  to  the  ladies,  he  utters  them  to 
nature,  and  declaims  in  polished  periods 
about  the  Deity.  But  after  all,  it  is 
through  him  that  the  revolt  against 
classical  customs  begins  ;  and  in  this 
respect,  he  is  more  advanced  in  Ger- 
manic England  than  in  Latin  France. 
Thirty  years  before  Rousseau,  Thom- 
son had  expressed  all  Rousseau's  senti- 
ments, almosMn  the  same  style.  Like 
him,  he  painted  the  country  with  sym- 
pathy and  enthusiasm.  Like  him,  he 
contrasted  the  golden  age  of  primitive 
simplicity  with  modern  miseries  and 
corruption.  Like  him,  he  exalted  deep 
love,  conjugal  tenderness,  the  union  of 
souls  and  perfect  esteem  animated  by 
desire,  paternal  affection,  and  all  do- 
mestic joys.  Like  him,  he  combated 
contemporary  frivolity,  and  compared 
the  ancient  republics  with  modern 
States : 

"  Proofs  of  a  people,  whose  heroic  aims 
Soared  far  above  the  little  selfish  sphere 
Of  doubting  modern  life."  * 

*  Poetical  Works  of  Thomson,  Liber 'ty,  part 

102. 


Like  Rousseau,  he  praised  gravity, 
patriotism,  liberty,  virtue  ;  rose  from 
the  spectacle  of  nature  to  the  contem- 
plation of  God,  and  showed  to  man 
glimpses  of  immortal  life  beyond  the 
tomb.  Like  him,  in  short,  he  marred 
the  sincerity  of  his  emotion  and  the 
truth  of  his  poetry  by  sentimental 
vapidities,  by  pastoral  billing  and  coo- 
ing, and  by  such  an  abundance  of 
epithets,  personified  abstractions,  pom- 
pous invocations  and  oratorical  tirades, 
that  we  perceive  in  him  beforehand 
the  false  and  ornamental  style  of 
Thomas,*  David,t  and  the  first  French 
Revolution. 

Other  authors  follow  in  the  same 
track.  The  literature  of  that  period 
might  be  called  the  library  of  the  man 
of  feeling.  First  there  was  Richard- 
son, the  puritanic  printer,  with  his  Sir 
Charles  Grandison,  {  a  man  of  princi- 
ples,an  accomplished  model  of  a  gentle- 
man, a  professor  of  decorum  and  mor- 
ality, with  a  soul  into  the  bargain.  There 
is  Sterne  too,  a  refined  and  sickly 
blackguard,  who,  amidst  his  buffooner- 
ies and  oddities,  pauses  to  weep  over 
an  ass  or  an  imaginary  prisoner.  § 
There  is,  in  particular,  Henry  Macken- 
zie, "  the  Man  of  Feeling/'  whose 
timid,  delicate  hero  weeps  five  or  six 
times  a  day  ;  who  grows  consumptive 
through  sensibility,  dares  not  broach 
his  love  till  at  the  point  of  death,  and 
dies  in  broaching  it.  Naturally,  praise 
induces  satire  ;  and  in  the  opposite 
camp  we  see  Fielding,  a  valiant  roys- 
terer,  and  Sheridan,  a  brilliant  but 
naughty  fellow,  the  one  with  Blifil, 
the  other  with  Joseph  Surface,  two 
hypocrites,  especially  the  second,  not 
coarse,  red-faced,  and  smelling  of  the 
vestry,  like  Tartuffe,  but  worldly,  well- 
clad,  a  fine  talker,  loftily  serious,  sad 
and  gentle  from  excess  of  tenderness, 
who,  with  his  hand  on  his  heart  and  a 
tear  in  his  eye,  showers  on  the  public 
his  sentences  and  periods  whilst  he 
soils  his  brother's  reputation  and  de- 
bauches his  neighbor's  wife.  When  a 
man  of  feeling  has  been  thus  created, 

*  Anthony  Leonard  Thomas  ( 1732-1785)  wrote 
memoirs  and  essays  on  the  character  of  cele- 
brated men  in  highly  oratorical  and  pompous 
style. — TR. 

t  See  the  paintings  of  David,  called  Lei 
Fttes  de  la  Revolutions 

\  See  ante,  p.  168.  §  See  ante,  p.  477. 


5°4 


THE  CLASSIC  AGE. 


[BOOK  III, 


he  soon  has  an  epic  made  for  him.  A 
Scotsman,  a  man  of  wit,  of  too  much 
wit,  having  published  on  his  own  ac- 
count an  unsuccessful  rhapsody,  wish- 
ed to  recover  his  expenses,  visited  the 
mountains  of  his  country,  gathered  pic- 
turesque images,  collected  fragments 
of  legends,  plastered  over  the  whole  an 
abundance  of  eloquence  and  rhetoric, 
and  created  a  Celtic  Homer,  Ossian, 
who  with  Oscar,  Malvina,  and  his 
whole  troop,  made  the  tour  of  Europe, 
and,  about  1830,  ended  by  furnishing 
baptismal  names  for  French grisettes 
and  perruquiers.  Macpherson  display- 
ed to  the  world  an  imitation  of  primi- 
tive manners,  not  over-true,  for  the  ex- 
treme rudeness  of  barbarians  would 
have  shocked  the  people,  but  yet  well 
enough  preserved  or  portrayed  to  con- 
trast with  modern  civilization,  and  per- 
suade the  public  that  they  were  look- 
ing upon  pure  nature.  A  keen  sym- 
pathy with  Scottish  landscape,so  grand, 
so  cold,  so  gloomy,  rain  on  the  hills, 
the  birch  trembling  to  the  wind,  the 
mist  of  heaven  and  tne  vague  musing 
of  the  soul,  so  that  every  dreamer 
found  there  the  emotions  of  his  soli- 
tary walks  and  his  philosophic  sadness  ; 
chivalric  exploits  and  magnanimity,  he- 
roes who  set  out  alone  to  engage  an 
army,  faithful  virgins  dying  on  the 
tomb  of  their  betrothed ;  an  impas- 
sioned, colored  style,  affecting  to  be 
abrupt,  yet  polished  ;  able  to  charm  a 
disciple  of  Rousseau  by  its  warmth  and 
elegance  :  here  was  something  to  trans- 
port the  young  enthusiasts  of  the  time  ; 
civilized  barbarians,  scholarly  lovers 
of  nature,  dreaming  of  the  delights  of 
savage  life,  whilst  they  shook  off  the 
powder  which  the  hairdresser  had  left 
on  their  coats. 

Yet  this  is  not  the  course  of  the 
main  current  of  poetry ;  it  runs  in  the 
direction  of  sentimental  reflection  :  the 
greatest  number  of  poems,  and  those 
most  sought  after,  are  emotional  dis- 
sertations. In  fact,  a  man  of  feeling 
breaks  out  in  excessive  declamations. 
When  he  sees  a  cloud,  he  dreams  of 
human  nature  and  constructs  a  phrase. 
Hence  at  this  time  among  poets,  swarm 
the  melting  philosophers  and  the  tear- 
ful academicians ;  Gray,  the  morose 
hermit  of  Cambridge,  and  Akenside,  a 
noble  thinker,  both  learned  imitators 


of  lofty  Greek  poetry ;  Beattie,  a 
metaphysical  moralist,  with  a  young 
girl's  nerves  and  an  old  maid's  hob- 
bies ;  the  amiable  and  affectionate 
Goldsmith  who  wrote  the  Vicar  of  Wake' 
field,  the  most  charming,  of  Protestant 
pastorals;  poor  Collins,  a  young  enthu- 
siast, who  was  disgusted  with  life, 
would  read  nothing  but  the  Bible,  went 
mad,  was  shut  up  in  an  asylum,  and  in 
his  intervals  of  liberty  wandered  in 
Chichester  cathedral,  accompanying  the 
music  with  sobs  and  groans;  Glover, 
Watts,  Shenstone,  Smart,  and  others. 
The  titles  of  their  works  sufficiently  in- 
dicate their  character.  One  writes  a 
poem  on  The  Pleasures  of  Imagination , 
another  odes  on  the  Passions  and  on 
Liberty ;  one  an  Elegy  written  in  a 
Country  Churchyard  and  a  Hymn  to 
Adversity,  another  a  poem  on  a  Deserted 
Village^  and  on  the  character  of  sur- 
rounding civilizations  (Goldsmith's 
7^raveller] ;  one  a  sort  of  epic  on  Ther- 
mopylae, and  another  the  moral  history 
of  a  young  Minstrel.  They  were  near- 
ly all  grave,  spiritual  men,  impassioned 
for  noble  ideas,  with  Christian  aspira- 
tions or  convictions,  given  to  medita- 
ting on  man,  inclined  to  melancholy,  to 
description,  invocation,  lovers  of  ab- 
straction and  allegory,  who,  to  attain 
greatness,  willingly  mounted  on  stilts. 
One  of  the  least  strict  and  most  noted 
of  them  was  Young,  the  author  of 
Night  Thoughts,  a  clergyman  and  a  cour- 
tier, who,  having  vainly  attempted  to 
enter  Parliament,  then  to  become  a 
bishop,  married,  lost  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, and  made  use  of  his  misfortunes 
to  write  meditations  on  Life,  Death, 
Immortality,  Time,  Friendship,  The 
Christian  Triumph^  Virtue's  Apology, 
A  Moral  Survey  of  the  Nocturnal 
Heavens,  and  many  other  similar  pieces. 
Doubtless  there  are  brilliant  flashes  of 
imagination  in  his  poems  ;  seriousness 
and  elevation  are  not  wanting ;  we  can 
even  see  that  he  aims  at  them ;  but  we 
discover  much  more  quickly  that  he 
makes  the  most  of  his  g'rief,  and 
strikes  attitudes.  He  exaggerates  and 
declaims,  studies  effect  and  style,  con- 
fuses Greek  and  Christian  ideas.  Fan- 
cy an  unhappy  father,  who  says  : 

"  Silence   and   Darkness  1    Solemn    sisters ' 
Twins 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  POETS. 


505 


From  ancient  Night  I    I  to  Day's  soft-ey'd 

sister  pay  my  court,  .  .  .* 
(Endymion's  rival !)  and  her  aid  implore  ; 
Now  first  implor'd  in  snccour  to  the  Mu$e"\ 

And  a  few  pages  further  on  he  invokes 
heaven  and  earth,  when  mentioning  the 
resurrection  of  the  Saviour.     And  yet 
the  sentiment  is  fresh  and  sincere.     Is 
it  not  one  of  the  greatest  of  modern 
ideas  to  put  Christian  philosophy  into 
verse  ?     Young  and  his  contemporar- 
ies say  beforehand  that  which  Chateau- 
briand and  Lamartine  were  to  discover. 
TLe  true,  the  futile,  all  is  here  forty 
years  earlier  than  in  France.     The  an- 
gels and  the  other   celestial  machinery 
long  figured  in  England  before  appear- 
ing in  Chateaubriand's  Genie  du  Christ- 
iaiiisme  and  the  Martyrs.     Atala  and 
Chactas   are  of  the    same    family    as 
Malvina    and   Fingal.      If  Lamartine 
read  Gray's  odes  and   Akenside's  re- 
flections, he  would  find  there  the  mel- 
ancholy  sweetness,  the  exquisite    art, 
the  fine  arguments,  and  half  the  ideas 
of  his  own  poetry.     And  nevertheless, 
near  as  they  were  to  a  literary  renova- 
tion, Englishmen  did  not  yet  attain  it. 
In  vain  the  foundation  was  changed, 
the    form    remained.      They   did   not 
shake  off  the  classical  drapery ;    they 
write  too  well,  they  dare  not  be  natur- 
al.    They  have  always   a  patent  stock 
of  fine   suitable  words,   poetical    ele- 
gances, where  each  of  them   thought 
himself  bound  to   go  and  pick  out  his 
phrases.     It  boots  them  nothing  to  be 
impassioned   or   realistic ;  like    Shen 
stone,  to  dare  to  describe  a  Schoolmis- 
tress, and  the  very  part  on  which  she 
whips  a  young  rascal ;  their  simplicity  is 
conscious,  their  frankness  archaic,  their 
emotion  formal,  their  tears  academical. 
Ever,  at  the  moment  of  writing,  an  au- 
gust model  starts  up,  a  sort  of  school- 
master, weighing  on  each  with  his  ful! 
weight,  with  all  the  weight  which  a  hun 
dred  and  twenty  years  of  literature  can 
give  his  precepts.  Their  prose  is  always 

«  Young's     Night    Thoughts.      Night     th< 
First:  On  Life,  Death,  and  Immortality. 
1  Ibid.  Night  the  Third    Narcissa. 


he  slave  of  the  period:  Dr.  Johnson, 
vho  was  at  once  the   La  Harpe  and 
he  Boileau  of  his  age,  explains  and 
mposes  on  all  the   studied,  balanced, 
rreproachable   phrase ;    and   classical 
iscendency   is   still  so   strong    that  it 
lomineers   over   nascent   history,    the 
~>nly  kind  of  English   literature   which 
was    then     European     and     original. 
Hume,   Robertson,  and   Gibbon  were 
almost  French  in  their  taste,  language, 
education,  conception  of  man.     They 
relate  like  men  of  the  world,  cultivated 
and   well  informed,    with    charm    and 
clearness,  in  a  polished,  rhythmic,  sus- 
tained  style.      They   show    a    liberal 
spirit,  an   unvaried  moderation,  an  im- 
Dartial  reason.     They  banish  from  his- 
;ory   all    coarseness    and   tediousness 
The  write  without  fanaticism  or  pre- 
judice.    But,  at  the   same  time,  they 
attenuate  human  nature  ;  comprehend 
neither  barbarism  nor  loftiness  ;  paint 
revolutions   and   passions,    as    people 
might   do   who    had  seen  nothing  but 
decked  drawing-rooms  and   dusted  li- 
braries ;    they  judge  enthusiasts  with 
the  coldness  of  chaplains  or  the   smile 
of  a  skeptic  ;  they  blot  out  the  salient 
features  which  distinguish  human  phys- 
iognomies ;   they  cover  all   the  harsh 
points   of    truth  with  a  brilliant    and 
uniform  varnish.    At  last  there  started 
up    an    unfortunate    Scotch     peasant 
(Burns),  rebelling  against  the   world, 
and  in  love,  with  the  yearnings,  lusts, 
greatness,  and  irrationality  of  modern 
genius.      Now   and   then,   behind   his 
plough,  he  lighted  on  genuine  verses, 
verses  such  as  Heine  and   Alfred  de 
Musset  have  written  in  our  own  days. 
In  those  few  words,  combined  after  a 
new   fashion,  there  was   a   revolution. 
Two  hundred  new  verses  sufficed.   The 
human  mind  turned  on  its   hinges,  and 
so   did   civil   sociecy.     When  Roland, 
being  made  a  minister,  presented  him- 
self  before    Louis   XVI.  in   a  simple 
dress-coat  and  shoes  without  buckles, 
the  master  of  the  ceremonies  raised  his 
hands  to  heaven,  thinking  that  all  was 
lost.    In  reality,  all  was  changed. 


HISTORY   OF   ENGLISH   LITERATURE. 


BOOK  IV. 

MODERN    LIFE. 


CHAPTER   I. 


gbt*0 


I. 


ON  the  eve  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  great  modern  revolution  began  in 
Europe.  The  thinking  public  and  the 
human  mind  changed,  and  whilst  these 
changes  took  place  a  new  literature 
sprang  up. 

The  preceding  age  had  done  its 
work.  Perfect  prose  and  classical 
style  put  within  reach  of  the  most 
backward  and  the  dullest  minds  the 
notions  of  literature  and  the  discoveries 
of  science.  Moderate  monarchies  and 
regular  administrations  had  permitted 
the  middle  class  to  develop  itself  under 
the  pompous  aristocracy  of  the  court, 
as  useful  plants  may  be  seen  shooting 
up  beneath  trees  which  serve  for  show 
and  ornament.  They  multiply,  grow,  rise 
to  the  height  of  their  rivals,  envelop 
;hem  in  their  luxuriant  growth,  and  ob- 
scure them  by  their  dense  clusters.  A 
new  world,  a  world  of  citizens  and  ple- 
beians, henceforth  occupies  the  ground, 
attracts  the  gaze,  imposes  its  form  on 
manners,  stamps  its  image  on  minds. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  century  a 
sudden  concourse  of  extraordinar) 
events  brings  it  all  at  once  to  the  light 
and  sets  it  on  an  eminence  unknowr 
to  any  previous  age.  With  the  grand 


tpplications  of  science,  democracy  ap- 
pears. The  steam-engine  and  spin- 
ling-jenny  create  in  England  towns  of 
from  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
to  five  hundred  thousand  souls.  The 
population  is  doubled  in  fifty  years, 
and  agriculture  becomes  so  perfect, 
that,  in  spite  of  this  enormous  increase 
of  mouths  to  be  fed,  one-sixth  of  the 
inhabitants  provide  from  the  same  soil 
food  for  the  rest;  imports  increase 
threefold,  and  even  more  ;  the  tonnage 
of  vessels  increases  sixfold,  the  ex- 
ports sixfold  and  more.*  Comfort, 
leisure,  instruction,  reading,  travel, 
whatever  had  been  the  privilege  of  a 
few,  became  the  common  property  of 
the  many.  The  rising  tide  of  wealth 
raised  the  best  of  the  poor  to  comfort, 
and  the  best  of  the  well-to-do  to  opu- 
lence. The  rising  tide  of  civilization 
raised  the  mass  of  the  people  to  the 
rudiments  of  education,  and  the  mass 
of  citizens  to  complete  education.  In 
1709  appeared  the  first  daily  news- 
paper,! as  big  as  a  man's  hand,  which 
the  editor  did  not  know  how  to  fill,  and 
which,  added  to  all  the  other  papers, 
did  not  circulate  to  the  extent  of  three 
thousand  numbers  in  the  year.  In 

*  See  Alison,  History  of  Europe  ;  Porter, 
Progress  of  the  Nation. 

t  In  the  Fourth  Estate,  by  F.  Knight  Hunt, 
2  vols.  1840,  it  is  said  (i.  175)  that  the  first  daily 
and  morning  paper,  The  Daily  Courant,  ap- 
peared in  1709.— TR. 

(S°7) 


5°8 


1844  the  Stamp  Office  showed  that  71 
million  newspapers  had  been  printed 
during  the  past  year,  many  as  large  as 
volumes,  and  containing  as  much  mat- 
ter. Artisans  and  townsfolk,  enfran- 
chised, enriched,  having  gained  a  com- 
petence left  the  low  depths  where  they 
had  been  buried  in  their  narrow  parsi- 
mony, ignorance,  and  routine ;  they 
made  their  appearance  on  the  stage 
now,  doffed  their  workman's  and  super- 
numerary's dress,  assumed  the  leading 
parts  by  a  sudden  irruption  or  a  con- 
tinuous progress,  by  dint  of  revolutions, 
with  a  prodigality  of  labor  and  genius, 
amidst  vast  wars,  successively  or  simul- 
taneously in  America,  France,  the 
whole  of  Europe,  founding  or  destroy- 
ing states,  inventing  or  restoring  sci- 
ences, conquering  or  acquiring  politi- 
cal rights.  They  grew  noble  through 
their  great  deeds,  became  the  rivals, 
equals,  conquerors  of  their  masters; 
they  need  no  longer  imitate  them, 
being  heroes  in  their  turn :  like  them, 
they  can  point  to  their  crusades ;  like 
them,  they  have  gained  the  right  of 
having  a  poetry ;  and  like  them,  they 
will  have  a  poetry. 

In  France,  the  land  of  precocious 
equality  and  completed  revolutions,  we 
must  observe  this  new  character — the 
plebeian  bent  on  getting  on  ;  Augereau, 
son  of  a  greengrocer  ;  Marceau,  son  of 
a  lawyer ;  Murat,  son  of  an  innkeeper  ; 
Ney,  son  of  a  cooper  ;  Hoche,  formerly 
a  sergeant,  who  in  his  tent,  by  night, 
read  Condi  11  ac's  Jraite  des  Sensations ; 
and  chief  of  all,  that  spare  young  man, 
with  lank  hair,  hollow  cheeks,  eaten 
up  with  ambition,  his  heart  full  of 
romantic  fancies  and  grand  rough- 
hewn  ideas,  who,  a  lieutenant  for  seven 
years,  read  twice  through  the  whole 
stock  of  a  bookseller  at  Valence,  who 
about  this  time  (1792)  in  Italy,  though 
suffering  from  itch,  had  just  destroyed 
five  armies  with  a  troop  of  barefooted 
heroes,  and  gave  his  government  an 
account  of  his  victories  with  all  his 
faults  of  spelling  and  of  French.  He 
became  master,  proclaimed  himself  the 
representative  of  the  Revolution,  de- 
clared, "  that  a  career  is  open  to  tal- 
ent," and  impelled  others  along  with 
him  in  his  enterprises.  They  follow 
him,  because  there  is  glory,  and  above 
all,  advancement,  to  be  won.  "  Two 


MODERN  LIFE 


[BOOK  IV. 


officers,"  says  Stendhal,  "commanded 
a  battery  at  Talavera;  a  ball  laid  low 
the  captain.  *  So ! '  said  the  lieuten- 
ant, *  Fran9ois  is  dead,  I  shall  be  cap- 
tain.' *  Not  yet,'  said  Francois,  who 
was  only  stunned,  and  got  on  his  feet 
again."  These  two  men  were  neither 
enemies  nor  wicked  ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  were  companions  and  comrades  ; 
but  the  lieutenant  wanted  to  rise  a  step. 
Such  was  the  sentiment  which  pro- 
vided men  for  the  exploits  and  carnage 
of  the  Empire,  which  caused  the  Rev- 
olution of  1830,  and  which  now,  in  this 
vast  stifling  democracy,  compels  men 
to  vie  with  each  other  in  intrigues  and 
labor,  genius  and  baseness,  to  get  out 
of  their  primitive  condition,  and  raise 
themselves  to  the  summit,  of  which  the 
possession  is  given  up  to  their  rivalry 
or  promised  to  their  toil  The  domi- 
nant' character  novv-a-days  is  no  longer 
the  man  of  the  drawing-room,  whose 
position  in  society  is  settled  and  whose 
fortune  is  made  ;  elegant  and  careless, 
with  no  employment  but  to  amuse  him- 
self and  to  please  ;  who  loves  to  con- 
verse, who  is  gallant,  who  passes  his 
life  in  conversation  with  finely  dressed 
ladies,  amidst  the  duties  of  society  and 
the  pleasures  of  the  world :  it  is  the 
man  in  a  black  coat,  who  works  alone 
in  his  room  or  rushes  about  in  a  cab 
to  make  friends  and  protectors  ;  often 
envious,  feeling  himself  always  above 
or  below  his  station  in  life,  sometimes 
resigned,  never  satisfied,  but  fertile  in 
invention,  not  sparing  his  labor,  find- 
ing the  picture  of  his  blemishes  and  his 
strength  in  the  drama  of  Victor  Hugo 
and  the  novels  of  Balzac.* 

This  man  has  also  other  and  greater 
cares.  With  the  state  of  human  so- 
ciety, the  form  of  the  human  mind  has 
changed.  It  changed  by  a  natural  and 
irresistible  development,  like  a  flowsr 
growing  into  fruit,  like  fruit  turning 
to  seed.  The  mind  renews  the  evolu- 
tion which  it  had  already  performed  in 
Alexandria,  not  as  then  in  a  deleterious 
atmosphere,  amidst  the  universal  de- 
gradation of  enslaved  men,  in  the  in- 
creasing decadence  of  a  disorganized 
society,  amidst  the  anguish  of  despair 

-'To  realize  the  contrast,  compare  Gil  Bias 
and  Ruy  Bias,  Marivaux's  Paysan  Parvenu 
and  Stendhal's  Julien  Sorel  (in  Rouge  et 
Noir). 


CHAP.  L] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


and  the  mists  of  a  dream ;  but  lapt  in 
a.  purifying  atmosphere,  amidst  the 
visible  progress  of  an  improving  socie- 
ty and  the  general  ennobling  of  lofty 
and  free  men,  amidst  the  proudest 
hopes,  in  the  wholesome  clearness  of 
experimental  sciences.  The  oratorical 
age  which  declined,  as  it  declined  in 
Athens  and  Rome,  grouped  all  ideas 
in  beautiful  commodious  compartments, 
whose  subdivisions  instantaneously  led 
the  gaze  towards  the  object  which  they 
define,  so  that  thenceforth  the  intellect 
could  enter  upon  the  loftiest  concep- 
tions, and  seize  the  aggregate  which  it 
had  not  yet  embraced-.  Isolated  na- 
tions, French,  English,  Italians,  Ger- 
mans, drew  near  and  became  known  to 
each  other  through  the  upheaving  of 
the  first  French  Revolution  and  the 
wars  of  the  Empire,  as  formerly  races 
divided  from  one  another,  Greeks,  Syr- 
ians, Egyptians,  Gauls,  by  the  con- 
quests of  Alexander  and  the  domina- 
tion of  Rome  ;  so  that  henceforth  each 
civilization,  expanded  by  the  collision 
with  neighboring  civilizations,  can  pass 
beyond  its  national  limits,  and  multi- 
ply its  ideas  by  the  commixture  of  the 
ideas  of  others.  History  and  criticism 
spring  up  as  under  the  Ptolemies  ;  and 
from  all  sides,  throughout  the  universe, 
in  all  directions,  they  were  engaged  in 
resuscitating  and  explaining  literatures, 
religions,  manners,  societies,  philoso- 
phies :  so  that  thenceforth  the  intellect, 
enfranchised  by  the  spectacle  of  past 
civilizations,  can  escape  from  the  prej- 
udices of  its  century,  as  it  has  escaped 
from  the  prejudices  of  its  country.  A 
new  race,  hitherto  torpid,  gave  the  sig- 
nal :  Germany  communicated  to  the 
whole  of  Europe  the  impetus  to  a  rev- 
olution of  ideas,  as  France  to  a  revolu- 
tion of  manners.  These  simple  folk 
who  smoked  and  warmed  themselves 
by  a  stove,  and  seemed  only  fit  to  pro- 
duce learned  editions,  became  sudden- 
ly the  promoters  and  leaders  of  human 
thought.  No  race  has  such  a  compre- 
hensive mind  ;  none  is  so  well  adapted 
for  lofty  speculation.  We  see  it  in 
their  language,  so  abstract,  that  away 
from  the  Rhine  it  seems  an  unintelligi- 
ble jargon.  And  yet  thanks  to  this 
language,  they  attained  to  superior 
ideas.  For  the  specialty  of  this  revo- 
lution, as  of  the  Alexandrian  revolu- 


tion, was  that  the  human  mind  became 
more  capable  of  abstraction.  They 
made,  on  a  large  scale,  the  same  step 
as  the  mathematicians  when  they  pass 
from  arithmetic  to  algebra,  and  from 
ordinary  calculation  to  the  computation 
of  the  infinite.  They  perceived,  that 
beyond  the  limited  truths  of  the  ora- 
torical age,  there  were  deeper  unfold- 
ings  ;  they  passed  beyond  Descartes 
and  Locke,  as  the  Alexandrians  went 
beyond  Plato  and  Aristotle :  they  un- 
derstood that  a  great  operative  archi- 
tect, or  round  and  square  atoms,  were 
not  causes ;  that  fluids,  molecules,  and 
monads  were  not  forces ;  that  a  spirit- 
ual soul  or  a  physiological  secretion 
would  not  account  for  thought.  They 
sought  religious  sentiment  beyond 
dogmas,  poetic  beauty  beyond  rules, 
critical  truths  beyond  myths.  They 
desired  to  grasp  natural  and  moral 
powers  as  they  are,  and  independently 
of  the  fictitious  supports  to  which  their 
predecessors  had  attached  them.  All 
these  supports,  souls  and  atoms,  all 
these  fictions,  fluids,  and  monads,  all 
these  conventions,  rules  of  the  beauti- 
ful and  of  religious  symbols,  all  rigid 
classifications  of  things  natural,  human 
and  divine,  faded  away  and  vanished. 
Thenceforth  they  were  nothing  but 
figures  ;  they  were  only  kept  as  an  aid 
to  the  memory,  and  as  auxiliaries  of  the 
mind;  they  served  only  provisionally, 
and  as  starting-points.  Through  a  com- 
mon movement  along  the  whole  line  of 
human  thought,  causes  draw  back  into 
an  abstract  region,  where  philosophy 
had  not  been  to  search  them  out  for 
eighteen  centuries.  Then  appeared 
the  disease  of  the  age,  the  restlessness 
of  Werther  and  Faust,  very  like  that 
which  in  a  similar  moment  agitated 
men  eighteen  centuries  ago;  I  mean, 
discontent  with  the  present,  the  vague 
desire  of  a  higher  beauty  and  an  ideal 
happiness,  the  painful  aspiration  for 
the  infinite.  Man  suffered  through 
doubt,  yet  he  doubted ;  he  tried  to 
seize  again  his  beliefs,  they  melted  in 
his  hand  ;  he  would  settle  and  rest  in 
the  doctrines  and  the  satisfactions 
which  sufficed  for  his  predecessors,  and 
tie  does  not  find  them  sufficient.  He 
aunches,  like  Faust,  into  anxious  re- 
searches through  science  and  history, 
and  judges  them  vain,  dubious,  good 


510 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


for  men  like  Wagner,*  learned  pedants 
and  bibliomaniacs.  It  is  the  "  beyond  " 
he  sighs  for ;  he  forebodes  it  through 
the  formulas  of  science,  the  texts  and 
confessions  of  the  churches,  through 
the  amusements  of  the  world,  the  in- 
toxication of  love.  A  sublime  truth 
exists  behind  coarse  experience  and 
transmitted  catechisms  ;  a  grand  hap- 
piness exists  beyond  the  pleasures  of 
society  and  family  joys.  Whether  men 
are  skeptical,  resigned,  or  mystics,  they 
have  all  caught  a  glimpse  of  or  im- 
agined it,  from  Goethe  to  Beethoven, 
from  Schiller  to  Heine;  they  have 
risen  towards  it  in  order  to  stir  up  the 
whole  swarm  of  their  grand  dreams ; 
they  will  not  be  consoled  for  falling 
away  from  it ;  they  have  mused  upon 
it,  even  during  their  deepest  fall ;  they 
have  instinctively  dwelt,  like  their  pre- 
decessors the  Alexandrians  and  Chris- 
tians, in  that  splendid  invisible  world 
in  which,  in  ideal  peace,  slumber  the 
creative  essences  and  powers  ;  and  the 
vehement  aspiration  of  their  heart  has 
drawn  from  their  sphere  the  element- 
ary spirits,  "  film  of  flame,  who  flit  and 
wave  in  eddying  motion  !  birth  and  the 
grave,  an  infinite  ocean,  a  web  ever 
growing,  a  life  ever  glowing,  ply  at 
Time's  whizzing  loom,  and  weave  the 
vesture  of  God."  t 

Thus  rises  the  modern  man,  im- 
pelled by  two  sentiments,  one  demo- 
cratic, the  other  philosophic.  From 
the  shallows  of  his  poverty  and  igno- 
rance he  exerts  himself  to  rise,  lifting 
the  weight  of  established  society  and 
admitted  dogmas,  disposed  either  to 
reform  or  to  destroy  them,  and  at  once 
generous  and  rebellious.  These  two 
currents  from  France  and  Germany  at 
this  moment  swept  into  England.  The 
dykes  there  were  so  strong,  they  could 
hardly  force  their  way,  entering  more 
slowly  than  elsewhere,  but  entering 
nevertheless.  They  made  for  them- 
selves a  new  channel  between  the  an- 
cient barriers,  and  widened  without 
bursting  them,  by  a  peaceful  and  slow 
transformation  which  continues  till  this 
day. 

II. 

The  new  spirit  broke  out  first  in  a 

*  The  disciple  of  Faust. 
t  Goethe's  Faust^  sc.  i. 


Scottish  peasant,  Robert  Burns:  in 
fact,  the  man  and  the  circumstances 
were  suitable  ;  scarcely  ever  was  seen 
together  more  of  misery  and  talent. 
He  was  born  January  1759,  amid  the 
hoar  frost  of  a  Scottish  winter,  in  a 
cottage  of  clay  built  by  his  father,  a 
poor  farmer  of  Ayrshire  ;  a  sad  condi- 
tion, a  sad  country,  a  sad  lot.  A  part 
of  the  gable  fell  in  a  few  days  after  his 
birth,  and  his  mother  was  obliged  to 
seek  refuge  with  her  child,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  storm,  in  a  neighbor's  house. 
It  is  hard  to  be  born  in  Scotland  ;  it  is 
so  cold  there,  that  in  Glasgow  on  a  fine 
day  in  July,  whilst  the  sun  was  shin- 
ing, I  did  not  feel  my  overcoat  too 
warm.  The  soil  is  wretched  ;  there 
are  many  bare  hills,  where  the  harvest 
often  fails.  Burns'  father,  no  longer 
young,  having  little  more  than  his  arms 
to  depend  upon,  having  taken  his  farm 
at  too  high  a  rent,  burdened  with  sev- 
en children,  lived  parsimoniously,  or 
rather  fasting,  in  solitude,  to  avoid 
temptations  to  expense.  "  For  several 
years  butchers'  meat  was  a  thing  un- 
known in  the  house."  Robert  went 
barefoot  and  bareheaded  ;  at  *•'  the  age 
of  thirteen  he  assisted  in  thrashing  the 
crop  of  corn,  and  at  fifteen  he  was  the 
principal  laborer  on  the  farm."  The 
family  did  all  the  labor  ;  they  kept  no 
servant,  male  or  female.  They  had 
not  much  to  eat,  but  they  worked  hard. 
"This  kind  of  life — the  cheerless 
gloom  of  a  hermit,  with  the  unceasing 
toil  of  a  galley  slave — brought  me  to 
my  sixteenth  year,"  Burns  says.  Hi-s 
shoulders  were  bent,  melancholy  seized 
him ;  "  almost  every  evening  he  was 
constantly  afflicted  with  a  dull  head- 
ache, which  at  a  future  period  of  his  life 
was  exchanged  for  a  palpitation  of  the 
heart,  and  a  threatening  of  fainting  and 
suffocation  in  his  bed  in  the  night-time." 
"  The  anguish  of  mind  which  we  felt," 
says  his  brother,  "  was  very  great." 
The  father  grew  old ;  his  gray  head, 
careworn  brow,  temples  "  wearing 
thin  and  bare,"  his  tall  bent  figure,  bore 
witness  to  the  grief  and  toil  which 
had  spent  him.  The  factor  wrote  him 
insolent  and  threatening  letters  which 
"  set  all  the  family  in  tears."  There 
was  a  respite  when  the  father  changed 
his  farm,  but  a  lawsuit  sprang  up  be- 
tween him  and  the  proprietor :  "  After 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


5'* 


three  years'  tossing  and  whirling  in  the 
vortex  of  litigation,  my  father  was  just 
saved  from  the  horrors  of  a  gaol  by 
consumption,  which  after  two  years' 
promises  kindly  stepped  in."  In  order 
to  snatch  something  from  the  claws  of 
the  lawyers,  the  two  sons  were  obliged* 
to  step  in  as  creditors  for  arrears  of 
wages.  With  this  little  sum  they  took 
another  farm.  Robert  had  seven 
pounds  a  year  for  his  labor ;  for  several 
years  his  whole  expenses  did  not  ex- 
ceed this  wretched  pittance ;  he  had 
resolved  to  succeed  by  dint  of  absti- 
nence and  toil :  "  I  read  farming  books, 
I  calculated  crops,  I  attended  markets  ; 
.  .  .  but  the  first  year,  from  unfortu- 
nately buying  bad  seed,  the  second 
from  a  late  harvest,  we  lost  half  our 
crops."  Troubles  came  apace  ;  pover- 
ty always  engenders  them.  The  mas- 
ter-mason, Armour,  whose  daughter 
was  Burns'  sweetheart,  was  said  to  con- 
template prosecuting  him,  to  obtain  a 
guarantee  for  the  support  of  his  ex- 
pected progeny,  though  he  refused  to 
accept  him  as  a  son-in-law.  Jean  Ar- 
mour abandoned  him;  he  could  not 
give  his  name  to  her  child.  He  was 
obliged  to  hide  ;  he  had  been  publicly 
admonished  by  the  church.  lie  said  : 
"  Even  in  the  hour  of  social  mirth,  my 
gayety  is  the  madness  of  an  intoxicated 
criminal  under  the  hands  of  the  execu- 
tioner." He  resolved  to  leave  the 
country ;  he  agreed  with  Dr.  Charles 
Douglas  for  thirty  pounds  a  year  to  be 
bookkeeper  or  overseer  on  his  estate 
in  Jamaica  ;  for  want  of  money  to  pay 
the  passage,  he  was  about  to  "  indent 
himself/'  that  is,  become  bound  as  ap- 
prentice, when  the  success  of  a  volume 
of  poetry  he  had  published  put  a  score 
of  guineas  into  his  hands,  and  for  a 
time  brought  him  brighter  days.  Such 
was  his  life  up  to  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven,  and  that  which  succeeded  was 
little  better. 

Let  us  fancy  in  this  condition  a  man 
of  genius,  a  true  poet,  capable  of  the 
most  delicate  emotions  and  the  loftiest 
aspirations,  wishing  to  rise,  to  rise  to 
the  summit,  of  which  he  deemed  him- 
self capable  and  worthy.* 

Ambition  had  early  made  itself  heard 

*  Most  of  these  details  are  taken  from  the 
Life  and  Works  of  Burns%  by  R.  Chambers, 
1851,  4  vols. 


in  him :  "  I  had  felt  early  some  stir 
rings  of  ambition,  but  they  were  the 
blind  groping  of  Homer's  Cyclops 
round  the  walls  of  his  cave.  .  .  .  The 
only  two  openings  by  which  I  could 
enter  the  temple  of  fortune  were  the 
gate  of  niggardly  economy,  or  the  path 
of  little  chicaning  bargain-making. 
The  first  is  so  contracted  an  aperture,  I 
never  could  squeeze  myself  into  it; 
the  last  I  always  hated — there  was  con- 
tamination in  the  very  entrance."* 
Low  occupations  depress  the  soul  even 
more  than  the  body  ;  man  perishes  in 
them — is  obliged  to  perish  ;  of  neces- 
sity there  remains  of  him  nothing  but  a 
machine  :  for  in  the  kind  of  action  in 
which  all  is  monotonous,  in  which 
throughout  the  very  long  day  the  arriis 
lift  the  same  flail  and  drive  the  same 
plough,  if  thought  does  not  take  this 
uniform  movement,  the  work  is  ill 
done.  The  poet  must  take  care  not  to 
be  turned  aside  by  his  poetry ;  to  do 
as  Burns  did,  "  think  only  of  his  work 
whilst  he  was  at  it."  He  must  think 
of  it  always,  in  the  evening  unyoking 
his  cattle,  on  Sunday  putting  on  his 
new  coat,  counting  on  his  fingers  the 
eggs  and  poultry,  thinking  of  the  kinds 
of  dung,  finding  a  means  of  using  only 
one  pair  of  shoes,  and  of  selling  his  hay 
at  a  penny  a  truss  more.  He  will  not 
succeed  if  he  has  not  the  patient  dul- 
ness  of  a  laborer,  and  the  crafty  vigi- 
lance of  a  petty  shopkeeper.  How 
could  poor  Burns  succeed?  He  was 
out  of  place  from  his  birth,  and  tried 
his  utmost  to  raise  himself  above  his 
condition,  f  At  the  farm  at  Lochlea, 
during  meal-times,  the  only  moments 
of  relaxation,  parents,  brothers,  and 
sisters,  ate  with  a  spoon  in  one  hand  a 
book  in  the  other.  Burns,  at  the  school 
of  Hugh  Rodger,  a  teacher  of  mensu- 
ration, and  later  at  a  club  of  young 
men  at  Tarbolton,  strove  to  exercise 
himself  in  general  questions,  and  de- 
bated pro  and  con  in  order  to  see  both 
sides  of  every  idea.  He  carried  a 
book  in  his  pocket  to  study  in  spare 
moments  in  the  fields ;  he  wore  out 
thus  two  copies  of  Mackenzie's  Man  of 
Feeling.  "  The  collection  of  songs  was 
my  vade  mecum.  I  poured  over  them 

*  Chambers'  Life  of  Burns >  i.  14. 
t  My  great  constituent  elements  are  pride  and 
passion. 


512 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


driving  my  cart,  or  walking  to  labor, 
song  by  song,  verse  by  verse,  carefully 
noting  the  true,  tender,  sublime  or  fus- 
tian." He  maintained  a  correspon- 
dence with  several  of  his  companions 
in  the  same  rank  of  life  in  order  to 
form  his  style,  kept  a  commonplace 
book,  entered  in  it  ideas  on  man,  re- 
ligion, the  greatest  subjects,  criticiz- 
ing his  first  productions.  Burns  says, 
"  Never  did  a  heart  pant  more  ardently 
than  mine  to  be  distinguished."  He 
thus  divined  what  he  did  not  learn, 
rose  of  himself  to  the  level  of  the  most 
highly  cultivated ;  in  a  while,  at  Edin- 
burgh, he  was  to  read  through  and 
through  respected  doctors,  Blair  him- 
self; he  was  to  see  that  Blair  had  at- 
tainments, but  no  depth.  At  this  time 
he  studied  minutely  and  lovingly  the 
old  Scotch  ballads ;  and  by  night  in  his 
cold  little  room,  by  day  whilst  whistling 
at  the  plough,  he  invented  forms  and 
ideas.  We  must  think  of  this  in  order 
to  measure  his  efforts,  to  understand 
his  miseries  and  his  revolt.  We  must 
think  that  the  man  in  whom  these  great 
ideas  are  stirring,  threshed  the  corn, 
cleaned  his  cows,  went  out  to  dig  peats, 
waded  in  the  muddy  snow,  and  dreaded 
to  come  home  and  find  the  bailiffs  pre- 
pared to  carry  him  off  to  prison.  We 
must  think  also,  that  with  the  ideas  of 
a  thinker  he  had  the  delicacies  and 
reveries  of  a  poet.  Once,  having  cast 
his  eyes  on  an  engraving  representing 
a  dead  soldier,  and  his  wife  beside  him, 
his  child  and  dog  lying  in  the  snow, 
suddenly,  involuntarily,  he  burst  into 
tears.  He  writes : 

"  There  is  scarcely  any  earthly  object  gives 
me  more — I  do  not  know  if  I  should  call  it 
pleasure— but  something  which  exalts  me,  some- 
thing which  enraptures  me— than  to  walk  in  the 
sheltered  side  of  a  wood,  or  high  plantation,  in 
a  cioudy  winter  day,  and  hear  the  stormy  wind 
howling  among  the  trees  and  raving  over  the 
piain.*  ...  I  listened  to  the  birds  and  frequently 
turned  out  of  my  path,  lest  I  should  disturb 
their  little  songs  or  frighten  them  to  another 
station. 

The  slavery  of  mechanical  toil  and  per- 
petual economy  crushed  this  swarm  of 
grand  or  graceful  dreams  as  soon  as 
they  began  to  soar.  Burns  was  more- 
over proud,  so  proud,  that  afterwards 
in  the  world,  amongst  the  great,  "  an 

*  Extract  from  Burns'  commonplace-book  ; 
Chambers'  Life,  i.  79. 


honest  contempt  for  whatever  bore  the 
appearance  of  meanness  and  servility  " 
made  him  "  fall  into  the  opposite  error 
of  hardness  of  manner."  He  had  also 
the  consciousness  of  his  own  merits. 
"  Pauvre  inconnu  as  I  then  wass  I  had 
pretty  nearly  as  high  an  opinion  of  my- 
self and  of  my  works  as  I  have  at  this 
moment,  when  the  public  has  decided 
in  their  favor."  *  Who  can  wonder 
that  we  find  at  every  step  in  his  poems 
the  bitter  protests  of  an  oppressed  a:?d 
rebellious  plebeian  ? 

We  find  such  recriminations  against 
all  society,  against  State  and  Church. 
Burns  has  a  harsh  tone,  often  the  very 
phrases  of  Rousseau,  and  wished  to 
be  a  "vigorous  savage,"  quit  civilized 
life,  the  dependence  and  humiliations 
which  it  imposes  on  the  wretched. 

"  It  is  mortifying  to  see  a  fellow, 
whose  abilities  would  scarcely  have 
made  an  eight-penny  taylor,  and  whose 
heart  is  not  worth  three  farthings,  meet 
with  attention  and  notice  that  are  with- 
held from  the  son  of  genius  and  pover- 
ty." t  It  is  hard  to 


"  See  yonder  poor,  o'erlabour'd  wight, 
So  abject,  mean,  and  vile, 
Who  begs  a  brother  of  the  earth 


To  give  him  leave  to  toil  ; 
And  see  his  lordly  fellow-worm 
The  poor  petition  spurn, 
Unmindful,  though  a  weeping  wife 
And  helpless  offspring  mourn."  $ 

Burns  says  also  : 

"  While  winds  frae  off  Ben-Lomond  blaw, 
And  bar  the  doors  wi'  driving  snaw,  .  .   • 
I  grudge  a  wee  the  great  folks'  gift, 
That  live  so  bien  an'  snug: 
I  tent  less,  and  want  less 
Their  roomy  fire-side  ; 
But  hanker  and  canker 
To  see  their  cursed  pride. 

It's  hardly  in  a  body's  power 

To  keep,  at  times,  frae  being  scur, 

To  see  how  things  are  shar'd  ,• 
How  best  o'  chiels  are  whiles  in  want, 
While  coofs  on  countless  thousands  rant, 

And  ken  na  how  to  wair  't."  § 

But  "  a  man's  a  man  for  a'  that,"  and 
the  peasant  is  as  good  as  the  lord.  There 
are  men  noble  by  nature,  and  they 

*  Chambers'  Life,  \.  231.  Burns  had  a  right 
to  think  so:  when  he  arrived  at  night  in  an  inn, 
the  very  servants  woke  their  fellow-labourers  to 
come  and  hear  him  talk. 

t  Chambers'  Life  and  Works  of  Robert 
Burns,  ii.  68. 

J  Man  was  made  to  Mourn,  a  dirge. 

§  First  Epistle  to  Davie,  a  brother  poet. 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


513 


alone  are  noble  ;  the  eoat  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  tailor,  titles  a  matter  of 
the  Herald's  office.  "  The  rank  is  but 
the  guinea's  stamp,  the  man's  the  gowd 
for  a'  that." 

Against  men  who  reverse  this  natur- 
al equality  Burns  is  pitiless ;  the  least 
thing  puts  him  out  of  temper.  Read 
his  "Address  of  Beelzebub,  to  the 
Right  Honourable  the  Earl  of  Breadal- 
bane,  President  of  the  Right  Honoura- 
ble and  Honourable  the  Highland  So- 
ciety, which  met  on  the  23d  of  May 
last  at  the  Shakspeare,  Covent  Garden, 
to  concert  ways  and  means  to  frustrate 
the  designs  of  five  hundred  Highland- 
ers, who,  as  the  society  were  informed 
by  Mr.  Mackenzie  of  Applecross,  were 
so  audacious,  as  to  attempt  an  escape 
from  their  lawful  lords  and  masters, 
whose  property  they  were,  by  emigra- 
ting from  the  lands  of  Mr.  M 'Don aid  of 
Glengarry  to  the  wilds  of  Canada,  in 
search  of  that  fantastic  thing — liber- 
ty !  "  Rarely  was  an  insult  more  pro- 
longed and  more  biting,  and  the  threat 
is  not  far  behind.  He  warns  Scotch 
members  like  a  revolutionist,  to  with- 
draw "  that  curst  restriction  on  aqua- 
vitae,"  "get  auld  Scotland  back  her 
kettle : " 

"  An',  Lord,  if  ance  they  pit  her  till't, 
Her  tartan  petticoat  she'll  kilt, 
An'  durk  an'  pistol  at  her  belt, 

She'll  tak  the  streets, 
An'  rin  her  whittle  to  the  hilt 

I'  the  first  she  meets !  "  * 

In  vain  he  writes,  that 

"  In  politics  if  thou  wouldst  mix 
And  mean  thy  fortunes  be  ; 
Bear  this  in  mind,  be  deaf  and  blind, 
Let  great  folks  hear  and  see."  t 

Not  alone  did  he  see  and  hear,  but  he 
also  spoke,  and  that  aloud.  He  con- 
gratulates the  French,  on  having  re- 
pulsed conservative  Europe,  in  arms 
against  them.  He  celebrates  the  Tree 
of  Liberty,  planted  "  where  ance  the 
Bastile  stood :  " 

"  Upo'  this  tree  there  grows  sic  fruit, 
Its  virtues  a'  can  tell,  man  ; 
It  raises  man  aboon  the  brute, 
It  makes  him  ken  himsel',  man. 
Gif  ance  the  peasant  taste  a  bit, 


*  Earnest  Cry  and  Prayer  to  the  Scotch 
Representatives. 

t  The  Creed  of  Poverty  ;  Chambers'  Life^ 
iv.  86. 


He's  greater  than  a  Lord,  man.  .  .  . 
King  Loui'  thought  to  cut  it  down, 
When  it  was  unco  sma',  man. 
For  this  the  watchman  cracked  his  crown, 
Cut  off  his  head  and  a',  man."  * 

A  strange  gayety,  savage  and  nervous, 
and  which,  in  better  style,  resembles 
that  of  the  Ca  ira. 

Burns  is  hardly  more  tender  X)  the 
church.  At  that  time  the  strait  puri- 
tanical garment  began  to  give  way, 
Already  the  learned  world  of  Edin- 
burgh had  FYenchified,  widened,  adapt- 
ed-it  to  the  fashions  of  society,  decked 
it  with  ornaments,  not  very  brilliant,  it 
is  true,  but  select.  In  the  lower  strata 
of  society  dogma  became  less  rigid,  and 
approached  by  degrees  the  looseness  of 
Arminius  and  Socinus.  John  Goldie, 
a  merchant,  had  quite  recently  discuss- 
ed the  authority  of  Scripture. t  John 
Taylor  had  denied  original  sin.  Burns' 
father,  pious  as  he  was,  inclined  to 
liberal  and  humane  doctrines,  had  de- 
tracted from  the  province  of  faith  to 
add  to  that  of  reason.  Burns,  after  his 
wont,  pushed  things  to  an  extreme, 
thought  himself  a  deist,  saw  in  the 
Saviour  only  an  inspired  man,  reduced 
religion  to  an  inner  and  poetic  senti- 
ment, and  attacked  with  his  railleries 
the  paid  and  patented  orthodox  people. 
Since  Voltaire,  no  literary  man  in  re- 
ligious matters  was  more  bitter  or 
more  jocose.  According  to  him,  min- 
isters are  shopkeepers  trying  to  cheat 
each  other  out  of  their  customers,  de- 
crying at  the  top  of  their  voice  the 
shop  next  door,  puffing  their  drugs  in 
numberless  advertisements,  and  here 
and  there  setting  up  fairs  to  push  the 
trade.  These  "  holy  fairs  "  are  gather- 
ings of  the  pious,  where  the  sacrament 
is  administered.  One  after  another  the 
clergymen  preach  and  thunder,  in  par- 
ticular a  Rev.  Mr.  Moodie,  who  raves 
and  fumes  to  throw  light  on  points  of 
faith — a  terrible  figure  : 

"  Should  Hornie,  as  in  ancient  days, 

'Mong  sons  o'  God  present  him, 

The  vera  sight  o'  Hoodie's  face 

To's  ain  het  hame  had  sent  him 

Wi'  fright  that  day. 

Hear  how  he  clears  the  points  o'  faith 
Wi'  rattlin'  an'  wi'  thumpin' ! 
Now  meekly  calm,  now  wild  in  wrath, 
He's  stampin'  an'  he's  jumpin'  I 


*  The  Tree  of  Liberty. 
22* 


t  1780- 


5'4 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV, 


His  lengthen' d  chin,  his  turn'd-up  snout, 
His  eldritch  squeel  and  gestures, 
Oh  !  how  they  fire  the  heart  devout, 
Like  cantharidian  plasters, 
On  sic  a  day  I  "  * 

The  minister  grows  hoarse;  now  "  Smith 
opens  out  his  cauld  harangues,"  then 
two  more  ministers  speak.  At  last 
ihe  audience  rest,  "the  Change-house 
ills,"  and  people  begin  to  eat ;  each 
orings  cakes  and  cheese  from  his  bag ; 
Lhe  young  folks  have  their  arms  round 
iheir  lassies'  waists.  That  was  an  at- 
titude to  listen  in  !  There  is  a  great 
noise  in  the  inn  ;  the  cans  rattle  on  the 
board ;  whiskey  flows,  and  provides 
arguments  to  the  tipplers  commenting 
on  the  sermons.  They  demolish  carnal 
reason,  and  exalt  free  faith.  Argu- 
ments and  stamping,  shouts  of  sellers 
and  drinkers,  all  mingle  together.  It 
is  a  "  holy  fair :  " 

"  But  now  the  Lord's  ain  trumpet  touts, 
Till  a'  the  hills  are  rairin', 
An'  echoes  back  return  the  shouts  ; 
Black  Russell  is  na  sparin'  ; 
His  piercing  words,  like  Highlan'  swords, 
Divide  the  joints  and  marrow. 
His  talk  o'  hell,  where  devils  dwell, 
Our  vera  sauls  does  harrow 
Wi'  fright  that  day. 

A  vast  unbottom'd  boundless  pit, 
Fill'd  fu'  o'  lowin'  brunstane, 
Wha's  raging  flame,  an  scorchin'  heat, 
Wad  melt  the  hardest  whunstane. 
The  half-asleep  start  up  wi'  fear, 
An'  think  they  hear  it  roarin', 
When  presently  it  does  appear 
'Twas  but  some  neebor  snorin* 
Asleep  that  day.  .  .  . 

How  monie  hearts  this  day  converts 

O'  sinners  and  o'  lasses  I 

Their  hearts  o'  stane,  gin  night,  are  gane, 

As  saft  as  ony  flesh  is. 

There's  some  are  fou  o'  love  divine, 

There's  some  are  fou  o'  brandy."  t 

Etc.  etc. 

The  young  men  meet  the  girls,  and  the 
devil  does  a  better  business  than  God. 
A  fine  ceremony  and  morality !  Let 
us  cherish  it  carefully,  and  our  wise 
theology  too,  which  damns  men. 

As  for  that  poor  dog  common  sense, 
which  bites  so  hard,  let  us  send  him 
across  seas ;  let  him  go  "  and  bark  in 
France/'  For  where  shall  we  find 
better  men  than  our  "  unco  guid  " — 
Holy  Willie  for  instance  ?  He  feels 
himself  predestinated,  full  of  never- 
fculing  grace ;  therefore  all  who  resist 

•  Tht  Holy  Fair.  t  Ibid. 


him  resist  God,  and  are  fit  only  to  be 
punished  ;  may  He  "  blast  their  name, 
who  bring  thy  elders  to  disgrace,  and 
public  shame."  *  Burns  says  also : 

"  An  honest  man  may  like  a  glass, 
An  honest  man  may  like  a  lass, 
But  mean  revenge  an'  malice  fause 

He'll  still  disdain  ; 
An  then  cry  zeal  for  gospel  laws 

Like  some  we  ken.  .  .  . 
...  I  rather  would  be 

An  atheist  clean, 
Than  under  gospel  colours  hid  be 

Just  for  a  screen."  t 

There  is  a  beauty,  an  honesty,  a  hap- 
piness outside  the  conventionalities  and 
hypocrisy,  beyond  correct  preachings 
and  proper  drawing-rooms,  unconnect- 
ed with  gentlemen  in  white  ties  and 
reverends  in  new  bands. 

In  1785  Burns  wrote  his  masterpiece, 
the  Jolly  Beggars,  like  the  Gueux  of 
Beranger;  but  how  much  more  pic- 
turesque, varied,  and  powerful !  It  is 
the  end  of  autumn,  the  gray  leaves 
float  on  the  gusts  of  the  wind ;  a  joyous 
band  of  vagabonds,  happy  devils,  come 
for  a  junketing  at  the  change-house  of 
Poosie  Nansie : 

"  Wi'  quaffing  and  laughing 
They  ranted  and  they  sang  ; 
Wi'  jumping  and  thumping 
The  very  girdle  rang." 

First,  by  the  fire,  in  old  red  rags,  is  a 
soldier,  and  his  old  woman  is  with  him  ; 
the  jolly  old  girl  has  drunk  freely  ;  he 
kisses  her,  and  she  again  pokes  out  her 
greedy  lips ;  the  coarse  loud  kisses 
smack  like  "a  cadger's  whip."  "  Then 
staggering  and  swaggering,  he  roar'd 
this  ditty  up  :  " 

"  I  lastly  was  with  Curtis,  among  the  floating 

batt'ries, 
And  there  I  left  for  witness  an  arm  and  a 

limb  ; 
Yet  let  my  country  need  me,  with  Elliot  to 

head  me, 

I'd  clatter  on  my  stumps  at  the  sound  of  a 
drum.   .  .  . 

He  ended  ;  and  the  kebars  sheuk, 

Aboon  the  chorus.'  roar  ; 
While  frighted  rations  backward  leuk, 
And  seek  the  benmost  bore." 

Now  it  is  the  "  doxy's  "  turn  : 

"  I  once  was  a  maid,  tho'  I  cannot  tell  when, 
And   still  my  delight    is    in    proper    young 

men.  .  .  . 

Some  one  of  a  troop  of  dragoons  was  my  dad« 
die, 

*  Holy  Willies  Prayer. 

t  Epistle  to  the  Rev.  John  M'Matk. 


CHAP.  L] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


No  wonder  I'm  fond  of  a  sodger  laddie. 
The  first  of  my  loves  was  a  swaggering  blade, 
To     rattle    the    thundering    drum   was    his 

trade.  .  .  . 
The  sword   I  forsook  for  the  sake  of  the 

church.  .  .  . 

Full  soon  I  grew  sick  of  my  sanctified  sot, 
The  regiment  at  large  for  a  husband  I  got, 
From  the  gilded  spontoon  to  the  fife  I  was 

ready, 

I  asked  no  more  but  a  sodger  laddie. 
But  the  peace  it  reduc'd  me  to  beg  in  despair, 
Til!  I  met  my  old  boy  at  a  Cunningham  fair  ; 
His  rags  regimen  taj  they  flutter'd  so  gaudy, 
My  heart  it  rejoic'd  at  a  sodger  laddie.  .  .  . 
But  whilst  with  both  hands  I  can  hold  the 

glass  steady, 
Here's  to  thee,  my  hero,  my  sodger  laddie." 

This  is  certainly  a  free  and  easy  style, 
and  the  poet  is  not  mealy-mouthed. 
His  other  characters  are  in  the  same 
taste,  a  Merry  Andrew,  a  raucle  carlin 
(a  stout  beldame),  a  "pigmy-scraper 
wi'  his  fiddle,"  a  travelling  tinker, — all 
in  rags,  brawlers  and  gipsies,  who 
fight,  bang,  and  kiss  each  other,  and 
make  the  glasses  ring  with  the  noise 
of  their  good  humor  : 

"  They  toomed  their  pocks,  and  pawned  their 

duds, 

They  scarcely  left  to  co'er  their  fuds, 
To  quench  their  lowin'  drouth." 

And  their  chorus  rolls  about  like  thun- 
der, shaking  the  rafters  and  walls. 

"  A  fig  for  those  by  law  protected  1 

Liberty's  a  glorious  feast ! 
Courts  for  cowards  were  erected, 
Churches  built  to  please  the  priest  I 

What  is  title  ?    What  is  treasure  ? 

What  is  reputation's  care? 
If  we  lead  a  life  of  pleasure, 

'Tis  no  matter  how  or  where  t 

With  the  ready  trick  and  fable, 
Round  we  wander  all  the  day  ; 

And  at  night,  in  barn  or  stable, 
Hug  our  doxies  on  the  hay. 

Life  is  all  a  variorum, 

We  regard  not  how  it  goes  ; 
Let  them  cant  about  decorum, 

Who  have  characters  to  lose. 

Here's  to  budgets,  bags  and  wallets ! 

Here's  to  all  the  wandering  train ! 
Here's  our  raggted  brats  and  callets  1 

One  and  all  cry  out — Amen." 

Has  any  man  better  spoken  the  lan- 
guage of  rebels  and  levellers  ?  There  is 
here,  however,  something  else  than  the 
instinct  of  destruction  and  an  appeal 
to  the  senses ;  there  is  hatred  of  cant 
and  return  to  nature.     Burns  sings : 
"  Morality,  thou  deadly  bane, 
Thy  tens  o'  thousands  thou"  hast  slain  ; 


Vain  is  his  hope,  whose  stay  and  trust  is 
In  moral  mercy,  truth  and  justice  !  "  * 

Mercy !  this  grand  word  renews  all, 
Now,  as  formerly,  eighteen  centuries 
ago.  men  rose  above  legal  formulas  and 
prescriptions  ;  now,  as  formerly,  under 
Virgil  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  refined 
sensibility  and  wide  sympathies  em- 
braced beings  who  seemed  forever  out 
of  the  pale  of  society  and  law.  Burns 
pities,  and  that  sincerely,  a  wounded 
hare,  a  mouse  whose  nest  was  up- 
turned by  his  plough,  a  mountain  daisy. 
Is  there  such  a  very  great  difference 
between  man,  beast,  or  plant?  A 
mouse  stores  up,  calculates,  suffers 
like  a  man  : 

"  I  doubt  na,  whiles,  but  thou  may  thieve  ; 
What  then  ?  poor  beastie,  thou  maun  live." 

We  even  no  longer  wish  to  curse  the 
fallen  angels,  the  grand  malefactors, 
Satan  and  his  troop.  Like  the  "  randie, 
gangrel  bodies,  who  in  Poosie  Nancy's 
held  the  splore,"  they  have  their  good 
points,  and  perhaps  after  all  are  not  so 
bad  as  people  say : 

"  Hear  me,  auld  Hangie,  for  a  wee, 
An'  let  poor  damned  bodies  be  ; 
I'm  sure  sma'  pleasure  it  can  gie, 

E'en  to  a  deil, 

To  skelp  an'  scaud  poor  dogs  like  me, 
An'  hear  us  squeel !  .  .  . 

Then  you,  ye  auld,  snic-drawing  dog  I 

Ye  came  to  Paradise  incog., 

An*  played  on  man  a  cursed  brogue, 

(Black  be  your  fa' !) 
An'  gied  the  infant  warld  a  shog, 

'Maist  ruin'd  a'.  .  .  . 

But,  fare  you  weel,  auld  Nickie-benl 
O  wad  ye  tak  a  thought  an'  men'  1 
Ye  aiblins  might — I  dinna  ken — 

Still  hae  a  stake— 
I'm  wae  to  think  upo'  yon  den, 

Ev'n  for  your  sake."  t 

We  see  that  he  speaks  to  the  devil  as 
to  an  unfortunate  comrade,  a  disagree- 
able fellow,  but  fallen  into  trouble.  Let 
us  take  another  step,  and  we  will  see 
in  a  contemporary,  Goethe,  that  Me- 
phistopheles  himself  is  not  overmuch 
damned  ;  his  god,  the  modern  gou, 
tolerates  him  and  tells  him  he  has 
never  hated  such  as  he.  For  wide  con- 
ciliating nature  assembles  in  her  com- 
pany, on  equal  terms,  the  ministers  of 
destruction  and  life.  In  this  deep 
change  the  ideal  changes ;  citizen  and 

*  A  Dedication  to  Gavin  Hamilton. 

t  Address  to  the  Deil. 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


orderly  life,  strict  Puritan  duty,  do  not 
exhaust  all  the  powers  of  man.  Burns 
cries  out  in  favor  of  instinct  and  enjoy- 
ment, so  as  to  seem  epicurean.  He  has 
genuine  gayety,  a  glow  of  jocularity  ; 
laughter  commends  itself  to  him;  he 
praises  it  as  well  as  the  good  suppers  of 
good  comrades,  where  wine  is  plentiful, 
pleasantry  abounds,  ideas  pour  forth, 
poetry  sparkles,  and  causes  a  carnival 
of  beautiful  figures  and  good-humored 
people  to  move  about  in  the  human 
brain. 

He  always  was  in  love.*  He  made 
love  the  great  end  of  existence,  to  such 
a  degree  that  at  the  club  which  he 
founded  with  the  young  men  of  Tar- 
bolton,  every  member  was  obliged  "  to 
be  the  declared  lover  of  one  or  more 
fair  ones."  From  the  age  of  fifteen 
this  was  his  main  business.  He  had 
for  companion  in  his  harvest  toil  a 
sweet  and  lovable  girl,  a  year  younger 
than  himself :  "  In  short,  she,  alto- 
gether unwittingly  to  herself,  initiated 
me  in  that  delicious  passion,  which,  in 
spite  of  acid  disappointment,  gin-horse 
prudence,  and  book-worm  philosophy, 
I  hold  to  be  the  first  of  human  joys, 
our  dearest  blessing  here  below."  f 
He  sat  beside  her  with  a  joy  which  he 
did  not  understand,  to  "  pick  out  from 
her  little  hand  the  cruel  nettle-stings 
and  thistles."  He  had  many  other  less 
innocent  fancies  ;  it  seems  to  me  that 
by  his  very  nature  he  was  in  love  with 
all  women  :  as  soon  as  he  saw  a  pretty 
one,  he  grew  lively ;  his  commonplace- 
bock  and  his  songs  show  that  he  set 
off  in  pursuit  after  every  butterfly, 
golden  or  not,  which  seemed  about  to 
settle.  Moreover  he  did  not  confine 
himself  to  Platonic  reveries  ;  he  was  as 
free  of  action  as  of  words;  broad  jests 
crop  up  freely  in  his  verses.  He  calls 
himself  an  unregenerate  heathen,  and 
lie  is  right.  He  has  even  written  ob- 
scene verses  ;  and  Lord  Byron  refers  to 
a  Quantity  of  his  letters,  of  course  un- 
published, than  which  worse  could  not 
I>e  imagined  :  $  it  was  the  excess  of  the 
»ap  which  overflowed  in  him,  and 

*  He  himself  says :  "  I  have  been  all  along 
A  mberable  dupe  to  Love."  His  brother  Gil- 
bert said :  "  He  was  constantly  the  victim  of 
some  fair  enslaver." 

t  Chambers'  Life  of  Burns,  i.  12. 

\  Byron's  Works,  ed.  Moore,  17  vols.,  ii. 
302,  Journal,  Dec.  13,  1813. 


soiled  the  bark.  Doubtless  he  did  no* 
boast  about  these  excesses,  he  rather 
repented  of  them;  but  as  to  the  upris- 
ing and  blooming  of  the  free  poetic  life 
in  the  open  air,  he  found  no  fault  with 
it.  He  thought  that  love,  with  the 
charming  dreams  it  brings,  poetry, 
pleasure,  and  the  rest,  are  beautiful 
things,  suitable  to  human  instincts,  and 
therefore  to  the  designs  of  God.  In 
short,  in  contrast  with  morose  Puritan- 
ism, he  approved  joy  and  spoke  well 
of  happiness.* 

Not  that  he  was  a  mere  epicurean 
on  the  contrary,  he  could  be  religious 
When,  after  the  death  of  his  father,  he 
prayed  aloud  in  the  evening,  he  drew 
tears  from  those  present ;  and  his 
Cottar's  Saturday  ATight  is  the  most 
heartfelt  of  virtuous  idyls.  I  even  be- 
lieve he  was  fundamentally  religious, 
He  advised  his  "  pupil  as  he  tenders 
his  own  peace,  to  keep  up  a  regular 
warm  intercourse  with  the  Deity/7 
What  he  made  fun  of  was  official  wor- 
ship ;  but  as  for  religion,  the  language 
of  the  soul,  he  was  greatly  attached  to 
it.  Often  before  Dugald  Stewart  at 
Edinburgh,  he  disapproved  of  the  skep- 
tical jokes  which  he  heard  at  the  supper 
table.  He  thought  he  had  "  every 
evidence  for  the  reality  of  a  life  beyond 
the  stinted  bourne  of  our  present  ex- 
istence ; "  and  many  a  time,  side  by 
side  with  a  jocose  satire,  we  find  in  his 
writings  stanzas  full  of  humble  repent- 
ance, confiding  fervor,  or  Christian  re- 
signation. These,  if  you  will,  are  a 
poet's  contradictions,  but  they  are  also 
a  poet's  divinations;  under  these  ap- 
parent variations  there  rises  a  new 
ideal ;  old  narrow  moralities  are  to  give 
place  to  the  wide  sympathy  of  the  mo- 
dern man,  who  loves  the  beautiful 
wherever  it  meets  him,  and  who,  re- 
fusing to  mutilate  human  nature,  is  at 
once  Pagan  and  Christian 

This  originality  and  divining  instinct 
exist  in  his  style  as  in  his  ideas.  The 
specialty  of  the  age  in  which  we  live, 
and  which  he  inaugurated,  is  to  blot 
out  rigid  distinctions  of  class,  cate- 
chism, and  style ;  academic,  moral,  or 
social  conventions  are  falling  away,  and 
we  claim  in  society  a  mastery  for  in- 
dividual merit,  in  morality  for  inborn 

*  See  a  passage  from  Burns'  commonplace- 
book  in  Chambers'  Life  qf  Burns,  i.  93. 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AMD  PRODUCTIONS. 


517 


generosity,  in  literature  for  genuine 
feeling.  Burn..*  was  the  first  to  enter 
on  this  track,  and  he  often  pursues  it 
to  the  end.  When  he  wrote  verses,  it 
was  not  on  calculation  or  in  obedience 
to  fashion  :  "  My  passions,  when  once 
lighted  up,  raged  like  so  many  devils, 
till  they  got  vent  in  rhyme ;  and  then 
the  conning  over  my  verses,  like  a  spell, 
soothed  all  into  quiet."  *  He  hummed 
them  to  old  Scotch  airs  which  he  pas- 
sionately loved,  as  he  drove  his  plough, 
and  which,  he  says,  as  soon  as  he  sang 
them,  brought  ideas  and  rhymes  to  his 
lips.  That,  indeed,  was  natural  poetry  ; 
not  forced  in  a  hothouse,  but  born  of 
the  soil  between  the  furrows,  side  by 
side  with  music,  amidst  the  gloom  and 
beauty  of  the  climate,  like  the  violet 
heather  of  the  moors  and  the  hillside. 
We  can  understand  that  it  gave 
vigor  to  his  tongue.  For  the  first  time 
this  man  spoke  as  men  speak,  or  rather 
as  they  think,  without  premeditation, 
with  a  mixture  of  all  styles,  familiar 
and  terrible,  hiding  an  emotion  under 
a  joke,  tender  and  jeering  in  the  same 
place,  apt  to  place  side  by  side  tap- 
room trivialities  and  the  high  language 
of  poetry,  f  SQ  indifferent  was  he  to 
rules,  content  to  exhibit  his  feeling  as  it 
came  to  him,  and  as  he  felt  it.  At  last, 
after  so  many  years,  we  escape  from 
measured  declamation,  we  hear  a  man's 
voice  !  and  what  is  better  still,  we  for- 
get the  voice  in  the  emotion  which  it 
expresses,  we  feel  this  emotion  reflected 
in  ourselves,  we  enter  into  relations 
with  a  soul.  Then  form  seems  to  fade 
away  and  disappear  :  I  think  that  this 
is  the  great  feature  of  modern  poetry; 
seven  or  eight  times  has  Burns  reached 
it. 

He  has  done  more  ;  he  has  made  his 
way,  as  we  say  now-a-days.  On  the 
publication  of  his  first  volume  he  be- 
came suddenly  famous.  Coming  to 
Edinburgh,  he  was  feasted,  caressed, 
admitted  on  a  footing  of  equality  in  the 
best  drawing-rooms,  amongst  the  great 
and  the  learned,  loved  of  a  woman  who 
was  almost  a  lady.  For  one  season  he 
was  sought  after,  and  he  behaved 
worthily  amidst  these  rich  and  noble 

*  Chambers'  Life,  i.  38. 

t  See  Tarn  o1  Shanter,  A  ddress  to  the  Deil, 
The  Jolly  Beggars,  A  Man's  a  Man  for  a? 
thai,  Green  Growth*  Rashes^  etc. 


people.  He  was  respected,  and  even 
loved.  A  subscription  brought  him 
a  second  edition  and  five  hundred 
pounds.  He  also  at  last  had  won  his 
position  like  the  great  French  plebeians, 
amongst  whom  Rousseau  was  the  first. 
Unfortunately  he  brought  thither,  like 
them,  the  vices  of  his  condition  and  of 
his  genius.  A  man  does  not  rise  with 
impunity,  nor,  above  all.  desire  to  rise 
with  impunity  :  we  also  have  our  vices, 
and  suffering  vanity  is  the  first  of  them. 
"  Never  did  a  heart  pant  more  ardently 
than  mine  to  be  distinguished,"  said 
Burns.  This  grievous  pride  marred 
his  talent,  and  threw  him  into  follies. 
He  labored  to  atfain  a  fine  epistolary 
style,  and  brought  ridicule  on  himself 
by  imitating  in  his  letters  the  men  of 
the  academy  and  the  court.  He  wrote 
to  his  lady-loves  with  choice  phrases, 
full  of  periods  as  pedantic  as  those  of 
Dr.  Johnson.  Certainly  we  dare  hard- 
ly quote  them,  the  emphasis  is  so  gro- 
tesque. *  At  other  times  he  committed 
to  his  commonplace-book  literary  ex- 
pressions that  occurred  to  him,  and  six 
months  afterwards  sent  them  to  his 
correspondents  as  extemporary  effu- 
sions and  natural  improvisations.  Even 
in  his  verses,  often  enough,  he  fell  into 
a  grand  conventional  style  ;  f  brought 
into  play  sighs,  ardors,  flames,  even 
the  big  classical  and  mythological  ma- 
chinery. Beranger,  who  thought  or 
called  himself  the  poet  of  the  people, 
did  the  same.  A  plebeian  must  have 
much  courage  to  venture  on  always  re- 
maining himself,  and  never  slipping  on 
the  court  dress.  Thus  Burns,  a  Scott- 
ish villager,  avoided,  in  speaking,  all 
Scotch  village  expressions:  he  was 
pleased  to  show  himself  as  well-bred 
as  fashionable  folks.  It  was  forcibly 
and  by  surprise  that  his  genius  drew 
him  away  from  the  proprieties  :  twice 
out  of  three  times  his  feeling  was  mar« 
red  by  his  pretentiousness. 

His. success  lasted  one  winter,  aftei 

*  "  O  Clarinda,  shall  we  not  meet  in  a  state, 
some  yet  unknown  state  of  being,  where  the 
lavish  hand  of  plenty  shall  minister  to  the 
highest  wish  of  benevolence,  and  where  the 
chill  north-wind  of  prudence  shall  never  blow 
over  the  flowery  fields  of  enjoyment?" 

t  Epistle  to  James  Smith  : 
"  O  Life,  how  pleasant  is  thy  morning, 
Young  Fancy's  rays  the  hills  adorning, 
Cold-pausing  Caution's  lesson  spurning  !  " 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


which  the  wide  incurable  wound  of 
plebeianism  made  itself  felt, — I  mean 
that  he  was  obliged  to  work  for  his 
living.  With  the  money  gained  by  the 
second  edition  of  his  poems  he  took  a 
little  farm.  It  was  a  bad  bargain  ;  and, 
moreover,  we  can  imagine  that  he  had 
not  the  money-grubbing  character  ne- 
cessary. He  says  :  "  I  might  write  you 
on  farming,  on  building,  on  marketing  ; 
but  my  poor  distracted  mind  is  so 
torn,  so  jaded,  so  racked,  and  bedeviled 
with  the  task  of  the  superlatively  damn- 
ed obligation  to  make  one  guinea  do 
the  business  of  three,  that  I  detest, 
abhor,  and  swoon  at  the  very  word 
business."  Soon  he  left  his  farm,  with 
empty  pockets,  to  fill  at  Dumfries  the 
small  post  of  exciseman,  which  was 
worth,  in  all,  ^"90  a  year.  In  this  fine 
employment  he  branded  leather,  gauged 
casks,  tested  the  make  of  candles,  is- 
sued licenses  for  the  transit  of  spirits. 
From  his  dunghills  he  passed  to  office 
work  and  grocery :  what  a  life  for 
such  a  man !  He  would  have  been  un- 
liappy,  even  if  independent  and  rich. 
These  great  innovators,  these  poets, 
are  all  alike.  What  makes  them  poets 
is  the  violent  afflux  of  sensations. 
They  have  a  nervous  mechanism  more 
sensitive  than  ours  ;  the  objects  which 
leave  us  cool,  transport  them  suddenly 
beyond  themselves.  At  the  least  shock 
their  brain  is  set  going,  after  which 
they  once  more  fall  flat,  loathe  exist- 
ence, sit  morose  amidst  the  memories 
of  their  faults  and  their  lost  pleasures. 
Burns  said :  "  My  worst  enemy  is  moi- 
m$me.  .  .  .  There  are  just  two  crea- 
tures I  would  envy :  a  horse  in  his  wild 
state  traversing  the  forests  of  Asia,  or 
an  oyster  on  some  of  the  desert  shores 
of  Europe.  The  one  has  not  a  wish 
without  enjoyment,  the  other  has 
neither  wish  nor  fear."  He  was  al- 
5  in  extremes,  at  the  height  of  ex 
altation  or  in  the  depth  of  depression  ; 
in  the  morning,  ready  to  weep  ;  in  the 
evening  at  table  or  under  the  table  ; 
enamored  of  Jean  Armour,  then  on  her 
refusal  engaged  to  another,  then  return- 
ing to  Jean,  then  quitting  her,  then 
taking  her  back,  amidst  much  scandal, 
many  blots  on  his  character,  still  more 
disgust.  In  such  heads  ideas  are  like 
cannon  balls  :  the  man,  hurled  onwards, 
bursts  through  every  thing,  shatters 


limself,  begins  again  the  next  day,  but 
n  a  contrary  direction,  and  ends  by 
inding  nothing  left  in  him,  but  ruins 
within  and  without.  Burns  had  never 
)een  prudent,  and  was  so  less  than 
ever,  after  his  s  zccess  at  Edinburgh. 
Ele  had  enjoyed  too  much ;  he  hence- 
forth felt  too  acutely  the  painful  sting 
of  modern  man,  namely  the  dispropor- 
tion between  the  desire  for  certain 
;hings  and  the  power  of  obtaining  them. 
Debauch  had  all  but  spoiled  his  fine 
imagination,  which  had  before  been 
"  the  chief  source  of  his  happiness  ;  " 
and  he  confessed  that  instead  of  tender 
reveries,  he  had  now  nothing  but  sen- 
sual desires.  He  had  been  kept  drink- 
ing till  six  in  the  morning  ;  he  was 
very  often  drunk  at  Dumfries,  not 
that  the  whiskey  was  very  good,  but 
it  makes  thoughts  to  whirl  about  in 
the  head ;  and  hence  poets,  like  the 
poor,  are  fond  of  it.  Once  at  Mr. 
RiddelPs  he  made  himself  so  tipsy  that 
he  insulted  the  lady  of  the  house  ;  next 
day  he  sent  her  an  apology  which  was 
not  accepted,  and  out  of  spite,  wrote 
rhymes  against  her :  a  lamentable  ex- 
cess, betraying  an  unseated  mind.  At 
thirty-seven  he  was  worn  out.  One 
night,  having  drunk  too  much,  he  sat 
down  and  went  to  sleep  in  the  street. 
It  was  January,  and  he  caught  rheu- 
matic fever.  His  family  wanted  to 
call  in  a  doctor.  "  What  business  has 
a  physician  to  waste  his  time  on  me  ? " 
he  said ;  "  I  am  a  poor  pigeon  not 
worth  plucking."  He  was  horribly  thin, 
could  not  sleep,  and  could  not  stand  on 
his  legs.  "  As  to  my  individual  self  I  am 
tranquil.  But  Burns'  poor  widow  and 
half  a  dozen  of  his  dear  little  ones, 
there  I  am  as  weak  as  a  woman's  tear." 
He  was  even  afraid  he  should  not  lie 
in  peace,  and  had  the  bitterness  of  be- 
ing obliged  to  beg.  Here  isalettei  he 
wrote  to  a  friend  :  "  A  rascal  of  a  haber 
dasher,  taking  into  his  head  that  I  am 
dying,  has  commenced  a  process  against 
me,  and  will  infallibly  put  my  emaciated 
body  into  jail.  Will  you  be  so  good  as 
to  accommodate  me,  and  that  by  return 
of  post,  with  ten  pounds  ?  O  James  ! 
did  you  know  the  pride  of  my  heart, 
you  would  feel  doubly  for  me  !  Alas, 
I  am  not  used  to  beg  !  "  *  He  died  a 

*  Chambers'  Life;  Letter  to  Mr.  Js.  Burne% 
iv.  205. 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


519 


few  days  afterwards  at  thirty-eight. 
His  wife  was  lying-in  of  her  fifth  child 
at  the  time  of  her  husband's  funeral. 

III. 

A  sad  life,  most  often  the  life  of  the 
men  in  advance  of  their  age  ;  it  is  not 
wholesome  to  go  too  quick.  Burns 
was  so  much  in  advance,  that  it  took 
forty  years  to  catch  him.  At  this  time 
in  England,  the  conservatives  and  the 
believers  took  the  lead  before  skeptics 
and  revolutionists.  The  constitution 
was  liberal,  and  seemed  to  be  a  guaran- 
tee of  rights  ;  the  church  was  popular, 
and  seemed  to  be  the  support  of  mor- 
ality. Practical  capacity  and  specula- 
tive incapacity  turned  the  mind  aside 
from  the  propounded  innovations,  and 
bound  them  down  to  the  established 
order.  The  people  found  themselves 
well  off  in  their  great  feudal  house, 
widened  and  accommodated  to  modern 
needs  ;  they  thought  it  beautiful,  they 
were  proud  of  it ;  and  national  instinct, 
like  public  opinion,  declared  against  the 
innovators  who  would  throw  it  down  to 
build  it  up  again.  Suddenly  a  violent 
shock  changed  this  instinct  into  a  pas- 
sion, and  this  opinion  into  fanaticism. 
The  French  Revolution,  at  first  admired 
as  a  sister,  had  shown  itself  a  fury  and  a 
monster.  Pitt  declared  in  Parliament, 
"that  one  of  the  leading  features  of 
this  (French)  Government  was  the  ex- 
tinction of  religion  and  the  destruction 
of  property."*  Amidst  universal  ap- 
plause, the  whole  thinking  and  influen- 
tial class  rose  to  stamp  out  this  party 
of  robbers,  united  brigands,  atheists 
on  principle  ;  and  Jacobinism,  sprung 
from  blood  to  sit  in  purple,  was  per- 
secuted even  in  its  child  and  champion 
"  Buonaparte,  who  is  now  the  soul  or- 
gan of  all  that  was  formerly  dangerous 
and  pestiferous  in  the  revolution."  t 
Under  this  national  rage  liberal  ideas 
dwindled  ;  the  most  illustrious  friends 
of  Fox — Burke,  Windham,  Spencer — 
abandoned  him  :  out  of  a  hundred  and 
sixty  partisans  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, only  fifty  remained  to  him.  The 
great  Whig  party  seemed  to  be  disap- 
pearing;  and  in  1799,  tne  strongest 
minority  that  could  be  collected  against 

*  The  Speeches  of  William  Pitt,  2d  ed.  3 
vols.,  1808,  ii.  17,  Jan.  21,  1794. 
t  Ibid.  iii.  152,  Feb.  17,  1800. 


the  Government  was  twenty-nine.  Yet 
English  Jacobinism  was  taken  by  the 
throat  and  held  down  : 

"  The  Habeas  Cor  fa ;  Act  was  repeatedly 
suspended.  .  .  .  Writers  who  propounded  doc- 
trines adverse  to  monarchy  and  aristocracy, 
were  proscribed  and  punished  without  mercy. 
It  was  hardly  safe  for  a  republican  to  avow  his 
political  creed  over  his  beefsteak  and  his  bottle 
of  port  at  a  chophouse.  .  .  .  Men  of  cultivated 
mind  and  polished  manners  were  (in  Scotland), 
for  offences  which  at  Westminster  would  have 
been  treated  as  mere  misdemeanours,  sent  to 
herd  with  felons  at  Botany  Bay."  * 

But  the  intolerance  of  the  nation  aggra- 
vated  that  of  the  Government.  If  any 
one  had  dared  to  avow  democratic  sen- 
timents, he  would  have  been  insulted. 
The  papers  represented  the  innovators 
as  wretches  and  public  enemies.  The 
mob  in  Birmingham  burned  the  houses 
of  Priestley  and  the  Unitarians.  And  in 
the  end  Priestley  was  obliged  to  leave 
England. 

New  theories  could  not  arise  in  this 
society  armed  against  new  theories. 
Yet  the  revolution  made  its  entrance  ; 
it  entered  disguised,  and  through  an  in- 
direct way,  so  as  not  to  be  recognized. 
It  was  not  social  ideas,  as  in  France, 
that  were  transformed,  nor  philosophical 
ideas  as  in  Germany,  but  literary  ideas  ; 
the  great  rising  tide  of  the  modern  mind 
which  elsewhere  overturned  the  whole 
edifice  of  human  conditions  and  spec- 
ulations succeeded  here  only  at  first  in 
changing  style  and  taste.  It  was  a  slight 
change,  at  least  apparently,  but  on  the 
whole  of  equal  value  with  the  others  ; 
for  this  renovation  in  the  manner  of 
writing  is  a  renovation  in  the  manner  of 
thinking  :  the  one  led  to  all  the  rest,  as 
a  central  pivot  being  set  in  motion 
causes  all  the  indented  wheels  to  move 
also. 

Wherein  consists  the  reform  of 
style  ?  Before  defining  it,  I  prefer  to 
exhibit  it ;  and  for  that  purpose  we 
must  study  the  character  and  life  of  a 
man  who  was  the  first  to  use  it,  without 
any  system — William  Cowper  :  for  his 
talent  is  but  the  picture  of  his  charac- 
ter, and  his  poems  but  the  echo  of  his 
life.  He  was  a  delicate,  timid  child,  of 
a  tremulous  sensibility,  passionately 
tender,  who,  having  lost  his  mother  at 
six,  was  almost  at  once  subjected  to 

*  Macaulay's  Works,  vii.  J  Life  of  William 
Pitt,  396. 


520 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


the  fagging  and  brutality  of  a  public 
school.  These,  in  England,  are  pecu- 
liar :  a  boy  of  about  fifteen  singled  him 
out  as  a  proper  object  upon  whom  he 
might  practice  the  cruelty  of  his  tem- 
per ;  and  the  poor  little  fellow,  cease- 
lessly ill  treated,  "  conceived,"  he  says, 
"such  a  dread  of  his  (tormentor's) 
figure,  .  .  .  that  I  well  remember 
being  afraid  to  lift  my  eyes  upon  him 
higher  than  his  knees;  and  that  I  knew 
him  better  by  his  shoe-buckles  than  by 
any  other  part  of  his  dress."  *  At  the 
age  of  nine  melancholy  seized  him, 
not  the  sweet  reverie  which  we  call  by 
that  name,  but  the  profound  dejection, 
gloomy  and  continual  despair,  the 
horrible  malady  of  the  nerves  and  the 
soul  which  leads  to  suicide,  Puritanism, 
and  madness.  "  Day  and  night  I  was 
upon  the  rack,  lying  down  in  horror, 
and  rising  up  in  despair."  t 

The  evil  changed  form,  diminished, 
but  did  not  leave  him.  As  he  had  only 
a  small  fortune,  though  born  of  a  high 
family,  he  accepted,  without  reflection, 
the  offer  of  his  uncle,  who  wished  to 
give  him  a  place  as  clerk  of  the  jour- 
nals of  the  House  of  Lords  ;  but  he 
had  to  undergo  an  examination,  and 
his  nerves  were  unstrung  at  the  very 
idea  of  having  to  speak  in  public.  For 
six  months  he  tried  to  prepare  him- 
self; but  he  read  without  understand- 
ing. His  continual  misery  brought  on 
at  last  a  nervous  fever.  Cowper  writes 
of  himself :  "  The  feelings  of  a  man 
when  he  arrives  at  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, are  probably  much  like  mine, 
every  time  I  set  my  foot  in  the  office, 
which  was  every  day,  fpr  more  than  a 
half  year  together.  J  In  this  situation, 
such  a  fit  of  passion  has  sometimes 
seized  me,  when  alone  in  my  chambers, 
that  I  have  cried  out  aloud,  and  cursed 
the  hour  of  my  birth;  lifting  up  my 
eyes  to  heaven  not  as  a  suppliant,  but 
in  the  hellish  spirit  of  rancorous  re- 
proach and  blasphemy  against  my 
Maker."  §  The  day  of  examination 
came  on  :  he  hoped  he  was  going  mad, 
so  that  he  might  escape  from  it ;  and 
as  his  reason  held  out,  he  thought 
even  of  "  self-murder."  At  last,  "  in  a 
horrible  dismay  of  soul,"  insanity  came, 

*  The  Works  of  IV.  Confer,  ed,  Southey, 
Svols.  1843. 
t  Ibid.  i.  18.        %  Ibid.  79.         §  Ibid.  81. 


and  he  was  placed  in  an  asylum,  whilst 
"  his  conscience  was  scaring  him,  and 
the  avenger  of  blood  pursuing  him  "  * 
to  the  extent  even  of  thinking  himself 
damned,    like    Bunyan    and   the    first 
Puritans.     After    several    months   his 
reason  returned,  but  it  bore  traces  of 
the  strange  lands   where  it  had  jour- 
neyed alone.     He  remained  sad,  like  a 
man  who  thought  himself  in  disfavor 
with  God,  and  felt  himself  incapable  o{ 
an  active  life.     However,  a  clergyman, 
Mr.  Unwin,  and  his  wife,  very  pious 
and  very   regular   people,   had  taken 
charge  of  him.     He  tried  to  busy  him- 
self mechanically,  for  instance,  in  mak- 
ing rabbit-hutches,  in  gardening,  and  in 
taming  hares.     He  employed  the  rest 
of  the  day  like  a  Methodist,  in  reading 
Scripture  or  sermons,  in  singing  hymns 
with  his  friends,  and  speaking  of  spirit- 
ual matters.     This  way  of  living,  the 
wholesome   country  air,  the   maternal 
tenderness   of  Mrs.  Unwin  and  Lady 
Austen,  brought  him  a  few  gleams  of 
light.     They  loved  him  so  generously, 
and  he  was  so  lovable  !     Affectionate, 
full  of  freedom  and  innocent  raillery, 
with  a  natural  and  charming  imagina- 
tion, a  graceful  fancy,  an  exquisite  del- 
icacy, and  so  unhappy !  He  was  one  of 
those  to  whom  women   devote  them- 
selves,   whom   they   love    maternally, 
first  from  compassion,  then  by  attrac- 
tion, because  they  find  in  them  alone 
the  consideration,  the  minute  and  ten- 
der attentions,  the  delicate  observances 
which  men's  rude  nature  cannot  give 
them,  and  which  their  more  sensitive 
nature    nevertheless    craves.      These 
sweet  moments,  however,  did  not  last. 
He  says  :  "  My  mind  has  always  a  mel- 
ancholy cast,  and  is  like  some  pools  I 
have  seen,  which,  though  filled  with  a 
black  and  putrid  water,  will  neverthe- 
less in  a  bright   day  reflect   the   sun- 
beams from  their  surface."    Fie  smiled 
as  well   as  he  could,  but  with  effort ; 
it  was  the  smile  of  a  sick  man  who 
knows  himself   incurable,  and  tries  to 
forget  it  for  an  instant,  at  least  to  make 
others   forget   it:  "Indeed,  I  wonder 
that  a  sportive  thought   should   ever 
knock  at  the  door  of  my  intellects,  and 
still  more  that  it  should  gain  admit- 
tance.    It  is  as  if  harlequin  should  in- 
trude himself  into  the  gloomy  chambei 
*  Ibid.  97. 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


521 


where  a  corpse  is  deposited  in  state. 
His  antic  gesticulations  would  be  un- 
seasonable at  any  rate,  but  more  spe- 
cially so  if  they  should  distort  the  fea- 
tures of  the  mournful  attendants  into 
laughter.  But  the  mind,  long  wearied 
with  the  sameness  of  a  dull,  dreary 
prospect,  will  gladly  fix  his  eyes  on 
anything  that  may  make  a  little  variety 
in  it's  contemplations,  though  it  were 
but  a  kitten  playing  with  her  tail."* 
In  reality,  he  had  to<:  delicate  and  too 
pure  a  heart:  pious,  irreproachable, 
austere,  he  thought  himself  unworthy 
of  going  to  church,  or  even  of  praying 
to  God.  He  says  also  :  "  As  for  hap- 
piness, he  that  once  had  communion 
with  his  Maker  must  be  more  frantic 
than  ever  I  was  yet,  if  he  can  dream  of 
finding  it  at  a  distance  from  Him."  t 
And  elsewhere :  "  The  heart  of  a 
Christian,  mourning  and  yet  rejoicing, 
(is)  pierced  with  thorns,  yet  wreathed 
about  with  roses.  I  have  the  thorn 
without  the  roses.  My  brier  is  a  wintry 
one ;  the  flowers  are  withered,  but  the 
thorn  remains."  On  his  deathbed, 
when  the  clergyman  told  him  to  confide 
in  the  love  of  the  Redeemer,  who  de- 
sired to  save  all  men,  he  uttered  a  pas- 
sionate cry,  begging  him  not  to  give 
him  such  consolations.  He  thought 
himself  lost,  and  had  thought  so  all 
his  life.  One  by  one,  under  this  terror 
all  his  faculties  gave  way.  Poor  charm- 
ing soul,  perishing  like  a  frail  flower 
transplanted  from  a  warm  land  to  the 
snow :  the  world's  temperature  was  too 
rough  for  it;  and  the  moral  law,  which 
should  have  supported  it,  tore  it  with 
its  thorns. 

Such  a  man  does  not  write  for  the 
pleasure  of  making  a  noise.  He  made 
verses  as  he  painted  or  worked  at  his 
bench  to  occupy  himself,  to  distract 
his  mind.  His  soul  was  too  full  ;  he 
need  not  go  far  for  subjects.  Picture 
zhis  pensive  figure,  silently  wandering 
ind  gazing  along  the  banks  of  the 
Ouie.  He  gazes  and  dreams.  A  bux- 
om peasant  girl,  with  a  basket  on  her 
arm  ;  a  distant  cart  slowly  rumbling  on 
behind  horses  in  a  sweat ;  a  sparkling 

*  The  WorksofW.  Cjivfier,  ed.  Southey ; 
Letter  to  the  Rev.  John  Newton,  July  12, 
1780. 

t  Ibid.  Letter  to  Rev.  J.  Newton,  August  5, 
1786. 


spring,  which  polishes  the  blue  peb- 
bles,— this  is  enough  to  fill  him  with 
sensations  and  thoughts.  He  returned, 
sat  in  his  little  summer-house,  as  large 
as  a  sedan-chair,  the  window  of  which 
opened  out  upon  a  neighbor's  orchard, 
and  the  door  on  a  garden  full  of  pinks, 
roses,  and  honeysuckle.  In  this  nest 
he  labored.  In  the  evening,  beside  his 
friend,  whose  needles  were  working  for 
him,  he  read,  or  listened  to  the  drowsy 
sounds  without.  Rhymes  are  born  in 
such  a  life  as  this.  It  sufficed  for  him, 
and  for  their  birth.  He  did  not  need 
a  more  violent  career  :  less  harmonious 
or  monotonous,  it  would  have  upset 
him;  impressions  small  to  us  were 
great  to  him  ;  and  in  a  room,  a  garden, 
he  found  a  world.  In  his  eyes  the 
smallest  objects  were  poetical.  It  is 
evening ;  winter  ;  the  postman  comes  : 

"  The  herald  of  a  noisy  world, 
With    spattered    boots,    strapp'd    waist,    and 

frozen  locks  ; 

News  from  all  nations  lumbering  at  his  back. 
True  to  his  charge,  the  close-packed  load  be- 
hind, 

Yet  careless  what  he  brings,  his  one  concern 
Is  to  conduct  it  to  the  destined  inn  ; 
And,  having  dropped  the  expected  bag,  pass 

on. 

He  whistles  as  he  goes,  light-hearted  wretch, 
Cold  and  yet  cheerful :  messenger  of  grief 
Perhaps  to  thousands,  and  of  joy  to  some."  * 

At  last  we  have  the  precious  "  close- 
packed  load  ;  "  we  open  it ;  we  wish  to 
hear  the  many  noisy  voices  it  brings 
from  London  and  the  universe  : 

"  Now  stir  the  fire,  and  close  the  shutters  fast, 
Let  fall  the  curtains,  wheel  the  sofa  round, 
And  while  the  bubbling  and  loud-hissing  urn 
Throws  up  a  steamy  column,  and  the  cups, 
That  cheer  but  not  inebriate,  v/ait  on  each, 
So  let  us  welcome  peaceful  evening  in."  t 

Then  he  unfolds  the  whole  contents  of 
the  newspaper — politics,  news,  even 
advertisements — not  as  a  mere  realist, 
like  so  many  writers  of  to-day,  but  as  a 
poet;  that  is,  as  a  man  who  discovers 
a  beauty  and  harmony  in  the  coals  of 
a  sparkling  fire,  or  the  movement  of 
fingers  over  a  piece  of  wool-work ;  f o. 
such  is  the  poet's  strange  distinction. 
Objects  not  only  spring  up  in  his  mind 
more  powerful  and  more  precise  than 
they  were  of  themselves,  and  before 
entering  there ;  but  also,  once  con- 
ceived, they  are  purified,  ennobled 

*  The  Task,  iv.  ;  The  Winter  Evening. 

t  Ibid. 


522 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOR  [V 


colored,  like  gross  vapors,  which,  be- 
ing transfigured  by  distance  and  light, 
change  into  silky  clouds,  lined  with 
purple  and  gold.  For  him  there  is 
a  charm  in  the  rolling  folds  of  the  va- 
por sent  up  by  the  tea-urn,  sweetness 
in  the  concord  of  guests  assembled 
around  the  same  table  in  the  same 
house.  This  one  expression,  "News 
from  India,"  causes  him  to  see  India 
itself,  "  with  her  plumed  and  jewelled 
turban."  *  The  mere  notion  of  "  ex- 
cise "  sets  before  his  eyes  "  ten  thou- 
sand casks,  for  ever  dribbling  out  their 
base  contents,  touched  by  the  Midas 
finger  of  the  State  (which),  bleed  gold 
for  ministers  to  sport  away."  t  Strictly 
speaking,  nature  is  to  him  like  a  gal- 
lery of  splendid  and  various  pictures, 
which  to  us  ordinary  folk  are  always 
covered  up  with  cloths.  At  most, 
now  and  then,  a  rent  suffers  us  to  im- 
agine the  beauties  hid  behind  the  unin- 
teresting curtains ;  but  the  poet  raises 
these  curtains,  one  and  all,  and  sees  a 
picture  where  we  see  but  a  covering. 
Such  is  the  new  truth  which  Cowper's 
poems  brought  to  light.  We  know 
from  him  that  we  need  no  longer  go  to 
Greece,  Rome,  to  the  palaces,  heroes, 
and  academicians,  in  search  of  poetic 
objects.  They  are  quite  near  us.  If 
we  see  them  not,  it  is  because  we  do 
not  know  how  to  look  for  them ;  the 
fault  is  in  our  eyes,  not  in  the  things. 
We  may  find  poetry,  if  we  wish,  at  our 
fireside,  and  amongst  the  beds  of  our 
kitchen-garden.} 

Is  the  kitchen-garden  indeed  poet- 
ical ?  To-day,  perhaps  ;  but  to-mor- 
row, if  my  imagination  is  barren,  I 
shall  see  there  nothing  but  carrots  and 
other  kitchen  stuff.  It  is  my  feelings 
which  are  poetical,  which  I  must  re- 
spect, as  the  most  precious  flower  of 
beauty.  Hence  a  new  style.  We  need 
no  longer,  after  the  old  oratorical  fash- 
ion, box  up  a  subject  in  a  regular  plan, 
divide  it  into  symmetrical  portions,  ar- 
range ideas  into  files,  like  the  pieces 
on  a  draught-board.  Cowper  takes  the 
first  subject  that  comes  to  hand — one 
which  Lady  Austen  gave  him  at  hap- 

*  The  Tat  $,  iv.  ;   The  Winter  Evening. 

t  Ibid. 

t  Crabbe  may  also  be  considered  one  of  the 
masters  and  renovators  of  poetry,  but  his  style 
is  too  classical,  and  he  has  been  rightly  nick- 
named "a  Pope  in  worsted  stockings." 


hazard — the  Sofa,  and  speaks  about 
it  for  a  couple  of  pages ;  then  he  goes 
whither  the  bent  of  his  mind  leads  him, 
describing  a  winter  evening,  a  number 
of  interiors  and  landscapes,  mingling 
here  and  there  all  kinds  of  moral  re« 
flections,  stories,  dissertations,  opin- 
ions, confidences,  like  a  man  who 
thinks  aloud  before  the  most  intimate 
and  beloved  of  his  friends.  Let  us 
look  at  his  great  poem,  the  Task. 
"  The  best  didactic  poems, "  says 
Southey,  "when  compared  with  the 
Task,  are  like  formal  gardens  in  com- 
parison with  woodland  scenery/'  If 
we  enter  into  details,  the  contrast  is 
greater  still.  He  does  not  seem  to 
dream  that  he  is  being  listened  to  ;  he 
only  speaks  to  himself.  He  does  not 
dwell  on  his  ideas,  as  the  classical 
writers  do,  to  set  them  in  relief,  and 
make  them  stand  out  by  repetitions 
and  antitheses  ;  he  marks  his  sensa- 
tion, and  that  is  all.  We  follow  this 
sensation  in  him  as  it  gradually  springs 
up  ;  we  see  it  rising  from  a  former  one, 
swelling,  falling,  remounting,  as  we  see 
vapor  issuing  from  a  spring,  and  in- 
sensibly rising,  unrolling,  and  develop- 
ing its  shifting  forms.  Thought,  which 
in  others  was  congealed  and  rigid,  be- 
comes here  mobile  and  fluent ;  the 
rectilinear  verse  grows  flexible ;  the 
noble  vocabulary  widens  its  scope  to 
let  in  vulgar  words  of  conversation  and 
life.  At  length  poetry  has  again  be- 
come lifelike  ;  we  no  longer  listen  to 
words,  but  we  feel  emotions ;  it  is  no 
longer  an  author,  but  a  man  who 
speaks.  His  whole  life  is  there,  per- 
fect, beneath  its  black  lines,  without 
falsehood  or  concoction ;  his  whole 
effort  is  bent  on  removing  falsehood 
and  concoction.  When  he  describes 
his  little  river,  his  dear  Ouse,  "slow 
winding  through  a  level  plain  of 
spacious  meads,  with  cattle  sprinkled 
o'er,"  *  he  sees  it  with  his  inner  eye ; 
and  each  word,  caesura,  sound,  answers 
to  a  change  of  that  inner  vision.  It  is 
so  in  all  his  verses ;  they  are  full  of 
personal  emotions,  genuinely  felt,  never 
altered  or  disguised  ;  on  the  contrary, 
fully  expressed,  with  their  transient 
shades  and  fluctuations ;  in  a  word,  aa 
they  are,  that  is,  in  the  process  of  pro- 
duction arid  destruction,  not  all  corn- 
*  The  Task,  i. ;  The  Sofa. 


CHAP.  L] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


523 


plete,  motionless,  and  fixed,  as  the  old 
style  represented  them.  Herein  con- 
sists the  great  revolution  of  the  modern 
style.  The  mind,  outstripping  the 
known  rules  of  rhetoric  and  eloquence, 
penetrates  into  profound  psychology, 
jftnd  no  longer  employs  words  except  to 
•<iark  emotions. 

IV. 

Now  *  appeared  the  English  roman- 
fic  school,  closely  resembling  the 
French  in  its  doctrines,  origin,  and 
alliances,  in  the  truths  which  it  discov- 
ered, the  exaggerations  it  committed, 
and  the  scandal  it  excited.  The  fol- 
lowers of  that  school  formed  a  sect,  a 
sect  of  "  dissenters  in  poetry/'  who 
spoke  out  aloud,  kept  themselves  close 
together,  and  repelled  settled  minds  by 
the  audacity  and  novelty  of  their  the- 
ories. For  their  foundation  were  at- 
tributed to  them  the  anti-social  princi- 
ples and  the  sickly  sensibility  of  Rous- 
seau ;  in  short,  a  sterile  and  misan- 
thropical dissatisfaction  with  the  pres- 
ent institutions  of  society.  Southey, 
one  of  their  leaders,  began  by  being  a 
Socinian  and  Jacobin  ;  and  one  of  his 
first  poems,  Wat  Tyler,  cited  the  glory 
of  the  past  Jacquerie  in  support  of  the 
present  revolulion.  Another,  Coler- 
idge, a  poor  fellow,  who  had  served  as 
a  dragoon,  his  brain  stuffed  with  in- 
coherent reading  and  humanitarian 
dreams,  thought  of  founding  in  Amer- 
ica a  communist  republic,  purged  of 
kings  and  priests;  then,  having  turned 
Unitarian,  steeped  himself  at  Gb'ttingen 
in  heretical  and  mystical  theories  on 
the  Logos  and  the  absolute.  Words- 
worth himself,  the  third  and  most  mod- 
crate,  had  begun  with  enthusiastic 
verses  against  kings : 

k*  Great  God,  .  .  .  grant  that  every  sceptred 

child  of  clay, 
Wno  cries  presumptuous,   '  Here  the  flood 

shall  stay,' 

May  in  its  progress  see  thy  guiding  hand, 
And  cease    the    acknowledged   purpose    to 

•    withstand ; 

Or,  swept  in  anger  from  the  insulted  shore, 
Sink   with    his    servile    bands,    to    rise    no 

more !  "  t 

But  these  rages  and  aspirations  did  not 
last   long  ;  and   at  the  end  of  a  few 
*  1713-1794. 

t  Wordsworth's  Works,  new  edition,  1870,  6 
vols. ;  Descriptive  Sketches  during  a  Pedes- 
trian Tour,  i.  42. 


years,  the  three,  broug  ht  back  into  the 
pale  of  Church  and  State,  became,  Col- 
eridge, a  Pittite  journalist,  Wordsworth 
a  distributor  of  stamps,  and  Southey, 
poet-laureate  ;  all  zealous  converts,  de- 
cided Anglicans,  and  intolerant  Conser- 
vatives. In  point  of  taste,  however,  they 
had  advanced,  not  retired.  They  had 
violently  broken  with  tradition,  and 
leaped  over  all  classical  culture  to  take 
their  models  from  the  Renaissance  and 
the  middle  age.  One  of  their  friends, 
Charles  Lamb,  like  Saint-Beuve,  had 
discovered  and  restored  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  most  unpolished  dram- 
atists, like  Marlowe,  seemed  to  these 
men  admirable  ;  and  they  sought  in 
the  collections  of  Percy  and  Warton, 
in  the  old  national  ballads  and  ancient 
poetry  of  foreign  lands,  the  fresh  and 
primitive  accent  which  had  been  want- 
ing in  classical  literature,  and  whose 
presence  seemed  to  them  to  be  a  sign 
of  truth  and  beauty.  Above  every 
other  reform,  they  labored  to  destroy 
the  grand  aristocratical  and  oratorical 
style,  such  as  it  sprang  from  methodi- 
cal analyses  and  court  polish.  They 
proposed  to  adapt  to  poetry  the  ordi- 
nary language  of  conversation,  such  as 
is  spoken  in  the  middle  and  lower 
classes,  and  to  replace  studied  phrases 
and  a  lofty  vocabulary  by  natural  tones 
and  plebeian  words.  In  place  of  the 
classical  mould,  they  tried  stanzas,  son- 
nets, ballads,  blank  verse,  with  the 
roughness  and  subdivisions  of  the 
primitive  poets.  They  adopted  or  ar- 
ranged the  metres  and  diction  of  the 
thirteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
Charles  Lamb  wrote  an  archaic  trag- 
edy, John  Woodvil,  which  we  might 
fancy  to  have  been  written  during 
Elizabeth's  reign.  Others,  like  Sou- 
they, and  Coleridge,  in  particular, 
manufactured  totally  new  rhythms,  as 
happy  at  times,  and  at  times  also  as 
unfortunate,  as  those  of  Victor  Hugo  : 
for  instance,  a  verse  in  which  accents, 
and  not  syllables,  were  counted;*  a 
singular  medley  of  confused  attempts, 
manifest  abortions,  and  original  inven- 
tions. The  plebeian  having  doffed  the 
aristocratical  costume,  sought  another, 
borrowed  one  piece  of  his  dress  from 

*  In  English  poetry  as  since  modified,  no 
one  dreams  of  limiting  the  number  of  syllables4 
even  in  blank  verse.— TR. 


524 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK 


the  knights  or  the  barbarians,  another 
from  peasants  or  journalists,  .not  too 
critical  of  incongruities,  pretentious 
and  satisfied  with  his  motley  and  badly 
sewn  cloak,  till  at  last,  after  many  at- 
tempts and  man)  rents,  he  ended  by 
knowing  himself,  and  selecting  the 
dress  that  fitted  him. 

In  this  confusion  of  labors  two  great 
ideas  stand  out :  the  first  producing 
historical  poetry,  the  second  philosoph- 
ical ;  the  one  especially  manifest  in 
Southey  and  Walter  Scott,  the  other  in 
Wordsworth  and  Shelley ;  both  Euro- 
pean, and  displayed  with  equal  bril- 
liancy in  France  by  Hugo,  Lamartine, 
and  Musset ;  with  greater  brilliancy  in 
Germany  by  Goethe,  Schiller,  Riickert, 
and  Heine ;  b.oth  so  profound,  that 
none  of  their  representatives,  except 
Goethe,  divined  their  scope  ;  and  hard- 
ly now,  after  more  than  half  a  century, 
can  we  define  their  nature,  so  as  to 
forecast  their  results. 

The  first  consists  in  saying,  or  rather 
foreboding,  that  our  ideal  is  not  the 
ideal ;  it  is  only  one  ideal,  but  there 
are  others.  The  barbarian,  the  feudal 
man,  the  cavalier  of  the  Renaissance, 
the  Mussulman,  the  Indian,  each  age 
and  each  race  has  conceived  its  beauty, 
which  was  a  beauty.  Let  us  enjoy  it, 
and  for  this  purpose  put  ourselves  en- 
tirely in  the  place  of  the  discoverers  ; 
for  it  will  not  suffice  to  depict,  as  the 
previous  novelists  and  dramatists  have 
done,  modern  and  national  manners  un- 
der old  and  foreign  names  ;  let  us  paint 
the  sentiments  of  other  ages  and  other 
races  with  their  own  features,  however 
different  these  features  may  be  from  our 
own,  and  however  unpleasing  to  our 
taste.  Let  us  show  our  hero  as  he 
was,  grotesque  or  not,  with  his  true 
costume  and  speech  :  let  him  be  fierce 
and  superstitious  if  he  was  so  ;  let  us 
dash  the  barbarian  with  blood,  and 
load  the  Covenanter  with  his  bundle  of 
biblical  texts.  Then  one  by  one  on 
the  literary  stage  men  saw  the  vanished 
or  distant  civilizations  return  ;  first  the 
middle  age  and  the  Renaissance ;  then 
Arabia,  Hindostan,  and  Persia ;  then 
.lie  classical  age,  and  the  eighteenth 
century  itself ;  and  the  historic  taste  be- 
comes so  eager,  that  from  literature 
the  contagion  spread  t»  other  arts. 
The  theatre  changed  its  conventional 


costumes  and  decorations  into  true 
ones.  Architecture  built  Roman  villas 
in  our  northern  climates,  and  feudal 
towers  amidst  our  modern  security. 
Painters  travelled  to  imitate  local  col- 
oring and  studied  to  reproduce  moral 
coloring.  Every  man  became  a  tourist 
and  an  archaeologist ;  the  human  mind 
quitting  its  individual  sentiments  to 
adopt  all  sentiments  really  felt,  and 
finally  all  possible  sentiments,  found 
its  pattern  in  the  great  Goethe,  who  by 
his  Tasso,  Iphigenia,  Divan,  his  second 
part  of  Faust,  became  a  citizen  of  all 
nations  and  a  contemporary  of  all  ages, 
seemed  to  live  at  pleasure  at  every 
point  of  time  and  place,  and  gave  an 
idea  of  universal  mind.  Yet  this  litera- 
ture, as  it  approached  perfection,  ap- 
proached its  limit,  and  was  only  devel- 
oped in  order  to  die.  Men  did  com- 
prehend at  last  that  attempted  resur- 
rections are  always  incomplete,  that 
every  imitation  is  only  an  imitation, 
that  the  modern  accent  infallibly  pene- 
trates the  words  which  we  place  in  the 
mouths  of  ancient  characters,  that 
every  picture  of  manners  must  be  in- 
digenous and  contemporaneous,  and 
that  archaic  literature  is  essentially  un- 
true. People  saw  at  last  that  it  is  in 
the  writers  of  the  past  that  we  must 
seek  the  portraiture  of  the  past ;  that 
there  are  no  Greek  tragedies  but  the 
Greek  tragedies  ;  that  the  concocted 
novel  must  give  place  to  authentic  me- 
moirs, as  the  fabricated  ballad  to  the 
spontaneous ;  in  other  words,  that  his- 
torical literature  must  vanish  and  be- 
come transformed  into  criticism  and 
history,  that  is,  into  exposition  and 
commentary  of  documents. 

How  shall  we  select  in  this  multi- 
tude of  travellers  and  historians,  dis- 
guised as  poets  ?  They  abound  like 
swarms  of  insects,  hatched  on  a  sum- 
mer's day  amidst  a  rank  vegetation ; 
they  buzz  and  glitter,  and  the  mind  is 
lost  in  their  sparkle  and  hum.  Which 
shall  I  quote  ?  Thomas  Moore,  the 
gayest  and  most  French  of  all,  a  witty 
railer,*  too  graceful  and  recherche,  wri- 
ting descriptive  odes  on  the  Bermudas, 
sentimental  Irish  melodies,  a  poetic 
Egyptian  tale,t  a  romantic  poem  on 
Persia  and  India  ;  }  Lamb,  a  restorer 

*  See  The  Fudge  Family. 

t  The  Epicurean.  $  Lalla  Rookh. 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


5*5 


of  the  old  drama ;  Coleridge,  a  thinker 
and  dreamer,  a  poet  and  critic,  who  in 
Christabel  and  the  Ancient  Mariner  re- 
opened the  vein  of  the  supernatural 
and  the  fantastic ;  Campbell,  who,  hav- 
ing begun  with  a  didactic  poem  on  the 
Pleasures  of  Hope,  entered  the  new 
school  without  giving  up  his  noble  and 
half-classical  style,  and  wrote  American 
and  Celtic  poems,  only  slightly  Celtic 
and  American;  in  the  first  rank,  Sou- 
they,  a  clever  man,  who,  after  several 
mistakes  in  his  youth,  became  the  pro- 
fessed defender  of  aristocracy  and 
cant,  an  indefatigable  reader,  an  inex- 
haustible writer,  crammed  with  erudi- 
tion, gifted  in  imagination,  famed  like 
Victor  Hugo  for  the  freshness  of  his 
.nnovations,  the  combative  tone  of  his 
prefaces,  the  splendors  of  his  pictur- 
esque curiosity,  having  spanned  the  uni- 
verse and  all  history  with  his  poetic 
shows,  and  embraced  in  the  endless 
web  of  his  verse,  Joan  of  Arc,  Wat 
Tyler,  Roderick  the  Goth,  Madoc, 
Thalaba,  Kehama,  Celtic  and  Mexican 
traditions,  Arabic  and  Indian  legends, 
successively  a  Catholic,  a  Mussulman, 
a  Brahmin,  but  only  in  verse  ;  in  real- 
ity, a  prudent  and  respectable  Protes- 
tant. The  above-mentioned  authors 
have  to  be  taken  as  examples  merely — 
there  are  dozens  behind  ;  and  I  think 
that,  of  all  fine  visible  or  imaginable 
sceneries,  of  all  great  real  or  legendary 
events,  at  all  times,  in  the  four  quar- 
ters of  the  world,  not  one  has  escaped 
them.  The  diorama  they  show  us  is 
very  brilliant ;  unfortunately  we  per- 
ceive that  it  is  manufactured.  If  we 
would  have  its  fellow  picture,  let  us 
imagine  ourselves  at  the  opera.  The 
decorations  are  splendid,  we  see  them 
coming  down  from  above,  that  is,  from 
the  ceiling,  thrice  in  an  act ;  lofty 
Gothic  cathedrals,  whose  rose-windows 
glow  in  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun, 
whilst  processions  wind  round  the  pil- 
lars, and  the  lights  flicker  over  the 
elaborate  copes  and  the  gold  embroid- 
ery of  the  priestly  vestments  ;  mosques 
and  minarets,  moving  caravars  creep- 
ing afar  over  the  yellow  sand,  whose 
lances  and  canopies,  ranged  in  line, 
fringe  the  immaculate  whiteness  of  the 
horizon ;  Indian  paradises,  where  the 
heaped  roses  swarm  in  myriads,  where 
fountains  mingle  their  plumes  of  pearls, 


where  the  lotus  spreads  its  large  leaves, 
where  thorny  plants  raise  their  many 
thousand  purple  calices  around  the 
apes  and  crocodiles  which  are  wor- 
shipped as  divinities,  and  crawl  in  the 
thickets.  Meantime  the  dancing-girls 
lay  their  hands  on  their  heart  with 
deep  and  delicate  emotion,  the  tenor 
sing  that  they  are  ready  to  die,  tyrants 
roll  forth  their  deep  bass  voice,  the  or- 
chestra struggles  hard,  accompanying 
the  variations  of  sentiment  with  the 
gentle  sounds  of  flutes,  the  lugubrious 
clamors  of  the  trombones,  the  angelic 
melodies  of  the  harps ;  till  at  last, 
when  the  heroine  sets  her  foot  on  the 
throat  of  the  traitor,  it  breaks  out  tri- 
umphantly with  its  thousand  vibrant 
voices  harmonized  into  a  single  strain. 
A  fine  spectacle !  we  depart  mazed, 
deafened  ;  the  senses  give  way  under 
this  inundation  of  splendors  ;  but  as  we 
return  home,  we  ask  ourselves  what  we 
have  learnt,  felt — whether  we  have, 
in  truth,  felt  any  thing.  After  all, 
there  is  little  here  but  decoration  and 
scenery ;  the  sentiments  are  factitious 
they  are  operatic  sentiments  :  the  au- 
thors are  only  clever  men,  libretti-mak- 
ers, manufacturers  of  painted  canvas  ; 
they  have  talent  without  genius  ;  they 
draw  their  ideas  not  from  the  heart, 
but  from  the  head.  Such  is  the  im- 
pression left  by  Lalla  Rookh,  Thalaba^ 
Roderick  thelastofthe  Goths,  The  Curse 
of  Kehama,  and  the  rest  of  these 
poems.  They  are  great  decorative 
machines  suited  to  the  fashion.  The 
mark  of  genius  is  the  discovery  of  some 
wide  unexplored  region  in  human  na- 
ture, and  this  mark  fails  them ;  they 
prove  only  much  cleverness  and  knowl- 
edge. After  all,  I  prefer  to  see  the 
East  in  Orientals  from  the  East,  rather 
than  in  Orientals  in  England ;  in  Vya- 
sa  or  Firdousi,  rather  than  in  Sou- 
they  *  and  Moore.  These  poems  may 
be  descriptive  or  historical;  they  are 
less  so  than  the  texts,  notes,  emenda- 
tions, and  justifications  which  their 
authors  carefully  print  at  the  foot  of 
the  page. 

Beyond  all  general  causes  which  have 
fettered  this  literature,  there  is  a 
national  one  :  the  mind  of  these  men  is 

*.  See  also  The  History  of  the  Caliph  Vathek 
a  fantastic  but  powerfully  written  tale,  by  W 
Beckford,  published  first  in  French  in  1784. 


526 


not  sufficiently  flexible,  and  too  moral. 
Their  imitation  is  only  literal.  They 
know  past  times  and  distant  lands  only 
as  antiquaries  and  travellers.  When 
they  mention  a  custom,  they  put  their 
authorities  in  a  foot-note  ;  they  do  not 
present  themselves  before  the  public 
without  testimonials  ;  they  establish  by 
weighty  certificates  that  they  have  not 
committed  an  error  in  topography  or 
costume.  Moore,  like  Southey,  named 
his  authorities  ;  Sir  John  Malcolm,  Sir 
William  Ouseley,  Mr.  Carey,  and 
others,  who  returned  from  the  East, 
and  had  lived  there,  state  that  his  de- 
scriptions are  wonderfully  faithful,  that 
they  thought  that  Moore  had  travelled  in 
the  East.  In  this  respect  their  minute- 
ness is  ridiculous  ;  *  and  their  notes, 
lavished  without  stint,  show  that  their 
matter-of-fact  public  required  to  ascer- 
tain whether  their  poetical  commodities 
were  genuine  produce.  But  that  broad- 
er truth,  which  lies  in  penetrating  into 
the  feelings  of  characters,  escaped 
them ;  these  feelings  are  too  strange 
and  immoral.  When  Moore  tried  to 
translate  and  recast  Anacreon,  he  was 
told  that  his  poetry  was  fit  for  "the 
stews."  t  To  write  an  Indian  poem, 
we  must  be  pantheistical  at  heart,  a 
little  mad,  and  pretty  generally  vision- 
ary ;  to  write  a  Greek  poem,  we  must 
be  polytheistic  at  heart,  fundamentally 
pagan,  and  a  naturalist  by  profession. 
This  is  the  reason  that  Heine  spoke  so 
fitly  of  India,  and  Goethe  of  Greece.  A 
genuine  historian  is  not  sure  that  his 
own  civilization  is,  perfect,  and  lives  as 
gladly  out  of  his  country  as  in  it. 
Judge  whether  Englishmen  can  succeed 
in  this  style.  In  their  eyes,  there  is 
only  one  rational  civilization,  which  is 
their  own ;  every  other  morality  is  in- 
ferior, every  other  religion  is  extrav- 
agant. With  such  narrowness,  how 
can  they  reproduce  these  other  morali- 
ties and  religions?  Sympathy  alone 
can  restore  extinguished  or  foreign 
manners,  and  sympathy  here  is  for- 
bidden. Under  this  narrow  rule,  his- 
torical poetry,  which  itself  is  hardly 
likely  to  live,  languishes  as  though 
suffocated  under  a  leaden  cover. 

One  of  them,  a  novelist,  critic,  his- 

*  See  the  notes  of  Southey,  worse  than  those 
of  Chateaubriand  in  the  Martyrs. 
t  Edinburgh  Review. 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


tori  an,  and  poet,  the  favori  e  of  his  age, 
read  over  the  whole  of  Europe,  was 
compared  and  almost  equalled  to 
Shakspeare,  had  more  popularity  than 
Voltaire,  made  dressmakers  and  duch- 
esses weep,  and  earned  about  two  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds.  Murray,  the 
publisher,  wrote  to  him  :  "  I  believe  I 
might  swear  that  I  never  experienced 
such  unmixed  pleasure  as  the  reading 
of  this  exquisite  work  (first  series  of 
Tales  of  my  Landlord]  has  afforded  me. 
.  .  .  Lord  Holland  said,  when  I  asked 
his  opinion  :  *  Opinion  !  we  did  not  one 
of  us  go  to  bed  last  night — nothing 
slept  but  my  gout/  "  *  In  France, 
fourteen  hundred  thousand  volumes  of 
these  novels  were  sold,  and  they  con- 
tinue to  sell.  The  author,  born  in 
Edinburgh,  was  the  son  of  a  Writer  to 
the  Signet,  learned  in  feudal  law  and 
ecclesiastical  history,  himself  an  advo- 
cate, a  sheriff,  and  always  fond  of 
antiquities,  especially  national  antiqui- 
ties ;  so  that  by  his  family,  education 
by  his  own  instincts,  he  found  the  ma- 
terials for  his  works  and  the  stimulus 
for  his  talent.  His  past  recollections 
were  impressed  on  him  at  the  age  of 
three,  in  a  farm-house,  where  he  had 
been  taken  to  try  the  effect  of  bracing 
air  on  his  little  shrunken  leg.  He  was 
wrapt  naked  in  the  warm  skin  of  a 
sheep  just  killed,  and  he  crept  about  in. 
this  attire,  which  passed  for  a  specific. 
He  continued  to  limp,  and  became  a 
reader.  From  his  infancy  he  listened 
to  the  stories  which  he  afterwards  gave 
to  the  public, — that  of  the  battle  of 
Culloden,  of  the  cruelties  practised  on 
the  Highlanders,  the  wars  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  Covenanters.  At  three  he 
used  to  sing  out  the  ballad  of  Hardy- 
kanute  so  loudly,  that  he  prevented  the 
village  minister,  a  man  gifted  with  a 
very  fine  voice,  from  being  heard,  and 
even  from  hearing  himself.  As  soon  as 
he  had  heard  "a  Border-raid  ballad," 
he  knew  it  by  heart.  But  in  other 
things  he  was  indolent,  studied  by  fits 
and  starts,  and  did  not  readily  learn 
dry  hard  facts ;  yet  for  poetry,  old 
songs,  and  ballads,  the  flow  of  his 
genius  was  precocious,  swift,  and  invin- 
cible. The  day  on  which  he  first 
opened,  "under  a  platanus  tree,"  the 

*  Lockhart,  Life  of  Sir   Walter  Scott,  ic 
vols.,  2d  ed.,  1839,  «•  ch.  xxxvii.  p.  170. 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


527 


volumes  in  which  Percy  had  collected 
the  fragments  of  ancient  poetry,  he  for- 
got dinner,  "  notwithstanding  the  sharp 
appetite  of  thirteen,"  and  thenceforth 
he  overwhelmed  with  these  old  rhymes 
not  only  his  school-fellows,  but  every 
one  else  who  would  listen  to  him. 
After  he  had  become  a  clerk  to  his 
tather,  he  crammed  into  his  desk  all  the 
works  of  imagination  which  he  could 
find.  "  The  whole  Jemmy  and  Jenny 
Jessamy  tribe  I  abhorred,"  he  said, 
"  and  it  required  the  art  of  Burney,  or 
the  feeling  of  Mackenzie,  to  fix  my  at- 
tention upon  a  domestic  tale.  But  all 
that  was  adventurous  and  romantic,  .  . 
that  touched  upon  knight-errantry, 
I  devoured."*  Having  fallen  ill,  he 
was  kept  a  long  time  in  bed,  forbidden 
to  speak,  with  no  other  pleasure  than 
to  read  the  poets,  novelists,  historians, 
and  geographers,  illustrating  the  battle- 
descriptions  by  setting  in  line  and  dis- 
posing little  pebbles,  which  represented 
the  soldiers.  Once  cured,  and  able  to 
walk  well,  he  turned  his  walks  to  the 
same  purpose,  and  developed  a  passion 
for  the  country,  especially  the  historical 
regions.  He  said : 

"  But  show  me  an  old  castle  or  a  field  of 
battle,  and  I  was  at  home  at  once,  filled  it  with 
its  combatants  in  their  proper  costume,  and 
overwhelmed  my  hearers  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
my  description.  In  crossing  Magus  Moor, 
near  St.  Andrews,  the  spirit  moved  me  to  give 
a  picture  of  the  assassination  of  the  Archbishop 
of  St.  Andrews  to  some  fellow-travellers  with 
whom  I  v/as  accidentally  associated,  and  one 
of  them,  though  well  acquainted  with  the 
story,  protested  my  narrative  had  frightened 
away  his  night's  sleep."  f 

Amidst  other  excursions,  in  search  after 
knowledge,  he  travelled  once  every 
year  during  seven  years  in  the  wild  dis- 
trict of  Liddesdale,  exploring  every 
stream  and  every  ruin,  sleeping  in  the 
shepherds'  huts,  gleaning  legends  and 
ballads.  We  can  judge  from  this  of 
his  antiquarian  tastes  and  habits.  He 
read  provincial  charters,  the  wretched 
middle-age  Latin  verses,  the  parish 
registers,  even  contracts  and  wills.  The 
first  time  he  was  able  to  lay  his  hand 
on  one  of  the  great  "  old  Border  war- 
horns,"  he  blew  it  all  along  his  route. 
Rusty  mail  and  dirty  parchment  attract- 
ed him,  filled  his  head  with  recollec- 

*  Lockhart's  Life  of  Sir  W.  Scott ;  Auto- 
biography, i.  62. 
t  Ibid.  i.  72. 


tions  and  poetry.  In  truth,  he  had  a 
feudal  mind,  and  always  wished  to  be 
the  founder  of  a  distinct  branch  of  an 
historical  family.  Literary  glory  was 
only  secondary  ;  his  talent  was  to  him 
only  as  an  instrument.  He  spent  the 
vast  sums  which  his  prose  and  verse 
had  won,  in  building  a  castle  in  imita- 
tion of  the  ancient  knights,  "  with  a  tall 
tower  at  either  end,  .  .  .  sundry  zig- 
zagged gables,  ...  a  myriad  of  inden- 
tations and  parapets,  and  machicollated 
eaves;  most  fantastic  waterspouts; 
labelled  windows,  not  a  few  of  them 

;ainted  glass  ;  .  .  .  stones  carved  with 
eraldries  innumerable  ;  "  *  apartments 
filled  with  sideboards  and  carved 
chests,  adorned  with  "  cuirasses,  hel- 
mets, swords  of  every  order,  from  the 
claymore  and  rapier  to  some  German 
executioner's  swords."  For  long  years 
he  held  open  house  there,  so  to  speak, 
and  did  to  every  stranger  the  f  honors 
of  Scotland,"  trying  to  revive  the  old 
feudal  life,  with  all  its  customs  and  its 
display  ;  dispensing  liberal  and  joyous 
hospitality  to  all  comers,  above  all  to 
relatives,  friends,  and  neighbors  ;  sing- 
ing ballads  and  sounding  pibrochs 
amidst  the  clinking  of  glasses  ;  holding 
gay  hunting-parties,  where  the  yeomen 
and  gentlemen  rode  side  by  side  ;  and 
encouraging  lively  dances,  where  the 
lord  was  not  ashamed  to  give  his  hand 
to  the  miller's  daughter.  He  himself, 
frank  of  speech,  happy,  amidst  his 
forty  guests,  kept  up  the  conversation 
with  a  profusion  of  stories,  lavished 
from  his  vast  memory  and  imagination, 
conducted  his  guests  over  his  domain, 
extended  at  large  cost,  amidst  new 
plantations  whose  future  shade  was  to 
shelter  his  posterity;  and  he  thought 
with  a  poet's  smile  of  the  distant  gen- 
erations who  would  acknowledge  for 
their  ancestor  Sir  Walter  Scott,  first 
baronet  of  Abbotsford. 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  Marmion,  The 
Lord  of  the  Isles,  The  Fair  Maid  of 
Perth,  Old  Mortality,  Ivanhoe,  Quentin 
Durward,  who  does  not  know  these 
names  by  heart  ?  From  Walter  Scott 
we  learned  history.  And  yet  is  this 
history  ?  All  these  pictures  of  a  dis- 
tant age  are  false.  Costumes,  scenery, 
externals  alone  are  exact;  actions 
speech,  sentiments,  all  the  rest  is  civil- 
*  Ibid.  vii.  ;  Abbotsford  in  1825. 


5*8 


ized,  embellished,  arranged  in  modern 
guise.  We  might  suspect  it  when  look- 
ing at  the  character  and  life  of  the 
author ;  for  what  does  he  desire,  and 
what  do  the  guests,  eager  to  hear  him, 
demand  ?  Is  he  a  lover  of  truth  as  it 
is,  foul  and  fierce  ;  an  inquisitive  ex- 
plorer, indifferent  to  contemporary  ap- 
plause, bent  alone  on  defining  the  trans- 
formations of  living  nature  ?  By  no 
means.  He  is  in  history,  as  he  is  at 
Abbotsford,  bent  on  arranging  points 
of  view  and  Gothic  halls.  The  moon 
will  come  in  well  there  between  the 
towers  ;  here  is  a  nicely  placed  breast- 
plate, the  ray  of  light  which  it  throws 
back  is  pleasant  to  see  on  these  old 
hangings  ;  suppose  we  took  out  the 
feudal  garments  from  the  wardrobe 
and  invited  the  guests  to  a  masquerade  ? 
The  entertainment  would  be  a  fine  one, 
in  accordance  with  their  reminiscences 
and  their  aristocratic  principles.  Eng- 
lish lords,  fresh  from  a  bitter  war 
against  French  democracy,  ought  to 
enter  zealously  into  this  commemora- 
tion of  their  ancestors.  Moreover, 
there  are  ladies  and  young  girls,  and 
we  must  arrange  the  show,  so  as  not  to 
shock  their  severe  morality  and  their 
delicate  feelings,  make  them  weep  be- 
comingly ;  not  put  on  the  stage  over- 
strong  passions,  which  they  would  not 
understand;  on  the  contrary,  select 
heroines  to  resemble  them,  always 
touching,  but  above  all  correct ;  young 
gentlemen,  Evandale,  Morton,  Ivanhoe, 
irreproachably  brought  up,  tender  and 
grave,  even  slightly  melancholic  (it  is 
the  latest  fashion),  and  worthy  to  lead 
them  to  the  altar.  Is  there  a  man  more 
suited  than  the  author  to  compose  such 
a  spectacle  ?  He  is  a  good  Protestant, 
a  good  husband,  a  good  father,  very 
moral,  so  decided  a  Tory  that  he  car- 
ries off  as  a  relic  a  glass  from  which 
the  king  has  just  drunk.  In  addition, 
he  has  neither  talent  nor  leisure  to 
reach  the  depths  of  his  characters.  He 
devotes  himself  to  the  exterior  ;  he  sees 
and  describes  forms  and  externals 
much  more  at  length  than  inward  feel- 
ings. Again,  he  treats  his  mind  like  a 
coal-mine,  serviceable  for  quick  work- 
ing, and  for  the  greatest  possible  gain : 
a  volume  in  a  month,  sometimes  in  a 
fortnight  even,  and  this  volume  is  worth 
one  thousand  pounds.  How  should  he 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


discover,  or  how  dare  exhibit,  the 
structure  of  barbarous  souls?  This 
structure  is  too  difficult  to  discover,  and 
too  little  pleasing  to  show.  Every  two 
centuries,  amongst  men,  the  proportion 
of  images  and  ideas,  the  mainspring  of 
passions,  the  degree  of  reflection,  the 
species  of  inclinations,  change.  Who, 
without  a  long  preliminary  training, 
now  understands  and  relishes  Dante, 
Rabelais,  and  Rubens  ?  And  how,  for 
instance,  could  these  great  Catholic  and 
mystical  dreams,  these  vast  temerities, 
or  these  impurities  of  carnal  art,  find 
entrance  into  the  head  of  this  gentle- 
manly citizen  ?  Walter  Scott  pauses 
on  the  threshold  of  the  soul,  and  in  the 
vestibule  of  history,  selects  in  the  Re- 
naissance and  the  middle  age  only  the 
fit  and  agreeable,  blots  out  plain  spoken 
words,  licentious  sensuality,  bestial 
ferocity.  After  all,  his  characters,  to 
whatever  age  he  transports  them,  are 
his  neighbors,  "  cannie  "  farmers,  vain 
lairds,  gloved  gentlemen,  young  mar- 
riageable ladies,  all  more  or  less  com- 
monplace, that  is,  steady ;  by  their 
education  and  character  at  a  great  dis- 
tance from  the  voluptuous  fools  of  the 
Restoration,  or  the  heroic  brutes  and 
fierce  beasts  of  the  middle  age.  As  he 
has  the  greatest  supply  of  rich  cos- 
tumes, and  the  most  inexhaustible 
talent  for  scenic  effect,  he  makes  all 
his  people  get  on  very  pleasantly,  and 
composes  tales  which,  in  truth,  have 
only  the  merit  of  fashion,  though  that 
fashion  may  last  a  hundred  years  yet. 

That  which  he  himself  acted  lasted 
for  a  shorter  time.  To  sustain  his 
princely  hospitality  and  his  feudal  mag- 
nificence, he  went  into  partnership 
with  his  printers  ;  lord  of  the  manor 
in  public  and  merchant  in  private, 
he  gave  them  his  signature,  without 
keeping  a  check  over  the  use  they  made 
of  it.*  Bankruptcy  followed;  at  the 
age  of  fifty-five  he  was  ruined,  and 
one  hundred  and  seventeen  thousand 
pounds  in  debt.  With  admirable  cour- 

*  If  Constable's  Memorials  (3  vols.  1873) 
had  been  published  when  M.  Taine  wrote  this 
portion  of  his  work,  he  perhaps  would  have 
seen  reason  to  alter  this  opinion,  because  it  is 
clear  that,  so  far  from  Sir  Walter's  printer  and 
publisher  ruining  him,  they,  if  not  ruined  by 
Sir  Walter,  were  only  equal  sharers  with  him 
in  the  imprudences  that  led  to  the  disaster. — 
Ta. 


CHAP.  L] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


529 


age  and  uprightness  he  refused  all 
favor,  accepting  nothing  but  time,  set 
to  work  on  the  very  day,  wrote  untiring- 
ly, in  four  years  paid  seventy  thousand 
pounds,  exhausted  his  brain  so  as  to 
become  paralytic,  and  to  perish  in  the 
attempt.  Neither  in  his  conduct  nor 
his  literature  did  his  feudal  tastes  suc- 
ceed, and  his  manorial  splendor  was 
as  fragile  as  his  Gothic  imaginations. 
He  had  relied  on  imitation,  and  we  live 
by  truth  only  ;  his  glory  is  to  be  found 
elsewhere  ;  there  was  something  solid 
in  his  mind  as  well  as  in  his  writings. 
Beneath  the  lover  of  the  middle  age  we 
find,  first  the  "  pawky  "  Scotchman,  an 
attentive  observer,  whose  sharpness 
became  more  intense  by  his  familiarity 
with  law  ;  a  good-natured  man,  easy 
and  cheerful,  as  beseems  the  national 
character,  so  different  from  the  English. 
One  of  his  walking  companions  (Short- 
reed)  said  :  "  Eh  me.  sic  an  endless 
fund  o'  humour  and  drollery  as  he  had 
wi'  him  !  Never  ten  yards  but  we  were 
either  laughing  or  roaring  and  singing. 
Wherever  we  stopped,  how  brawlie  he 
suited  himsel'  to  everybody  !  He  aye 
did  as  the  lave  did  ;  never  made  him- 
sel' the  great  man,  or  took  ony  airs  in 
the  company."  *  Grown  older  and 
graver,  he  was  none  the  less  amiable, 
the  most  agreeable  of  hosts,  so  that  one 
of  his  guests,  a  farmer,  I  think,  said  to 
his  wife,  when  home,  after  having  been 
at  Abbotsford,  "  Ailie,  my  woman,  I'm 
ready  for  my  bed  ...  I  wish  I  could 
sleep  for  a  towmont,  for  there's  only 
ae  thing  in  this  warld  worth  living  for, 
and  that's  the  Abbotsford  hunt !  "  t 

In  addition  to  a  mind  of  this  kind,  he 
had  all-discerning  eyes,  an  all-retentive 
memory,  a  ceaseless  studiousness  which 
comprehended  the  whole  of  Scotland, 
and  all  classes  of  people  ;  and  we  see 
his  true  talent  arise,  so  agreeable,  so 
abundant  and  so  easy,  made  up  of 
minute  observation  and  gentle  raillery, 
recalling  at  once  Teniers  and  Addison. 
Doubtless  he  wrote  badly,  at  times  in 
the  worst  possible  manner  :  \  it  is  clear 

*  Lockhart's  Life,  i.  ch.  vii-  269. 

t  Ibid,  vi.  ch.  xlix.  252. 

%  See  the  opening  of  Ivanhoe:  "  Such  being 
our  chief  scene,  the  date  of  our  story  refers  to 
a  period  towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Rich- 
ard I.,  when  his  return  from  his  long  captivity 
had  become  an  event  rather  wished  than  hoped 
lor  by  his  despairing  subjects,  who  were  in  the 


that  he  dictated,  hardly  re-read  his 
writing,  and  readily  fell  into  a  pasty  and 
emphatic  style, — a  style  very  common 
in  the  present  times,  and  which  we  read 
day  aftei  day  in  prospectuses  and  news- 
papers. What  is  worse,  he  is  terribly 
long  and  diffuse  ;  his  conversations  and 
descriptions  are  interminable  ;  he  is 
determined,  at  all  events,  to  fill  three 
volumes.  But  he  has  given  to  Scot- 
land a  citizenship  of  literature — I  mean 
to  the  whole  of  Scotland  :  scenery, 
monuments,  houses,  cottages,  charac- 
ters of  every  age  and  condition,  from 
the  baron  to  the  fisherman,  from  the 
advocate  to  the  beggar,  from  the  lady 
to  the  fishwife.  When  we  mention 
merely  his  name  they  crowd  forward  ; 
who  does  not  see  them  coming  from 
every  niche  of  memory  ?  The  Baron 
of  Bradwardine,  Dominie  Sampson, 
Meg  Merrilies,  the  antiquary,  Edie 
Ochiltree,  Jeanie  Deans  and  her  father, 
— innkeepers,  shopkeepers,  old  wives, 
an  entire  people.  What  Scotch  features 
are  absent  ?  Saving,  patient,  "  cannie," 
and  of  course  "  pawky  ;  "  the  poverty 
of  the  soil  and  the  difficulty  of  existence 
has  compelled  them  to  be  so  ;  this  is 
the  specialty  of  the  race.  The  same 
tenacity  which  they  introduced  into 
everyday  affairs  they  have  introduced 
into  mental  concerns, — studious  readers 
and  perusers  of  antiquities  and  con- 
troversies, poets  also ;  legends  spring 
up  readily  in  a  romantic  land,  amidst 
time-honored  wars  and  brigandism.  In 
a  land  thus  prepared,  and  in  this 
gloomy  clime,  Presbyterianism  sunk  its 
sharp  roots.  Such  was  the  real  and 
modern  world,  lit  up  by  the  far-setting 
sun  of  chivalry,  as  Sir  Walter  Scott 
found  it ;  like  a  painter  who,  passing 
from  great  show-pictures,  finds  interest 
and  beauty  in  the  ordinary  houses  of  a 
paltry  provincial  town,  or  in  a  farm 
surrounded  by  beds  of  beetroots  and 
turnips.  A  continuous  archness  throws 
its  smile  over  these  interior  and  genre 
pictures,  so  local  and  minute,  and 
which,  like  the  Flemish,  indicate  the 
rise  of  well-to-do  citizens.  Most  of 
these  good  folk  are  comic.  Our  author 
makes  fun  of  them,  brings  out  their 
little  deceits,  parsimony,  fooleries,  vul- 

meantime  subjected  to  every  species  of  subor- 
dinate oppression."  It  i»  impossible  to  writa 
in  a  heaver  style. 

23 


530 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV, 


garity,  and  the  hundred  thousand  ridic 
ulous  habits  people  always  contract  in 
a  narrow  sphere  of  life.  A  barber,  in 
The  Antiquary,  moves  heaven  and  earth 
about  his  wigs  ;  if  the  French  Revolu- 
tion takes  root  everywhere,  it  was  be> 
cause  the  magistrates  gave  up  this 
ornament.  He  cries  out  in  a  lamenta- 
ble voice  :  "  Haud  a  care,  haud  a  care, 
Monkbarns !  God's  sake,  haud  a  care 
— Sir  Arthur's  drowned  already,  and 
an  ye  fa'  over  the  cleugh  too,  there  will 
be  but  ae  wig  left  in  the  parish,  and 
that's  the  minister's."  *  Mark  how  the 
author  smiles,  and  without  malice  :  the 
barber's  candid  selfishness  is  the  effect 
of  the  man's  calling,  and  does  not  repel 
us.  Walter  Scott  is  never  bitter  ;  he 
loves  men  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
excuses  or  tolerates  them  ;  does  not 
chastise  vices,  but  unmasks  them,  and 
that  not  rudely.  His  greatest  pleasure 
is  to  pursue  at  length,  not  indeed  a  vice, 
but  a  hobby  ;  the  mania  for  odds  and 
ends  in  an  antiquary,  the  archaeological 
vanity  of  the  Baron  of  Bradwardine,  the 
aristocratic  drivel  of  the  Dowager 
Lady  Bellenden, — that  is,  the  amusing 
exaggeration  of  an  allowable  taste ;  and 
this  without  anger,  because,  on  the 
whole,  these  ridiculous  people  are 
estimable,  and  even  generous.  Even 
in  rogues  like  Dirk  Hatteraick,  in  cut- 
throats like  Bothwell,  he  allows  some 
focdness.  In  no  one,  not  even  in 
lajor  Dalgetty,  a  professional  mur- 
derer, a  result  of  the  thirty  years'  war, 
is  the  odious  unveiled  by  the  ridiculous. 
In  this  critical  refinement  and  this 
benevolent  philosophy,  he  resembles 
A  ddison. 

He  resembles  him  again  by  the  purity 
and  endurance  of  his  moral  principles. 
His  amanuensis,  Mr.  Laidlaw,  told  him 
that  he  was  doing  great  good  by  his 
attractive  and  noble  tales,  and  that 
young  people  would  no  longer  wish  to 
look  in  the  literary  rubbish  of  the  cir- 
culati'ig  libraries.  When  Walter  Scott 
heard  this,  his  eyes  filled  with  tears  : 
"  On  his  deathbed  he  said  to  his  son- 
in-law:  '  Lockhart,  I  may  have  but  a 
minute  to  speak  to  you.  My  dear,  be 
a  good  man — be  virtuous,  be  religious 
—be  a  good  man.  Nothing  else  will 
give  you  any  comfort  when  you  come 

»  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Works,  48  vols.,  1829  ; 
The  A  ntiqwiry)  ch.  viii. 


to  lie  here.'"*     This  was  almost  his 
last  word.  By  this  fundamental  honesty 
and  this  broad   humanity,  he  was  the 
Homer  of  modern  citizen  life.  Around 
and  after  him,  the   novel    of   manners, 
separated  from  the  historical  romance, 
has  produced   a  whole  literature,  and 
preserved  the  character  which  he  stamp- 
ed upon  it.     Miss  Austen,  Miss  Bronte, 
Mrs.  Gaskell,    George  Eliot,    Bulwer. 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  many  otheis, 
paint,  especially  or  entirely  in  his  style 
contemporary  life,  as  it  is,  unembellish- 
ed,  in  all  ranks,  often  amongst  the  peo- 
ple, more  frequently  still  amongst    the 
middle  class.  And  the  causes  which  made 
the  historical    novel   corne  to  naught, 
in  Scott  and  others,  made  the  novel  of 
manners,  by  the  same  authors,  succeed. 
These   men  were  too  minute   copyists 
and  too  decided  moralists,  incapable  of 
the  great  divinations  and  the  wide  sym- 
pathies which  unlock  the  door  of  his- 
tory ;  their  imagination  was  too  literal, 
and  their  judgment  too  unwavering.  It 
is  precisely  by  these  faculties  that  they 
created  a  new   species  of  novel,  which 
multiplies   to  this  day  in  thousands  of 
offshoots,  with  such  abundance,  that 
men  of  talent   in  this  branch  of  litera- 
ture may  be  counted  by  hundreds,  and 
that  we  can  only  compare  them,  for 
their  original  and  national  spirit,  to  the 
great  age  of  Dutch  painting.     Realistic 
and  moral,  these  are  their  two  features. 
They  are  far  removed  from  the  great 
imagination  which  creates  and  trans- 
forms, as   it   appeared  in  the  Renais- 
sance or  in  the  seventeenth  century,  in 
the  heroic  or  noble  ages.  They  renounce 
"ree  invention  ;  they  narrow  themselves 
to  scrupulous   exactness ;    they  paint 
with  infinite  detail  costumes  and  places, 
altering  nothing ;  they  mark  little  shades 
of   language ;    they  are  not  disgusted 
Dy  vulgarities   or   platitudes.       Their 
nformation  is  authentic   and  precise. 
[n  short,  they  write  like  citizens  for 
:ellow-citizens,  that  is,  for  well-ordered 
people,  members  of  a  profession,  whose 
magination   does   not   soar   high   and 
sees  things  through  a  magnifying  glass, 
unable  to  relish  any  thing  in  the  way  of 
a   picture  except   interiors  and  make- 
believes.     Ask  a  cook  which  picture 
she  prefers  in  the  Museum,  and  she  will 
point  to  a  kitchen,  in  which  the  stew 
*  Lockhart's  Life,  x.  217. 


CHAP   I] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


53' 


pans  are  so  well  painted  that  a  man  is 
tempted  to  put  soup  and  bread  in  them. 
Yet  beyond  this  inclination,  which  is 
now  European,  Englishmen  have  a 
special  craving,  which  with  them  is 
national  and  dates  from  the  preceding 
century ;  they  desire  that  the  novel,  like 
all  other  things,  should  contribute  to 
their  great  work, — the  amelioration  of 
man  and  society.  They  ask  from  it  the 
glorification  of  virtue,  and  the  chastise- 
ment of  vice.  They  send  it  into  all  the 
corners  of  civil  society,  and  all  the 
events  of  private  history,  in  search  of 
examples  and  expedients,  to  learn 
thence  the  means  of  remedying  abuses, 
succoring  miseries,  avoiding  tempta- 
tions. They  make  of  it  an  instrument 
of  inquiry,  education,  and  morality. 
A  singular  work,  which  has  not  its 
equal  in  all  history,  because  in  all  his- 
tory there  has  been  no  society  like  it, 
and  which — of  moderate  attraction  for 
lovers  of  the  beautiful,  admirable  to 
lovers  of  the  useful — offers,  in  the 
countless  variety  of  its  painting,  and 
the  invariable  stability  of  its  spirit,  the 
picture  of  the  only  democracy  which 
knows  how  to  restrain,  govern,  and 
reform  itself. 

V. 

Side  by  side  with  this  development 
there  was  another,  and  with  history 
philosophy  entered  into  literature,  in 
order  to  widen  and  modify  it.  It  was 
manifest  throughout,  on  the  threshold 
as  in  the  centre.  On  the  threshold  it 
had  planted  aesthetics  :  every  poet,  be- 
coming theoretic,  defined  before  pro- 
ducing the  beautiful,  laid  down  princi- 
ples in  his  preface,  and  originated  only 
after  a  preconceived  system.  But  the 
ascendency  of  metaphysics  was  much 
more  visible  yet  in  the  middle  of  the 
work  than  on  its  threshold  ;  for  not 
>nly  did  it  prescribe  the  form  of  poetry, 
but  it  furnished  it  with  its  elements. 
What  is  man,  and  what  has  he  come 
into  the  world  to  do  ?  What  is  this 
far-off  greatness  to  which  he  aspires  ? 
Is  there  a  haven  which  he  may  reach, 
and  a  hidden  hand  to  conduct  him 
thither  ?  These  are  the  questions  which 
poets,  transformed  into  thinkers,  agreed 
to  agitate  ;  and  Goethe,  here  as  else- 
where the  father  and  promoter  of  all 
lofty  modern  ideas,  at  once  skeptical, 


pantheistic,  and  mystic,  wrote  in  Faust 
the  epic  of  the  age  and  the  history  of 
the  human  mind.  Need  I  say  that  in 
Schiller,  Heine,  Beethoven,  Victor 
Hugo,  Lamartine,  and  de  Musset,  the 
poet,  in  his  individual  person,  always 
speaks  the  words  of  the  universal  man  ? 
The  characters  which  they  have  created 
from  Faust  to  Ruy  Bias,  only  served 
them  to  exhibit  some  grand  metaphys- 
ical and  social  idea  ;  and  twenty  times 
this  too  great  idea,  bursting  its  narrow 
envelope,  broke  out  beyond  all  human 
likelihood  and  all  poetic  form,  to  dis- 
play itself  to  the  eyes  of  the  spectators. 
Such  was  the  domination  of  the  philos- 
ophical spirit  that,  after  doing  violence 
to  literature,  or  rendering  it  rigid,  it 
imposed  on  music  humanitarian  ideas, 
inflicted  on  painting  symbolical  designs, 
penetrated  current  speech,  and  marred 
style  by  an  overflow  of  abstractions  and 
formulas,  from  which  all  our  efforts 
now  fail  to  liberate  us.  As  an  over- 
strong  child,  which  at  its  birth  injures 
its  mother,  so  it  has  contorted  the  noble 
forms  which  had  endeavored  to  contain 
it,  and  dragged  literature  through  an 
agony  of  struggles  and  sufferings. 

This  philosophical  spirit  was  not 
born  in  England,  and  from  Germany  to 
England  the  passage  was  very  long. 
For  a  considerable  time  it  appeared 
dangerous  or  ridiculous.  One  of  the 
reviews  stated  even,  that  Germany  was 
a  large  country  peopled  by  hussars  and 
classical  scholars;  that  if  folks  go 
there,  they  will  see  at  Heidelberg  a 
very  large  tun,  and  could  feast  on  ex- 
cellent Rhine  wine  and  Westphalian 
ham,  but  that  their  authors  were  very 
heavy  and  awkward,  and  that  a  senti- 
mental German  resembles  a  tall  and 
stout  butcher  crying  over  a  killed  calf. 
If  at  length  German  literature  found 
entrance,  first  by  the  attraction  of  ex- 
travagant dramas  and  fantastic  ballads, 
then  by  the  sympathy  of  the  two  nations, 
which,  allied  against  French  policy  and 
civilization,  acknowledged  their  cousin- 
ship  in  speech,  religion,  and  blood, 
German  metaphysics  did  not  enter, 
unable  to  overturn  the  barrier  which  a 
positive  mind  and  a  national  religion 
opposed  to  it.  It  tried  to  pass,  with 
Coleridge  for  instance,  a  philosophical 
theologian  and  dreamy  poet,  who  toiled 
to  widen  conventional  dogma,  an<J 


532 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


who,  at  the  close  of  his  life,  having  be- 
come a  sort  of  oracle,  endeavored,  in 
the  pale  of  the  Church,  to  unfold  and 
unveil  before  a  few  faithful  disciples 
the  Christianity  of  the  future.  It  did 
not  make  head  ;  the  English  mind  was 
too  positive,  the  theologians  too  en- 
slaved. It  was  constrained  to  trans- 
form itself  and  become  Anglican,  or  to 
deform  itself  and  become  revolution- 
ary ;  and  to  produce  a  Wordsworth,  a 
Byron,  a  Shelley,  instead  of  a  Schiller 
and  Goethe. 

The  first,  Wordsworth,  a  new  Cow- 
per,  with  less  talent  and  more  ideas 
than  the  other,  was  essentially  a  man 
of  inner  feelings,  that  is,  engrossed  by 
the  concerns  of  the  soul.  Such,  men 
ask  what  they  have  come  to  do  in  this 
world,  and  why  life  has  been  given  to 
them ;  if  they  are  right  or  wrong,  and 
if  the  secret  movements  of  their  heart 
are  conformable  to  the  supreme  law, 
without  taking  into  account  the  visible 
causes  of  their  conduct.  Such,  for 
men  of  this  kind,  is  the  master  concep- 
tion which  renders  them  serious,  medi- 
tative, and  as  a  rule  gloomy.*  They 
live  with  eyes  turned  inwards,  not  to 
mark  and  classify  their  ideas,  like 
physiologists,  but  as  moralists,  to  ap- 
prove or  blame  their  feelings.  Thus 
understood,  life  becomes  a  grave  busi- 
ness, of  uncertain  issue,  on  which  v/e 
must  incessantly  and  scrupulously  re- 
flect Thus  understood,  the  world 
changes  its  aspect;  it  is  no  longer  a 
machine  of  wheels,  working  into  each 
other,  as  the  philosopher  says,  nor  a 
splendid  blooming  plant,  as  the  artist 
feels, — it  is  the  work  of  a  moral  being, 
displayed  as  a  spectacle  to  moral 
beings. 

Figure  such  a  man  facing  life  and  the 
world;  he  sees  them,  and  takes  part  in 
it,  apparently  like  any  one  else  ;  but 
how  different  is  he  in  reality !  His 
great  thought  pui  sues  him  ;  and  when 
he  beholds  a  tree,  it  is  to  meditate  on 
human  destiny.  He  finds  or  lends  a 
sense  to  the  least  objects  :  a  soldier 
marching  to  the  sound  of  the  drum 
makes  him  reflect  on  heroic  sacrifice, 
the  support  of  societies  ;  a  train  of 
clouds  lying  heavily  on  the  verge  of  a 
gloomy  sky,  endues  him  with  that  mel- 

*  The  Jansenists,  the  Puritans,  and  the 
Methodists  are  the  extremes  of  this  class. 


ancholy  calm,  so  suited  to  nourish 
moral  life.  There  is  nothing  which 
does  not  recall  him  to  his  duty  and  ad- 
monish him  of  his  origin.  Near  or  far, 
like  a  great  mountain  in  a  landscape, 
his  philosophy  will  appear  behind  al1 
his  ideas  and  images.  If  he  is  restless; 
impassioned,  sick  with  scruples,  it  will 
appear  to  him  amidst  storm  and  light- 
ning, as  it  did  to  the  genuine  Puritans, 
to  Cowper,  Pascal,  Carlyle.  It  will 
appear  to  him  in  a  grayish  kind  of  fog, 
imposing  and  calm,  if  he  enjoys,  like 
Wordsworth,  a  calm  mind  and  a  quiet 
life.  Wordsworth  was  a  wise  and 
happy  man,  a  thinker  and  a  dreamer, 
who  read  and  walked.  He  was  from 
the  first  in  tolerably  easy  circumstances, 
and  had  a  small  fortune.  Happily 
married,  amidst  the  favors  of  govern- 
ment and  the  respect  of  the  public,  he 
lived  peacefully  on  the  margin  of  a 
beautiful  lake,  in  sight  of  noble  moun- 
tains, in  the  pleasant  retirement  of  an 
elegant  house,  amidst  the  admiration 
and  attentions  of  distinguished  and 
chosen  friends,  engrossed  by  contem- 
plations which  no  storm  came  to  dis- 
tract, and  by  poetry  which  was  pro- 
duced without  any  hindrance.  In  this 
deep  calm  he  listens  to  his  own 
thoughts ;  the  peace  was  so  great, 
within  him  and  around  him,  that  he 
could  perceive  the  imperceptible.  "  To 
me,  the  meanest  flower  that  blows, 
can  give  Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too 
deep  for  tears."  He  saw  a  grandeur, 
a  beauty,  a  teaching  in  the  trivial 
events  which  weave  the  woof  of  our 
most  commonplace  days.  He  needed 
not,  for  the  sake  of  emotion,  either 
splendid  sights  or  unusual  actions. 
The  dazzling  glare  of  lamps,  the  pomp 
of  the  theatre,  would  have  shocked 
him  ;  his  eyes  were  too  delicate,  ac- 
customed to  quiet  and  uniform  tints. 
He  was  a  poet  of  the  twilight.  Moral 
existence  in  commonplace  existence, 
such  was  his  object — the  object  of  his 
choice.  His  paintings  are  cameos  with 
a  gray  ground,  which  have  a  meaning; 
designedly  he  suppresses  all  which 
might  please  the  senses,  in  order  to 
speak  solely  to  the  heart. 

Out  of  this  character  sprang  a  theory, 
— his  theory  of  art,  altogether  spiritual- 
istic, which,  after  repelling  classical 
habits,  ended  by  rallying  Protestant 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


533 


sympathies,  and  won  for  him  as  many 
partisans  as  it  had  raised  enemies.* 
Since  the  only  important  thing  is  moral 
life,  let  us  devote  ourselves  solely  to 
nourishing  it.  The  reader  must  be 
moved,  genuinely,  with  profit  to  his 
soul ;  the  rest  is  indifferent :  let  us, 
then,  show  him  objects  moving  in  them- 
selves, without  dreaming  of  clothing 
them  in  a  beautiful  style.  Let  us  strip 
ourselves  of  conventional  language  and 
poetic  diction.  Let  us  neglect  noble 
words,  scholastic  and  courtly  epithets, 
and  all  the  pomp  of  factitious  splendor, 
which  the  classical  writers  thought 
themselves  bound  to  assume,  and  justi- 
fied in  imposing.  In  poetry,  as  else- 
where, the  grand  question  is,  not  orna- 
ment, but  truth.  Let  us  leave  show, 
and  seek  effect.  Let  us  speak  in  a 
bare  style,  as  like  as  possible  to  prose, 
to  ordinary  conversation,  even  to  rustic 
conversation,  and  let  us  choose  our 
subjects  at  hand,  in  humble  life.  Let 
us  take  for  our  characters  an  idiot  boy, 
a  shivering  old  peasant  woman,  a  hawk- 
er, a  servant  stopping  in  the  street.  It 
is  the  truth  of  sentiment,  not  the  dig- 
nity of  the  folks,  which  makes  the 
beauty  of  a  subject ;  it  is  the  truth  of 
sentiment,  not  dignity  of  the  words, 
which  makes  the  beauty  of  poetry. 
What  matters  that  it  is  a  villager  who 
weeps,  if  these  tears  enable  me  to  see 
the  maternal  sentiment  ?  What  mat- 
ters that  my  verse  is  a  line  of  rhymed 
prose,  if  this  line  displays  a  noble  emo- 
tion ?  Men  read  that  they  may  carry 
away  emotion,  not  phrases ;  they  come 
to  us  to  look  for  moral  culture,  not 
pretty  ways  of  speaking.  And  there- 
upon Wordsworth,  classifying  his 
poems  according  to  the  different  facul- 
ties of  men  and  the  different  ages  of 
life,  undertakes  to  lead  us  through  all 
compartments  and  degrees  of  inner 
education,  to  the  convictions  and  sen 
timents  which  he  has  himself  attained. 
All  this  is  very  well,  but  on  condition 
that  the  reader  is  in  Wordsworth's 
position  ;  that  is,  essentially  a  philo- 
sophical moralist,  and  an  excessively 
sensitive  man.  When  I  shall  have 
emptied  my  head  of  all  worldly 
thoughts,  and  looked  up  at  the  clouds 
for  ten  years  to  refine  my  soul,  I  shall 

*  See  the   preface  of  his  second  edition  oi 
Lyrical  Ballads. 


,ove  this  poetry.  Meanwhile  the  web 
of  imperceptible  threads  by  which 
Wordsworth  endeavors  to  bind  to- 
gether all  sentiments  and  embrace  all 
nature,  breaks  in  my  fingers ;  it  is  too 
fragile  ;  it  is  a  woof  of  woven  spider- 
wed,  spun  by  a  metaphysical  imag- 
ination, and  tearing  as  soon  as  a  hand 
of  flesh  and  blood  tries  to  touch  it. 
Half  of  his  pieces  are  childish,  almost 
foolish;*  dull  events  described  in  a 
dull  style,  one  platitude  after  another, 
and  that  on  principle.  All  the  poets 
In  the  world  would  not  reconcile  us  to 
so  much  tedium.  Certainly  a  cat  play- 
ing with  three  dry  leaves  may  furnish 
a  philosophical  reflection,  and  figure 
forth  a  wise  man  sporting  with  the  fall- 
en leaves  of  life  ;  but  eighty  lines  on 
such  a  subject  make  us  yawn — much 
worse,  smile.  At  this  rate  we  will  find 
a  lesson  in  an  old  tooth  brush,  which 
still  continues  in  use.  Doubtless,  also, 
the  ways  of  Providence  are  not  to  be 
fathomed,  and  a  selfish  and  brutal 
artisan  like  Peter  Bell  may  be  convert- 
ed by  the  beautiful  conduct  of  an  ass 
full  of  fidelity  and  unselfishness  ;  but 
this  sentimental  prettiness  quickly 
grows  insipid,  and  the  style,  by  its  fac- 
titious simplicity,  renders  it  still  more 
insipid.  We  are  not  overpleased  to  see 
a  grave  man  seriously  imitate  the  lan- 
guage of  nurses,  and  we  murmur  to  our- 
selves that,  with  so  many  emotions,  he 
must  wet  so  many  handkerchiefs.  We 
will  acknowledge,  if  you  like,  that  your 
sentiments  are  interesting;  yet  there 
is  no  need  to  trot  them  all  out  before 
us. 

We  imagine  we  hear  him  say :  "Yes- 
terday I  read  Walton's  Complete  An- 
gler;  let  us  write  a  sonnet  aboat  it. 
On  Easter  Sunday  I  was  in  a  val  ey  in 
Westmoreland  ;  another  sonnet.  Two 
days  ago  I  put  too  many  questicns  to 
my  little  boy  and  caused  him  to  tell  a 
lie ;  a  poem.  I  am  going  to  travel  on 
the  Continent  and  through  Scotland; 
poems  about  all  the  incidents,  monu- 
ments, adventures  of  the  journey." 

You  must  consider  your  emotions 
very  precious,  that  you  put  them  all 
under  glass  !  There  are  only  three  or 
four  events  in  each  of  our  lives  worthy 
of  being  related  ;  our  powerful  sensa- 

*  Peter  Bell;  The  White  Doe;  Tke  Kitten 
and  Falling  Leaves^  etc. 


534 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV. 


tions  deserve  to  be  exhibited,  because 
they  recapitulate  our  whole  existence ; 
but  not  the  little  effects  of  the  little 
agitations  which  pass  through  us,  and 
the  imperceptible  oscillations  of  our 
every-day  condition.  Else  I  might  end 
by  explaining  in  rhyme  that  yesterday 
my  dog  broke  his  leg,  and  that  this 
morning  my  wife  put  on  her  stockings 
inside  out.  The  specialty  of  the  artist 
is  to  cast  great  ideas  in  moulds  as 
great ;  Wordsworth's  moulds  are  of 
bad  common  clay,  cracked,  unable  to 
hold  the  noble  metal  which  they  ought 
to  contain. 

But  the  metal  is  really  noble ;  and 
besides  several  very  beautiful  sonnets, 
there  is  now  and  then  a  work,  amongst 
others  his  largest,  The  Excursion,  in 
which  we  forget  the  poverty  of  the  get- 
ting up  to  admire  the  purity  and  eleva- 
tion of  the  thought.  In  truth,  the 
author  hardly  puts  himself  to  the  trou- 
ble of  imagining;  he  walks  along  and 
converses  with  a  pious  Scotch  pedler  : 
this  is  the  whole  of  the  story.  The 
poets  of  this  school  always  walk,  look 
at  nature  and  think  of  human  destiny  ; 
it  is  their  permanent  attitude.  He  con- 
verses, then,  with  the  pedler,  a  medita- 
tive character,  who  has  been  educated 
by  a  long  experience  of  men  and  things, 
who  speaks  very  well  (too  well  !)  of 
the  soul  and  of  God,  and  relates  to  him 
the  history  of  a  good  woman  who  died 
of  grief  in  her  cottage  ;  then  he  meets 
a  solitary,  a  sort  of  skeptical  Hamlet — 
morose,  made  gloomy  by  the  death  of 
his  family,  and  the  disappointments 
suffered  during  his  long  journeyings ; 
then  a  clergyman,  who  took  them  to 
the  village  churchyard,  and  described 
to  them  the  life  of  several  interesting 
people  who  are  buried  there.  Observe 
that,  just  in  proportion  as  reflections 
and  moral  discussions  arise,  and  as 
scenery  and  moral  descriptions  spread 
before  us  in  hundreds,  so  also  disserta- 
tions entwine  their  long  thorny  hedge- 
rows, and  metaphysical  thistles  multi- 
ply in  every  corner.  In  short,  the  poem 
is  as  grave  and  dull  as  a  sermon.  And 
yet,  in  spite  of  this  ecclesiastical  air  and 
the  tirades  against  Voltaire  and  his  age,* 
*  This  dull  product  of  a  scoffer's  pen 

Impure  conceits  discharging  from  a  heart 

Hardened  by  impious  pride ! 
Wordsworth's  Works,  7  vols.  1849  t   The  Ex- 
cursion, book  2  \   The  Solitary. 


we  feel  ourselves  impressed  as  by  a  dis- 
course of  Theodore  Jouffroy.  After  all, 
Wordsworth  is  convinced  ;  he  has  spent 
his  life  meditating  on  these  kinds  of 
ideas,  they  are  the  poetry  of  his  relig- 
ion, race,  climate ;  he  is  imbued  with 
them ;  his  pictures,  stories,  interpreta- 
tions of  visible  nature  and  human  life 
tend  only  to  put  the  mind  in  a  grave 
disposition  which  is  proper  to  the  inner 
man.  I  enter  here  as  in  the  valley  of 
Port  Royal :  a  solitary  nook,  stagnant 
waters,  gloomy  woods,  ruins,  grave- 
stones, and  above  all  the  idea  of  re- 
sponsible man,  and  the  obscure  beyond, 
to  which  we  involuntarily  move  I  for- 
get the  careless  French  fashions,  the 
custom  of  not  disturbing  the  even  tenor 
of  life.  There  is  an  imposing  serious- 
ness, an  austere  beauty  in  this  sincere 
reflection  ;  we  begin  to  feel  respect,  we 
stop  and  are  moved.  This  book  is  like 
a  Protestant  temple,  august,  though 
bare  and  monotonous.  The  poet  sets 
forth  the  great  interests  of  the  soul : 

"  On  Man,  on  Nature,  and  on  Human  Life, 
Musing  in  solitude,  I  oft  perceive 
Fair  trains  of  imagery  before  me  rise, 
Accompanied  by  feelings  of  delight 
Pure,  or  with  no  unpleasing  sadness  mixed  , 
And  I  am  conscious  of  affecting  thoughts 
And    dear    remembrances,   whose   presence 

soothes 

Or  elvates  the  Mind,  intent  to  weigh 
The  good  and  evil  of  our  mortal  state. 
— To    these    emotions,    whencesoe'er    they 

come, 

Whether   from  breath  of  outward  circum- 
stance, 

Or  from  the  Soul — an  impulse  to  herself, — 
I  would  give  utterance  in  numerous  verse. 
Of  Truth,  of  Grandeur,  Beauty,  Love,  and 

Hope, 

And  melancholy  Fear  subdued  by  Faith  ; 
Of  blessed  consolations  in  distress  ; 
Of  moral  strength,  and  intellectual  Power ; 
Of  joy  in  widest  commonalty  spread  ; 
Of  the  individual  Mind  that  keeps  her  own 
Inviolate  retirement,  subject  there 
To  Conscience  only,  and  the  law  supreme 
Of  that  Intelligence  which  governs  all — 
I  sing."  * 

This  intelligence,  the  only  holy  part  of 
man,  is  holy  in  all  stages  ;  for  this, 
Wordsworth  selects  as  his  characters 
a  pedler,  a  parson,  villagers  ;  in  his 
eyes  rank,  education,  habits,  all  the 
worldly  envelope  of  a  man,  is  without 
interest ;  what  constitutes  our  worth 
is  the  integrity  of  our  conscience; 
science  itself  is  only  profound  when  it 

*  Wordsworth's  Works,    7  vols.    1849,  yii«  * 
The  Excursion^  Preface,  n. 


CHAP.  L] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


535 


penetrates  moral  life  ;  for  this  life  fails 
nowhere : 

"  To  ever)  Form  of  being  is  assigned  .  .  . 
An  active  principle  : — howe'er  removed 
From  sense  and  observation,  it  subsists 
In  all  things,  in  all  natures  ;  in  the  stars 
Of  azure  heaven,  the  unenduring  clouds, 
In  flower  and  tree,  in  every  pebbly  stone 
That  paves  the  brooks,  the  stationary  rocks, 
The  moving  waters,  and  the  invisible  air. 
Whate'er  exists  hath  properties  that  spread 
Beyond  itself,  communicating  good, 
A  simple  blessing,  or  with  evil  mixed  ; 
Spirit  that  knows  no  insulated  spot, 
No  chasm,  no  solitude  ;  from  link  to  link 
It  circulates,  the  Soul  of  all  the  worlds."  * 

Reject,  then,  with  disdain  this  arid 
science : 

"  Where  Knowledge,  ill  begun  in  cold  remarks 
On  outward   things,   with  formal    inference 

ends  ; 

Or,  if  the  mind  turn  inward,  she  recoils, 
At  once — or,  not  recoiling,  is  perplexed — t 
Lost  in  a  gloom  of  uninspired  research.  .  .  . 

Viewing  all  objects  unremittingly 

In  disconnexion  dead  and  spiritless  ; 

And  still  dividing,  and  dividing  still, 

Breaks  down  all  grandeur."  $ 

Beyond  the  vanities  of  science  and  the 
pride  of  the  world,  there  is  the  soul, 
whereby  all  are  equal,  and  the  broad 
and  inner  Christian  life  opens  at  once 
its  gates  to  all  who  would  enter : 

"  The  sun  is  fixed, 

And  the  infinite  magnificence  of  heaven 
Fixed  within  reach  of  every  human  eye. 
The  sleepless  Ocean  murmurs  for  all  ears, 
The  vernal  field  infuses  fresh  delight 
Into  all  hearts.  .  .  . 
The  primal  duties  shine  aloft  like  stars, 
The  charities  that  soothe  and  heal  and  bless 
Are  scattered  at  the  feet  of  man — like  flow- 
ers." 

So,  at  the  end  of  all  agitation  and  all 
search  appears  the  great  truth,  which 
is  the  abstract  of  the  rest : 

'*  Life,  I  repeat,  is  energy  of  love 
Divine  or  human  ;  exercised  in  pain, 
In  strife  and  tribulation  ;  and  ordained, 
If  so  approved  and  sanctified,  to  pass, 
Through  shades  and  silent  rest  to  endless 
joy-"  § 

The  verses  sustain  these  serious 
thoughts  by  their  grave  harmony,  as  a 
motet  accompanies  meditation  or  pray- 
er. They  resemble  the  grand  and 
monotonous  music  of  the  organ,  which 

*  Wordsworth's  Works,  7  vols.  1849,  yii« 
book  9  ;  Discourse  of  the  Wanderer ;  opening 
verses,  315. 

t  Ibid.  vii.  ;  The  Excursion,  book  4 ;  De- 
spondency Corrected,  137.  \  Ibid.  149. 

|  Ibid-  last  lines  of  book  5,  The  Pastor,  20. 


in  the  eventide,  at  the  close  of  the  ser- 
vice, rolls  slowly  in  the  twilight  of 
arches  and  pillars. 

When  a  certain  phase  of  human  in- 
telligence comes  to  light,  it  does  so 
from  all  sides  ;  there  is  no  part  where 
it  does  not  appear,  no  instincts  which 
it  does  not  renew.  It  enters  simul- 
taneously the  two  opposite  camps,  and 
seems  to  undo  with  one  hand  what  it 
has  made  with  the  other.  If  it  is,  as  it 
was  formerly,  the  oratorical  style,  we 
find  it  at  the  same  time  in  the  service 
of  cynical  misanthropy,  and  in  that  of 
decorous  humanity,  in  Swift  and  in 
Addison.  If  it  is,  as  now,  the  philo- 
sophical spirit,  it  produces  at  once  con- 
servative harangues  and  socialistic 
Utopias,  Wordsworth  and  Shelley.*  The 
latter,  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  the 
age,  son  of  a  rich  baronet,  beautiful  as 
an  angel,  of  extraordinary  precocity, 
gentle,  generous,  tender,  overflowing 
with  all  the  gifts  of  heart,  mind,  birth, 
and  fortune,  marred  his  life,  as  it  were, 
wantonly,  by  allowing  his  conduct  to 
be  guided  by  an  enthusiastic  imagina- 
tion which  he  should  have  kept  for  his 
verses.  From  his  birth  he  had  "  the 
vision "  of  sublime  beauty  and  happi- 
ness ;  and  the  contemplation  of  an 
ideal  world  set  him  in  arms  against  the 
real.  Having  refused  at  Eton  to  be  a 
fag  of  the  big  boys,  he  was  treated  by 
boys  and  masters  with  a  revolting 
cruelty  ;  suffered  himself  to  be  made  a 
martyr,  refused  to  obey,  and,  falling 
back' into  forbidden  studies,  began  to 
form  the  most  immoderate  and  most 
poetical  dreams.  He  judged  society 
by  the  oppression  which  he  underwent, 
and  man  by  the  generosity  which  he 
felt  in  himself ;  thought  that  man  was 
good,  and  society  bad,  and  that  it  was 
only  necessary  to  suppress  established 
institutions  to  make  earth  "a  paradise." 
He  became  a  republican,  a  communist, 
preached  fraternity,  love,  even  absti- 
nence from  flesh,  and  as  a  means  the 
abolition  of  kings,  priests,  and  God.* 
We  can  fancy  the  indignation  which 
such  ideas  roused  in  a  society  so  obsti- 
nately attached  to  established  order — 
so  intolerant,  in  which,  above  the  con- 

*  See  also  the  novels  of  Godwin,  Caleb 
Williams,  and  others. 

t  Queen  Mab,  and  notes.  At  Oxford  Shelley 
issued  a  kind  of  thesis,  calling  it  "On  the 
Necessity  of  Atheism." 


MODERN  LIFE. 


536 


servative  and  religious  instincts,  Cant 
spoke  like  a  master.     Shelley  was  ex- 
pelled from  the  university  ;  his  father 
refused    to  see  him  ;  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, by  a  decree,  took  from  him,  as 
being  unworthy,  the  custody  of  his  two 
children;    finally,   he   was   obliged  to 
quit  England.     I  forgot  to  say  that  at 
eighteen  he  married  a  young  girl  of  in- 
ferior  rank,   that  they  separated,  that 
she  committed  suicide,  that  he  under- 
mined his  health  by  his  excitement  and 
suffering,*  and  that  to  the  end  of  his 
life  he  was  nervous  or  ill.     Is  not  this 
the  life  of  a  genuine  poet  ?     Eyes  fixed 
on  the  splendid  apparitions  with  which 
he  peopled  space,  he  went  through  the 
world  not  seeing  the  high  road,  stum- 
bling over  the  stones  of  the  roadside. 
He  possessed  not  that  knowledge  of 
life  which  most  poets  share  in  common 
with   novelists.     Seldom   has   a   mind 
been  seen  in  which  thought   soared  in 
loftier  regions,  and  more  removed  from 
actual  things.     When  he  tried  to  create 
characters  and  events — in  Queen   Mab, 
in  Alastor,  in  7^he  Revolt  of  Islam,  in 
Prometheus  —  he    only  produced  un- 
substantial phantoms.     Once   only,  in 
the  Cenci,  did  he  inspire  a  living  figure 
(Beatrice)   worthy  of  Webster  "or  old 
Ford  ;  but  in  some  sort  this  was  in  spite 
of  himself,  and  because  in  it  the  senti- 
ments  were   so   unheard    of    and   so 
strained  that  they  suited  superhuman 
conceptions.     Elsewhere  his  world  is 
throughout  beyond  our  own.     The  laws 
of  life  are  suspended  or  transformed. 
We  move  in   Shelley's  world  between 
heaven  and  earth,  in  abstraction,  dream- 
land, symbolism  :  the  beings  float  in  it 
like   those   fantastic  figures  which  we 
see  in  the  clouds,  and  which  alternately 
undulate  and  change  form  capriciously, 
in  their  robes  of  snow  and  gold. 

For  souls  thus  constituted,  the  great 
consolation  is  nature.  They  are  too 
finely  sensitive  to  find  amusement  in 
the  spectacle  and  picture  of  human 
passions.  Shelley  instinctively  avoid- 
ed that  spectacle  ;  the  sight  re-opened 
his  own  wounds.  He  was  happier  in 
the  woods,  at  the  sea-side,  in  contem- 
plation of  grand  landscapes.  The 
rocks,  clouds,  and  meadows,  which  to 

*  Some  time  before  his  death,  when  he  was 
twenty-nine,  he  said,  "  If  I  die  now,  I  shall 
have  lived  as  long  as  my  father." 


[BOOK  IV 


ordinary  eyes  seem  dull  and  insensible, 
are,  to   a  wide   sympathy,    living  and 
divine  existences,  which  are  an  agree- 
able   change   from   men.       No   virgin 
smile  is   so   charming   as  that   of   the 
dawn,   nor   any  joy   m^re   triumphant 
than  that  of  the  ocean  when  its  waves 
swell  and  shimmer,  as  far  as  the  eye 
can   reach,  under   the  lavish  splendor 
of  heaven.     At  this  sight  the  heart  rises 
unwittingly  to  the  sentiment  of  ancient 
legends,  and  the  poet  perceives  in  the 
inexhaustible  bloom  of  things  the  peace- 
ful soul  of  the  great  mother  by  whom 
every  thing   grows   and  is   supported. 
Shelley  spent  most  of  his  life  in  the 
open  air,  especially  in  his  boat ;    first 
on  the  Thames,  then  on  the  Lake  of 
Geneva,  then  on  the  Arno,  and  in  the 
Italian  waters.     He   loved  desert  and 
solitary  places,  where  man  enjoys  the 
pleasure  of  believing  infinite  what  he 
sees,  infinite   as  his   soul.     And   such 
was   this  wide   ocean,  and  this  shore 
more   barren   than   its   waves.       This 
love   was    a   deep   Teutonic    instinct, 
which,  allied  to  pagan  emotions,  pro- 
duced his  poetry,  pantheistic  and  yet 
full  of  thought,  almost  Greek  and  yet 
English,   in  which  fancy   plays  like  a 
foolish,  dreamy  child,  with  the  splendid 
skein  of  forms  and  colors.     A  cloud,  a 
plant,   a   sunrise, — these  are  his  char- 
acters :  they  were  those  of  the  primi- 
:ive   poets,  when  they  took  the  light- 
ning for  a  bird  of  fire,  and  the  clouds  for 
the   flocks   of   heaven.      But  what    a 
secret   ardor   beyond    these    splendid 
mages,  and  how  we   feel  the  heat   of 
:he  furnace  beyond  the  colored  phan- 
:oms,   which   it  sets   afloat   over    the 
lorizon  !  *     Has  any  one  since  Shak 
.peare   and   Spenser   lighted   on  such 
;ender  and  such  grand  ecstasies  ?    Has 
any  one  painted   so   magnificently  the 
cloud  which  watches  by  night   in   the 
sky,  enveloping  in  its  net  the  swarm  of 
;olden  bees,  the  stars  : 

'  The  sanguine  sunrise,  with  his  meteor  eyes, 
And  his  burning  plumes  outspread, 
Leaps  on  the  back  of  my  sailing  rack, 
When  the  morning  star  shines  dead  .  .  >t 
That  orbed  maiden  with  white  fire  laden, 
Whom  mortals  call  the  moon, 


*  See  in  Shelley's  Works,  1853,  The  Witch 
of  Atlas,  The  Cloud,  To  a  Sky-lark,  the  end 
of  The  Re-volt  of  Islam,  A  lastor^  and  the 
whole  of  Prometheus. 

t  The  Cloud)  c.  iii.  502. 


CHAP.  I.] 


IDEAS  AND  PRODUCTIONS. 


537 


Glides  glimmering  o'er  my  fleece-like  floor, 
By  the  midnight  breezes  strewn."  * 

Read  again  those  verses  on  the  garden, 
in  which  the  sensitive  plant  dreams. 
Alas  !  they  are  the  dreams  of  the  poet, 
and  the  happy  visions  which  floated  in 
his  virgin  heart  up  to  the  moment  when 
it  opened  out  and  withered.  I  will 
pause  in  time ;  I  will  not  proceed,  as 
he  did,  beyond  the  recollections  of  his 
spring-time : 

14  The  snowdrop,  and  then  the  violet, 
Arose  from  the  ground  with  warm  rain  wet, 
And  their  breath  was  mixed  with  fresh  odour, 

sent 

From  the  turf,  like  the  voice  and  the  instru- 
ment. 

Then  the  pied  wind-flowers  and  the  tulip 
tall, 

And  narcissi,  the  fairest  among  them  all, 

Wh')  gaze  on  their  eyes  in  the  stream's  re- 
cess, 

Till  they  die  of  their  own  dear  loveliness. 

And  the  Naiad-like  lily  of  the  vale, 

Whom  youth  makes  so  fair  and  passion  so 

pale, 

That  the  light  of  its  tremulous  bells  is  seen 
Through  their  pavilions  of  tender  green  ; 

And   the   hyacinth  purple,   and  white,  and 

blue, 
Which    flung  from  its  bells    a  sweet  peal 

anew 

Of  music  so  delicate,  soft,  and  intense, 
It  was  felt  like  an  odour  within  the  sense  ; 

And  the  rose  like  a  nymph  to  the  bath  ad- 

drest, 
Which  unveiled   the   depth   of  her  glowing 

breast, 

Till,  fold  after  fold,  to  the  fainting  air 
The  soul  of  her  beauty  and  love  lay  bare  J 

And  the  wand-like  lily,  which  lifted  up, 
As  a  Maenad,  its  moonlight-coloured  cup, 
Till  the  fiery  star,  which  is  its  eye, 
Gazed  through  the  clear  dew  on  the  tender 
sky  ...     , 

And  on  the  stream  whose  inconstant  bosom 
Was  prankt,  under  boughs  of  embowering 

blossom, 

With  golden  and  green  light,  slanting  through 
Their  heaven  of  many  a  tangled  hue, 

Broad  water-lilies  lay  tremulously, 

And  starry  river-buds  glimmered  by, 

And  around  them  the  soft  stream  did  glide 

and  dance 
With  a  motion  of  sweet  sound  and  radiance. 

And  the  sinuous  paths  of  lawn  and  of  moss, 
Which   led   through   the  garden  along  and 

across, 

Some  open  at  once  to  the  sun  and  the  breeze, 
Some  lost  among  bowers  of  blossoming  trees, 

Were  all  paved  with  daisies  and  delicate 
bells, 

*  The  Cloud,  c.  iv.  503 


As  fair  as  the  fabulous  asphodels, 

And  flowerets  which  drooping  as  day  drooped 

too. 

Fell  into  pavilions,  white,  purple,  and  blue, 
To  roof   the  glow-worm  from   the   evening 

dew."  * 

Every  thing  lives  here,  every  thing 
breathes  and  yearns  for  something. 
This  poem,  the  story  of  a  plant,  is  also 
the  story  of  a  soul — Shelley's  soul,  the 
sensitive.  Is  it  not  natural  to  con- 
found them  ?  Is  there  not  a  commu- 
nity of  nature  amongst  all  the  dwellers 
in  this  world  ?  Verily  there  is  a  soul  in 
every  thing  ;  in  the  universe  is  a  soul ; 
be  the  existence  what  it  will,  uncultured 
or  rational,  defined  or  vague,  ever  be- 
yond its  sensible  form  shines  a  secret 
essence  and  something  divine,  which 
we  catch  sight  of  by  sublime  illumina- 
tions, never  reaching  or  penetrating  it. 
It  is  this  presentiment  and  yearning 
which  sustains  all  modern  poetry, — 
now  in  Christian  meditations,  as  with 
Campbell  and  Wordsworth,  now  in 
pagan  visions,  as  with  Keats  and 
Shelley.  They  hear  the  great  heart  of 
nature"  beat  ;  they  wish  to  reach  it ; 
they  try  all  spiritual  and  sensible  ap- 
proaches, through  Judea  and  through 
Greece,  by  consecrated  doctrines  and 
bv  proscribed  dogmas.  In  this  splen- 
did and  fruitless  effort  the  greatest  be- 
come exhausted  and  die.  Their  poetry, 
which  they  drag  with  them  over  these 
sublime  tracks,  is  torn  to  pieces.  One 
alone,  Byron,  attains  the  summit  ;  and 
of  all  these  grand  poetic  draperies, 
which  float  like  banners,  and  seem  to 
summon  men  to  the  conquest  of  su- 
preme truth,  we  see  now  but  tatters 
scattered  by  the  wayside. 

Yet  these  men  did  their  work.  Under 
their  multiplied  efforts,  and  by  their 
unconscious  working  together,  the  idea 
of  the  beautiful  is  changed,  and  other 
ideas  change  by  contagion.  Conserva- 
tives contribute  to  it  as  well  as  revolu-  • 
tionaries,  and  the  new  spirit  breathes 
through  the  poems  which  bless  and 
those  which  curse  Church  and  State. 
We  learn  from  Wordsworth  and  B)  ron, 
by  profound  Protestantism  t  and  con- 

*  Shelley's  Works,  1853,  The  Sensitive  Plant, 
490. 

t  "  Our  life  is  turned  out  of  her  course,  when- 
ever man  is  made  an  offering,  a  sacrifice,  a  tool, 
or  implement,  a  passive  thing  employed  as  a 
brute  mean." — Wordsworth,  The  Excursion* 
23* 


538 


firmed  skepticism,  that  in  this  sacred 
cant-defended  establishment  there  is 
matter  for  reform  or  for  revolt ;  that 
we  may  discover  moral  merits  other 
than  those  which  the  law  tickets  and 
opinion  accepts  ;  that  beyond  conven- 
tional confessions  there  are  truths ; 
that  beyond  respected  social  conditions 
there  are  grandeurs  ;  that  beyond  reg- 
ular positions  there  are  virtues  ;  that 
greatness  is  in  the  heart  and  the  genius  ; 
and  all  the  rest,  actions  and  beliefs,  are 
subaltern.  We  have  just  seen  that  be- 
yond literary  conventionalities  there  is 
a  poetry,  and  consequently  we  are  dis- 
posed to  feel  that  beyond  religious  dog- 
mas there  may  be  a  faith,  and  beyond 
social  institutions  a  justice.  The  old 
edifice  totters,  and  the  Revolution  en- 
ters, not  by  a  sudden  inundation,  as  in- 
France,  but  by  slow  infiltration.  The 
wall  built  up  against  it  by  public  intol- 
erance cracks  and  opens:  the  war 
waged  against  Jacobinism,  republican 
and  imperial,  ends  in  victory;  and 
henceforth  we  may  regard  opposing 
ideas,  not  as  opposing  enemies,  but  as 
ideas.  We  regard  them,  and,  accommo- 
dating them  to  the  different  countries, 
we  import  them.  Roman  Catholics  are 
enfranchised,rotten  boroughs  abolished, 
the  electoral  franchise  lowered  ;  unjust 
taxes,  which  kept  up  the  price  of  corn, 
are  repealed;  ecclesiastical  tithes 
changed  into  rent-charges  ;  the  terrible 
laws  protecting  property  are  modified, 
the  assessment  of  taxes  brought  more 
and  more  on  the  rich  classes  ;  old  in- 
stitutions, formerly  established  for  the 
advantage  of  a  race,  and  in  this  race  of 
a  class,  are  only  maintained  when  for 
the  advantage  of  all  classes  ;  privileges 
become  functions  ;  and  in  this  triumph 
of  the  middle  class,  which  shapes 
opinion  and  assumes  the  ascendency, 
the  aristocracy,  passing  from  sinecures 
to  services,  seems  now  legitimate  only 
as  a  national  nursery,  kept  up  to 
furnish  public  men.  At  the  same  time 
narrow  orthodoxy  is  enlarged.  Zoology, 
astronomy,  geology,  botany,  anthro- 
pology, all  the  sciences  of  observation, 
so  much  cultivated  and  so  popular, 
forcibly  introduce  their  dissolvent  dis- 
coveries. Criticism  comes  in  from 
Germany,  re-handles  the  Bible,  re-writes 
the  history  of  dogma,  attacks  dogma 
itself.  Meanwhile  poor  Scottish  phi- 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BooK  IV. 


losophy  is  dried  up.  A.midst  the  agita- 
tions of  sects,  endeavoring  to  transform 
each  other,  and  rising  Unitarianism,  we 
hear  at  the  gates  of  the  sacred  ark  the 
continental  philosophy  roaring  like  a 
tide.  Now  already  it  has  reached 
literature :  for  fifty  years  all  great 
writers  have  plunged  into  it, — Sydney 
Smith,  by  his  sarcasms  against  the 
numbness  of  the  clergy,  and  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  Catholics ;  Arnold,  by  his 
protests  against  the  religious  monopoly 
of  the  clergy,  and  the  ecclesiastical 
monopoly  of  the  Anglicans  ;  Macau]  ay 
by  his  history  and  panegyric  of  the 
liberal  revolution ;  Thackeray,  by  at- 
tacking the  nobles,  in  the  interests  of 
the  middle  class  ;  Dickens,  by  attack- 
ing dignitaries  and  wealthy  men,  in  the 
interests  of  the  lowly  and  poor ;  Currer 
Bell  and  Mrs.  Browning,  by  defending 
the  initiative  and  independence  of  wo- 
men;  Stanley  and  Jowett,  by  intro- 
ducing the  German  exegesis,  and  by 
giving  precision  to  biblical  criticism ; 
arlyle,  by  importing  German  meta- 
physics in  an  English  form ;  Stuart 
Mill,  by  importing  French  positivism  in 
an  English  form  ;  Tennyson  himself,  by 
extending  over  the  beauties  of  all  lands 
and  all  ages  the  protection  of  his 
amiable  dilettantism  and  his  poetical 
sympathies,  —  each  according  to  his 
power  and  his  difference  of  position ; 
all  retained  within  reach  of  the  shore 
by  their  practical  prejudices,  all 
strengthened  against  falling  by  their 
moral  prejudices ;  all  bent,  some  with 
more  of  eagerness,  others  with  more  of 
distrust,  in  welcoming  or  giving  entrance 
to  the  growing  tide  of  modern  democ- 
racy and  philosophy  in  State  and 
Church,  without  doing  damage,  and 
gradually,  so  as  to  destroy  nothing,  and 
to  make  every  thing  bear  fruit 


CHAPTER    II. 


I  HAVE  reserved  for  the  last  the  great- 
est  and  most  English  of  these  literary 
men;  he  is  so  great  and  so  English 
that  from  him  alone  we  shall  learn 


CHAP.  II.J 


LORD  BYRON. 


539 


more  truths  of  his  country  and  of  his 
age  than  from  all  the  rest  put  together. 
His  ideas  were  proscribed  during  his 
life ;  it  has  been  attempted  to  depre- 
ciate his  genius  since  his  death.  Even 
at  the  present  day  English  critics  are 
hardly  just  to  him.  He  fought  all  his 
life  against  the  society  from  which  he 
was  descended;  and  during  his  life,  as 
after  his  death,  he  suffered  the  penalty 
of  the  resentment  which  he  provoked, 
and  the  dislike  to  which  he  gave  rise. 
A  foreign  critic  may  be  more  impartial, 
and  freely  praise  the  powerful  hand 
whose  blows  he  has  not  felt. 

If  ever  there  was  a  violent  and  madly 
sensitive  soul,  but  incapable  of  shaking 
off  its  bonds  ;  ever  agitated,  but  yet 
shut  in  ;  predisposed  to  poetry  by  its 
innate  fire,  but  limited  by  its  natural 
barriers  to  a  single  kind  of  poetry, — it 
was  Byron's. 

This  promptitude  to  extreme  emo- 
tions was  with  him  a  family  legacy,  and 
the  result  of  education.  His  great-uncle, 
a  sort  of  raving  and  misanthropical 
maniac,  had  slain  in  a  tavern  brawl,  by 
candle-light,  Mr.  Chaworth,  his  relative, 
and  had  been  tried  before  the  House  of 
Lords.  His  father,  a  brutal  roysterer, 
had  eloped  with  the  wife  of  Lord  Car- 
marthen, ruined  and  ill-treated  Miss 
Gordon,  his  second  wife ;  and,  after 
living  like  a  madman  and  a  scoundrel, 
had  gone  with  the  remains  of  his  wife's 
family  property,  to  die  abroad.  His 
mother  in  her  moments  of  fury,  wrould 
tear  her  dresses  and  her  bonnets  to 
pieces.  When  her  wretched  husband 
died  she  almost  lost  her  reason,  and 
her  cries  were  heard  in  the  street.  It 
would  take  a  long  story  to  tell  what  a 
childhood  Byron  passed  under  the  care 
of  "  this  lioness ;  "  in  what  torrents  of 
insults,  interspersed  with  softer  moods, 
he  himself  lived,  just  as  passionate  and 
more  bitter.  His  mother  ran  after  him, 
called  him  a  "  lame  brat,"  shouted  at 
him,  and  threw  fire-shovel  and  tongs  at 
his  head.  He  held  his  tongue,  bowed, 
and  none  the  less  felt  the  outrage.  One 
day,  when  he  was  "  in  one  of  his  silent 
rages,"  they  had  to  take  out  of  his 
hand  a  knife  which  he  had  taken  from 
the  table,  and  which  he  was  already 
raising  to  his  throat.  Another  time 
the  quarrel  was  so  terrible,  that  son 
and  mother,  each  privately,  went  to 


"  the  apothecary's,  inquiring  anxiously 
whether  the  other  had  been  to  purchase 
poison,  and  cautioning  the  vendor  of 
drugs  not  to  attend  to  such  an  applica- 
tion if  made."*  When  he  went  to  school, 
"  his  friendships  were  passions."  Many 
years  after  he  left  Harrow,  he  never 
heard  the  name  of  Lord  Clare,  one  of 
his  old  school-fellows,  pronounced, 
without  "  a  beating  of  the  heart."  t  A 
score  of  times  he  got  himself  into 
trouble  for  his  friends,  offering  them 
his  time,  his  pen,  his  purse.  One  day, 
at  Harrow,  a  big  boy  claimed  the  right 
to  fag  his  friend,  little  Peel,  and  finding 
him  refractory,  gave  him  a  beating  on 
the  inner  fleshy  side  of  his  arm,  which 
he  had  twisted  round  to  render  the 
pain  more  acute.  Byron,  too  small  to 
fight  the  rascal,  came  up  to  him, 
"  blushing  with  rage/5  tears  in  his  eyes, 
and  asked  with  a  trembling  voice  how 
many  stripes  he  meant  to  inflict. 
"  Why,"  returned  the  executioner, 
"  you  little  rascal,  what  is  that  to  you  ?  " 
"  Because,  if  you  please,"  said  Byron, 
holding  out  his  arm,  "  I  would  take 
half."  |  He  never  met  with  objects  of 
distress  without  affording  them  suc- 
cor. §  In  his  latter  days  in  Italy,  he 
gave  away  a  thousand  pounds  out  of 
every  four  thousand  he  spent.  The 
upwellings  of  this  heart  were  too 
copious,  and  flooded  forth  good  and 
evil  impetuously,  and  at  the  least  col- 
lision. Like  Dante,  in  his  early  youth, 
Byron,  at  the  age  of  eight,  fell  in  love 
with  a  child  named  Mary  Duff. 

"  How  very  odd  that  I  should  have  been  so 
utterly,  devotedly  fond  of  that  girl,  at  an  age 
when  I  could  neither  feel  passion,  nor  know 
the  meaning  of  the  word  !  .  .  .  I  recollect  all 
our  caresses,  .  .  .  my  restlessness,  my  sleep- 
lessness. My  misery,  my  love  for  that  girl 
were  so  violent,  that  I  sometimes  doubt  if  I 
have  ever  been  really  attached  since.  When  I 
heard  of  her  being  married,  ...  it  nearly 
threw  me  into  convulsions."  || 

At  twelve  years  he  fell  in  love  with  his 
cousin,  Margaret  Parker: 

"  My  passion  had  its  usual  effects  upon  me. 
I  could  not  sleep — I  could  not  eat — I  could  not 
rest  ;  and  although  I  had  reason  to  know  that 
she  loved  me,  it  was  the  texture  of  my  life  to 
think  of  the  time  which  must  elapse  before  we 


*  Byron's  Works,  ed.  Moore,  17  vols.  183-2  ; 
Life,  i.  102. 

t  Byron's  Works,  Life,  i.  63. 

t  Ibid.  69.  §  Ibid.  137.        II  Ibid.  26 


540 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


could  meet  again,  being  usually  about  twelve 
hours  of  separation.  But  I  was  a  fool  then, 
and  am  not  much  wiser  now."  * 

He  never  was  wiser,  read  hard  at 
school ;  took  too  much  exercise  ;  later 
on,  at  Cambridge,  Newsteacl,  and  Lon- 
don, he  changed  night  into  day,  rushed 
into  debauchery,  kept  long  fasts,  led  an 
unwholesome  way  of  living,  and  en- 
gaged in  the  extreme  of  every  taste  and 
every  excess.  As  he  was  a  dandy,  and 
one  of  the  most  brilliant,  he  nearly  let 
himself  die  of  hunger  for  fear  of  be- 
coming fat,  then  drank  and  ate  greedily 
during  his  nights  of  recklessness. 
Moore  said : 

"  Lord  Byron,  for  the  last  two  days,  had 
done  nothing  towards  sustenance  beyond  eat- 
ing a  few  biscuits  and  (to  appease  appetite) 
chewing  mastic.  .  .  .  He  confined  himself  to 
lobsters,  and  of  these  finished  two  or  three  to 
his  own  share, — interposing,  sometimes,  a  small 
liqueur-glass  of  strong  white  brandy,  sometimes 
a  tumbler  of  very  hot  water,  and  then  pure 
brandy  again,  to  the  amount  of  near  half  a  dozen 
small  glasses  of  the  latter.  .  .  .  Afler  this  we 
had  claret,  of  which  having  despatched  two 
bottles  between  us,  at  about  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning  we  parted."  t 

Another  day  we  find  in  Byron's  journal 
the  following  words : 

"  Yesterday,  dined  tete-a-tete  at  the  *  Cocoa' 
with  Scrope  Davies — sat  from  six  till  midnight 
— drank  between  us  one  bottle  of  champagne 
and  six  of  claret,  neither  of  which  wines  ever 
affect  me."  % 

Later,  at  Venice  : 

"  I  have  hardly  had  a  wink  of  sleep  this 
week  past.  I  have  had  some  curious  masking 
adventures  this  carnival.  ...  I  will  work  the 
mine  of  my  youth  to  the  last  vein  of  the  ore, 
and  then — good  night.  I  have  lived,  and  am 
confer.;."  § 

At  this  rate  the  organs  wear  out,  and 
intervals  of  temperance  are  not  suf- 
ficient to  repair  them.  The  stomach 
does  not  continue  to  act,  the  nerves  get 
out  of  order,  and  the  soul  undermines 
the  body,  and  the  body  the  soul. 

"  I  always  wake  in  actual  despair  and  des- 
pondency, in  all  respects,  even  of  that  which 
pleased  me  over-night.  In  England,  five  years 
ago,  I  had  the  same  kind  of  hypochondria,  but 
accompanied  with  so  violent  a  thirst  that  I 
have  drank  as  many  as  fifteen  bottles  of  soda- 

*  Byron's  Works,  Life,  i.  53. 
t  Ibid.  Hi.  83. 

\  Ibid.  iii.  20,  March  28,  1814. 
§  Ibid.  iv.   8 1 ;   Letter  to  Moore,   Feb.  12, 
1818. 


water  in  one  night  after  going  to  bed,  and  been 
still  thirsty,  .  .  .  striking  off  the  necks  of  bot- 
tles from  mere  thirsty  impatience."  * 

Much  less  is  necessary  to  ruin  mind 
and  body  wholly.  Thus  these  vehe- 
ment minds  live,  ever  driven  and  broken 
by  their  own  energy,  like  a  cannon  ball^ 
which,  when  fired,  turns  and  spins 
round  quickly,  but  at  the  smallest  ob- 
stacle leaps  up,  rebounds,  destroys 
every  thing,  and  ends  by  burying  itself 
in  the  earth.  Beyle,  a  most  shrewd 
observer,  who  lived  with  Byron  for 
several  weeks,  says  that  on  certain  days 
he  was  mad ;  at  other  times,  in  pres- 
ence of  beautiful  things,  he  became 
sublime.  Though  reserved  and  proud, 
music  made  him  weep.  The  rest  of 
his  time,  petty  English  passions,  pride 
of  rank,  for  instance,  a  vain  dandyism, 
unhinged  him :  he  spoke  of  Brumme] 
with  a  shudder  of  jealousy  and  admi- 
ration. But  small  or  great,  the  passion 
of  the  hour  swept  down  upon  his  mind 
like  a  tempest,  roused  him,  transported 
him  either  into  imprudence  or  genius. 
Byron's  own  Journal,  his  familiar  let- 
ters, all  his  unstudied  prose,  is,  as  it 
were,  trembling  with  wit,  anger,  enthu- 
siasm ;  the  smallest  words  breathe  sen- 
sitiveness ;  since  Saint  Simon  we  have 
not  seen  more  lifelike  confidences.  All 
styles  appear  dull,  and  all  souls  slug- 
gish by  the  side  of  his. 

In  this  splendid  rush  of  unbridled 
and  disbanded  faculties,  which  leaped 
up  at  random,  and  seemed  to  drive  him 
without  option  to  the  four  quarters  of 
the  globe,  one  took  the  reins,  and 
cast  him  on  the  wall  against  which  he 
was  broken. 

"  Sir  Walter  Scott  describes  Lord  Byron  as 
being  a  man  of  real  goodness  of  heart,  and  the 
kindest  and  best  feelings,  miserably  thrown 
away  by  his  foolish  contempt  of  public  opinion. 
Instead  of  being  warned  or  checked  by  public 
opposition,  it  roused  him  to  go  on  in  a  worse 
strain,  as  if  he  said,  '  Ay,  you  don't  like  it  j 
well,  you  shall  have  something  worse  for  youf 
pains.' "  f 

This  rebellious  instinct  is  inherent  in 
the  race  ;  there  was  a  whole  cluster  of 
wild  passions,  born  of  the  climate,  \ 

*  Ibid.  v.  96,  Feb.  2,  1821. 

t  Lockhart's  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  vii. 
323- 

$  "  If  I  was  born,  as  the  nurses  say,  with  a 
'  silver  spoon  in  my  mouth,'  it  has  stuck  in  my 
throat,  and  spoiled  my  palate,  so  that  nothing 
put  into  it  is  swallowed  with  much  relish,—* 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


541 


which  nourished  him :  a  gloomy  humor, 
violent  imagination,  indomitable  pride, 
a  relish  for  danger,  a  craving  for  strife, 
that  inner  exaltation,  only  satiated  by 
destruction,  and  that  sombre  madness 
which  urged  forward  the  Scandinavian 
Berserkirs,  when,  in  an  open  bark,  be- 
neath a  sky  cloven  with  lightning, 
they  abandoned  themselves  to  the  tem- 
p  >st,  whose  fury  they  had  breathed. 
This  instinct  is  in  the  blood:  people 
are  born  so,  as  they  are  born  lions  or 
bull-dogs.*  Byron  was  still  a  little 
boy  in  petticoats  when  his  nurse  scold- 
ed him  roughly  for  having  soiled  or 
torn  a  new  frock  which  he  had  just 
put  on.  He  got  into  one  of  his  silent 
rages,  seized  the  garment  with  his 
hands,  rent  it  from  top  to  bottom,  and 
stood  erect,  motionless,  and  gloomy  be- 
fore the  storming  nurse,  so  as  to  set 
more  effectually  er  wrath  at  defiance. 
His  pride  mastered  him.  When  at  ten 
he  inherited  the  title  of  lord,  and  his 
name  was  first  called  at  school,  pre- 
ceded by  the  title  dominus,  he  could 
not  answer  the  customary  adsum,  stood 
silent  amidst  the  general  stare  of  his 
school-fellows,  and  at  last  burst  into 
tears.  Another  time,  at  Harrow,  in  a 
dispute  which  was  dividing  the  school, 
a  boy  said,  "  Byron  won't  join  us,  for 
he  never  likes  to  be  second  anywhere." 
He  was  offered  the  command,  and  then 
only  would  he  condescend  to  take  part 
with  them.  Never  to  submit  to  a  mas- 
ter ;  to  rise  with  his  whole  soul  against 
every  semblance  of  encroachment  or 
rule  ;  to  keep  his  person  intact  and  in- 
violate at  all  cost,  and  to  the  end 
against  all ;  to  dare  every  thing  rather 
than  give  any  sign  of  submission,  — 
such  was  his  character.  This  is  why 
he  was  disposed  to  undergo  any  thing 
rather  than  give  signs  of  weakness.  At 
ten  he  was  a  stoic  from  pride.  His 
foot  was  painfully  stretched  in  a  wood- 
en contrivance  whilst  he  was  taking 
his  Latin  lesson,  and  his  master  pitied 
him,  saying  "he  must  be  suffering." 
"  Never  mind,  Mr.  Rogers,"  he  said, 

unless  it  be  cayenne.  ...  I  see  no  such  horror 
In  a  dreamless  sleep,  and  I  have  no  conception 
of  any  existence  which  duration  would  not 
make  tiresome." 

*  "  I  like  Junius :  he  was  a  good  hater. — I 
don't  understand  yielding  sensitiveness.  What 
I  feel  is  an  immense  rage  for  forty-eight 
hours." 


"  you  shall  not  see  any  signs  of  it  in 
me."  *  Such  as  he  was  as  a  child,  he 
continued  as  a  man.  In  mind  and 
body  he  strove,  or  prepared  himself  for 
strife.  Every  day  for  hours  at  a  time, 
he  boxed,  fired  pistols,  practiced  sword- 
exercise,  ran  and  leaped,  rode,  over- 
came obstacles.  These  were  the  ex- 
ploits of  his  hands  and  muscles  ;  but 
he  needed  others.  For  lack  of  enemies 
he  found  fault  with  .society,  and  made 
war  upon  it.  We  know  to  what  ex- 
cesses the  dominant  opinions  then  ran. 
England  was  at  the  height  of  the  war 
with  France,  and  thought  it  was  fight- 
ing for  morality  and  liberty.  In  English 
eyes,  at  this  time,  Church  and  State 
were  holy  things  :  any  one  who  touched 
them  became  a  public  enemy.  In  this 
fit  of  national  passion  and  Protestan* 
severity,  whosoever  publicly  avowed 
liberal  ideas  and  manners  seemed  ar 
incendiary,  and  stirred  up  against  him 
self  the  instincts  of  property,  the  doc- 
trines of  moralists,  the  interests  of  poli- 
ticians, and  the  prejudices  of  the  people. 
Byron  chose  this  moment  to  praise  Vol- 
taire and  Rousseau,  to  admire  Napo- 
leon, to  avow  himself  a  skeptic,  to  plead 
for  nature  and  pleasure  against  cant 
and  regularity,  to  say  that  high  Eng- 
lish society,  debauched  and  hypocritical, 
made  phrases  and  killed  men,  to  pre- 
serve its  sinecures  and  rotten  boroughs. 
As  though  political  hatred  was  not 
enough,  he  contracted,  in  addition,  liter- 
ary animosities,attacked  the  whole  body 
of  critics,t  ran  down  the  new  poetry,  de- 
clared that  the  most  celebrated  were 
"  Claudians,"  men  of  the  later  empire, 
raged  against  the  Lake  school,  and  in 
consequence  had  in  Southey  a  bitter 
and  unwearied  enemy.  Thus  provided 
with  enemies,  he  laid  himself  open  to 
attack  on  all  sides.  He  decried  him- 
self through  his  hatred  of  cant,  his 
bravado,  his  boasting  about  his  vices. 
He  depicted  himself  in  his  heroes,  but 
for  the  worse  ;  in  such  a  way  that  no 
man  could  fail  to  recognize  him,  and 
think  him  much  worse  than  he  was. 
Walter  Scott  wrote,  immediately  after 
seeing  Childe  Harold  : 

"  Childe  Harold  is,  I  think,  a  very  clever 
poem,   but    gives  no    good  symptom   of    tha 


*  Byron's  Works,  Life,  i.  41. 

t  In  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewer*. 


542 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV. 


writer's  heart  or  morals.  .  .  .  Vice  ought  to  be 
a  little  more  modest,  and  it  must  require  impu- 
dence almost  equal  to  the  noble  Lord's  other 
powers,  to  claim  sympathy  gravely  for  the  ennui 
arising  from  his  being  tired  of  his  wassailers 
and  his  paramours.  There  is  a  monstrous  deal 
of  conceit  in  it,  too,  for  it  is  informing  the  in- 
ferior part  of  the  world  that  their  little  old- 
fashioned  scruples  of  limitation  are  not  worthy 
of  his  regard."  * 

"  My  noble  friend  is  something  like  my  old 
peacock,  who  chooses  to  bivouac  apart  from 
his  lady,  and  sit  below  my  bedroom  window,  to 
keep  me  awake  with  his  screeching  lamenta- 
tion. Only,  I  own  he  is  not  equal  in  melody  to 
Lord  Byron."  t 

Such  were  the  sentiments  which  he 
called  forth  in  all  respectable  classes. 
He  was  pleased  thereat,  and  did  worse 
— giving  out  that  in  his  adventures  in 
the  East  he  had  dared  a  good  many 
things  ;  and  he  was  not  indignant  when 
identified  with  his  heroes.  He  said  he 
should  like  to  feel  for  once  the  sensa- 
tions of  a  man  who  had  committed  a 
murder.  Another  time  he  wrote  in  his 
Diary : 

"  Hobhouse  told  me  an  odd  report, — that  I 
am  the  actual  Conrad,  the  veritable  Corsair,  and 
that  part  of  my  travels  are  supposed  to  have 
passed  in  piracy.  Um !  people  sometimes  hit 
near  the  truth,  but  never  the  whole  truth.  He 
don't  know  what  I  was  about  the  year  after 
he  left  the  Levant;  nor  does  any  one — nor — 
nor — nor — however,  it  is  a  lie — '  but  I  doubt 
the  equivocation  of  the  fiend  that  lies  like 
truth.' "  J 

Tnese  dangerous  words  were  turned 
against  him  like  a  dagger ;  but  he 
loved  danger,  mortal  danger,  and  was 
only  at  ease  when  he  saw  the  points 
of  all  angers  bristling  against  him. 
Alone  against  all,  against  an  armed 
society ;  erect,  invincible  even  against 
common  sense,  even  against  conscience, 
— it  was  then  he  felt  in  all  his  strained 
nerves  the  great  and  terrible  sensa- 
tion, to  which  his  whole  being  involun- 
tarily inclined. 

A  last  imprudence  brought  down  the 
attack.  As  long  as  he  was  an  unmar- 
ried man,  his  excesses  might  be  ex- 
cused by  the  over-strong  passions  of  a 
temperament  which  often  causes  youth 
in  England  to  revolt  against  good  taste 
and  rule  ;  but  marriage  settles  them, 
and  it  was  marriage  which  in  him  com- 

*  Lockhart's  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  iii. 
389-  t  Ibid.  v.  MI. 

J.  Moore's  Life  of  Byron,  iii.  12,  March  10, 
Thor's  day.  The  last  part  of  the  sentence  is  a 
quotation  from  Macbeth,  v.  5. 


pleted  his  unsettling.  He  found  that 
his  wife  was  a  kind  of  paragon  of 
virtue,  known  as  such,  "  a  creature  of 
rule,"  correct  and  without  feelings,  in- 
capable of  committing  a  fault  herself, 
and  of  forgiving.  His  servant  Fletcher 
observed,  "  It  is  very  odd,  but  I  never 
yet  knew  a  lady  that  could  not  manage 
my  Lord  except  my  Lady."*  Lady 
Byron  thought  her  husband  mad,  and 
had  him  examined  by  physicians.  Hav- 
ing learned  that  he  was  in  his  right 
mind,  she  left  him,  returned  to  her 
father,  and  refused  ever  to  see  him 
again.  Thereupon  he  passed  for  a  mon- 
ster. The  papers  covered  him  w:th 
obloquy;  his  friends  induced  him  not 
to  go  to  a  theatre  or  to  Parliament, 
fearing  that  he  would  be  hooted  or  in- 
sulted. The  rage  and  pangs  which  so 
violent  a  soul,  precociously  accustomed 
to  brilliant  glory,  felt  in  this  universal 
storm  of  outrage,  can  only  be  learned 
from  his  verses.  He  grew  stubborn, 
went  to  Venice,  and  steeped  himself  in 
the  voluptuous  Italian  life,  even  in  low 
debauchery,  the  better  to  insult  the 
Puritan  prudery  which  had  condemned 
him,  and  left  it  only  through  an  offence 
still  more  blamed,  his  public  intimacy 
with  the  young  Countess  Guiccioli. 
Meanwhile  he  showed  himself  as 
bitterly  republican  in  politics  as  in 
morality.  He  wrote  in  1813  :  "  I  have 
simplified  my  politics  into  an  utter  de- 
testation of  all  existing  governments.'* 
This  time,  at  Ravenna,  his  house  was 
the  centre  and  storehouse  of  conspira- 
tors, and  he  generously  and  impru- 
dently prepared  to  take  arms  with 
them,  to  strike  for  the  deliverance  of 
Italy : 

"  They  mean  to  insurrect  here,  and  are  to 
honour  me  with  a  call  thereupon.  I  shall  not  fall 
back ;  though  I  don't  think  them  in  force  and 
heart  sufficient  to  make  much  of  it.  But,  on- 
ward. .  .  What  signifies  self?  .  .  .  It  is  not  one 
man  nor  a  million,  but  the  spirit  of  liberty  which 
must  be  spread.  .  .  .  The  mere  selfish  calcula- 
tion ought  never  to  be  made  on  such  occasions  ; 
and,  at  present,  it  shall  not  Je  computed  by  me* 
...  I  should  almost  regret  that  my  own  affairs 
went  well,  when  those  of  nations  are  in  peril."  t 
In  the  mean  time  he  had  quarrels  with 
the  police  :  his  house  was  watched,  he 
was  threatened  with  assassination,  and 
yet  he  rode  out  daily,  and  went  into  the 

*  Ibid.  iv.  169,  note. 

t  Moore,  Byron's  Works  J  Life,  v.  67,  Jan, 
9,  1821. 


CHAP.  II.] 


LOKu  BYRON. 


543 


neighboring  pine-forest  to  practice 
pistol-shooting.  These  are  the  senti- 
ments of  a  man  standing  at  the  muzzle 
of  a  loaded  cannon,  waiting  for  it  to  go 
off.  The  emotion  is  great,  nay,  heroic, 
but  it  is  not  agreeable  ;  and  certainly, 
even  at  this  season  of  great  emotion,  he 
was  unhappy.  Nothing  is  more  likely 
to  poison  happiness  than  a  combative 
spirit.  He  writes: 

"  What  is  the  reason  that  I  have  been,  all  my 
lifetime,  more  or  less  ennuye  ?  ...  I  do  not 
know  how  to  answer  this,  but  presume  that  it  is 
constitutional, — as  well  as  the  waking  in  low 
spirits,  which  I  have  invariably  done  for  many 
years.  Temperance  and  exercise,  which  I  have 
practised  at  times,  and  for  a  long  time  together 
vigorously  and  violently,  made  little  or  no  dif- 
ference. Violent  passions  did :  when  under 
their  immediate  influence — it  is  odd,  but — I  was 
in  agitated,  but  not  in  depressed  spirits.  .  .  . 
Wine  and  spirits  make  me  sullen  and  savage  to 
ferocity — silent,  however,  and  retiring,  and  not 
quarrelsome,  if  not  spoken  to.  Swimming 
also  raises  my  spirits  ;  but  in  general  they  are 
low,  and  get  daily  lower.  That  is  hopeless  ;  for 
I  do  not  think  I  am  so  much  ennuye  as  I  was 
at  nineteen.  The  proof  is,  that  then  I  must 
game,  or  drink,  or  be  in  motion  of  some  kind, 
or  I  was  miserable."  * 

"  What  I  feel  most  growing  upon  me  are 
laziness,  and  a  disrelish  more  powerful  than  in- 
difference. If  I  rouse,  it  is  into  fury.  I  pre- 
sume that  I  shall  end  (if  not  earlier  by  accident, 
or  some  such  termination)  like  Swift,  '  dying 
at  top.'  t  Lega  (his  servant)  came  in  with  a 
letter  about  a  bill  unpaid  at  Venice  which  I 
thought  paid  months  ago.  I  flew  into  a  par- 
oxysm of  rage,  which  almost  made  me  faint.  I 
have  always  had  une  ame,  which  not  only  tor- 
mented itself,  but  everybody  else  in  contact 
with  it,  and  an  esprit  violent,  which  has  almost 
left  me  without  any  esprit  at  all."  % 

A  horrible  foreboding  which  haunted 
him  to  the  end  !  On  his  deathbed,  in 
Greece,  he  refused,  I  know  not  why,  to 
be  bled,  and  preferred  to  die  at  once. 
They  threatened  that  the  uncontrolled 
disease  might  end  in  madness.  He 
sprang  up  :  "  There  !  you  are,  I  see,  a 
d — d  set  of  butchers  !  Take  away  as 
much  blood  as  you  like,  but  have  done 
with  it,"  §  and  stretched  out  his  arm. 
Amidst  such  wild  outbursts  and  anxie- 
ties he  passed  his  life.  Anguish  endur- 
ed, danger  braved,  resistance  overcome, 
grief  relished,  all  the  greatness  and  sad- 
ness of  the  black  warlike  madness, — 
such  are  the  images  which  he  needs  must 
let  pass  before  him.  In  default  of  action 
he  had  dreams,  and  he  only  betook  him- 

*  Moore,  Byron's  Works  ;  Life,  v.  60,  Jan. 
6,  1821.  f  Ibid.  v.  97,  Feb.  2,  1821. 

J  Ibid.  95.  §  Ibid.vi.  206. 


self  to  dreams  for  want  of  action.  He 
said  when  embarking  for  Greece,  that 
he  had  taken  poetry  for  lack  of  better, 
and  that  it  was  not  his  fit  work.  "  What 
is  a  poet  ?  what  is  he  worth  ?  what  does 
he  do  ?  He  is  a  babbler."  He  argued 
ill  of  the  poetry  of  his  age,  even  of  his 
own  ;  saying  that,  if  he  lived  ten  years 
more,  they  should  see  something  else 
from  him  than  verses.  In  reality,  he 
would  have  been  more  at  home  as  a 
sea-king,  or  a  captain  of  a  band  of 
troopers  during  the  middle  ages.  Ex- 
cept two  or  three  gleams  of  Italian 
sunshine,  his  poetry  and  life  are  those 
of  a  Scald  transplanted  into  modern  life, 
who  in  this  over-well  regulated  world 
did  not  find  his  vocation. 

II. 

Byron  was  a  poet,  but  in  his  own 
way — a  strange  way,  like  that  in  which 
he  lived.  There  were  internal  tem- 
pests within  him,  avalanches  of  ideas, 
which  found  issue  only  in  writing.  He 
wrote :  "  I  have  written  from  the  ful- 
ness of  my  mind,  from  passion,  from 
impulse,  from  many  motives,  but  not 
'  for  their  sweet  voices.'  To  withdraw 
myself  from  myself  has  ever  been  my 
sole,  my  entire,  my  sincere  motive  in 
scribbling  at  all — and  publishing  also 
the  continuance  of  the  same  object,  by 
the  action  it  affords  to  the  mind,  which 
else  recoils  upon  itself."  He  wrote 
almost  always  with  astonishing  rapid- 
ity, The  Corsair  in  ten  days,  The  Bride 
of  Abydos  in  four  days.  While  it  was 
printing  he  added  and  corrected,  but 
without  recasting  :  "  I  told  you  before 
that  I  can  never  recast  any  thing.  I 
am  like  the  tiger.  If  I  miss  the  first 
spring,  I  go  grumbling  back  to  my 
jungle  again ;  but  if  I  do  it,  it  is  crush- 
ing."* Doubtless  he  sprang,  but  he 
had  a  chain  :  never,  in  the  freest  flight 
of  his  thoughts,  did  he  liberate  himself 
from  himself.  He  dreams  of  himself, 
and  sees  himself  throughout.  It  is  a 
boiling  torrent,  but  hedged  in  with 
rocks.  No  such  great  poet  has  had  so 
narrow  an  imagination  ;  he  could  not 
metamorphose  himself  into  another. 
They  are  his  own  sorrows,  his  own  re- 
volts, his  own  travels,  which,  hardly 
transformed  and  modified,  he  intro 

*  Ibid.  v.  33,  Ravenna,  Nov.  18,  1820. 


544 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV, 


duces  into  his  verses.  He  does  not 
invent,  he  observes ;  he  does  not  cre- 
ate, he  transcribes.  His  copy  is  darkly 
exaggerated,  but  it  is  a  copy.  "  I  could 
not  write  upon  any  thing,"  says  he, 
"  without  some  personal  experience 
and  foundation."  We  will  find  in  his 
letters  and  note-books,  almost  feature 
for  feature,  the  most  striking  of  his  de- 
scriptions. The  capture  of  Ismail,  the 
shipwreck  of  Don  Juan,  are,  almost 
word  for  word,  like  two  accounts  of  it 
in  prose.  If  none  but  cockneys  could 
attribute  to  him  the  crimes  of  his  he- 
roes, none  but  blind  men  could  fail  to 
see  in  him  the  sentiments  of  his  char- 
acters. This  is  so  true,  that  he  has 
not  created  more  than  one.  Childe 
Harold,  Lara,  the  Giaour,  the  Corsair, 
Manfred,  Sardanapalus,  Cain,  Tasso, 
Dante,  and  the  rest,  are  always  the 
same — one  man  represented  uncler  va- 
rious costumes,  in  several  lands,  with 
different  expressions ;  but  just  as 
painters  do,  when,  by  change  of  gar- 
ments, decorations,  and  attitudes,  they 
draw  fifty  portraits  from  the  same 
model.  He  meditated  too  much  upon 
himself  to  be  enamored  of  any  thing 
else.  The  habitual  sternness  of  his 
will  prevented  his  mind  from  being 
flexible  ;  his  force,  always  concentrated 
for  effort  and  bent  upon  strife,  shut 
him  up  in  self-contemplation,  and  re- 
duced him  never  to  make  a  poem,  save 
of  his  own  heart. 

What  style  would  he  adopt  ?  With 
these  concentrated  and  tragic  senti- 
ments he  had  a  classical  mind.  By 
the  strangest  mixture,  the  books,  which 
he  preferred,  were  at  once  the  most 
violent  or  the  most  proper,  the  Bible 
abo\eall:  "I  am  a  great  reader  and 
adm  rer  of  those  books  (the  Bible),  and 
had  read  them  through  and  through 
before  I  was  eight  years  old  ;  that  is  to 
say,  the  Old  Testament,  for  the  New 
struck  me  as  a  task,  but  the  other  as  a 
pleasure."*  Observe  this  word:  he 
did  not  relish  the  tender  and  self-deny- 
ing mysticism  of  the  gospel,  but  the 
cruel  sternness  and  lyrical  outcries  of 
the  Hebrews.  Next  to  the  Bible  he 
loved  Pope,  the  most  correct  and  for- 
mal of  men  : 

"  As  to  Pope,  I   have  always  regarded   him 


*  Moore,  Byron's  Works  ;  Life,  v.  265. 


as  the  greatest  name  in  our  poetry.  Depend 
upon  it,  the  rest  are  barbarians.  He  is  a 
Greek  Temple,  with  a  Gothic  Cathedral  on  one 
hand,  and  a  Turkish  Mosque  and  all  sorts  of 
fantastic  pagodas  and  conventicles  about  him. 
You  may  call  Shakspeare  and  Milton  pyra- 
mids, but  I  prefer  the  Temple  of  Theseus  or  the 
Parthenon  to  a  mountain  of  burnt  brickwork. 
.  .  .  The  grand  distinction  of  the  underforms 
of  the  new  school  of  poets  is  their  vulgarity. 
By  this  I  do  not  mean  they  are  coarse,  but 
shabby-genteel."  * 

And  he  presently  wrote  two  letters 
with  incomparable  vivacity  and  spirit, 
to  defend  Pope  against  the  scorn  of 
modern  writers.  These  writers,  ac- 
cording to  him,  have  spoiled  the  public 
taste.  The  only  ones  who  were  worth 
any  thing — Crabbe,  Campbell,  Rogers 
— imitate  the  style  of  Pope.  A  few 
others  had  talent ;  but,  take  them  all 
together,  those  who  had  come  last  had 
perverted  literature  :  they  did  not  know 
their  own  language  ;  their  expressions 
are  only  approximate,  above  or  below 
the  true  tone,  forced  or  dull.  He  ran- 
ges himself  amongst  the  corrupters,  t 
and  we  soon  see  that  this  theory  is  not 
an  invention,  springing  from  bad  tem- 
per and  polemics;  he  returns  to  it. 
In  his  two  first  attempts — Hours  of 
Idleness,  English  Bards  and  Scotch 
Reviewers — he  tried  to  follow  it  up. 
Later,  and  in  almost  all  his  works,  we 
find  its  effect.  He  recommends  and 
practises  the  rule  of  unity  in  tragedy. 
He  loves  oratorical  form,  symmetrical 
phrase,  condensed  style.  He  likes  to 
plead  his  passions.  Sheridan  tried  to 
induce  Byron  to  devote  himself  to  elo- 
quence ;  and  the  vigor,  piercing  logic, 
wonderful  vivacity,  close  argument  of 
his  prose,  prove  that  he  would  have 
taken  the  first  rank  amongst  pam- 
phleteers. J  If  he  attains  to  it  amongst 
the  poets,  it  is  partly  due  to  his  classi- 
cal system.  This  oratorical  form,  in 
which  Pope  compresses  his  thought 
like  La  Bruyere,  magnifies  the  force 
and  swing  of  vehement  ideas;  like  a 
narrow  and  straight  canal,  it  collects 
and  dashes  them  in  their  right  direc- 
tion ;  there  is  then  nothing  which  their 
impetus  does  not  carry  away ;  and  it  is 
thus  Lord  Byron  from  the  first,  in  the 

*  Ibid.  150,   Ravenna,  Mays,  1821. 

I"  "  All  the  styles  of  the  day  are  bombastid 
I  don't  except  my  own  ;  no  one  has  done  mora 
through  negligence  to  corrupt  the  language." 

t  See  his  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Re* 
viewers. 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


545 


face  of  hostile  criticisms,  and  over 
jealous  reputations,  has  made  his  way 
to  the  public.  * 

Thus  Childe  Harold  made  its  way. 
At  the  first  onset  every  man  who  read 
it  was  agitated.  It  was  more  than  an 
author  who  spoke  ;  it  was  a  man.  In 
spite  of  his  denial,  the  author  was 
identified  with  his  hero  :  he  calumni- 
ated himself,  but  still  it  was  himself 
whom  he  portrayed.  He  was  recog- 
nized in  that  young  voluptuous  and  dis- 
gusted man,  ready  to  weep  amidst  his 
orgies,  who 

"  Sore  sick  at  heart, 

And  from  his  fellow  bacchanals  would  flee  ; 
'Tis  said,  at  times  the  sullen  tear  would  start, 
But  Pride  congeal'd  the  drop  within  his  ee  : 
Apart  he  stalk'd  in  joyless  reverie, 
And  from  his  native  land  resolved  to  go, 
And  visit  scorching  climes  beyond  the  sea  ; 
With  pleasure  drugg'd,  he  almost  long'd  for 
woe."  f 

Fleeing  from  his  native  land,  he  carried, 
amongst  the  splendors  and  cheerfulness 
of  the  south,  his  unwearying  persecu- 
tor, **  demon  thought,"  implacable  be- 
hind him.  The  scenery  was  recog- 
nized :  it  had  been  copied  on  the  spot. 
And  what  was  the  whole  book  but  a 
diary  of  travel  ?  He  said  in  it  what  he 
had  seen  and  thought.  What  poetic 
fiction  is  so  valuable  as  genuine  sensa- 
tion ?  What  is  more  penetrating  than 
confidence,  voluntary  or  involuntary  ? 
Truly,  every  word  here  expressed  an 
emotion  of  eye  or  heart  : 

"  The  tender  azure  of  the  unruffled  deep.  .  .  . 
The   mountain-moss  by  scorching   skies  im- 

brown'd  .  .  . 
The     orange    tints  that  gild  the    greenest 

bough.7'  .  .  .  | 

All  these  beauties,  calm  or  imposing, 
he  had  enjoyed,  and  sometimes  suf- 
fered through  them;  and  hence  we  see 
them  through  his  verse.  Whatever  he 
touched,  he  made  palpitate  and  live ; 
because,  when  he  saw  it,  his  heart  had 
beaten  and  he  had  lived.  He  himself, 
a  little  later,  quitting  the  mask  of  Har- 
old, took  up  the  parable  in  his  own 
name  ;  and  who  is  not  touched  by  an 
avowal  so  passionate  and  complete  ? 

*  Thirty  thousand  copies  of  trie  Corsair  were 
sold  in  one  day. 

t  Byron's  Works,  viii.;  Childe  Harold's 
Pilgrimage,  c.  i.  6. 

J  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,  c,  i.  19. 


"  Yet  must  I  think  less  wildly :— I  have  thought 
Too  long  and  darkly,  till  my  brain  became, 
In  its  own  eddy,  boiling  and  o'erwrought, 
A  whirling  gulf  of  phantasy  and  flame: 
And   thus,  untaught   in  youth  my  heart  to 

tame, 
My  springs  of  life  were  poison'd.     'Tis  too 

late! 
Yet  am  I  changed :  though  still  enough  the 

same 

In  strength  to  bear  what  time  cannot  abate, 
And  feed   on     bitter  fruits  without     accusing 

Fate.  .  .  . 

But  soon  he  knew  himself  the  most  unfit 
Of  men  to  herd  with  Man  ;  with  whom  he 

held 

Little  in  common  ;  untaught  to  submit 
His  thoughts  to  others,  though  his  soul  was 

quell'd 
In  youth  by  his  own  thoughts  ;  still  uncom- 

pell'd, 

He  would  not  yield  dominion  of  his  mind 
To  spirits  against  whom  his  own  rebell'd  ; 
Proud  though  in  desolation,  which  could  find, 
A   life  within   itself,  to   breathe   without  man- 
kind. .  .  . 

Like  the  Chaldean,  he  could  watch  the  stars, 
Till  he  had  peopled  them  with  beings  bright 
As  their  own  beams  ;  and  earth,  and  earth- 
born  jars, 

And  human  frailties,  were  forgotten  quite : 
Could  he  have  kept  his  spirit  to  that  flight 
He  had  been  happy  ;  but  this  clay  will  sink 
Its  spark  immortal,  envying  it  the  light 
To  which  it  mounts,  as  if  to  break  the  link 
That  keeps  us  from  yon  heaven  which  woos  us 
to  its  brink. 

But  in  Man's  dwellings  he  became  a  thing 
Restless  and  worn,  and  stern  and  wearisome, 
Droop' d  as  a  wild-born  falcon  with    dipt 

wing, 

To  whom  the  boundless  air  alone  were  home  : 
Then  came  his  fit  again,  which  to  o'ercome, 
As  eagerly  the  barr'd-up  bird  will  beat 
His  breast  and  beak  against  his  wiry  dome 
Till  the  blood  tinge  his  plumage,  so  the  heat 
Of  this  impeded  soul  would  through  his  bosom 

eat."  * 

Such  are  the  sentiments  wherewith 
he  surveyed  nature  and  history,  not  to 
comprehend  them  and  forget  himself 
before  them,  but  to  seek  in  them  and 
impress  upon  them  the  image  of  his 
own  passions.  He  does  not  leave  ob- 
jects to  speak  of  themselves,  but  forces 
them  to  answer  him.  Amidst  their 
peace,  he  is  only  occupied  by  his  own 
emotion.  He  attunes  them  to  his  soul, 
and  compels  them  to  repeat  his  own 
cries.  All  is  inflated  here,  as  in  him- 
self ;  the  vast  strophe  rolls  along,  car- 
rying in  its  overflowing  bed  the  flood 
of  vehement  ideas  ;  declamation  un- 
folds itself,  pompous,  and  at  times  arti- 
ficial (it  was  his  first  work),  but  potent, 
*  Ibid.  c.  iii.  7-15. 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV. 


and  so  often  sublime  that  the  rhetorical 
rubbish,  which  he  yet  preserved,  dis- 
appeared under  the  afflux  of  splendors, 
with  which  it  is  loaded.  Wordsworth, 
Walter  Scott,  by  the  side  of  this  prod- 
igality of  accumulated  splendors, 
seemed  poor  and  dull  ;  never  since 
^Eschylus  was  seen  such  a  tragic 
pomp  ;  and  men  followed  with  a  sort 
of  pang,  the  train  of  gigantic  figures, 
whom  he  brought  in  mournful  ranks 
before  their  eyes,  from  the  far  past  : 

I  stood  in  Venice,  on  the  Bridge  of  Sighs  ; 
A  palace  and  a  prison  on  each  hand  : 
I  saw  from  out  the  wave  her  structures  rise 
As  from  the  stroke  of  the  enchanter's  wand  : 
A  thousand  years,  their  cloudy  wings  expand 
Around  me,  and  a  dying  Glory  smiles 
O'er  the  far  times,  when  many  a  subject  land 
Look'd  to  the  winged  Lion's  marble  piles, 
Where  Venice  sate  in  state,  throned  on  her  hun- 
dred isles  t 

She  looks  a  sea  Cybele,  fresh  from  ocean, 
Rising  with  her  tiara  of  proud  towers 
At  airy  distance,  with  majestic  motion, 
A  ruler  of  the  waters  and  their  powers  : 
And  such  she  was!  —  her  daughters  had  their 

dowers 
From  spoils  of  nations,  and   the   exhaustless 

East 
Pour'd   in   her  lap    all  gems  in     sparkling 

showers. 

In  purple  was  she  robed,  and  of  her  feast 
Monarchs  partook,  and   deein'd  their   dignity 

increased.  ...  * 

Lo!    where  the   Giant    on    the    mountain 

stands, 

His  blood-red  tresses  deep'ning  in  the  sun, 
With  death-shot  glowing  in  his  fiery  hands, 
And  eye  that  scorcheth  all  it  glares  upon  ; 
Restless  it  rolls,  now  fix'd  and  now  anon 
Flashing  afar,  —  and  at  his  iron  feet 
Destruction  cowers,  to  mark  what  deeds  are 

done  ; 

For  on  this  morn  three  potent  nations  meet, 
To  shed  before  his  shrine  the  blood  he  deems 


most  sweet. 


By  Heaven  !  it  is  a  splendid  sight  to  see 
(For  one  who  hath  no  friend,  no  brother 

there) 

Their  rival  scarfs  of  mix'd  embroidery, 
Their  various  arms  that  glitter  in  the  air  ! 
What  gallant  war-hounds  rouse  them  from 

their  lair, 
And  gnash  their  fangs,  loud  yelling  for  the 

prey! 

All  join  the  chase,  but  few  the  triumph  share  ; 

The  Grave  shall  bear  the  chiefest  prize  away, 

A.nd  Havoc  scarce  for  joy   can  number  their 

array.  .  .  .f 

What  from  this  barren  being  do  we  reap  ? 
Our  senses  narrow,  and  our  reason  frail, 
Life  short,  and  truth  a  gem  which  loves  the 
deep, 


*  Chtide  Harold's  Pilgrimage,  c.  iv.  i  and  2. 
t  Ibid.  C.  i.  39  and  40. 


And  all  things  weigh' d  in  custom's  falsest 

scale ; 

Opinion  an  omnipotence,  whose  veil 
Mantles  the  earth  with  darkness,  until  right 
And  wrong  are  accidents,  and  men  grow  pale 
Lest  their  own  judgments  should  become  too 

bright, 
And  their  free   thoughts  be  crimes,  and   earth 

have  too  much  light. 

And  thus  they  plod  in  sluggish  misery, 
Rotting  from  sire  to  son,  and  age  to  age, 
Proud  of  their  trampled  nature,  and  so  die, 
Bequeathing  their  hereditary  rage 
To  the  new  race  of  inborn  slaves,  who  wage 
War  for  their  chains,  and  rather  than  be 

free, 

Bleed  gladiator-like  and  still  engage 
Within  the  same  arena  where  they  see 
Their  fellows  fall  before,   like  leaves  of  the 

same  tree."  * 

Has  ever  style  better  expressed  a 
soul  ?  It  is  seen  here  laboring  and  ex- 
panding. Long  and  stormily  the  ideas 
boiled  within  'this  soul  like  bars  of 
metal  heaped  in  the  furnace.  They 
melted  there  before  the  strain  of  the 
intense  heat;  they  mingled  therein 
their  heated  mass  amidst  convulsions 
and  explosions,  and  then  at  last  the 
door  is  opened ;  a  slow  stream  of  fire 
descends  into  the  trough  prepared  be- 
forehand, heating  the  circumambient 
air,  and  its  glittering  hues  scorch  the 
eyes  which  persist  in  looking  upon  il 

III. 

Description  and  monologue  did  not 
suffice  Byron ;  and  he  needed,  to  ex- 
press his  ideas,  events  and  actions. 
Only  events  try  the  force  and  elasticity 
of  the  soul ;  only  actions  display  and 
regulate  this  force  and  elasticity. 
Amidst  events  he  sought  for  the  most 
powerful,  amidst  actions  the  strongest ; 
and  we  see  appear  successively  The 
Bride  of  Abydos,  The  Giaour,  The  Cor- 
sair, Lara,  Parisina,  The  Siege  of  Cor- 
inth,  Alazeppa,  and  The  Prisoner  cj 
Chillon. 

I  know  that  these  sparkling  poems 
have  grown  dull  in  forty  years.  In 
their  necklace  of  Oriental  pearls  have 
been  discovered  beads  of  glass  ;  and 
Byron,  who  only  half  loved  them, 
judged  better  than  his  judges.  Yet  he 
judged  amiss ;  those  which  he  pre- 
ferred are  the  most  false.  His  Corsair 
is  marred  by  classic  elegancies:  the 
pirates'  song  at  the  beginning  is  no 

*  Ibid.  c.  iv .  93  and  94. 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


547 


truer  than  a  chorus  at  the  Italian 
Opera;  his  scamps  propound  philo- 
sophical antitheses  as  balanced  as  those 
of  Pope.  A  hundred  times  ambition, 
glory,  envy,  despair,  and  the  other 
abstract  personages,  whose  images  in 
the  time  of  the  first  Empire  the  French 
used  to  set  upon  their  drawing-room 
clocks,  break  in  amidst  living  pas- 
sions.* The  noblest  passages  are  dis- 
figured by  pedantic  apostrophes,  and 
the  pretentious  poetic  diction  sets  up 
its  threadbare  frippery  and  conven- 
tional ornaments,  t  Far  worse,  he 
studies  effect  and  follows  the  fashion. 
Melodramatic  strings  pull  his  charac- 
ters at  the  right  time,  so  as  to  obtain 
the  grimace  which  shall  make  his  pub- 
lic shudder : 

"  Who  thundering  comes  on  blackest  steed, 
With  slacken'd  bit  and  hoof  of  speed ! 
.  .  .  Approach,  them  craven  crouching  slave, 
Say,  is  not  this  Thermopylae  ?  " 

Wretched  mannerisms,  emphatic  and 
vulgar,  imitated  from  Lucan  and  our 
"  modern  Lucans,  but  which  produce 
their  effect  only  on  a  first  perusal,  and 
on  the  common  herd  of  readers.  There 
is  an  infallible  means  of  attracting  a 
mob,  which  is,  to  shout  out  loud  ;  with 
shipwrecks,  sieges,  murders,  and  com- 
bats, we  shall  always  interest  them ; 
show  them  pirates,  desperate  adven- 
turers,— these  distorted  or  raging  faces 
will  draw  them  out  of  their  regular  and 
monotonous  existence ;  they  will  go 
to  see  them  as  they  go  to  melodramas, 
and  through  the  same  instinct  which 
induces  them  to  read  novels  in  penny 
numbers.  Add,  by  way  of  contrast, 
angelic  women,  tender  and  submissive, 
beautiful  as  angels.  Byron  describes 
all  this,  and  adds  to  these  seductions 
a  bewitching  scenery,  oriental  or  pic- 
turesque adornments  ;  old  Alpine  cas- 
tles, the  Mediterranean  waves,  the 
sttting  suns  of  Greece,  the  whole  in 
high  relief,  with  marked  shadows  and 

*  For  example,  "  as  weeping  Beauty's  cheek 
at  Sorrow's  tale." 

t  Here  are  verses  like  Pope,  very  beautiful 
and  false : 
"  And  havock  loath  so  much  the  waste  of  time, 

She  scarce  had  left  an  uncommitted  crime. 

One    hour    beheld    him    since    the   tide  he 
slemm'd, 

Disguised,  discover'd,  conquering,  ta'en,  con- 
demn'd, 

A  chief  on  land,  an  outlaw  on  the  deep, 

Destroying,  saving,  prison'd,  and  asleep  1  " 


brilliant  colors.  We  are  all  of  the 
people,  as  regards  emotion  ;  and  the 
great  lady,  like  the  waiting- woman, 
sheds  tears,  without  cavilling  with  the 
author  as  to  the  means  he  uses. 

And  yet,  after  all,  there  is  a  grear 
deal  of  truth  in  Byron's  poems.  No; 
this  man  is  not  a  mere  arranger  of 
effects  or  an  inventor  of  phrases.  He 
has  lived  amidst  the  spectacles  he  de* 
scribed  ;  he  has  'experienced  the  emo- 
tions he  relates.  He  has  been  in  ths 
tent  of  AH  Pacha,  and  relished  *-^^ 
strong  savor  of  ocean  adventure  ixid 
savage  manners.  He  has  been. a  score 
of  times  near  death, — in  the  Morea,  in 
the  anguish  and  the  solitude  of  fever ; 
at  Suli,  in  a  shipwreck ;  at  Malta,  in 
England,  and  in  Italy,  in  the  dangers 
of  a  duel,  plots  of  insurrection,  com- 
mencements of  sudden  attacks,  at  sea, 
in  arms,  on  horseback,  having  seen 
assassination,  wounds,  agonies,  close 
to  him,  and  that  more  than  once.  "  I 
am  living  here  exposed  to  it  (assassin- 
ation) daily,  for  I  have  happened  to 
make  a  powerful  and  unprincipled  man 
my  enemy  ;  and  I  never  sleep  the  worse 
for  it,  or  ride  in  less  solitary  places, 
because  precaution  is  useless,  and 
one  thinks  of  it  as  of  a  disease  which 
may  or  may  not  strike."  *  He  spoke 
the  truth  ;  no  one  ever  held  himself 
more  erect  and  firm  in  danger.  One 
day,  near  the  Gulf  of  San  Fiorenzo, 
his  yacht  was  thrown  on  the  coast ; 
the  sea  was  terrific,  and  the  rocks  in 
sight ;  the  passengers  kissed  their  rr- 
saries,  or  fainted  with  horror  ;  and  the 
two  captains  being  consulted,  declared 
shipwreck  inevitable.  "  Well,"  said 
Lord  Byron,  "  we  are  all  born  to  die  ; 
I  shall  go  with  regret,  but  certainly  not 
with  fear."  And  he  took  off  his  clothes, 
begging  the  others  to  do  the  same,  not 
that  they  could  save  themselves  amidst 
such  waves ;  but  "  it  is  every  man's 
duty  to  endeavor  to  preserve  the  liie 
God  has  given  hi-m  ;  so  I  advise  you 
all  to  strip  :  swimming,  indeed,  can  be 
of  little  use  in  these  billows  ;  but  as 
children,  when  tired  with  crying,  sink 
placidly  to  repose,  we,  when  exhausted 
with  struggling,  shall  die  the  easi- 
er. .  ."  He  then  sat  down,  folded  hig 
arms,  very  calm ;  he  even  joked  wir^ 

*  Moore's  Life,  iv.  345. 


548 

the  captain,  who  was  putting  his  dol- 
lars into  his  waistcoat  pocket.  .  .  . 
The  ship  approached  the  rocks.  All 
this  time  Byron  was  not  seen  to  change 
countenance.  A  man  thus  tried  and 
moulded  can  paint  extreme  situations 
and  sentiments.  After  all,  they  are 
never  painted  otherwise  than  by  expe- 
rience. The  most  inventive — Dante 
and  Shakspeare — though  quite  differ- 
ent, yet  do  the  same  thing.  However 
high  their  genius  rose,  it  always  had 
its  feet  on  observation  ;  and  their  most 
foolish,  as  well  as  their  most  splendid 
pictures,  never  offered  to  the  world 
more  than  an  image  of  their  age,  or  of 
their  own  heart.  At  most,  they  deduce  ; 
that  is,  having  derived  from  two  or 
three  features  the  inward  qualities  of 
the  man  within  themselves  and  of  the 
men  around  them,  they  draw  thence, 
by  a  sudden  ratiocination  of  which 
they  have  no  consciousness,  the  varied 
skein  of  actions  and  sentiments.  They 
may  be  artists,  but  they  are  observers. 
They  may  invent,  but  they  describe. 
Their  glory  does  not  consist  in  the  dis- 
play of  a  'phantasmagoria,  but  in  the 
discovery  of  a  truth.  They  are  the 
first  to  enter  some  unexplored  prov- 
ince of  humanity,  which  becomes  their 
domain,  and  thenceforth  supports  their 
name  like  an  appanage.  Byron  found 
his  domain,  which  is  that  of  sad  and 
tender  sentiments  :  it  is  a  heath,  and 
full  of  ruins ;  but  he  is  at  home  there, 
and  he  is  alone. 

What  an  abode !  And  it  is  on  this 
desolation  that  he  dwells.  He  muses 
on  it.  See  the  brothers  of  Childe 
Harold  pass  —  the  characters  who 
people  it.  One  in  his  prison,  chained 
up  with  his  two  remaining  brothers. 
Their  father  and  three  others  had  per- 
ished fighting,  or  were  burnt  for  their 
faith.  One  by  one,  before  the  eyes  of 
the  eldest,  the  last  two  languish  and 
fade  :  a  silent  and  slow  agony  amidst 
the  damp  darkness  into  which  a  beam 
of  the  sickly  sun  pierces  through  a 
crevice.  After  the  death  of  the  first, 
the  survivors  "begged  as  a  boon  "  that 
he  shall  at  least  be  buried  on  a  spot 
"  whereon  the  day  might  shins."  The 
jailers 

"  Coldly  laugh'd — and  laid  him  there  • 
The  flat  and  turfless  earth  above 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  : 


The  being  we  so  much  did  love  ; 
His  empty  chain  above  it  leant."  * 

Then  the  youngest  "  faded  "  daily 

:  With  all  the  while  a  cheek  whose  bloom 
Was  as  a  mockery  of  the  tomb, 
Whose  tints  as  gently  sunk  away 
As  a  departing  rainbow's  ray."  t 

But  the  pillars  to  which  they  ara 
:hained  are  too  far  apart, — the  eldei 
cannot  approach  his  dying  younger 
brother  ;  he  listens  and  hears  the  fail- 
ing sighs ;  he  cries  for  succor,  and 
none  comes.  He  bursts  his  chain  with 
one  strong  bound :  all  is  over.  He 
takes  that  cold  hand,  and  then,  before 
the  motionless  body,  his  senses  are 
lost,  his  thoughts  arrested;  he  is  like 
a  drowning  man,  who,  after  passing 
through  pangs  of  agony,  lets  himself 
sink  down  like  a  stone,  and  no  longer 
feels  existence  but  by  a  complete  pet- 
rifaction or  horror.  Here  is  another 
brother  of  Childe  Harold,  Mazeppa, 
bound  naked  on  a  wild  horse,  rushing 
over  the  steppes.  He  writhes,  and  his 
swollen  limbs,  cut  by  the  cords,  are 
bleeding.  A  whole  day  the  course 
continues,  and  behind  him  the  wolves 
are  howling.  The  night  through  he 
hears  their  long  monotonous  chase, 
and  at  the  end  his  energy  fails. 

"...  The  earth  gave  way,  the  skies  roll'd 

round, 

I  seem'd  to  sink  upon  the  ground  ; 
But  err'd,  for  I  was  fastly  bound. 
My  heart  turn'd  sick,  my  brain  grew  sore, 
And  throbb'd  awhile,  then  beat  no  more  \ 
The  skies  spun  like  a  mighty  wheel ; 
1  saw  the  trees  like  drunkards  reel, 
And  a  slight  flash  sprang  o'er  my  eyes, 
Which  saw  no  further  :  he  who  dies 
Can  die  no  more  than  then  I  died.  .  .  . , 
I  felt  the  blackness  come  and  go, 
And  strove  to  wake  ;  but  could  not  make 
My  senses  climb  up  from  below : 
I  felt  as  on  a  plank  at  sea, 
When  all  the  waves  that  dash  o'er  thee, 
At  the  same  time  upheave  and  whelm,    • 
And  hurl  thee  towards  a  desert  realm."  % 

Shall  I  enumerate  them  all?  Hugo, 
Parisina,  the  Foscari,  the  Giaour,  the 
Corsair.  His  hero  is  always  a  man 
striving  with  the  worst  anguish,  face  to 
face  with  shipwreck,  torture,  death. — • 
his  own  painful  and  prolonged  death, 
the  bitter  death  of  his  well-beloved, 
with  remorse  for  his  companion, 

*  Byron's  Works,  x.    The  Prisoner  of  Chik 
Ion,  c.  vii.  234.  t  Ibid.  c.  viii.  235. 

t  Ibid,  xi.,  Mazeppa^  c.  xiii.  167. 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


549 


amidst  the  gloomy  prospects  of  a 
threatening  eternity,  with  no  other 
support  but  innate  energy  and  hard- 
ened pride.  These  men  have  desired 
too  much,  too  impetuously,  with  a 
senseless  swing,  like  a  horse  which 
does  not  feel  the  bit,  and  thenceforth 
their  inner  doom  drives  them  to  the 
abyss  which  they  see,  and  cannot  es- 
cape from.  What  a  nighl  was  that  of 
Alp  before  Corinth  !  He  is  a  rene- 
gade, and  comes  with  the  Mussulmans 
to  besiege  the  Christians,  his  old 
friends-- --Minotti,  the  father  of  the  girl 
he  loves,  Next  day  he  is  to  lead  the 
assault,  and  he  thinks  of  his  death, 
which  he  forebodes,  the  carnage  of  his 
own  soldiers,  which  he  is  preparing. 
There  is  no  inner  support,  but  rooted 
resentment  and  a  firm  and  stern  will. 
The  Mussulmans  despise  him,  the 
Christians  execrate  him,  and  his  glory 
only  publishes  his  treason.  Dejected 
and  fevered,  he  passes  through  the 
sleeping  camp,  and  wanders  on  the 
shore : 

"  'Tis  midnight  :  on  the  mountains  brown 
The  cold,  round  moon  shines  deeply  down  J 
Blue  roll  the  waters,  blue  the  sky 
Spreads  like  an  ocean  hung  on  high, 
Bespangled  with  those  isles  of  light.   .  .  . 
The  waves  on  either  shore  lay  there 
Calm,  clear,  and  azure  as  the  air  ; 
And  scarce  their  foam  the  pebbles  shook, 
But  murmur' d  meekly  as  the  brook. 
The  winds  were  pillow'd  on  the  waves  ; 
The  banners  droop'd  along  their  staves.  .  .  . 
And  that  deep  silence  was  unbroke, 
Save  where  the  watch  his  signal  spoke, 
Save    where    the     steed    neighed     oft    and 

shrill,  .  .  . 

And  the  wide  hum  of  that  wild  host 
Rustled  like  leaves  from  coast  to  coast."  .  .  .* 

How  the  heart  sickens  before  such 
spectacles  1  What  a  contrast  between 
his  agony  and  the  peace  of  immortal 
nature!  How  man  stretches  then  his 
arms  towards  ideal  beauty,  and  how 
impotently  they  fall  back  at  the  con- 
tact of  our  clay  and  mortality  1  Alp 
advances  over  the  sandy  shore  to  the 
foot  of  the  bastion,  exposed  to  the  fire 
of  the  sentinels ;  and  he  hardly  thinks 
of  it: 

*'  And  he  saw  the  lean  dogs  beneath  the  wall 
Hold  o'er  the  dead  their  carnival, 
Gorging  and  growling  o'er  carcase  and  limb  J 
They  were  too  busy  to  '.ark  at  him  1 

*  Byron's  Wcrks,  x.  The  Siege  of  Corinth, 
c.  xi.  116. 


From  a  Tartar's  skull  they  had  stripped  the 

flesh, 

As  ye  peel  the  fig  when  its  fruit  is  fresh  ; 
And   their  white   tusks    crunched    o'er   the 

whiter  skull, 
As  it  slipp'd  through  their  jaws,  when  their 

edge  grew  dull. 
As  they  lazily  mumbled   the   bones   of   the 

dead, 
When  they  scarce  could  rise  from  the  spot 

where  they  fed  ; 

So  well  had  they  broken  a  lingering  fast 
With  those  who  had  fallen  for  that  night's  re- 
past. 
And  Alp  knew,  by  the  turbans  that  roll'd  on 

the  sand, 
The  foremost  of  these  were  the  best  of  his 

band: 
Crimson  and  green  were  the  shawls  of  their 

wear, 

And  each  scalp  had  a  single  long  tuft  of  hair, 
All  the  rest  was  shaven  and  bare. 
The  scalps  were  in  the  wild  dog's  maw, 
The  hair  was  tangled  round  his  jaw. 
But  close  by  the  shore  on  the  edge  of  the 

There  sat  a  vulture  flapping  a  wolf, 

Who   had   stolen   from  the   hills,   but  kept 

away, 

Scared  by  the  dogs,  from  the  human  prey  ; 
But  he  seized  on  his  share  of  a  steed  that 

lay, 
Pick'd  by  the  birds,  on  the  sands  of  the 

bay."* 

Such  is  the  goal  of  man  ;  the  hot  frenzy 
of  life  ends  here ;  buried  or  not,  it 
matters  little  :  vultures  or  jackals,  one 
gravedigger  is  as  good  as  another. 
The  storm  of  his  rages  and  his  efforts 
have  but  served  to  cast  him  to  these 
animals  for  their  food,  and  to  their 
beaks  and  jaws  he  comes  only  with  the 
sentiment  of  frustrated  hopes  and  in- 
satiable desires.  Could  any  of  u-s  forget 
the  death  of  Lara  after  once  reading 
it  ?  Has  any  one  elsewhere  seen,  save 
in  Shakspeare,  a  sadder  picture  of  the 
destiny  of  a  man  vainly  rearing  against 
inevitable  fate  ?  Though  generous,  like 
Macbeth,  he  has,  like  Macbeth,  dared 
every  thing  against  law  and  conscience, 
even  against  pity  and  the  most  ordinary 
feelings  of  honor.  Crimes  committed 
have  forced  him  into  other  crimes,  and 
blood  poured  out  has  made  him  glide 
into  a  pool  of  blood.  As  a  corsair,  he 
has  slain  ;  as  a  cut-throat,  he  assassi- 
nates ;  and  his  former  murders  which 
haunt  his  dreams  come  with  their  bat's- 
wings  beating  against  the  portals  of 
his  brain.  He  does  not  drive  them 
away,  these  black  visitors ;  though  the 
mouth  remains  silent,  the  pallid  brow 
*  Ibid.  c.  xvi.  123. 


550 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


and  strange  smile  bear  witness  to  their 
approach.  And  yet  it  is  a  noble  spec- 
tacle to  see  man  standing  with  calm 
countenance  even  under  their  touch. 
The  last  day  comes,  and  six  inches  of 
iron  suffice  for  all  this  energy  and  fury. 
Lara  is  lying  beneath  a  lime  tree,  and 
his  wound  "  is  bleeding  fast  from  life 
away."  With  each  convulsion  the 
stream  gushes  blacker,  then  stops  ;  the 
blood  flows  now  only  drop  by  drop, 
and  his  brow  is  already  moist,  his  eyes 
dim.  The  victors  arrive — he  does  not 
deign  to  answer  them ;  the  priest  brings 
near  the  absolving  cross,  "  but  he 
look'd  upon  it  with  an  eye  profane." 
What  remains  to  him  of  life  is  for  his 
poor  page,  the  only  being  who  loved 
him,  who  has  followed  him  to  the  end, 
and  who  now  tries  to  stanch  the  blood 
from  his  wound  : 

'*  He  scarce  can  speak,  but  motions  him  'tis 

vain, 
He  clasps  the  hand  that  pang  which  would 

assuage, 
And   sadly  smiles  his  thanks  to  that  dark 

page.  .  .  . 

His  dying  tones  are  in  that  other  tongue, 
To  which  some  strange  remembrance  wildly 

clung.  .  .  . 
And  once,   as   Kaled's    answering    accents 

ceased, 

Rose  Lara's  hand,  and  pointed  to  the  East : 
Whether  (as  then  the  breaking  sun  from  high 
Roll'd  back  the  clouds)  the  morrow  caught 

his  eye, 
Or  that  twas  chance,  or  some  remember'd 

scene, 
That  raised  his  arm  to  point  where  such  had 

been, 
Scarce  Kaled  seem'd  to  know,  but  turn'd 

away, 

As  if  his  heart  abhorr'd  that  coming  day, 
And  shrunk  his  glance  before  that  morning 

light, 
To  look  on  Lara's  brow — where  all  grew 

night.  .  .  . 

But  from  his  visage  little  could  we  guess, 
So  unrepentant,  dark,  and  passionless.  .  .  . 
But  gasping  heaved   the   breath   that   Lara 

drew, 

And  dull  the  film  along  his  dim  eye  grew  ; 
His  limbs  stretch'd  fluttering,  and  his  head 

droop'd  o'er."  * 

All  15  over,  and  of  this  haughty  spirit 
there  remains  but  a  poor  piece  of  clay. 
After  all,  it  is  the  desirable  lot  of  such 
hearts  ;  they  have  spent  life  amiss,  and 
only  rest  well  in  the  tomb. 

A  strange  and  altogether  northern 
poetry,  with  its  root  in  the  Edda  and 
its  flower  in  Shakspeare,  born  long  ago 

*  Byron's  Works,  x. ;  Lara,  c.  2,  st.  17-20, 
60. 


under  an  inclement  sky,  on  the  shores 
of  a  stormy  ocean, — the  work  of  a  too 
wilful,  too  strong,  too  sombre  race, — 
and  which,  after  lavishing  its  images 
of  desolation  and  heroism,  ends  by 
stretching  like  a  black  veil  over  the 
whole  of  living  nature  the  dream  of 
universal  destruction ;  this  dream  is 
here,  as  in  the  Edda,  almost  equally 
grand : 

"  I  had  a  dream,  which  was  not  all  a  dream. 
The  bright  sun  was   extinguish'd,  and   the 

stars 

Did  wander  darkling  in  the  eternal  space, 
Rayless,  and  pathless,  and  the  icy  earth 
Swung  blind  and  blackening  in  the  moonless 

air  ; 
Morn  came  and  went — and  came,  and  brought 

no  day.  .  .  . 

Forests  were  set  on  fire— but  hour  by  hour 
They    fell    and    faded — and    the    crackling 

trunks 
Extinguish'd    with    a    crash — and    all    was 

black.  .  .  . 
And    they  did  live  by  watchfires — and  the 

thrones, 

The  palaces  of  crowned  kings — the  huts, 
The  habitations  of  all  things  which  dwell, 
Were   burnt  for  beacons  ;  cities  were  con- 
sumed, 
And  men  were  gathered  round  their  blazing 

hom°s 

To  look  once  more  into  each  other's  face.  .  . 
The  brows  of  men  by  the  despairing  light 
Wore  an  unearthly  aspect,  as  by  fits 
The  flashes  fell  upon  them  ;  some  lay  down 
And  hid  their  eyes  and  wept ;  and  some  did 

rest 
Their  chins  upon  their  clenched  hands,  and 

smiled  ; 

And  others  hurried  to  and  fro,  and  fed 
Their  funeral  piles  with  fuel,  and  look'd  up 
With  mad  disquietude  on  the  dull  sky, 
The  pall  of  a  past  world  ;  and  then  again 
With  curses  cast  them  down  upon  the  dust, 
And  gnash 'd  their  teeth  and  howl'd  :  the  wild 

birds  shriek'd, 

And,  terrified,  did  flutter  on  the  ground, 
And   flap   their  useless  wings ;    the  wildest 

brutes 
Came    tame     and    tremulous ;    and    vipers 

crawl'd 

And  twined  themselves  among  the  multitude, 
Hissing,  but  stingless — they  were  slain  for 

food : 

And  War,  which  for  a  moment  was  no  more, 
Did  glut  himself  again  ; — a  meal  was  bought 
With  blood,  and  each  sate  sullenly  apart 
Gorging  himself  in  gloom  :  no  love  was  left ; 
All  earth  was  but  one  thought — and  that  was 

death, 

Immediate  and  inglorious  ;  and  the  pang 
Of  famine  fed  upon  all  entrails — men 
Died,  and  their  bones  were  tombless  as  their 

flesh  ; 

The  meagre  by  the  meagre  were  devour'd, 
Even  dogs  assail'd  their  masters,  all  sav« 

one, 
And  he  was  faithful  to  a  corse,  and  kept 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


55* 


The  birds  and  beasts  and  famish'd  men  at 

bay, 
Till   hunger   clung  them,    or    the   dropping 

dead  ^ 
Lured  their  lank  jaws  ;  himself  sought  out  no 

food, 

But  with  a  piteous  and  perpetual  moan, 
And  a  quick  desolate  cry,  licking  the  hand 
Which  answer' d  not  with  a  caress — he  died. 
The  crowd  was  famish'd  by  degrees  ;    but 

two 

Of  an  enormous  city  did  survive, 
And  they  were  enemies  :  they  met  beside 
The  dying  embers  of  an  altar-place 
Where  had  been  heap'd  a  mass  of  holy  things 
For  an  unholy  usage  ;  they  raked  up, 
And  shivering  scraped  with  their  cold  skeleton 

hands 

The  feeble  ashes,  and  their  feeble  breath 
Blew  for  a  little  life,  and  made  a  flame 
Which  was  a  mockery  ;  then  they  lifted  up 
Their  eyes  as  it  grew  lighter,  and  beheld 
Each  other's  aspects — saw,  and  shriek 'd,  and 

died— 
Even    of    their    mutual    hideousness    they 

died."  *  ... 

IV. 

Amongst  these  unrestrained  and 
gloomy  poems,  which  incessantly  re- 
turn and  dwell  on  the  same  subject, 
there  is  one  more  imposing  and  lofty 
than  the  rest,  Manfred,  twin-brother  of 
the  greatest  poem  of  the  age,  Goethe's 
Faust.  Goethe  says  of  Byron  :  "  This 
singular  intellectual  poet  has  taken  my 
Faustus  to  himself,  and  extracted  from 
it  the  strongest  nourishment  for  his 
hypochondriac  humor.  He  has  made 
use  of  the  impelling  principles  in  his 
own  way,  for  his  own  purposes,  so  that 
no  one  of  them  remains  the  same  ;  and 
it  is  particularly  on  this  account  that  I 
cannot  enough  admire  his  genius." 
The  play  is  indeed  original.  Byron 
writes  :  "  His  (Goethe's)  Faust  I  never 
read,  for  I  don't  know  German ;  but 
Matthew  Monk  Lewis,  in  1816,  at  Co- 
ligny,  translated  most  of  it  to  me  vivd 
voce,  and  I  was  naturally  much  struck 
with  it ;  but  it  was  the  Steinbach  and  the 
Jungfrau  and  something  else,  much 
more  than  Faustus,  that  made  me  write 
Manfred."  t  Goethe  adds  :  "  The 
whole  is  so  completely  formed  anew, 
that  it  would  be  an  interesting  task 
for  the  critic  to  point  out  not  only  the 
alterations  he  (Byron)  has  made,  but 
their  degree  of  resemblance  or  dissimi- 
larity to  the  original."  Let  us  spea \ 

*  Byron's  Works,  x.  ;  Darkness,  283. 
\  Ibid.  iv.   320 ;     Letter    to  Mr.    Murray, 
Ravenna,  June  7,  1820. 


of  it,  then,  quite  freely  :  the  subject  of 
Manfred  is  the  dominant  idea  of  the 
age,  expressed  so  as  to  display  the 
contrast  of  two  masters,  and  of  two  na- 
tions. 

What  constitutes  Goethe's  glory  is, 
that  in  the  nineteenth  century  he  did 
produce  an  epic  poem — I  mean  a  poem 
in  which  genuine  gods  act  and  speal*. 
This  appeared  impossible  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  since  the  special  work 
of  our  age  is  the  refined  consideiation 
of  creative  ideas,  and  the  suppression 
of  the  poetic  characters  by  which  other 
ages  have  never  failed  to  represent 
them.  Of  the  two  divine  families,  the 
Greek  and  the  Christian,  neither  seem- 
ed capable  of  re-entering  the  epic 
world.  Classic  literature  dragged  down 
in  its  fall  the  mythological  puppets, 
and  the  ancient  gods  slept  on  their  old 
Olympus,  whither  history  and  archae- 
ology alone  might  go  to  arouse  them. 
The  angels  and  saints  of  the  middle 
ages,  as  strange  and  almost  as  far  from 
our  thoughts,  slept  on  the  vellum  of 
their  missals  arid  in  the  niches  of  their 
cathedrals  ;  and  if  a  poet  like  Chateau- 
briand, tried  to  make  them  enter  the 
modern  world,*  he  succeeded  only  in 
degrading  them,  and  in  making  of  them 
vestry  decorations  and  operatic  ma- 
chinery. The  mythic  credulity  disap- 
peared amid  the  growth  of  experience, 
the  mystic  amid  the  growth  of  prosper- 
ity. Paganism,  at  the  contact  of 
science,  was  reduced  to  the  recognition 
of  natural  forces  ;  Christianity  at  the 
contact  of  morality,  was  reduced  to  the 
adoration  of  the  ideal.  In  order  again 
to  deify  physical  powers,  man  should 
have  become  once  more  a  healthy 
child,  as  in  Homer's  time.  In  order 
again  to  deify  spiritual  powers,  man 
should  have  become  once  more  a  sick- 
ly child,  as  in  Dante's  time.  But  he 
was  an  adult,  and  could  not  ascend 
again  to  civilizations  or  epics,  from 
which  the  current  of  his  thought  and 
of  his  life  had  withdrawn  him  forever. 
How  was  he  to  be  shown  his  gods,  the 
modern  gods  ?  how  could  he  reclolhe 
them  in  a  personal  and  visible  form, 
since  he  had  toiled  to  strip  them  pre- 
cisely of  all  personal  and  sensible  form, 

*  The  angel  of  holy  lovesj  the  angel  of  the 
ocean,  the  choirs  of  happy  spirits.  See  this  at 
length  in  the  Martyrs. 


552 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


and  had  succeeded  in  this.  Instead  of 
rejecting  legend,  Goethe  took  it  up 
again.  He  chose  a  mediaeval  story  for 
his  theme.  Carefully,  scrupulously, 
he  tracked  old  manners  and  old  be- 
liefs ;  an  alchemist's  laboratory,  a  sor- 
cerer's conjuring-book,  coarse  villagers, 
students'  or  drunkards'  gayety,  a  witch- 
QS'  meeting  on  the  Brocken,  a  mass  in 
church  ;  we  might  fancy  we  saw  an 
engraving  of  Luther's  time,  conscien- 
tious and  minute :  nothing  is  omitted. 
Heavenly  characters  appear  in  conse- 
crated attitudes  after  the  text  of  Scrip- 
ture, like  the  old  mysteries :  the  Lord 
with  his  angels,  then  with  the  devil, 
who  comes  to  ask  permission  to  tempt 
Faust,  as  formerly  he  tempted  Job  ; 
heaven,  as  St.  Francis  imagined  it  and 
Van  Eyck  painted  it,  with  anchorites, 
holy  women  and  doctors — some  in  a 
landscape  with  bluish  rocks,  others 
above  in  the  sublime  air,  hovering  in 
choirs  about  the  Virgin  in  glory,  one 
tier  above  another.  Goethe  affects 
even  to  be  so  orthodox  as  to  write  un- 
der each  her  Latin  name,  and  her  due 
niche  in  the  Vulgate.*  And  this  very 
fidelity  proclaims  him  a  skeptic.  We 
see  that  if  he  resuscitates  the  ancient 
world,  it  is  as  a  historian,  not  as  a  be- 
liever. He  is  only  a  Christian  through 
remembrance  and  poetic  feeling.  In 
him  the  modern  spirit  overflows  de- 
signedly the  narrow  vessel  in  which  he 
designedly  seems  to  enclose  it.  The 
thinker  percolates  through  the  narra- 
tor. Every  instant  a  calculated  word, 
which  seems  involuntary,  opens  up 
glimpses  of  philosophy,  beyond  the 
veils  of  tradition.  Who  are  they,  these 
supernatural  personages,  —  this  god, 
this  Mephistopheles,  these  angels  ? 
Their  substance  incessantly  dissolves 
and  re-forms,  to  show  or  hide  alternate- 
ly the  idea  which  fills  it.  Are  they 
abstractions  or  characters  ?  Mephis- 
topheles, a  revolutionary  and  a  philoso- 
pher, who  has  read  Candide,  and  cyni- 
cally jeers  at  the  Powers, — is  he  any- 
thing but  "  the  spirit  of  negation  ?  " 
The  angels 

'*  Rejoice  to  share 

The  wealth  exuberant  of  all  that's  fair, 
Which  lives,  and  has  its  being  everywhere  ! 

*  Magna  peccatrix,  S.  Lucae,  vii.  36;  Mulier 
Samaritana,  S.  Johannis,  iv.  ;  Maria 
tiaca  (Acta  Sanctorum),  etc. 


And  tbe  creative  essence  which  surrounds, 
And  lives  in  all,  and  worketh  ever  more, 
Encompass  .  .  .  within  love's  gracious  bounds  ; 
And  all  the  world  of  things,  which  flit  before 
The  gaze  in  seeming  fitful  and  obscure, 
Do  ...  in  lasting  thoughts  embody  and  se« 
cure."* 

Are  these  angels,  for  an  instant  at  least 
any  thing  else  than  the  ideal  intelligence 
which  comes,  through  sympathy,  to 
love  all,  and  through  ideas,  to  compre- 
hend all  ?  What  shall  we  say  of  this 
Deity,  at  first  biblical  and  individual, 
who  little  by  little  is  unshaped,  van- 
ishes and,  sinking  to  the  depths,  be- 
hind the  splendors  of  living  nature  and 
mystic  reverie,  is  confused  with  the  in- 
accessible absolute  ?  Thus  is  the 
whole  poem  unfolded,  action  and  char- 
acters, men  and  gods,  antiquity  and 
middle  ages,  aggregate  and  details, 
always  on  the  confines  of  two  worlds 
— one  visible  and  figurative,  the  other 
intelligible  and  formless  ;  one  compre- 
hending the  moving  externals  of  his- 
tory or  of  life,  and  all  that  hued  and 
perfumed  bloom  which  nature  lavishes 
on  the  surface  of  existence,  the  other 
containing  the  profound  generative 
powers  and  invisible  fixed  laws  by 
which  all  these  living  beings  come  to 
the  light  of  day.t  At  last  we  see  ou> 
gods  :  we  no  longer  parody  them,  like 
our  ancestors,  by  idols  or  persons  :  we 
perceive  them  as  they  are  in  them- 
selves, and  we  have  no  need,  in  order 
to  see  them,  to  renounce  poetry,  nor 
break  with  the  past.  We  remain  on 
our  knees  before  the  shrines  where 
men  have  prayed  for  three  thousand 
years ;  we  do  not  tear  a  single  rose 
from  the  chaplets  with  which  they 
have  crowned  their  divine  Madonnas ; 
we  do  not  extinguish  a  single  candle 
which  they  have  crowded  on  the  altar 
steps  ;  we  behold  with  an  artist's  pleas- 
ure the  precious  shrines  where,  amidst 
the  wrought  candlesticks,  the  suns  of 
diamonds,  the  gorgeous  copes,  they 
have  scattered  the  purest  treasures  of 
their  genius  and  their  heart.  But  our 
thoughts  pierce  further  than  our  eyes. 
For  us,  at  certain  moments,  these  dra- 

*  Goethe's  Faust,  translated  by  Theodore 
Martin.     Prologue  in  Heaven. 

t  Goethe  sings  : 

"  Wer   ruft    das    Einselne    zur    allgemeinen 
Weihe 

Wo  es  in  herrlichen  Accorden  schlagt  ?  " 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


553 


peries,  this  marble,  all  this  pomp  va- 
cillates ;  it  is  no  longer  aught  but 
beautiful  phantoms  ;  it  vanishes  in  the 
smoke,  and  we  discover  through  it  and 
behind  it  the  impalpable  ideal  which 
has  set  up  these  pillars,  lighted  these 
roofs,  and  hovered  for  centuries  over 
the  kneeling  multitude. 

To  understand  the  legend  and  also 
to  understand  life,  is  the  object  of  this 
work,  and  of  the  whole  work  of  Goethe. 
Every  thing,  brutish  or  rational,  vile  or 
sublime,  fantastic  or  tangible,  is  a  group 
of  powers,  of  which  our  mind,  through 
study  and  sympathy,  may  reproduce  in 
itself  the  elements  and  the  disposition. 
Let  us  reproduce  it,  and  give  it  in  our 
thought  a  new  existence.  Is  a  gossip 
like  Martha,  babbling  and  foolish — a 
drunkard  like  Frosch,  brawling  and 
dirty,  and  the  other  Dutch  boors — un- 
worthy to  enter  a  picture  ?  Even  the 
female  apes,  and  the  apes  who  sit  be- 
side the  cauldron,  watching  that  it  does 
not  boil  over,  with  their  hoarse  cries 
and  disordered  fancies,  may  repay  the 
trouble  of  art  in  restoring  them. 
Wherever  there  is  life,  even  bestial 
or  maniacal,  there  is  beauty.  The 
more  we  look  upon  nature,  the  more 
we  find  it  divine — divine  even  in  rocks 
and  plants.  Consider  these  forests, 
they  seem  motionless  ;  but  the  leaves 
breathe,  and  the  sap  mounts  insensibly 
through  the  massive  trunks  and  branch- 
es, to  the  slender  shoots,  stretched  like 
fingers  at  the  end  of  -the  twigs  ;  it  fills 
the  swollen  ducts,  leaks  out  in  living 
forms,  loads  the  frail  aments  with 
fecundating  dust,  spreads  profusely 
through  the  fermenting  air  the  vapors 
and  odors  :  this  luminous  air,  this  dome 
of  verdure,  this  long  colonnade  of  trees, 
this  silent  soil,  labor  and  are  trans- 
formed ;  they  accomplish  a  work,  and 
the  poet's  heart  has  but  to  listen  to 
Ihem  t<  find  a  voice  for  their  obscure 
Instincts.  They  speak  in  his  heart; 
still  better,  they  sing,  and  other  beings 
do  the  same  ;  each,  by  its  distinct  mel- 
ody, short  or  long,  strange  or  simple, 
solely  adapted  to  its  nature,  capable  of 
manifesting  it  fully,  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  a  sound,  by  its  pitch,  its  height, 
its  for^e,  manifests  the  inner  structure 
of  the  body  which  has  produced  it. 
This  melody  the  poet  respects ;  he 
avoids  altering  it  by  confusing  its  ideas 


or  accent ;  his  whole  care  is  to  keep  it 
intact  and  pure.  Thus  is  his  work 
produced,  an  echo  of  universal  nature, 
a  vast  chorus  in  which  gods,  men,  past, 
present,  all  periods  of  history,  all  con- 
ditions of  life,  all  orders  of  existence 
agree  without  confusion,  and  in  which 
the  flexible  genius  of  the  musician,  who 
is  alternately  transformed  into  each 
one  of  them  in  order  to  interpret  and 
comprehend  them,  only  bears  witness 
to  his  own  thought  in  giving  an  insight, 
beyond  this  immense  harmony,  into 
the  group  of  ideal  laws  whence  it  is 
derived,  and  the  inner  reason  which 
sustains  it. 

Beside  this  lofty  conception,  what  is 
the  supernatural  part  of  Manfred  ? 
Doubtless  Byron  is  moved  by  the  great 
things  of  nature ;  he  has  just  left  the 
Alps  ;  he  has  seen  those  glaciers  which 
are  like  "  a  frozen  hurricane," — those 

torrents  which  roll  the  sheeted  silver's 
waving  column  o'er  the  crag's  head- 
long perpendicular,  like  the  pale  cour- 
ser's tale,  as  told  in  the  Apocalypse," — 
but  he  has  brought  nothing  from  them 
but  images.  His  witch,  his  spirits,  his 
Arimanes,  are  but  stage  gods.  He  be- 
lieves in  them  no  more  than  we  do. 
Genuine  gods  are  created  with  much 
greater  difficulty  ;  we  must  believe  in 
them  ;  we  must,  like  Goethe,  have  as- 
sisted long  at  their  birth,  like  philoso- 
phers and  scholars  ;  we  must  have  seen 
of  them  more  than  their  externals.  He 
who,  whilst  continuing  a  poet,  becomes 
a  naturalist  and  geologist,  who  has  fol- 
lowed in  the  fissures  of  the  rocks  the 
tortuous  waters  slowly  distilled,  and 
driven  at  length  by  their  own  weight 
to  the  light,  may  ask  himself,  as  the 
Greeks  did  formerly,  when  they  saw 
them  roll  and  sparkle  in  their  emerald 
tints,  what  these  waters  might  be  think- 
ing, whether  they  thought.  What  a 
strange  life  is  theirs,  alternately  at  rest 
and  in  violent  motion  !  How  far  re- 
moved from  ours  !  With  what  effort 
must  we  tear  ourselves  from  our  worn 
and  complicated  passions,  to  compre- 
hend the  youth  and  divine  simplicity 
of  a  being  without  reflection  and  form  I 
How  difficult  is  such  a  work  for  a  mod- 
ern manl  How  impossible  for  an 
Englishman !  Shelley,  Keats  approach- 
ed it, — thanks  to  the  nervous  delicacy 
of  their  sickly  or  overflowing  imagina- 
24 


554 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BooK  IV 


tion  ;  but  how  partial  still  was  this  ap- 
proach !  And  how  we  feel,  on  reading 
them,  that  they  would  have  needed  the 
aid  of  public  culture,  and  the  aptitude 
of  national  genius,  which  Goethe  pos- 
sessed 1  That  which  the  whole  of  civ- 
ilization has  alone  developed  in  the 
Englishman,  is  energetic  will  and  prac- 
tical faculties.  Here  man  has  braced 
himself  up  in  his  efforts,  become  con- 
centrated m  resistance,  fond  of  action, 
and  hence  shut  out  from  pure  specula- 
tion, from  wavering  sympathy,  and 
from  disinterested  art.  'in  him  meta- 
physical liberty  has  perished  under 
utilitarian  preoccupation,  and  panthe- 
istic reverie  under  moral  prejudices. 
How  would  he  frame  and  bend  his  im- 
agination so  as  to  follow  the  number- 
less and  fugitive  outlines  of  existences, 
especially  of  vague  existences  ?  How 
would  he  leave  his  religion  so  as  to  re- 
produce indifferently  the  powers  of  in- 
different nature  ?  And  who  is  further 
from  flexibility  and  indifference  than 
he  ?  The  flowing  water,  which  in  Goethe 
takes  the  mould  of  all  the  contours  of 
the  soil,  and  which  we  perceive  in  the 
sinuous  and  luminous  distance  beneath 
the  golden  mist  which  it  exhales,  was  in 
Byron  suddenly  frozen  into  a  mass  of 
ice,  and  makes  but  a  rigid  block  of 
crystal.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  there  is 
but  one  character,  the  same  as  before. 
Men,  gods,  nature,  all  the  changing 
and  multiplex  world  of  Goethe,  has 
vanished.  The  poet  alone  subsists,  as 
expressed  in  his  character.  Inevitably 
imprisoned  within  himself,  he  could 
see  nothing  but  himself;  if  he  must 
come  to  other  existences,  it  is  that  they 
may  reply  to  him ;  and  through  this 
pretended  epic  he  persisted  in  his  eter- 
nal monologue. 

But  how  all  these  powers,  assembled 
in  a  single  being,  make  him  great ! 
Into  what  mediocrity  and  platitude 
sinks  the  Faust  of  Goethe,  compared 
to  Manfred  !  As  soon  as  we  cease  to 
see  humanity  in  this  Faust,  what  does 
he  become  ?  Is  he  a  hero  ?  A  sad 
hero,  who  has  no  other  task  but  to 
speak,  is  afraid,  studies  the  shades  of 
his  sensations,  and  walks  about !  His 
worst  action  is  to  seduce  a  grisette, 
and  to  go  and  dance  by  night  in  bad 
company — two  exploits  which  many  a 
German  student  has  accomplished. 


His  wilfulness  is  whim,  his  ideas  are 
longings  and  dreams.  A  poet's  soul  in 
a  scholar's  head,  both  unfit  for  action, 
and  not  harmonizing  well  together; 
discord  within,  and  weakness  without ; 
in  short,  character  is  wanting :  it  is 
German  all  over.  By  his  side,  what  a 
man  is  Manfred  !  He  is  a  man  ;  there 
is  no  fitter  word,  or  one  which  could 
depict  him  better.  He  will  not,  at  the 
sight  of  a  spirit,  "  quake  like  a  crawl 
ing,  cowering,  timorous  worm."  He 
will  not  regret  that  "  he  has  neither 
land,  nor  pence,  nor  worldly  honors, 
nor  influence."  He  will  not  let  him- 
self be  duped  by  the  devil  like  a  school- 
boy, or  go  and  amuse  -himself  like  a 
cockney  with  the  phantasmagoria  of 
the  Brocken.  He  has  lived  like  a  feu« 
dal  chief,  not  like  a  scholar  who  has 
taken  his  degree  ;  he  has  fought,  master 
ed  others  ;  he  knows  how  to  mastel 
himself.  If  he  has  studied  magic  arts, 
it  is  not  from  an  alchemist's  curiosity, 
but  from  a  spirit  of  revolt : 

"  From  my  youth  upwards 
My  spirit  walk'd  not  with  the  souls  of  men, 
Nor  look'd    upon    the    earth  with    human 

eyes  ; 

The  thirst  of  their  ambition  was  not  mine, 
The  aim  of  their  existence  was  not  mine  ; 
My  joys,  my  griefs,  my  passions,  and  my  pow- 
ers 
Made  me  a  stranger ;  though   I  wore  the 

form, 

I  had  no  sympathy  with  breathing  flesh.  .  .  . 
My  joy  was  in  the  Wilderness,  to  breathe 
The  difficult  air  of  the  iced  mountain's  top, 
Where  the  birds  dare  not  build,  nor  insect's 

wing 

Filt  o'er  the  herbless  granite,  or  to  plunge 
Into  the  torrent,  and  to  roll  along 
On    the    swift  whirl    of    the    new  breaking 

wave.  .  .  . 
To    follow  through  the    night  the  moving 

moon, 

The  stars  and  their  development ;  or  catch 
The   dazzling  lightnings   till   my  eyes  grew 

dim  ; 

Or  to  look,  list'ning,  on  the  scatter'd  leaves, 
While  Autumn  winds  were  at  their  evening 

song. 

These  were  my  pastimes,  and  to  be  alone  ; 
For  if  the  beings,  of  whom  I  was  one, — 
Hating  to  be  so, — cross'd  me  in  my  path, 
I  feit  myself  degraded  back  to  them, 
And  was  ali  clay  again.  .  .  .* 
I  could  not  tame  my  nature  down  ;  for  he 
Must  serve  who  fain  would  sway — and  soothe 

— and  sue — 

And  watch  all  time — and  pry  into  all  place — 
And  be  a  living  lie — who  would  become 
A  mighty  thing  amongst  the  mean,  and  such 

*  Byron's  Works,  xi.  ;  Manfred^  ii.  2,  32. 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


555 


The  mass  are  ;  I  disdain'd  to  mingle  with 
A    herd,    though     to    be    leader — and    of 

wolves.  .  .  .* 

He  lives  alone,  and  he  cannot  live 
alone.  The  deep  source  of  love,  cut 
off  from  its  natural  issues,  then  over- 
flows and  lays  waste  the  heart  which 
refused  to  expand.  He  has  loved,  too 
well,  one  too  near  to  him,  his  sister  it 
may  be  ;  she  has  died  of  it,  and  impo- 
tent remorse  fills  the  soul  which  no 
human  occupation  could  satisfy : 

'   .  .   .  My  solitude  is  solitude  no  more, 
But     peopled   with    the    Furies ; — I    have 

gnash'd 

My  teeth  in  darkness  till  returning  morn, 
Then    cursed   myself  till   sunset  ; — I    have 

pray'd 

For  madness  as  a  blessing — 'tis  denied  me. 
I  have  affronted  death — but  in  the  war 
Of  elements  the  waters  shrunk  from  me, 
And  fatal  things  pass'd  harmless — the  cold 

hand 

Of  an  all-pitiless  demon  held  me  back, 
Back   by  a   single    hair,  which  would    not 

break. 

In  fantasy,  imagination,  all 
The   affluence    of  my   soul.  ...  I  plunged 

deep, 

But,  like  an  ebbing  wave,  it  dashed  me  back 
Into  the  gulf  of  my  unfathom'd  thought.  .  .  . 
I  dwell  in  my  despair, 
And  live,  and  live  for  ever."  f 

He  only  wishes  to  see  her  once  more : 
to  this  sole  and  all-powerful  desire  flow 
all  the  energies  of  his  soul.  He  calls 
her  up  in  the  midst  of  spirits ;  she  ap- 
pears, but  answers  not.  He  prays  to 
her — with  what  cries,  what  doleful 
cries  of  deep  anguish  !  How  he  loves  1 
With  what  yearning  and  effort  all  his 
downtrodden  and  outcrushed  tender- 
ness gushes  out  and  escapes  at  the 
sight  of  those  well-beloved  eyes,  which 
he  sees  for  the  last  time  !  With  what 
enthusiasm  his  convulsive  arms  are 
stretched  towards  that  frail  form  which, 
shuddering,  has  quitted  the  tomb! — 
towards  those  cheeks  in  which  the 
blood,  forcibly  recalled,  plants  "  a 
strange  hectic — like  the  unnatural  red 
which  Autumn  plants  upon  the  perish'd 
leaf." 

"  .  .  .  Hear  me,  hear  me— 
Astarte  !  my  beloved  !  speak  to  me : 
I  have  so  much  endured — so  much  endure — 
Look  on  me  !  the  grave  hath  not  changed 

thee  more 

Than  I  am  changed  for  thee.    Thou  lovedst 
me 


*  Byron's  Works,  xi.  J  Manfred,  iii.  i,  56. 
f  Ibid.  ii.  2,  35. 


Too  much  as   I   loved  thee :  we  were  not 

made 

To  torture  thus  each  other,  though  it  were 
The  deadliest  sin  to  love  as  we  have  loved. 
Say  that  thou  loath'st  me  not — that  I  do 

bear 

This  punishment  for  both — that  thou  wilt  be 
One  of  the  blessed — and  that  I  shall  die  • 
For  hitherto  all  hateful  things  conspire 
To  bind  me  in  existence — in  a  life 
Which  makes  me  shrink  from  immortality^— 
A  future  like  the  past.     I  cannot  rest. 
I  know  not  what  I  ask,  nor  what  I  seek  : 
I  feel  but  what  thou  art — and  what  I  am  ; 
And  I  would  hear  yet  once  before  I  j  erish 
The  voice  which  was  my  music— Speak  to 

me  !    . 

For  I  have  call'd  on  thee  in  the  still  night, 
Startled  the  slumbering  birds  from  the  hush'd 

boughs, 
And  woke  the  mountain  wolves,  and  itade 

the  caves 

Acquainted  with  thy  vainly  echoed  name, 
Which  answer'd  me — many  things  answer'd 

me — 
Spirits     and    men — but    thou    wert    silent 

all.  .  .  . 
Speak  to  me !    I  have   wander'd  o'er  the 

earth, 

And  never  found  thy  likeness — Speak  to  me ! 
Look  on  the  fiends  around — they  feel  for  me  : 
I  fear  them  not,  and  feel  for  thee  alone — 
Speak  to  me!  though  it  be  in  wrath  ; — but 

say — 

I  reck  not  what — but  let  me  hear  thee  once— 
This  once— once  more!  "  * 

She  speaks.  .  What  a  sad  and  doubt 
ful  reply!  Manfred's  limbs  are  con- 
vulsed when  she  disappears.  But  an 
instant  after  the  spirits  see  that : 

"...  He  mastereth  himself,  and  makes 
His  torture  tributary  to  his  will. 
Had  he  been  one  of  us,  he  would  have  made 
An  awful  spirit."  t 

Will  is  the  unshaken  basis  of  this  soul. 
He  did  not  bend  before  the  chief  of 
the  spirits  ;  he  stood  firm  and  calm  be- 
fore the  infernal  throne,  whilst  all  the 
demons  were  raging  who  would  tear 
him  to  pieces  :  now  he  dies,  and  they 
assail  him,  but  he  still  strives  and  con 
quers : 

"...  Thou  hast  no  power  upon  me,  that  I 

feel ; 

Thou  never  shalt  possess  me,  that  I  know: 
What  I  have  done  is  done  ;  I  bear  within 
A   torture   which  could  nothing  gain  fron 

thine  : 

The  mind  which  is  immortal  makes  itself 
Requital  for  its  good  or  evil  thoughts — 
Is  its  own  origin  of  ill  and  end — 
And    its    own    place    and    time — its    innata 

sensej 

When  stnpp'd  of  this  mortality,  derives 
No  colour  from  the  fleeting  things  without  J 


*  Ibid.  ii.  4,  47. 


t  Ibid.  ii.  4,  49. 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV. 


But  is  absorb' d  in  sufferance  or  in  joy, 
Born  from  the  knowledge  of  its  own  desert. 
Thou  didst  not  tempt  me,  and  thou  couldst 

not  tempt  me  ; 

I  have  not  been  thy  dupe,  nor  am  thy  prey — 
But  was  my  own  destroyer,  and  will  be 
My  own  hereafter.— Back,  ye  baffled  fiends  ! 


The    hand    of    death    is'  on    me— but    not 
yours!  "  * 

This  "I,"  the  invincible  I,  who  suf- 
fices to  himself,  on  whom  nothing  has 
a  hold,  demons  or  men,  the  sole  author 
of  his  own  good  and  ill,  a  sort  of  suffer- 
ing or  fallen  god,  but  god  always,  even 
in  its  quivering  flesh,  amidst  his  soiled 
and  blighted  destiny, — such  is  the  hero 
and  the  work  of  this  mind,  and  of  the 
men  of  his  race.  If  Goethe  was  the 
poet  of  the  universe^  Byron  was  the 
poet  of  the  individual ;  and  if  in  one 
the  German  genius  found  its  interpret- 
er, the  English  genius  found  its  inter- 
preter in  the  other. 

V. 

We  can  well  imagine  that  English- 
men clamored  at  and  repudiated  the 
monster.  Southey,  the  poet-laureate, 
said  of  him,  in  good  biblical  style,  that 
he  savored  of  Moloch  and  Belial — most 
of  all  of  Satan ;  and,  with  the  gener- 
osity of  a  brother  poet,  called  the  at- 
tention of  Government  to  him.  We 
should  fill  many  pages  if  we  were  to 
copy  the  reproaches  of  the  respectable 
reviews  against  these  "  men  of  diseased 
hearts  and  depraved  imaginations,  who, 
forming  a  system  of  opinions  to  suit 
their  own  unhappy  course  of  conduct, 
have  rebelled  against  the  holiest  ordi 
nances  of  human  society,  and,  hating 
that  revealed  religion  which,  with  all 
their  efforts  and  bravadoes,  they  are 
unable  entirely  to  disbelieve,  labor  to 
make  others  as  miserable  as  them- 
selves, by  infecting  them  with  a  moral 
virus  that  eats  into  the  soul."  t  This 
sounds  like  the  e  'nphasis  of  an  episcopal 
charge  and  of  scholastic  pedantry  :  in 
England  the  press  does  the  duty  of  the 
police,  and  it  never  did  it  more  violently 
than  at  that  time.  Opinion  backed  the 
press.  Several  times,  in  Italy,  Lord 
Byron  saw  gentlemen  leave  a  drawing- 
room  with  their  wives,  when  he  was 

*  Byron's  Works,  xi.  ;  Manfred,  iii.  4,  70. 
t  Southey,   Preface  to  A    Vision  of  Judg- 
ment. 


announced.  Owing  to  his  title  and 
celebrity,  the  scandal  which  he  caused 
was  more  conspicuous  than  any  other  : 
ie  was  a  public  sinner.  One  day  an 
obscure  parson  sent  him  a  prayer  which 
lie  had  found  amongst  the  papers  of 
his  wife — a  charming  and  pious  lady, 
recently  dead,  and  who  had  secretly 
prayed'to  God  for  the  conversion  of 
the  great  sinner.  Conservative  and 
Protestant  England,  after  a  quarter  of 
a  century  of  moral  wars,  and  two  cen 


:ury  ._ 

turies  of  moral  education,  carried  its 
severity  and  rigor  to  extremes;  and 
Puritan  intolerance,  like  Catholic  in- 
tolerance previously  in  Spain,  put  re- 
cusants out  of  the  pale  of  the  law.  The 
proscription  of  voluptuous  or  aban- 
doned life,  the  narrow  observation  of 
order  and  decency,  the  respect  of  all 
police,  human  and  divine ;  the  neces- 
sary bows  at  the  mere  name  of  Pitt,  of 
the  king,  the  church,  the  God  of  the 
Bible  ;  the  attitude  of  the  gentleman  in 
a  white  tie,  conventional,  inflexible,  im- 
placable,— such  were  the  customs  then 
met  with  across  the  Channel,  a  hun- 
dred times  more  tyrannical  than  now-a- 
days;  at  that  time,  as  Stendhal  says, 
a  peer  at  his  fireside  dared  not  cross 
his  legs,  for  fear  of  its  being  improper. 
England  held  herself  stiff,  uncomfort- 
ably laced  in  her  stays  of  decorum. 
Hence  arose  two  sources  of  misery  :  a 
man  suffers,  and  is  tempted  to  throw 
down  the  ugly  choking  apparatus,  when 
he  is  sure  that  it  can  be  done  secretly. 
On  one  side  constraint,  on  the  other 
hypocrisy — these  are  the  two  vices  of 
English  civilization  ;  and  it  was  these 
which  Byron,  with  his  poet's  discern- 
ment and  his  combative  instincts,  at- 
tacked. 

He  had  seen  them  from  the  first; 
true  artists  are  perspicacious  :  it  is  in 
this  that  they  outstrip  us ;  we  judge 
from  hearsay  and  formulas,  like  cock- 
neys ;  they,  like  eccentric  beings,  from 
accomplished  facts,  and  things  :  at 
twenty-two  he  perceived  the  tedium 
born  of  constraint  desolating  all  high 


'  There  stands  the  noble  hostess,  nor  shall 

sink 

With  the  three-thousandth  curtsy ;  .  .  . 
Saloon,  room,   hail,    o'erflow  beyond  tneit 

brink, 
And  long  the  latest  of  arrivals  halts, 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


557 


'Midst  royal  dukes  and  dames  condemn'd  to 

climb, 
And  gain  an  inch  of  staircase  at  a  time."  * 

He  wrote  also : 

"  He  (the  Count)  ought  to  have  been  in  the 
country  during  the  hunting  season,  with  '  a 
select  party  of  distinguished  guests,'  as  the 
papers  term  it.  He  ought  to  have  seen  the 
gentlemen  after  dinner  (on  the  hunting  days), 
and  the  soiree  ensuing  thereupon,  —and  the 
women  looking  as  if  they  had  hunted,  or  rather 
been  hunted  ;  and  I  could  have  wished  that  he 
had  been  at  a  dinner  in  town,  which  I  recollect 
at  Lord  C**'s — small,  but  select,  and  com- 
posed of  the  most  amusing  people.  The  des- 
sert was  hardly  on  the  table,  when,  out  of 
twelve,  I  counted  five  asleep."  f 

As  for  the  morals  of  the  upper  classes, 
this  is  what  he  says : 

"Went  to  my  box  at  Co  vent  Garden  to- 
night. .  .  .  Casting  my  eyes  round  the  house, 
in  the  next  box  to  me,  and  the  next,  and  the 
next,  were  the  most  distinguished  old  and 
young  Babylonians  of  quality.  ...  It  was  as 
if  the  house  had  been  divided  between  your 
public  and  your  understood  courtesans ; — but 
the  intriguantes  much  outnumbered  the  regular 
mercenaries.  Now,  where  lay  the  difference 
between  Pauline  and  her  mother,  .  .  .  and 
Lady  *  *  and  daughter  ?  except  that  the  two 
last  may  enter  Carlton  and  any  other  house, 
and  the  two  first  are  limited  to  the  Opera  and 
b —  house.  How  I  do  delight  in  observing  life 
as  it  really  is ! — and  myself,  after  all,  the  worst 
of  any  I  "  $ 

Decorum  and  debauchery;  moral  hy- 
pocrites, "  qui  mettent  leurs  vertus 
en  mettant  leurs  gants  blancs  ;  "  §  an 
oligarchy  which,  to  preserve  its  places 
and  its  sinecures,  ravages  Europe, 
preys  on  Ireland,  and  excites  the  peo- 
ple by  making  use  of  the  grand  words, 
virtue,  Christianity,  and  liberty  :  there 
was  truth  in  all  these  invectives.  ||  It 
is  only  thirty  yeais  since  the  ascend- 
ency of  the  middle  class  diminished  the 
privileges  and  corruptions  of  the  great ; 
but  at  that  time  hard  words  could  with 
justice  be  thrown  at  their  heads.  Byron 
said,  quoting  from  Voltaire  : 

"  '  La  Pudeur  s'estenfuie  des  coeurs,  et  s'est 
refugiee  sur  les  levres.'  .  .  .  '  Plus  les  moeurs 
sont  deprave"es,  plus  les  expressions  deviennent 
mesure"es  ;  on  croit  regagner  en  langage  ce 
qu'on  a  perdu  en  vertu.'  This  is  the  real  fact, 
as  applicable  to  the  degraded  and  hypocritical 
mass  which  leavens  the  present  English  gener- 


*  Byron's  Works,  xvii.  ;  Don  Juan,  c,  n, 
St.  Ixvii. 

t  Ibid.  yi.  18  ;  Letter  512,  April  5,  1823. 

\  Ibid.  ii.  303  ;  Journal,  Dec.  17,  1813. 

§  Alfred  de  Musset. 

||  See  his  terrible  satirical  poem,  7^ke  Vision 
of  Judgment,  against  Southey,  George  IV., 
and  official  pomp. 


ation  ;  and  it  is  the  only  answer  they  deserve, 
.  .  .  Cant  is  the  crying  sin  of  this  double- 
dealing  and  false-speaking  time  of  selfish  spoil- 
ers." * 

And  then  he  wrote  his  masterpiece, 
Don  Juan^ 

All  here  was  new,  form  as  well  as 
substance  ;  for  he  had  entered  into  a 
new  world.  The  Englishman,  the 
Northman,  transplanted  amongst  south- 
ern manners  and  into  Italian  life,  had 
become  imbued  with  a  new  sap,  which 
made  him  bear  new  fruit.  He  had 
been  induced  to  read  J  the  rather  free 
satires  of  Buratti,  and  the  more  than 
voluptuous  sonnets  of  Baffo.  He  lived 
in  the  happy  Venetian  society,  still  ex- 
empt from  political  animosities,  where 
care  seemed  a  folly,  where  life  was 
looked  upon  as  a  carnival,  pleasure 
displayed  itself  openly,  not  timid  and 
hypocritical,  but  loosely  arrayed  and 
commended.  He  amused  himself  here, 
impetuously  at  first,  more  than  suffi- 
cient, even  more  than  too  much,  and 
almost  killed  himself  by  these  amuse- 
ments ;  but  after  vulgar  gallantries, 
having  felt  a  real  feeling  of  love,  he 
became  a  cavalier*  servante,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  country  where  he  dwelt, 
with  the  consent  of  the  family  of  the 
lady,  offering  his  arm,  carrying  her 
shawl,  a  little  awkwardly  at  first,  and 
wonderingly,  but  on  the  whole  happier 
than  he  had  ever  been,  and  fanned  by 
a  warm  breath  of  pleasure  and  abandon. 
He  saw  in  Italy  the  overthrow  of  all 
English  morality,  conjugal  infidelity  es- 
tablished as  a  rule,  amorous  fidelity 
raised  to  a  duty:  "There,  is  no  con- 
vincing a  woman  here  that  she  is  in  the 
smallest  degree  deviating  from  the 
rule  of  right  or  the  fitness  of  things  in 
having  an  amoroso.  §  ...  Love  (the 
sentiment  of  love)  is  not  merely  an  ex- 
cuse for  it,  but  makes  it  an  actual 
virtue,  provided  it  is  disinterested,  and 
not  a  caprice,  and  is  confined  to  one 
object."  ||  A  little  later  he  translated 
the  Morgante  Maggiore  of  Pulci,  to  show 

*  Byron's  Works,  xvi.  131  ;  Preface  to  Don 
Juan,  cantos  vi.  vii.  and  viii. 

t  Don  Juan  is  a  satire  on  the  abuses  in  th» 
present  state  of  society,  and  not  a  eulogy  ol 
vice. 

\  Stendhal,  M&moires  sur  Lord  Byron. 

§  Byron's  Works,  iii.  333  ;  Letter  to  Murray, 
Venice,  Jan.  2,  1817. 

II  Ibid.  iii.  363  ;  Letter  to  Moore,  Venic^ 
March  25,  1817. 


55* 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


"  What  was  permitted  in  a  Catholic 
country  and  a  bigoted  age  to  a  church- 
man on  the  score  of  religion,  and  to 
silence  those  buffoons  who  accuse  me 
of  attacking  the  Liturgy."  *  He  re- 
joiced in  this  liberty  and  this  ease,  and 
resolved  never  to  fall  again  under  the 
pedantic  inquisition,  which  in  his  coun- 
try had  condemned  and  damned  him 
past  forgiveness.  He  wrote  his  Beppo 
like  an  improvisatore,  with  a  charming 
freedom,  a  flowing  and  fantastic  light- 
ness of  mood,  and  contrasted  in  it  the 
recklessness  and  happiness  of  Italy 
with  the  prejudices  and  repulsiveness 
of  England: 

"  I  like  ...  to  see  the  Sun  set,  sure  he'll  rise 
to  morrow, 

Not  through  a  misty  morning  twinkling  weak 
as 

A  drunken  man's  dead  eye  in  maudlin  sor- 
row, 

But  with  all  Heaven  t'  himself ;  that  day 
will  break  as 

Beauteous  as  cloudless,  nor  be  forced  to  bor- 
row 

That  sort  of  farthing  candlelight  which  glim- 
mers 

Where  reeking  London's  smoky  caldron  sim- 
mers. 

I  love  the  language,  that  soft  bastard  Latin, 
Which  melts  like  kisses  from  a  female  mouth, 
And  sounds  as  if  it  should  be  writ  on  satin, 
With  syllables  which  breathe  of  the  sweet 

South, 

And  gentle  liquids  gliding  all  so  pat  in, 
That  not  a  single  accent  seems  uncouth, 
Like  our  harsh  northern  whistling,  grunting 

guttural, 
Which  we're  obliged  to  hiss,  and  spit,  and 

sputter  all. 

I  like  the  women  too  (forgive  my  folly), 
From    the    rich    peasant    cheek    of     ruddy 

bronze, 
And  large  black  eyes  that   flash  on  you  a 

volley 

Of  rays  that  say  a  thousand  things  at  once, 
To  the  high  dama's  brow,  more  melancholy, 
But  clear,  and  with  a  wild  and  liquid  glance, 
Heart  on  her  lips,  and  soul  within  her  eyes, 
Soft  as  her  clime,  and  sunny  as  her  skies."  t 

With  other  manners  there  existed  in 
Italy  another  morality;  there  is  one  for 
every  age,  race,  and  sky — I  mean  that 
the  ideal  model  varies  with  the  circum- 
stances which  fashion  it.  In  England 
the  severity  of  the  climate,  the  warlike 
energy  of  the  race,  and  the  liberty  of 
the  institutions  prescribe  an  active  life, 
severe  manners,  Puritanic  religion,  the 

*  Byron's  Works,   iv.  279;  Letter  to  Mur- 
ray, Ravenna,  Feb.  7,  1820. 
t  Ibid.  xi.  j  BeppO)  c.  xliii.-xlv.  121. 


marriage  tie  strictly  kept,  a  feeling  of 
duty  and  self-command.  In  Italy  the 
beauty  of  the  climate,  the  innate  sense 
of  the  beautiful,  and  the  despotism  of 
the  government  induced  an  idle  life, 
loose  manners,  imaginative  religion, 
the  culture  of  the  arts,  and  the  search 
after  happiness.  Each  model  has  its 
beauties  and  its  blots, — the  epicurean 
artist  like  the  political  moralist ;  *  each 
shows  by  its  greatnesses  the  littlenesses 
of  the  other,  and,  to  set  in  relief  the 
disadvantages  of  the  second,  Lord 
Byron  had  only  to  set  in  relief  the  se- 
ductions of  the  first. 

Thereupon  he  went  in  search  of  a 
hero,  and  did  not  find  one,  which,  in 
this  age  of  heroes,  is  "  an  uncommon 
want."  For  lack  of  a'better  he  chose 
"our  ancient  friend,  Don  Juan," — a 
scandalous  choice:  what  an  outciy  the 
English  moralists  will  make  !  But,  to 
cap  the  horror,  this  Don  Juan  is  not 
wicked,  selfish,  odious,  like  his  fellows; 
he  does  not  seduce,  he  is  no  corrupter. 
When  an  opportunity  arises,  he  lets 
himself  drift ;  he  has  a  heart  and 
senses,  and,  under  a  beautiful  sun,  they 
are  easily  touched  :  at  sixteen  a  youth 
cannot  help  himself,  nor  at  twenty,  nor 
perhaps  at  thirty.  Lay  it  to  the  charge 
of  human  nature,  my  dear  moralists  ; 
it  is  not  I  who  made  it  as  it  is.  If  you 
will  grumble,  address  yourselves  high- 
er:  we  are  here  as  painters,  not  as 
makers  of  human  puppets,  and  we  do 
not  answer  for  the  inner  structure  of 
our  dancing-dolls.  Our  Don  Juan 
is  now  going  about ;  he  goes  about  in 
many  places,  and  in  all  he  is  young ; 
we  will  not  launch  thunderbolts  on  his 
head  because  he  is  young  ;  that  fashion 
is  past:  the  green  devils  and  their 
capers  only  come  on  the  stage  in  the 
last  act  of  Mozart's  Don  Giovanni. 
And,  moreover,  Juan  is  so  amiable  ! 
After  all,  what  has  he  done  that  others 
don't  do  ?  He  has  been  a  lover  t  )f 
Catherine  II.,  but  he  only  followed  the 
lead  of  the  diplomatic  corps  and  the 
whole  Russian  army.  Let  him  sow 
his  wild  oats  ;  the  good  grain  will  spring 
up  in  its  time.  Once  in  England,  he 

*  See  Stendhal,  Vie  de  Giacoma  Rossini, 
and  Dean  Stanley's  Life  of  Dr.  Arnold.  The 
contrast  is  complete.  See  also  Mad.  de  Stael's 
Corinne,  where  this  opposition  is  very  clearly 
grasped. 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


559 


will  behave  himself  decently.  I  con- 
fess that  he  may  even  there,  when  pro- 
voked, go  a  gleaning  in  the  conjugal 
gardens  of  the  aristocracy  ;  but  in  the 
end  he  will  settle,  go  and  pronounce 
moral  speeches  in  Parliament,  become 
a  member  of  the  Society  for  the  Sup- 
pression of  Vice.  If  you  wish  absolute- 
ly to  have  him  punished,  we  will 
"make  him  end  in  hell,  or  in  an  un- 
happy marriage,  not  knowing  which 
would  be  the  severest:  the  Spanish 
tradition  says  hell :  but  it  is  probably 
wnly  an  allegory  of  the  other  state."* 
At  all  events,  married  or  damned,  the 
good  folk  at  the  end  of  the  piece  will 
have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  he 
is  burning  all  alive. 

Is  not  this  a  singular  apology  ?  Does 
it  not  aggravate  the  fault  ?  Let  us 
wait ;  we  know  not  yet  the  whole  venom 
of  the  book :  together  with  Juan  there 
are  Donna  Julia,  Haidee,  Gulbeyaz, 
Dudu,  and  many  more.  It  is  here  the 
diabolical  poet  digs  in  his  sharpest 
claw,  and  he  takes  care  to  dig  it  into 
our  weakest  side.  What  will  the  clergy- 
men and  white-chokered  reviewers 
say  ?  For,  to  speak  the  truth,  there  is 
r  .o  preventing  it :  we  must  read  on,  in 
spite  of  ourselves.  Twice  or  three 
times  following  we  meet  here  with^z/« 
finess ;  and  when  I  say  happiness,  I 
mean  profound  and  complete  happiness 
— not  mere  voluptuousness,  not  ob- 
scene gayety;  we  are  far  removed 
from  the  nicely-written  ribaldry  of 
Dorat,  and  the  unbridled  license  of 
Rochester.  Beauty  is  here,  southern 
beauty,  resplendent  and  harmonious, 
spread  over  every  thing,  over  the  lumi- 
nous sky,  the  calm  scenery,  corporal 
nudity,  artlessness  of  heart.  Is  there 
a  thing  it  does  not  deify  ?  All  senti- 
ments are  exalted  under  its  hands. 
What  was  gross  becomes  noble  ;  even 
in  the  nocturnal  adventure  in  the  ser- 
aglio, which  seems  worthy  of  Faublas, 
poetiy  embellishes  licentiousness.  The 
gi"ls  ire  lying  in  the  large  silent  apart- 
ment, like  precious  flowers  brought 
from  all  climates  into  a  conservatory : 

"  One  with  her  flush'd  cheek  laid  on  her  white 

arm, 
And  raven  ringlets  gather'd  in  dark  crowd 


*  Byron's  Works,   v.    127  ;    Letter  to   Mr. 
Murray,  Ravenna,  Feb.  16,  1821. 


Above   her    brow,   lay  dreaming    soft    and 

warm  ;  .  .  . 

One  with  her  auburn  tresses  lightly  bound, 
And  fair  brows  gently  drooping,  as  the  fruit 
Nods  from  the  tree,  was  slumbering  with  soft 

breath, 

And  lips  apart,  which  show'd  the'  pearls  be- 
neath. .  .  . 

A  fourth  as  marble,  statue-like  and  still, 
Lay»in  a  breathless,  hush'd,  and  stony  sleep 
White,  cold,  and  pure  ...  a  carved  lady  on 
a  monument."  * 

However,  "  the  fading  lamps  waned 
dim  and  blue  ;  "  Dudu  is  asleep,  the 
innocent  girl ;  and  if  she  has  cast  a 
glance  on  her  glass, 

"  'Twas  like  the  fawn,  which,  in  the  lake  dis- 
play'd, 

Beholds  her  own  shy,  shadowy  image  pass, 
When  first  she  starts,  and  then  returns  to 

peep, 
Admiring  this  new  native  of  the  deep."  t 

What  will  become  now  of  Puritanic 
prudery  ?  Can  the  proprieties  prevent 
beauty  from  being  beautiful  ?  Will 
you  condemn  a  picture  of  Titian  for 
its  nudity  ?  What  gives  value  to  human 
life,  and  nobility  to  human  nature,  if 
not  the  power  of  attaining  delicious  and 
sublime  emotions  ?  We  have  just  had 
one — one  worthy  of  a  painter  ;  is  it  not 
worth  that  of  an  alderman  ?  Shall  we 
refuse  to  acknowledge  the  divine  be- 
cause it  appears  in  art  and  enjoyment, 
and  not  only  in  conscience  and  action  ? 
There  is  a  world  beside  ours,  and  a 
civilization  beside  ours;  our  rules  are 
narrow,  and  our  pedantry  tyrannic  ; 
the  human  plant  can  be  otherwise 
developed  than  in  our  compartments 
and  under  our  snows,  and  the  fruits  it 
will  then  bear  will  not  be  less  precious. 
We  must  confess  it,  since  we  relish 
them  when  they  are  offered  to  us.  Who 
has  read  the  love  of  Haidee,  and  has 
had  any  other  thought  than  to  envy  and 
pity  her  ?  She  is  a  wild  child  who  has 
picked  up  Juan — another  child  cast 
ashore  senseless  by  the  waves.  She 
has  preserved  him,  nursed  him  like  a 
mother,  and  now  she  loves  him  :  who 
can  blame  her  for  loving  him  ?  Who, 
in  presence  of  the  splendid  nature 
which  smiles  on  and  protects  them,  can 
imagine  for  them  any  thing  else  than 
the  all-powerful  feeling  which  unites 
them: 

*  Byron's  Works,  xvi.  ',  Don  Juan,  c.  vi.  st. 


Ixvi.  bxviii. 


t  Ibid.  st.  Ix. 


560 

'*  It  was  a  wild  and  breaker-beaten  coast, 
With  cliffs  above,  and  a  broad  sandy  shore, 
Guarded    by   shoals    and    rocks    as    by    an 

host,  .  .  . 

And  rarely  ceased  the  haughty  billow's  roar, 
Save  on  the  dead  long  summer  days,  which 

make 

The  outstretch'd  ocean  glitter  like  a  lake.  .  .  . 
And  all  was  stillness,  save  the  sea-bird's  cry, 
And  dolphin's  leap,  and  little  billow  crost 
By  some  low  rock  or  shelve,  that  made  it 

fret 
Against  the  boundary  it  scarcely  wet.  .  .  . 

And  thus  they  wander'd  forth,  and  hand  in 

hand, 

Over  the  shining  pebbles  and  the  shells, 
Glided  along  the  smooth  and  harden'd  sand, 
And  in  the  worn  and  wild  receptacles 
Work'd  by  the  storms,  yet  work'd  as  it  were 

plann'd, 

In  hollow  halls,  with  sparry  roofs  and  cells, 
They  turn'd  to  rest ;  and,    each  clasp'd  by 

an  arm, 
Yielded  to  the  deep  twilight's  purple  charm. 

They  look'd  up  to  the  sky  whose  floating 

glow 

Spread  like  a  rosy  ocean,  vast  and  bright  ; 
They  gazed  upon  the  glittering  sea  below, 
Whence  the  broad  moon  rose  circling  into 

sight  ; 
They  heard  the  wave's  splash  and  the  wind 

so  low, 

And  saw  each  other's  dark  eyes  darting  light 
Into  each  other— and,  beholding  this, 
Their    lips   drew  near,   and    clung    into     a 

kiss.  .  .  . 

They  were  alone,  but  not  alone  as  they 
Who  shut  in  chambers  think  it  loneliness; 
The  silent  ocean,  and  the  starlight  bay, 
The   twilight  glow,   which   momently   grew 

less, 
The  voiceless  sand,  and  dropping  caves  that 

lay 
Around   them,   made  them  to    each    other 

press, 

As  if  there  were  no  life  beneath  the  sky 
Save  theirs,  and  that  their  life  could  never 

die."  * 

An  excellent  opportunity  to  introduce 
here  your  formularies  and  catechisms  : 

"  Haide'e  spoke  not  of  scruples,  ask'd  no  vows, 
Nor  offer'd  any  .  .  . 
She  was  all  which  pure  ignorance  allows, 
And  flew  to  her  young  mate   like   a  young 
bird."  f 

Nature  suddenly  expands,  for  she  is 
ripe,  like  a  bud  bursting  into  bloom,  na- 
ture in  her  fulness,  instinct,  and  heart : 

"  Alas  !  they  were  so  young,  so  beautiful, 
So  lonely,  loving  helpless,  and  the  hour 
Was  that  in  which  the  heart  is  always  full, 
And,  having  o'er  itself  no  further  power, 
Promptsdeeds  eternity  can  not  annul."  j  .  .  . 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


*  Bvron's  Works,  xv. }  Don  Juan,  c.  ii.  st. 
clxxvii.-cixxxviii.  t  Ibid.  st.  cxc. 

\  Ibid.  c.  ii.  st.  cxcii. 


O  admirable  moralists,  you  stand  be« 
fore  these  two  flowers  like  patented 
gardeners,  holding  in  you;  hands  a 
model  of  the  bloom  sanctioned  by  your 
society  of  horticulture,  proving  that  the 
model  has  not  been  followed,  and  decid- 
ing that  the  two  weeds  must  be  cast 
into  the  fire,  which  you  keep  burning 
to  consume  irregular  growths.  You 
have  judged  well,  and  you  know  your 
art. 

Besides  British  cant,  there  is  univer- 
sal hypocrisy ;  besides  English  pedant- 
ry, Byron  wars  against  human  roguery. 
Here  is  the  general  aim  of  the  poem, 
and  to  this  his  character  and  genius 
tended.  His  great  and  gloomy  dreams 
of  juvenile  imagination  have  vanished  ; 
experience  has  come  ;  he  knows  man 
now  ;  and  what  is  man,  once  known  ? 
does  the  sublime  abound  in  him  ?  Do 
we  think  that  the  grand  sentiments — 
those  of  Childe  Harold,  for  instance,— 
are  the  ordinary  course  of  life  ?  *  The 
truth  is,  that  man  employs  most  of  his 
time  in  sleeping,  dining,  yawning,  work- 
ing like  a  horse,  amusing  himself  like 
an  ape.  According  to  Byron,  he  is  an 
animal ;  except  for  a  few  minutes,  his 
nerves,  his  blood,  his  instincts  lead  him. 
Routine  works  over  it  all,  necessity 
whips  him  on,  the  animal  advances. 
As  the  animal  is  proud,  and  moreover 
imaginative,  it  pretends  to  be  marching 
for  its  own  pleasure,  that  there  is  no 
whip,  that  at  all  events  this  whip  rarely 
touches  its  flanks,  that  at  least  its  stoic 
back  can  make-believe  that  it  does  not 
feel  it.  It  thinks  that  it  is  decked  with 
the  most  splendid  trappings,  and  thus 
struts  on  with  measured  steps,  fancying 
that  it  carries  relics  and  treads  on  car- 
pets and  flowers,  whilst  in  reality  it 
tramples  in  the  mud,  and  carries  with 
it  the  stains  and  bad  smells  of  every 
dunghill.  What  a  pastime  to  touch 
its  mangy  back,  to  set  before  its  eyes  the 
sacks  full  of  flower  which  it  carries,  and 
the  goad  which  makes  it  go  !  t  What 
a  pretty  farce  !  It  is  the  eternal  farce ; 
and  not  a  sentiment  thereof  but  pro- 

*  Byron  says  (v.,  Oct.  12,  1820),  "Don  Juan 
is  too  true,  and  would,  I  suspect,  live  longer 
than  Childe  Harold.  The  women  hate  many 
things  which  strip  off  the  tinsel  of  sentiment.' 

t  Don  Juan,  c.  vii.  st.  2.  I  hope  it  is  no 
crime  to  laugh  at  all  things.  For  I  wish  to 
know  what,  after  all,  are  all  things—but  a 
show? 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


561 


vides  him  with  an  act  :  love  in  the  first 
place.  Certainly  Donna  Julia  is  very 
lovable,  and  Byron  loves  her  ;  but  she 
comes  out  of  his  hands,  as  rumpled 
as  any  other  woman.  She  is  virtuous, 
of  course  ;  and  what  is  better  still,  she 
desires  to  be  so.  She  plies  herself,  in 
connection  with  Don  Juan,  with  the 
finest  arguments  ;  what  a  fine  thing  are 
arguments,  and  how  suited  they  are  to 
c'^eck  passion!  Nothing  can  be  more 
fejid  than  a  firm  purpose,  propped  up 
by  logic,  resting  on  the  fear  of  the 
world,  the  thought  of  God,  the  recol- 
lection of  duty  ;  nothing  can  prevail 
against  it,  except  a  tete-a-tete  in  June, 
on  a  moonlight  evening.  At  last  the 
deed  is  done,  and  the  poor  timid  lady  is 
surprised  by  her  outraged  husband  ; 
in  what  a  situation  !  Let  us  look  again 
at  the  book.  Of  course  she  will  be 
speechless,  ashamed  and  full  of  tears, 
and  the  moral  reader  duly  reckons  on 
her  remorse.  My  dear  reader,  you 
have  not  reckoned  on  impulse  and 
nerves.  To-morrow  she  will  feel 
shame  ;  the  business  is  now  to  over- 
whelm the  husband,  to  deafen  him,  to 
confound  him,  to  save  Juan,  to  save  her- 
self, to  fight.  The  war  once  begun,  is 
waged  with  all  kinds  of  weapons,  and 
chiefly  with  audacity  and  insults.  The 
only  idea  is  the  present  need,  and  this 
absorbs  all  others  ;  it  is  in  this  that 
woman  is  a  woman.  This  Julia  cries 
lustily.  It  is  a  regular  storm  :  hard 
words  and  recriminations,  mockery  and 
challenges,  fainting  and  tears.  In  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  she  has  gained 
twenty  years'  experience.  You  did  not 
know,  nor  she  either,  what  an  actress 
can  emerge,  all  on  a  sudden,  unfore- 
seen, out  of  a  simple  woman.  Do  you 
know  what  can  emerge  from  yourself  ? 
You  think  yourself  rational,  humane  ;  I 
admit  it  for  to-day  ;  you  have  dined, 
and  you  are  comfortable  in  a  pleasant 
room.  Your  human  mechanism  works 
without  getting  into  disorder,  because 
the  wheels  are  oiled  and  well  regulated  ; 
but  place  it  in  a  shipwreck,  a  battle,  let 
the  failing  or  the  plethora  of  blood  for 
an  instant  derange  the  chief  pieces,  and 
we  shall  see  you  howling  or  drivelling 
like  a  madman  or  an  idiot.  Civilization, 
education,  reason,  health,  cloak  us  in 
their  smooth  and  polished  cases ;  let 
us  tear  them  away  one  by  one,  or  all 


together,  and  we  laugh  to  see  the  brute, 
who  is  lying  at  the  bottom.  Here  is 
our  friend  Juan  reading  Julia's  last 
letter,  and  swearing  in  a  transport  never 
to  forget  the  beautiful  eyes  which  he 
caused  to  weep  so  much.  Was  ever 
feeling  more  tender  or  sincere  ?  But 
unfortunately  Juan  is  at  sea,  and  sick- 
ness sets  in.  He  cries  out : 

"  Sooner  shall  earth  resolve  itself  to  sea, 

Than  I  resign  thine  image,  oh,  my  fair !  .  .  . 

(Here  the  ship  gave  a  lurch,  and  he  giew 
sea-sick.)  .  .  . 

Sooner  shall  heaven  kiss  earth — (here  hs 
fell  sicker.) 

Oh  Juiia  !  what  is  every  other  woe  ? 

(For  God's  sake  let  me  have  a  glass  of 
liquor  ; 

Pedro,  Battista,  help  me  down  below.) 

Julia,  my  iove  ! — (You  rascal,  Pedro,  quick- 
er)— 

Oh,  Julia! — (this  curst  vessel  pitches  so) 

Beloved  Julia,  hear  me  still  beseeching  ! 

(Here  he  grew  inarticulate  with  retching.)  ... 

Love's  a  capricious  power  .  .  . 

Against  all  noble  maladies  he's  bold, 

But  vulgar  illnesses  don't  like  to  meet;  .  .  . 

Shrinks  from  the  application  of  hot  towels, 

And  purgatives  are  dangerous  to  his  reign, 

Sea-sickness  death."  *  ... 

Many  other  things  cause  the  death  of 
Love  : 

"  'Tis  melancholy,  and  a  fearful  sign 
Of  human  frailty,  folly,  also  crime, 
That  love  and  marriage  rarely  can  combine, 
Although  they  both  are  born  in  the  same 

clime  ; 

Marriage  from  love,  like  vinegar  from  wine— 
A  sad,  sour,  sober  beverage.t  .  •  • 
An  honest  gentleman,  at  his  return, 
May  not  have  the  good  fortune  of  Ulysses  ; 
The  odds  are  that  he  finds  a  handsome  urn 
To  his  memory — and  two  or  three  young 

misses 
Born  to  some  friend,  who  holds  his  wife  and 

riches, — 
And    that  his    Argus    bites    him    by  —  the 

breeches."  % 

These  are  the  words'  of  a  skeptic,  even 
of  a  cynic.  Skeptic  and  cynic,  it  is  in 
this  he  ends.  Skeptic  through  misan- 
thropy, cynic  through  bravado,  a  sad 
and  combative  humor  always  impels 
him  ;  southern  voluptuousness  has  not 
conquered  him  ;  he  is  only  an  epicurean 
through  contradiction  and  for  a  moment: 

"  Let  us  have  wine  and  women,  mirth  and 

laughter, 

Sermons  and  soda-water  the  day  after. 
Man,  being  reasonable  must  ge>  drunk  ; 
The  best  of  life  is  but  intoxication."  § 


*  Byron's  Works,  xv.  ;  Doi  Juan,  c.  ii.  st. 
xix.-xxiii.  t  Ibid.  c.  wi.  st.  v. 

t  Ibid-  c.  iii.  st.  xxiii. 
§  Ibid.  st.  clxxviii.,  clxxix. 
24* 


562 


We  see  clearly  that  he  is  always  the 
same,  going  to  extremes  and  unhappy, 
bent  on  destroying  himself.  His  Don 
Juan,  also,  is  a  debauchery ;  in  it  he 
diverts  himself  outrageously  at  the  ex- 
pense of  all  respectable  things,  as  a 
bull  in  a  china  shop.  He  is  always 
violent,  and  often  ferocious  ;  a  sombre 
imagination  intersperses  his  love  stories 
with  horrors  leisurely  enjoyed,  the  des- 
pair and  famine  of  shipwrecked  men, 
and  the  emaciation  of  the  raging  skele- 
tons feeding  on  each  other.  He  laughs 
at  it  horribly,  like  Swift  ;  he  jests  over 
it  like  Voltaire  : 

11  And  next  they  thought  upon  the  master's 

mate, 

As  fattest  j  but  he  saved  himself,  because, 
Besides  being  much  averse  from  such  a  fate, 
There  were  some  other  reasons:    the  first 

was, 

He  had  been  rather  indisposed  of  late  ; 
And   that   which   chiefly  proved    his  saving 

clause, 

Was  a  small  present  made  to  him  at  Cadiz, 
By  general  subscription  of  the  ladies."  * 

With  his  specimens  in  hand,t  Byron  fol- 
lows with  a  surgeon's  exactness  all  the 
stages  of  death,  gorging,  rage,  madness, 
howling,  exhaustion, stupor;  he  wishes 
to  touch  and  exhibit  the  naked  and 
ascertained  truth,  the  last  grotesque 
and  hideous  .element  of  humanity. 
Let  us  read  again  the  assault  on  Ismail, 
— the  grape-shot  and  the  bayonet,  the 
street  massacres,  the  corpses  used  as 
fascines,  and  the  thirty-eight  thousand 
slaughtered  Turks.  'There  is  blood 
enough  to  satiate  a  tiger,  and  this  blood 
flows  amidst  an  accompaniment  of 
jests  ;  it  is  in  order  to  rail  at  war,  and 
the  butcheries  dignified  with  the  name 
of  exploits.  In  this  pitiless  and  uni- 
versal demolition  of  all  human  vanities, 
what  remains  ?  What  do  we  know  ex- 
cept that  life  is  "  a  scene  of  all  con- 
fess'd  inanity,"  and  that  men  are, 

*  Dogs,  or  men  ! — for  I  flatter  you  in  saying 
That  ye  are  dogs — your  betters  far — ye  may 
Read,  or  read  not,  what  I  am  now  essaying 
To  show  ye  what  ye  are  in  every  way  ?  "  t 

What  does  he  find  in  science  but  defi- 
ciencies, and  in  religion  but  mummer- 
ies ?  §  Does  he  so  much  as  preserve 

*  Byron's  Works,  xv.  ;  Don  yuan,  c.  ii.  st. 
Ixxxi. 

t  Byron  had  before  him  a  dozen  authentic 
descriptions. 

$  Byron's  Works,  xvi.  ;  Don  Juan,  c.  vii. 
sk  7.  §  See  his  Vision  of  Judgment. 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


poetry?  Of  the  divine  mantle, the  last 
garment  which  i  poet  respects,  he 
makes  a  rag  to  trample  upon,  to  wring, 
to  make  holes  in,  out  of  sheer  wanton- 
ness. At  the  most  touching  moment 
of  Haidee's  love  he  vents  a  buffoonery 
He  concludes  an  ode  with  caricatures 
Fie  is  Faust  in  the  first  verse,  and 
Mephistopheles  in  the  second.  He 
employs,  in  the  midst  of  tenderness  or 
of  murder,  penny-print  witticisms,  triv- 
ialities, gossip,  with  a  pamphleteer's 
vilification  and  a  buffoon's  whimsicali- 
ties. He  lays  bare  the  poetic  method, 
asks  himself  where  he  has  got  to, 
counts  the  stanzas  already  done,  jokes 
the  Muse,  Pegasus,  and  the  whole  epic 
stud,  as  though  he  wouldn't  give  two- 
pence for  them.  Again,  what  remains  ? 
Himself,  he  alone,  standing  amidst  all 
this  ruin.  It  is  he  who  speaks  here  ; 
his  characters  are  but  screens  ;  half  the 
time  even  -  he  pushes  them  aside,  to 
occupy  the  stage.  He  lavishes  upon 
us  his  opinions,  recollections,  anger, 
tastes ;  his  poem  is  a  conversation,  a 
confidence,  with  the  ups  and  downs,  the 
rudeness  and  freedom  of  a  conversa- 
tion and  a  confidence,  almost  like  the 
holographic  journal,  in  which,  by  night, 
at  his  writing-table,  he  opened  his  heart 
and  discharged  his  feelings.  Never 
was  seen  in  such  a  clear  glass  the  birth 
of  lively  thought,  the  tumult  of  great 
genius,  the  inner  life  of  a  genuine  poet, 
always  impassioned,  inexhaustibly  fer- 
tile and  creative,  in  whom  suddenly, 
successively,  finished  and  adorned, 
bloomed  all  human  emotions  and  ideas, 
— sad,  gay,  lofty,  low,  hustling  one  an- 
other, mutually  impeding  one  another 
like  swarms  of  insects  who  go  hum- 
ming and  feeding  on  flowers  and  in  the 
mud.  He  may  say  what  he  likes  ;  wil- 
lingly or  unwillingly  we  listen  to  him; 
let  him  leap  from  sublime  to  burlesque, 
we  leap  with  him.  He  has  so  much 
wit,  so  fresh  a  wit,  so  sudden,  so  bit- 
~ng,  such  a  prodigality  of  knowledge, 
deas,  images  picked  up  from  the  fo'  ir 
corners  of  the  horizon,  in  heaps  an. I 
masses,  that  we  are  captivated,  trans- 
ported beyond  all  limits  ;  we  cannot 
iream  of  resisting.  Too  vigorous,  and 
lence  unbridled, — that  is  the  word 
which  ever  recurs  when  we  speak  of 
Byron  ;  too  vigorous  against  others 
and  himself,  and  so  unbridled,  that 


CHAP.  II.] 


LORD  BYRON. 


after  spending  his  life  in  setting  the 
world  at  defiance,  and  his  poetry  in 
depicting  revolt,  he  can  only  find  the 
fulfilment  of  his  talent  and  the  satis 
faction  of  his  heart,  in  a  poem  waging 
war  on  all  human  and  poetic  conven 
tions.  When  a  man  lives  in  such  a 
manner  he  must  be  great,  but  he  be 
comes  also  morbid.  There  is  a  malady 
of  heart  and  mind  in  the  style  of  Di. 
yuan,  as  in  Swift.  When  a  man  jests 
amidst  his  tears,  it  is  because  he  has  a 
poisoned  imagination.  This  kind  of 
laughter  is  a  spasm,  and  we  see  in  one 
man  a  hardening  of  the  heart,  or  mad- 
ness ;  in  another,  excitement  or  disgust. 
Byron  was  exhausted,  at  least  the  poet 
wTas  exhausted  in  him.  The  last  cantos 
of  Don  Juan  drag  :  the  gayety  became 
forced,  the  escapades  became  digres- 
sions ;  the  reader  began  to  be  bored. 
A  new  kind  of  poetry,  which  he  had 
attempted,  had  given  way  in  his  hands  : 
in  the  drama  he  only  attained  to  power- 
ful declamation,  his  characters  had  no 
life  ;  when  he  forsook  poetry,  poetry 
forsook  him ;  he  went  to  Greece  in 
search  of  action,  and  only  found  death. 

VI. 

So  lived  and  so  died  this  unhappy 
great  man  ;  the  malady  of  the  age  had 
no  more  distinguished  prey.  Around 
him,  like  a  hecatomb,  lie  the  others, 
wounded  also  by  the  greatness  of  their 
faculties  and  their  immoderate  desires, 
— some  ending  in  stupor  or  drunken- 
ness, others  worn  out  by  pleasure  or 
work ;  these  driven  to  madness  or  sui- 
cide ;  those  beaten  down  by  impotence, 
or  lying  on  a  sick-bed  ;  all  agitated  by 
their  too  acute  or  aching  nerves  ;  the 
strongest  carrying  their  bleeding  wound 
to  old  age,  the  happiest  having  suffered 
as  much  as  the  rest,  and  preserving 
theii  scars,  though  healed.  The  con- 
cert of  their  lamentations  has  filled 
their  century,  and  we  stood  around 
them,  hearing  in  our  hearts  the  low 
echo  of  their  cries.  We  were  sad  like 
them,  and  like  them  inclined  to  revolt. 
The  reign  of  democracy  excited  our 
ambitions  without  satisfying  them  ;  the 
proclamation  of  philosophy  kindled 
our  ;uriosity  without  satisfying  it.  In 
this  wide-open  career,  the  plebeian 
suffered  for  his  mediocrity,  and  the 


563 


skeptic  for  his  doubt.  The  plebeian, 
like  the  s  teptic,  attacked  by  a  preco- 
cious melancholy,  and  withered  by  a 
premature  experience,  abandoned  his 
sympathies  and  his  conduct  to  the 
poets,  who  declared  happiness  impos- 
sible, truth  unattainable,  society  ill- 
arranged,  man  abortive  or  marred. 
From  this  unison  of  voices  an  idea 
arose,  the  centre  of  the  literature,  the 
arts,  the  religion  of  the  age,  to  wit,  that 
there  is  a  monstrous  disproportion  be- 
tween the  different  parts  of  our  social 
structure,  and  that  human  destiny  is 
vitiated  by  this  disagreement. 

What  advice  have  they  given  us  to 
cure  this  ?  They  were  great ;  were  they 
wise  ?  "  Let  deep  and  strong  sensa- 
tions rain  upon  you  ;  if  the  human  me- 
chanism breaks,  so  much  the  worse  !  " 
"  Cultivate  your  garden,  bury  yourself 
in  a  little  circle,  re-enter  the  flock,  be  a 
beast  of  burden."  "  Turn  believer 
again,  take  holy  water,  abandon  your 
mind  to  dogmas,  and  your  conduct  t 
manuals  of  devotion."  "  Make  your 
way  ;  aspire  to  power,  honors,  wealth." 
Such  are  the  various  replies  of  artists 
and  citizens,  Christians  and  men  of  the 
world.  Are  they  replies  ?  And  what 
do  they  propose  but  to  satiate  one's 
self,  to  become  stupid,  to  turn  aside,  to 
forget  ?  There  is  another  and  a  deeper 
answer,  which  Goethe  was  the  first  to 
^,  the  truth  of  which  we  begin  to 
conceive,  in  which  issue  all  the  labor 
and  experience  of  the  age,  and  which 
may  perhaps  be  the  subject-matter  of 
future  literature  :  "  Try  to  understand 
yourself,  and  things  in  general."  A 
strange  reply,  which  seems  hardly  new, 
whose  scope  we  shall  only  hereafter 
discover.  For  a  long  time  yet  men  will 
:eel  their  sympathies  thrill  at  the  sound 
of  the  sobs  of  their  great  poets.  For 
a  long  time  they  will  rage  against  a 
destiny  which  opens  to  their  aspira- 
tions the  career  of  limitless  space,  to 
shatter  them,  within  two  steps  of  the 
£oal,  against  a  wretched  post  which 
hey  had  not  seen.  For  a  long  time 
hey  will  bear  like  fetters  the  necessi- 
ies  which  they  ought  to  have  em- 
braced as  laws.  Our  generation,  like 
he  preceding,  has  been  tainted  by  the 
malady  of  the  age,  and  will  never  more 
han  half  get  rid  of  it.  We  shall  ar« 
ive  at  truth,  not  at  tranquillity.  All 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


we  can  heal  at  present  is  our  intellect ; 
we  have  no  hold  upon  our  feelings. 
But  \ve  have  a  right  to  conceive  for 
others  the  hopes  which  we  no  longer 
entertain  for  ourselves,  and  to  prepare 
for  our  descendants  the  happiness 
which  we  shall  never  enjoy.  Brought 
up  in  a  more  wholesome  air,  they  will 
have,  mayhap,  a  wholesomer  heart. 
The  reformation  of  ideas  ends  by  re- 
forming the  rest,  and  the  light  of  the 
mind  produces  serenity  of  heart.  Hith- 
erto, in  our  judgments  on  men,  we  have 
taken  for  our  masters  the  oracles  and 

Eoets,  and  like  them  we  have  received 
:>r  undoubted  truths  the  noble  dreams 
of  our  imagination  and  the  imperious 
suggestions  of  our  heart.  We  have 
bound  ourselves  to  the  partiality  of  re- 
ligious divinations,  and  the  inexactness 
of  literary  divinations,  and  we  have 
shaped  our  doctrines  according  to  our 
instincts  and  our  vexations.  Science 
at  last  approaches,  and  approaches 
man  ;  it  has  gone  beyond  the  visible 
and  palpable  world  of  stars,  stones, 
plants,  amongst  which  man  disdain- 
fully confined  her.  It  reaches  the 
heart  provided  with  exact  and  pene- 
trating implements,  whose  justness  has 
been  proved,  and  their  reach  measured 
by  three  hundred  years  of  experience. 
Thought,  with  its  development  and 
rank,  its  structure  and  relations,  its 
deep  material  roots,  its  infinite  growth 
through  history,  its  lofty  bloom  at  the 
summit  of  things,  becomes  the  object  of 
science, — an  object  which,  sixty  years 
ago,  it  foresaw  in  Germany,  and  which, 
slowly  and  surely  probed,  by  the  same 
methods  as  the  physical  world,  will  be 
transformed  before  our  eyes,  as  the 
physical  world  has  been  transformed. 
It  is  already  being  transformed,  and 
we  have  left  behind  us  the  light  in 
which  Byron  and  the  French  poets  had 
considered  it.  No,  man  is  not  an 
abortion  or  a  monster ;  no,  the  busi- 
ness of  poetry  is  not  to  disgust  or  de- 
fame him.  He  is  in  his  place,  and 
completes  a  chain.  Let  us  watch  him 
grow  and  increase,  and  we  shall  cease 
to  i  ail  at  or  curse  him.  He,  like  every 
ihing  else,  is  a  product,  and  as  such  it 


is  right  he  should  be  what  he  is.  His 
innate  imperfection  is  in  order,  like  the 
constant  abortion  of  a  stamen  in  a 
plant,  like  the  fundamental  irregularity 
of  four  facets  in  a  crystal.  What  we 
took  for  a  deformity,  is  a  form  ;  what 
seemed  to  us  a  subversion  of  a  law,  is 
the  accomplishment  of  a  law.  Human 
reason  and  virtue  have  for  their  foun- 
dation instincts  and  animal  images,  as 
living  forms  have  for  their  instruments 
physical  laws,  as  organic  matters  have 
for  their  elements  mineral  substances. 
What  wonder  if  virtue  or  human  rea- 
son, like  living  form  or  organic  matter, 
sometimes  fails  or  decomposes,  since, 
like  them,  and  like  every  superior  and 
complex  existence,  they  have  for  sup- 
port and  control  inferior  and  simple 
forces,  which,  according  to  circum- 
stances, now  maintain  it  by  their  har- 
mony, now  mar  it  by  their  discord  ? 
What  wonder  if  the  elements  of  exist- 
ence, like  those  of  quantity,  receive, 
from  their  very  nature,  the  immutable 
laws  which  constrain  and  reduce  them 
to  a  certain  species  and  order  of  for- 
mation ?  Who  will  rise  up  against 
geometry  ?  Who,  especially,  will  rise 
up  against  a  living  geometry  ?  Who 
will  not,  on  the  contrary,  feel  moved 
with  admiration  at  the  sight  of  those 
grand  powers  which,  situated  at  the 
heart  of  things,  incessantly  urge  the 
blood  through  the  limbs  of  the  old 
world,  disperse  it  quickly  in  the  infi- 
nite network  of  arteries,  and  spread 
over  the  whole  surface  the  eternal 
flower  of  youth  and  beauty  ?  Who, 
finally,  will  not  feel  himself  ennobled, 
when  he  finds  that  this  pile  of  laws  re- 
sults in  a  regular  series  of  forms,  that 
matter  has  thought  for  its  goal,  that 
nature  ends  in  reason,  and  that  this 
ideal  to  which,  amidst  so  many  er- 
rors, all  the  aspirations  of  men  cling, 
is  also  the  end  to  which  aim,  amidst 
so  many  obstacles,  all  the  forces  of  the 
universe  ?  In  this  employment  of 
science,  and  in  this  conception  of 
things,  there  is  a  new  art,  a  new  mor- 
ality, a  new  polity,  a  new  religion,  and 
it  is  in  the  present  time  our  task  to 
try  and  discover  them. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


CHAPTER  III. 


I 


I. 

HAVING  reached  the  limits  of  this  long 
review,  we  can  now  survey  as  a  whole 
the  aggregate  of  English  civilization: 
every  thing  is  connected  there  :  a  few 
•rimitive  powers  and  circumstances 
.ave  produced  the  rest,  and  we  have 
only  to  pursue  their  continuous  action 
in  order  to  comprehend  the  nation  and 
its  history,  its  past  and  its  present.  At 
the  beginning  and  far  away  in  the 
region  of  causes,  comes  the  race.  A 
whole  people,  Angles  and  Saxons,  de- 
stroyed, drove  away,  or  enslaved  the 
old  inhabitants,  wiped  out  the  Roman 
culture,  settled  by  themselves  and  un- 
mixed, and,  amongst  the  later  Danish 
pirates,  only  encountered  a  new  rein- 
forcement of  the  same  blood.  This  is 
the  primitive  stock  :  from  its  substance 
and  innate  properties  is  to  spring  almost 
the  whole  future  growth.  At  this  time 
and  as  they  then  were,  alone  in  their 
island,  the  Angles  and  Saxons  attained 
a  development  such  as  it  was,  rough, 
brutal,  and  yet  solid.  They  ate  and 
drank,  built  and  cleared  the  land,  and, 
in  particular,  multiplied :  the  scattered 
tribes  who  crossed  the  sea  in  leather 
boats,  became  a  strong  compact  na- 
tion,— three  hundred  thousand  fami- 
lies, rich,  with  store  of  cattle,  abun- 
dantly provided  with  corporal  subsist- 
ence, partly  at  rest  in  the  security  of 
social  life,  with  a  king,  respected  and 
frequent  assemblies,  good  judicial  cus- 
toms :  here,  amidst  the  fire  and  vehe- 
mence of  barbarian  temperament, 
the  old  Germanic  fidelity  held  men  to- 
gether, whilst  the  old  Germanic  inde- 
pendence, held  them  upright.  In  all 
else  they  barely  advanced.  A  few 
fragmentary  songs,  an  epic  in  which 
still  are  to  be  found  traces  of  the  war- 
like excitement  of  ancient  barbarism, 
gloomy  hymns,  a  harsh  and  fierce 
poetry,  sometimes  sublime  and  always 
rude, — this  is  all  that  remains  of  them. 
In  six  centuries  they  had  scarcely  gone 
one  step  beyond  the  manners  and  senti- 
ments of  their  uncivilized  Germany: 


565 


Christianity,  which  obtained  a  hold  on 
them  by  the  greamess  of  its  biblical 
tragedies  and  the  troubled  sadness  of 
its  aspirations,  did  not  bring  to  them  a 
Latin  civilization:  this  remained  out 
side,  hardly  accepted  by  a  few  great 
men,  deformed,  when  it  did  enter,  b} 
the  difference  between  the  Roman  and 
Saxon  genius — always  altered  and  re- 
duced ;  so  much  so,  that  for  the  men  of 
the  Continent  these  islanders  were  but 
illiterate  dullards,  drunkards,  and 
gluttons;  at  all  events,  savage  and 
slow  by  mood  and  nature,  rebel' ious 
against  culture,  and  sluggish  '.%  develop- 
ment. 

The  empire  of  this  worll  belongs  to 
force.  These  people  were  conquered 
forever  and  permanently, — conquered 
by  Normans,  that  is,  by  Frenchmen 
more  clever,  more  quickly  cultivated 
arid  organized  than  they.  This  is  the 
great  event  which  was  to  complete  their 
character,  decide  their  history,  and 
stamp  upon  character  and  history  an 
impress  of  the  political  and  practical 
spirit  which  separates  them  from  other 
German  nations.  Oppressed,  enclosed 
in  the  unyielding  meshes  of  Norman 
organization,  they  were  not  destroyed 
although  they  were  conquered,  they 
were  on  their  own  soil,  each  with  his 
friends  and  in  his  tithings  ;  they  formed 
a  body ;  they  were  yet  twenty  times 
more  numerous  than  their  conquerors. 
Their  situation  and  their  necessities 
create  their  habits  and  their  aptitudes. 
They  endure,  protest,  struggle,  resist 
together  and  unanimously ;  strive  to- 
day, to-morrow,  daily,  not  to  be  slain  or 
plundered,  to  restore  their  old  laws,  to 
obtain  or  extort  guarantees  ;  and  they 
gradually  acquire  patience,  judgment, 
all  the  faculties  and  inclinations  by 
which  liberties  are  maintained  and 
states  are  founded.  By  a  singular  good 
fortune,  the  Norman  lords  assist  them 
in  this ;  for  the  king  has  secured  to 
himself  so  much,  and  is  so  formidable, 
that,  in  order  to  repress  the  great 
pillager,  the  lesser  ones  are  forced  to 
make  use  of  their  Saxon  subjects,  to 
ally  themselves  with  them,  to  give 
them  a  share  in  their  charters,  to  be- 
come their  representatives,  to  admit 
them  into  Parliament,  to  leave  them  to 
labor  freely,  to  grow  rich,  to  acquire 
pride,  strength,  authority,  to  interfere 


MODERN  LIFE. 


566 


with  themselves  in  public  affairs. 
Thus,  then,  gradually  the  English  na- 
tion, struck  down  by  the  Conquest  to 
the  ground,  as  if  with  a  mace,  extri- 
cates and  raises  itself;  five  hundred 
years  and  more  being  occupied  in  this 
re-elevation.  But,  during  all  this  time, 
leisure  failed  for  refined  and  lofty  cul- 
ture :  it  was  needful  to  live  and  defend 
themselves,  to  dig  the  ground,  spin 
wool,  practise  the  bow,  attend  public 
meetings,  serve  on  juries,  to  contribute 
and  argue  for  common  interests  :  the 
important  and  respected  man  is  he  who 
knows  how  to  fight  well  and  to  gain 
much  money.  It  was  the  energetic  and 
warlike  manners  which  were  developed, 
the  active  and  positive  spirit  which 
predominated ;  learning  and  elegance 
were  left  to  the  Gallicized  nobles  of  the 
court.  When  the  valiant  Saxon  towns- 
folk quitted  bow  and  plough,  it  was  to 
feast  copiously,  or  to  sing  the  ballad  of 
"  Robin  Hood."  They  lived  and  acted  ; 
they  did  not  reflect  or  write;  their 
national  literature  was  reduced  to  frag- 
ments and  rudiments,  harpers'  songs, 
tavern  epics,  a  religious  poem,  a  few 
books  on  religious  reformation.  At 
the  same  time  Norman  literature  faded ; 
separated  from  the  stem,  and  on  a 
foreign  soil,  it  languished  in  imitations  ; 
only  one  great  poet,  almost  French  in 
mind,  quite  French  in  style,  appeared, 
and,  after  him,  as  before  him,  we  find 
helpless  drivel.  For  the  second  time, 
a  civilization  of  five  centuries  became 
sterile  in  great  ideas  and  works  ;  this 
still  more  so  than  its  neighbors,  and  for 
a  twofold  reason, — because  to  the  uni- 
versal impotence  of  the  middle  ages 
was  added  the  impoverishment  of  the 
Conquest,  and  because  of  the  two  com- 
ponent literatures,  one,  transplanted, 
became  abortive,  and  the  other,  muti- 
lated, ceased  to  expand. 

II. 

But  amongst  so  many  attempts  and 
trials  a  character  was  formed,  and  the 
rest  was  to  spring  from  it.  The  bar- 
barous age  established  on  the  soil  a 
German  race,  phlegmatic  and  grave, 
capable  of  spiritual  emotions  and  moral 
discipline.  The  feudal  age  imposed  on 
this  race  habits  of  resistance  and  asso- 
ciation, political  and  utilitarian  pre- 


[BooK  IV 


possessions.  Fancy  a  German  from 
Hamburg  or  Bremen  confined  for  five 
hundred  years  in  the  iron  corslet  of 
William  the  Conqueror :  these  two 
natures,  one  innate,  the  other  acquired, 
constitute  all  the  springs  of  his  con- 
duct. So  it  was  in  other  nations.  Like 
runners  drawn  up  in  line  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  arena,  we  see  at  the 
epoch  of  the  Renaissance  the  five  great 
peoples  of  Europe  start,  though  we  are 
unable  at  first  to  foresee  any  thing  of 
their  career.  At  first  sight  it  seems  as 
if  accidents  or  circumstances  will  alone 
regulate  their  speed,  their  fall,  and 
their  success.  It  is  not  so  :  from  them- 
selves alone  their  history  depends : 
each  nation  will  be  the  artisan  of  its 
fortune  ;  chance  has  no  influence  over 
events  so-vast  ;  and  it  is  national  ten- 
dencies and  faculties  which,  overturn- 
ing or  raising  obstacles,  will  lead  them, 
according  to  their  fate,  each  one  to  its 
goal, — some  to  the  extreme  of  deca- 
dence, others  to  the  height  of  pros- 
perity. After  all,  man  is  ever  his  own 
master  and  his  own  slave.  At  the  out- 
set of  every  age  he  in  a  certain  fashion 
is :  his  body,  heart,  mind  have  a  dis- 
tinct structure  and  disposition :  and 
from  this  lasting  arrangement,  which 
all  preceding  centuries  have  contributed 
to  consolidate  or  to  construct,  spring 
permanent  desires  or  aptitudes,  by 
which  he  determines  and  acts.  Thus 
is  formed  in  him  the  ideal  model, 
which,  whether  obscure  or  distinct, 
complete  or  rough  hewn,  will  hence- 
forth float  before  his  eyes,  rally  all  his 
aspirations,  efforts,  forces,  and  will 
cause  him  to  aim  for  centuries  at  one 
effect,  until  at  length,  renewed  by  im- 
potence or  success,  he  conceives  a  new 
goal,  and  assumes  new  energy.  The 
Catholic  and  enthusiastic  Spaniard 
figures  life  like  the  Crusaders,  lovers, 
knights,  and  abandoning  labor,  liberty, 
and  science,  casts  himself,  in  the  wake 
of  the  inquisition  and  his  king,  into 
fanatical  war,  romanesque  slothfulness, 
superstitious  and  impassioned  obedi- 
ence, voluntary  and  incurable  igno- 
rance.* The  theological  and  feudal 

*  See  the  Travels  of  Madame  d"1  Aulnay  in 
Spain,  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Nothing  is  more  striking  than  this  revolution, 
if  we  compare  it  with  the  times  before  Ferdi- 
nand the  Catholic,  namely,  the  reign  of  Henry 
IV.,  the  great  power  of  the  nobles,  and  the  ia- 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


German  settles  in  his  district  docilely 
and  faithfully  under  his  petty  chief, 
through  natural  patience  and  hereditary 
loyalty,  engrossed  by  his  wife  and 
household,  content  to  have  conquered 
leligious  liberty,  clogged  by  the  dulness 
of  his  temperament  in  gross  physical 
existence,  and  in  sluggish  respect  for 
established  order.  The  Italian,  the 
most  richly  gifted  and  precocious  of 
all,  hut,  of  all,  the  most  incapable  of 
vo'  antary  discipline  and  moral  auster- 
ity, turns  towards  the  fine  arts  and 
voluptuousness,  declines,  deteriorates 
Deneath  foreign  rule,  takes  life  at  its 
easiest,  forgetting  to  think,  and  satisfied 
to  enjoy.  The  sociable  and  levelling 
Frenchman  rallies  round  his  king,  who 
secures  for  him  public  peace,  external 
glory,  the  splendid  display  of  a  sump- 
tuous court,  a  regular  administration,  a 
uniform  discipline,  a  predominating 
influence  in  Europe,  and  universal 
•literature.  So,  if  we  look  at  the  Eng- 
lishman in  the  sixteenth  century,  we 
shall  find  in  him  the  inclinations  and 
the  powers  which  for  three  centuries 
are  to  govern  his  culture  and  shape  his 
constitution.  In  this  European  expan- 
sion of  natural  existence  and  pagan 
literature  we  find  at  first  in  Shakspeare, 
Ben  Jonson,  and  the  tragic  poets,  in 
Spenser,  Sidney,  and  the  lyric  poets, 
the  national  features,  all  with  incom- 
parable depth  and  splendor,  and  such 
as  race  and  history  have  impressed  and 
implanted  in  them  for  a  thousand 
years.  Not  in  vain  did  invasion  settle 
here  so  serious  a  race,  capable  of  re- 
flection. Not  in  vain  did  the  Conquest 
turn  this  race  toward  warlike  life  and 
practical  preoccupations.  From  the 
first  rise  of  original  invention,  its  work 
displays  the  tragic  energy,  the  intense 
and  disorderly  passion,  the  disdain  of 
regularity,  the  knowledge  of  the  real, 
the  sentiment  of  inner  things,  the 
natural  melancholy,  the  anxious  divina- 
tion of  the  obscure  beyond, — all  the 
instincts  which,  forcing  man  upon  him- 
self, and  concentrating  him  within  him- 
se.f,  prepare  him  for  Protestantism  and 
combat.  What  is  this  Protestantism 
which  establishes  itself?  What  is  this 
ideal  model  which  it  presents  ;  and 

dependence  of  the  towns.  Read  about  this 
history,  Buckle's  History  o/ Civilisation,  1867, 
3  vois.,  ii.  ch.  viii. 


567 


what  original  conception  is  to  furnish 
to  this  people  its  permanent  and  domi- 
nant poem?  The  harshest  and  most 
practical  of  all, — that  of  the  Puritans, 
which,  neglecting  speculation,  falls 
back  upon  action,  encloses  human  life 
in  a  rigid  discipline,  imposes  on  the 
soul  continuous  efroris,  prescribes  to 
society  a  cloistral  austerity,  forbids 
pleasure,  commands  action,  exacts 
sacrifice,  and  forms  a  moralist,  a 
laborer,  a  citizen.  Thus  is  it  implanted, 
the  great  English  idea — I  mean  the 
conviction  that  man  is  before  all  a  free 
and  moral  personage,  and  that,  having 
conceived  alone  in  his  conscience  and 
before  God  the  rule  of  his  conduct,  he 
must  employ  himself  entirely  in  apply- 
ing it  within  himself,  beyond  himself, 
obstinately,  inflexibly,  by  offering  a 
perpetual  resistance  to  others,  and  im- 
posing a  perpetual  restraint  upon  him- 
self. In  vain  will  this  idea  at  first 
bring  discredit  upon  itself  by  its  trans- 
ports and  its  tyranny;  weakened  by 
practice,  it  will  gradually  accommodate 
itself  to  humanity,  and,  carried  from 
Puritan  fanaticism  to  laic  morality,  it 
will  win  all  public  sympathy,  because  it 
answers  to  all  the  national  instincts. 
In  vain  it  will  vanish  from  high  society, 
under  the  scorn  of  the  Restoration,  and 
the  importation  of  French  culture  ;  it 
subsists  underground.  For  French 
culture  did  not  come  to  a  head  in  Eng- 
land :  on  this  too  alien  soil  it  produced 
only  unhealthy,  coarse,  or  imperfect 
fruit.  Refined  elegance  became  low 
debauchery ;  hardly  expressed  doabt 
became  brutal  atheism ;  tragedy  failed, 
and  was  but  declamation ;  comedy 
grew  shameless,  and  was  but  a  school 
of  vice;  of  this  literature,  there  re- 
mained only  studies  of  close  reasoning 
and  good  style ;  it  was  driven  from  the 
public  stage,  together  with  the  Stuarts, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  liberal  and  moral  maxims  re- 
sumed the  ascendency,  which  they  will 
not  again  lose.  For,  with  ideas,  events 
have  followed  their  course :  national 
inclinations  have  done  their  work  in 
society  as  in  literature ;  and  the  Eng- 
lish instincts  have  transformed  the  con- 
stitution and  politics  at  the  same  time 
as  the  talents  and  minds.  These  rich 
tithings,  these  valiant  yeomen,  these 
rude,  well-armed  citizens,  well  fed,  pro- 


S68 


tected  by  their  juries,  wont  to  reckon 
on  themselves,  obstinate,  combative, 
sensible,  such  as  the  English  middle 
ages  bequeathed  them  to  modern  Eng- 
land, did  not  object  if  the  king  practised 
his  temporary  tyranny  on  the  classes 
above  them,  and  oppressed  the  nobility 
with  a  rigorous  despotism  which  the 
recollection  of  the  Civil  Wars  and  the 
danger  of  high  treason  justified.  But 
Henry  VIIL,  and  Elizabeth  herself, 
were  obliged  to  follow  in  great  interests 
the  current  of  public  opinion :  if  they 
were  strong,  it  was  because  they  were 
popular ;  the  people  only  supported 
their  designs,  and  authorized  their  vio- 
lences, because  they  found  in  them  de- 
fenders of  their  religion,  and  the  pro- 
tectors of  their  labor.*  The  people 
themselves  became  immersed  in  this 
religion,  and,  from  under  a  State- 
church,  attained  to  personal  belief. 
They  grew  rich  by  toil,  and  under  the 
first  Stuart  already  occupied  the  high- 
est place  in  the  nation.  At  this  mo- 
ment every  thing  was  decided  :  what- 
ever happened,  they  must  one  day  be- 
come masters.  Social  situations  create 
political  situations  ;  legal  constitutions 
always  accommodate  themselves  to 
real  things ;  and  acquired  preponder- 
ance infallibly  results  in  written  rights. 
Men  so  numerous,  so  active,  so  reso- 
lute, so  capable  of  keeping  themselves, 
so  disposed  to  educe  their  opinions 
from  their  own  reflection,  and  their 
subsistence  from  their  own  efforts,  will 
under  all  circumstances  seize  the 
guarantees  which  they  need.  At  the 
first  onset,  and  in  the  ardor  of  primi- 
tive faith,  they  overturn  the  throne,  and 
the  current  which  bears  them  is  so 
strong,  that,  in  spite  of  their  excess  and 
their  failure,  the  Revolution  is  accom- 
plished by  the  abolition  of  feudal 
tenjres,  and  the  institution  of  Habeas 
Corpiis  under  Charles  II. ;  by  the  uni- 
versal upheaving  of  the  liberal  and 
Protestant  spirit,  under  James  II. ;  by 
the  establishment  of  the  constitution, 
the  act  of  toleration,  the  freedom  of  the 
press,  under  William  III.  From  that 
moment  England  had  found  her  proper 
place  ;  her  two  interior  and  hereditary 
forces — moral  and  religious  instinct, 
practical  and  political  aptitude — had 
done  their  work,  and  were  henceforth 
*  Buckle,  History  of  Civilisation^  i.  ch.  vii. 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV. 


to  build,  without  impediment  or  de« 
struction,  on  the  foundation  which  thej 
had  laid. 

III. 

Thus  was  the  literature  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  born,  altogether  conser- 
vative, useful,  moral,  and  limited.  Two 
powers  direct  it,  one  European,  the  oth- 
er English  :  on  one  side  a  talent  of  ora- 
torical analysis  and  habits  of  literary 
dignity,  which  belong  to  a  classical 
age  ;  on  the  other,  a  taste  for  applica- 
tion and  an  energy  of  precise  obser- 
vation, which  are  peculiar  to  the  na- 
tional mind.  Hence  that  excellence 
and  originality  of  political  satire,  par- 
liamentary discourse,  solid  essays,  mor- 
al novels,  and  all  kinds  of  literature 
which  demand  an  attentive  good  sense, 
a  correct  good  style,  and  a  talent  for 
advising,  convincing,  or  wounding  oth- 
ers. Hence  that  weakness  or  impotence 
of  speculative  thought,  of  genuine 
poetry,  of  original  drama,  and  of  all 
the  kinds  which  require  a  grand,  free 
curiosity,  or  a  grand,  disinterested  imag- 
ination. The  English  did  not  attain 
complete  elegance,  nor  superior  phi- 
losophy; they  dulled  the  French  re- 
finements which  they  copied,  and  Were 
terrified  by  the  French  boldness  which 
they  suggested ;  they  remain  half  cock- 
neys and  half  barbarians  ;  they  only 
invented  insular  ideas  and  English 
ameliorations,  and  were  confirmed  in 
their  respect  for  their  constitution  and 
their  tradition.  But,  at  the  same  time, 
they  cultivated  and  reformed  them- 
selves :  their  wealth  and  comfort  in- 
creased enormously ;  literature  and 
opinion  became  severe  and  even  in- 
tolerant ;  their  long  war  against  the 
French  Revolution  caused  their  moral- 
ity to  become  strict  and  even  immod- 
erate ;  whilst  the  invention  of  ma- 
chinery developed  their  comfort  and 
prosperity  a  hundred-fold.  A  salutary 
and  despotic  code  of  approved  maxims, 
established  proprieties,  and  unassail- 
able beliefs,  which  fortifies,  strengthens, 
curbs,  and  employs  man  usefully  and 
painfully,  without  permitting  him  ever 
to  deviate  or  grow  weak;  a  minute 
apparatus,  and  an  admirable  provision 
of  commodious  inventions,  associations, 
institutions,  mechanisms,  implements, 


CHAP   III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


methods,  which  incessantly  co-operate 
to  furnish  body  and  mind  with  all 
which  they  need, — such  are  henceforth 
the  leading  and  special  features  of  this 
people.  To  constrain  themselves  and 
to  provide  for  themselves,  to  govern 
themselves  and  nature,  to  consider 
life  as  moralists  and  economists,  like  a 
close  garment,  in  which  people  must 
walk  becomingly,  and  like  a  good  gar- 
ment, the  best  to  be  had,  to  be  at 
once  respectable  and  comfortable  : 
these  two  words  embrace  all  the  main- 
springs of  English  actions.  Against  this 
limited  good  sense,  and  this  pedantic 
austerity,  a  revolt  broke  out.  With 
the  universal  renewal  of  thought  and 
imagination,  the  deep  poetic  source 
which  flowed  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
seeks  anew  an  outlet  in  the  nineteenth, 
and  a  fresh  literature  springs  up  ;  phi- 
losophy and  history  infiltrate  their  doc- 
trines into  the  old  establishment ;  the 
greatest  poet  of  the  time  shocks  it  in- 
cessantly with  his  curses  and  sarcasms  ; 
from  all  sides,  to  this  day,  in  science 
and  letters,  in  practice  and  theory,  in 
private  and  in  public  life,  the  most 
powerful  minds  endeavor  to  open  up  a 
new  channel  to  the  stream  of  continen- 
tal ideas.  But  they  are  patriots  as 
well  as  innovators,  conservative  as 
well  as  revolutionary ;  if  they  touch 
religion  and  constitution,  manners  and 
doctrines,  it  is  to  widen,  not  to  destroy 
them  :  England  is  made ;  she  knows 
it,  and  they  know  it.  Such  as  this 
country  is,  based  on  the.  whole  national 
history  and  on  all  the  national  instincts, 
it  is  more  capable  than  any  other  peo- 
ple in  Europe  of  transforming  itself 
without  recasting,  and  of  devoting  itself 
to  its  future  without  renouncing  its 
past. 

§    2. 


I. 


I  began  to  perceive  these  ideas  when 
I  first  landed  in  England,  and  I  was 
singularly  struck  how  they  were  corrob- 
orated by  observation  and  history  ;  it 
seemed  to  me  that  the  present  was 
completing  the  past,  and  the  past  ex- 
plained the  present. 

At  first  the  sea  troubles  and  strikes 
a  man  with  wonder;  not  in  vain  is  a 


569 


people  insular  and  maritime,  especially 
with  such  a  sea  and  such  coasts  ;  their 
painters,  not  very  gifted,  perceive  in 
spite  of  all,  its  alarming  and  gloomy 
aspect ;  up  to  the  eighteenth  century, 
amidst  the  elegance  of  French  culture, 
and  under  the  joviality  of  Flemish 
tradition,  we  will  find  in  Gainsborough 
the  ineffaceable  stamp  of  this  great  sen- 
timent. In  pleasant  moments,  in  the  fine 
calm  summer  days,  the  moist  fog 
stretches  over  the  horizon  its  pearl- 
gray  veil ;  the  sea  has  a  pale  slate 
color;  and  the  ships,  spreading  their 
canvas,  advance  patiently  through  the 
mist.  But  let  us  look  around,  and  we 
will  soon  see  the  signs  of  daily  peril. 
The  coast  is  eaten  out,  the  waves  have 
encroached,  the  trees  have  vanished, 
the  earth  is  softened  by  incessant 
showers,  the  ocean  is  here,  ever  in- 
tractable and  fierce.  It  growls  and 
bellows  eternally,  that  old  hoarse 
monster ;  and  the  barking  pack  of  its 
waves  advances  like  an  endless  army, 
before  which  all  human  force  must 
give  way.  Think  of  the  winter  months, 
the  storms,  the  long  hours  of  the  tem- 
pest-tossed sailor  whirled  about  blindly 
by  the  squalls  !  Now,  and  in  this  fine 
season,  over  the  whole  circle  of  the 
horizon,  rise  the  dull,  wan,  clouds,  soon 
like  the  smoke  of  a  coal-fire,  some  of  a 
frail  and  dazzling  white,  so  swollen  that 
they  seem  ready  to  burst.  Their  heavy 
masses  creep  slowly  along  ;  they  are 
gorged,  and  already  here  and  there  on 
the  limitless  plain  a  patch  of  sky  is 
shrouded  in  a  sudden  shower.  After 
an  instant,  the  sea  becomes  dirty  and 
cadaverous ;  its  waves  leap  with  strange 
gambols,  and  their  sides  take  an  oily 
and  livid  tint.  The  vast  gray  dome 
drowns  and  hides  the  whole  horizon ; 
the  rain  falls,  close  and  pitiless.  We 
cannot  have  an  idea  of  it,  until  we  have 
seen  it.  When  the  southern  men,  the 
Romans,  came  here  for  the  first  time, 
they  must  have  thought  themselves  in 
the  infernal  regions.  The  wide  space 
between  earth  and  sky,  and  on  which 
our  eyes  dwell  as  their  domain,  sud- 
denly'fails  ;  there  is  no  more  air,  we 
see  but  a  flowing  mist.  No  more  col- 
ors or  forms.  In  this  yellowish  smoke, 
objects  look  like  fading  ghosts;  nature 
seems  a  bad  crayon-drawing,  over  which 
a  child  has  awkwardly  smeared  his 


57° 

sleeve.  Here  we  are  at  Newhaven, 
then  at  London ;  the  sky  disgorges 
rain,  the  earth  returns  her  mist,  the 
mist  floats  in  the  rain  ;  all  is  swamped  : 
looking  round  us,  we  see  no  reason 
why  it  should  ever  end.  Here,  truly, 
is  Homer's  Cimmerian  land :  our  feet 
splash,  we  have  no  use  left  for  our  eyes  ; 
we  feel  all  our  organs  stopped  up,  be- 
coming rusty  by  the  mounting  damp  ; 
we  think  ourselves  banished  from  the 
breathing  world,  reduced  to  the  con- 
dition of  marshy  beings  dwelling  in 
dirty  pools  :  to  live  here  is  not  life. 
We  ask  ourselves  if  this  vast  town  is 
not  a  cemetery,  in  which  dabble  busy 
and  wretched  ghosts.  Amidst  the 
deluge  of  moist  soot,  the  muddy  stream 
with  its  unwearying  iron  ships,  like 
black  insects  which  take  on  board  and 
land  shades,  makes  us  think  of  the 
Styx.  As  there  is  no  light,  they  create 
it.  Lately,  in  a  large  square  in  Lon- 
don, in  the  finest  hotel,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  leave  the  gas  alight  for  five 
days  running.  We  become  melancholy  ; 
we  are  disgusted  with  others  and  with 
ourselves.  What  can  people  do  in 
this  sepulchre  ?  To  remain  at  home 
without  working  is  to  gnaw  one's 
vitals,  and  to  prepare  one's  self  for 
suicide.  To  go  out  is  to  make  an 
effort,  to  care  neither  for  damp  nor 
cold,  to  brave  discomfort  and  unpleas- 
ant sensations.  Such  a  climate  pre- 
scribes action,  forbids  sloth,  develops 
energy,  teaches  patience.  I  was  look- 
ing just  now  on  the  steam-boat  at  the 
sailors  at  the  helm, — their  tarpaulins, 
their  great  streaming  boots,  their  sou'- 
westers,  so  attentive,  so  precise  in  their 
movements,  so  grave,  so  self-contain- 
ed. I  have  since  seen  workmen  at 
their  looms,  —  calm,  serious,  silent, 
economizing  their  efforts,  and  persever- 
ing all  day,  all  the  year,  all  their  life, 
in  the  same  regular  and  monotonous 
struggle  of  mind  and  body  :  their  soul 
is  suited  to  their  climate.  Indeed  it 
must  be  so  in  order  to  live ;  after  a 
week,  we  feel  that  here  a  man  must  re- 
noum  e  refined  and  heartfelt  enjoyment, 
the  happiness  of  careless  life,  com- 
plete idleness,  the  easy  and  harmonious 
expansion  of  artistic  and  animal  na- 
ture ;  that  here  he  must  marry,  bring  up 
a  houseful  of  children,  assume  the  cares 
and  importance  of  a  family  man,  grow 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV. 


rich,  provide  against  an  evil  day,  sur- 
round himself  with  comfort,  become  a 
Protestant,  a  manufacturer,  a  politi- 
cian ;  in  short,  capable  of  activity  and 
resistance  ;  and  in  all  the  ways  open 
to  men,  endure  and  strive. 

Yet  there  are  charming  and  touch- 
ing beauties  here — those,  to  wit,  of  a 
well-watered  land.  When,  on  a  p^itly 
clear  day,  we  take  a  drive  into  the 
country  and  reach  an  eminence,  our 
eyes  experience  a  unique  sensation, 
and  a  pleasure  hitherto  unknown.  In 
the  far  distance,  wherever  we  look  on 
the  horizon,  in  the  fields,  on  the  hills, 
spreads  the  always  visible  verdure, 
plants  for  fodder  and  food,  clover, 
hops  ;  lovely  meadows  overflowing  with 
high  thick  grass ;  here  and  there  a 
cluster  of  lofty  trees  ;  pasture  lands 
hemmed  in  with  hedges,  in  which  the 
heavy  cows  ruminate  in  peace.  The 
mist  rises  insensibly  between  the  trees, 
and  in  the  distance  float  luminous 
vapors.  There  is  nothing  sweeter  in 
the  world,  nor  more  delicate,  than 
these  tints  ;  we  might  pause  for  hours 
together  gazing  on  these  pearly  clouds, 
this  fine  aerial  down,  this  soft  trans- 
parent gauze  which  imprisons  the  rays 
of  the  sun,  dulls  them,  and  lets  them 
reach  the  ground  only  to  smile  on  it 
and  to  caress  it.  On  both  sides  of  our 
carriage  pass  before  our  eyes  incessant- 
ly meadows  each  more  lovely  than  the 
last,  in  which  buttercups,  meadow-sweet, 
Easter-daisies,  are  crowded  in  succes- 
sion with  their  dissolving  hues  ;  a  sweet- 
ness almost  painful,  a  strange  charm, 
breathes  from  this  inexhaustible  and 
transient  vegetation.  It  is  too  fresh,  it 
cannot  last ;  nothing  here  is  staid, 
stable  and  firm,  as  in  the  South;  all  is 
fleeting,  springing  up,  or  dying  away, 
hovering  betwixt  tears  and  joy.  The 
rolling  water-drops  shine  on  the  leaves 
like  pearls;  the  round  tree-tops,  the 
widespread  foliage,  whisper  in  the 
feeble  breeze,  and  the  sound  of  the 
falling  tears  left  by  the  last  shower 
never  ceases.  How  well  these  plants 
thrive  in  the  glades,  spread  out  wan- 
tonly, ever  renewed  and  watered  by  the 
moist  air !  How  the  sap  mounts  in 
these  plants,  refreshed  and  protected 
against  the  weather !  And  how  sky 
and  land  seem  made  to  guard  their 
tissue  and  refresh  their  hues !  At  the 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


57* 


least  glimpse  of  sun  they  smile  with 
delicious  charm  ;  we  would  call  them 
delicate  and  timid  virgins  under  a  veil 
about  to  be  raised.  Let  the  sun  for 
an  instant  emerge,  and  we  will  see 
them  grow  resplendent  as  in  a  ball 
aress.  The  light  falls  in  dazzling 
sheets  ;  the  lustrous  golden  petals  shine 
with  a  too  vivid  color;  the  most  splen- 
did embroideries,  velvet  starred  with 
diamonds,  sparkling  silk  seamed  with 
pearls,  are  not  to  be  compared  to  this 
deep  hue  ;  joy  overflows  like  a  brim- 
ming cup.  In  the  strangeness  and  the 
rarity  of  this  spectacle,  we  understand 
for  the  first  time  the  life  of  a  humid 
land.  The  water  multiplies  and  soft- 
ens the  living  tissues  ;  plants  increase, 
and  have  no  substance  :  nourishment 
abounds,  and  has  no  savor ;  moisture 
fructifies,  but  the  sun  does  not  fertilize. 
Much  grass,  much  cattle,  much  meat ; 
large  quantities  of  coarse  food :  thus 
an  absorbing  and  phlegmatic  tempera- 
ment is  supported  ;  the  human  growth, 
like  the  animal  and  vegetable,  is  power- 
ful, but  heavy  ;  man  is  amply  but  coarse- 
ly framed  ;  the  machine  is  solid,  but  it 
turns  slowly  on  its  hinges,  and  the  hinges 
generally  creak  and  are  rusty.  When  we 
look  at  the  people  closer,  it  seems  that 
their  various  parts  are  independent,  at 
least  that  they  need  time  to  let  sensa- 
tions pass  through  them.  Their  ideas 
do  not  at  first  break  out  in  passions, 
gestures,  actions.  As  in  the  Fleming 
and  the  German,  they  dwell  first  of  all 
in  the  brain  ;  they  expand  there,  they 
rest  there  ;  man  is  not  shaken  by  them, 
he  has  no  difficulty  in  remaining  motion- 
less, he  is  not  rapt :  he  can  act  wisely, 
uniformly ;  for  his  inner  motive  power 
is  an  idea  or  a  watchword,  not  an  emo- 
tion or  an  attraction.  He  can  bear 
tedium,  or  rather  he  does  not  weary 
himself;  his  ordinary  course  consists 
of  dull  sensations,  and  the  insipid  mo- 
notony of  mechanical  life  has  nothing 
^hichneed  repel  him.  He  is  accus- 
tomed to  it,  his  nature  is  suited  for  it. 
When  a  man  has  all  his  life  eaten 
turnips,  he  does  not  wish  for  oranges. 
He  will  readily  resign  himself  to  hear 
fifteen  consecutive  discourses  on  the 
same  subject,  "demanding  for  twenty 
years  the  same  reform,  compiling  statis- 
tics, studying  moral  treatises,  keeping 
Sunday  schools,  bringing  up  a  dozen 


children.  The  piquant,  the  agreeable 
are  not  a  necessity  to  him.  The  weak- 
ness of  his  sensitive  impulses  contrib- 
utes to  the  force  of  his  moral  impulses. 
His  temperament  makes  him  argumen- 
tative ;  he  can  get  on  without  police- 
men ;  the  shocks  of  man  against  man. 
do  not  here  end  in  explosions.  He  can 
discuss  in  the  market-place  aloud,  re- 
ligion and  politics,  hold  meetings,  form 
associations,  rudely  attack  men  in  office, 
say  that  the  Constitution  is  violated, 
predict  the  ruin  of  the  State  :  there  is 
no  objection  to  this ;  his  nerves  are 
calm;  he  will  argue  without  cutting 
throats  ;  he  will  not  raise  revolutions ; 
and  perhaps  he  will  ottain  a  reform. 
Observe  the  passers-by  in  the  streets  j 
in  three  hours  we  will  see  all  the  visi- 
ble features  of  this  temperament :  light 
hair,  in  children  almost  white ;  pale 
eyes,  often  blue  as  Wedgwood-ware, 
red  whiskers,  a  tall  figure,  the  motions 
of  an  automaton ;  and  with  these  other 
still  more  striking  features,  those  which 
strong  food  and  combative  life  have 
added  to  this  temperament.  Here  the 
enormous  guardsman,  with  rosy  com- 
plexion, majestic,  slightly  bent,  who 
struts  along  twirling  a  little  cane  in  his 
hand,  displaying  his  chest,  and  showing 
a  clear  parting  between  his  pomaded 
hair ;  there  the  over-fed  stout  man, 
short,  sanguine,  like  an  animal  fit  for 
the  shambles,  with  his  startled,  dazed, 
yet  sluggish  air  ;  a  little  further  on  the 
country  gentleman,  six  feet  high,  stout 
and  tall,  like  the  German  who  left  his 
forest,  with  the  muzzle  and  nose  of  a 
bull-dog,  tremendous  savage-looking 
whiskers,  rolling  eyes,  apoplectic  face  ; 
these  are  the  excesses  of  coarse  blood 
and  food ;  add  to  which,  even  in  the 
women,  the  white  front  teeth  of  a  car- 
nivorous ai  imal,  and  big  feet  solidly 
shod,  excellent  for  walking  in  the  mud. 
Again,  look  at  the  young  men  in  a 
cricket  match  or  picnic  party ;  doubt- 
less mind  does  not  sparkle  in  their  eyes, 
but  life  abounds  there  ;  there  is  some- 
thing of  decision  and  energy  in  their 
whole  being  ;  healthy  and  active,  ready 
for  motion,  for  enterprise,  these  are  the 
words  which  rise  involuntarily  to  our 
lips  when  we  speak  of  them.  Many 
look  like  fine,  slender  harriers,  sniffing 
the  air,  and  in  full  cry.  A  life  passed 
in  gymnastic  exercises  or  in  venture- 


572 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV 


some  deeds  is  honored  in  England  ; 
they  must  move  their  body,  swim,  throw 
the  ball,  run  in  the  damp  meadow,  row, 
breathe  in  their  boats  the  briny  sea- 
vapor,  feel  on  their  foreheads  the  rain- 
drops falling  from  the  large  oak  trees, 
leap  their  horses  over  ditches  and 
gates ;  the  animal  instincts  are  intact. 
They  still  relish  natural  pleasures; 
prei  ocity  has  not  spoiled  them.  Noth- 
ing can  be  simpler  than  the  young 
English  girls ;  amidst  many  beautiful 
things,  there  are  few  so  beautiful  in  the 
world ;  slim,  strong,  self-assured,  so  fun- 
damentally honest  and  loyal,  so  free  from 
coquetry !  A  man  cannot  imagine,  if 
he  has  not  seen  it,  this  freshness  and 
innocence  ;  many  of  them  are  flowers, 
expanded  flowers  ;  only  a  morning  rose, 
with  its  transient  and  delicious  color, 
with  its  petals  drenched  in  dew,  can 
give  us  an  idea  of  it ;  it  leaves  far  be- 
hind the  beauty  of  the  South,  and  its 
precise,  stable,  finished  contours,  its 
well-defined  outlines ;  here  we  per- 
ceive fragility,  delicacy,  the  continual 
budding  of  life;  candid  eyes,  blue  as 
periwinkles,  looking  at  us  without  think- 
ing of  our  look.  At  the  least  stirring 
of  the  soul,  the  blood  rushes  in  purple 
waves  into  these  girls'  cheeks,  neck, 
and  shoulders  ;  we  see  emotions  pass 
over  these  transparent  complexions,  as 
the  colors  change  in  the  meadows  ;  and 
their  modesty  is  so  virginal  and  sin- 
cere, that  we  are  tempted  to  lower  our 
eyes  from  respect.  And  yet,  natural 
and  frank  as  they  are,  they  are  not  lan- 
guishing or  dreamy ;  they  love  and 
endure  exercise  like  their  brothers; 
with  flowing  locks,  at  six  years  they 
ride  on  horseback  and  take  long  walks'. 
Active  life  in  this  country  strengthens 
the  phlegmatic  temperament,  and  the 
heart  is  kept  more  simple  whilst  the 
body  grows  healthier.  Another  obser- 
vation: far  above  all  these  figures  one 
type  stands  out,  the  most  truly  English, 
the  most  striking  to  a  foreigner.  Post 
yourself  for  an  hour,  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, at  the  terminus  of  a  railway,  and 
observe  the  men  above  thirty  who  come 
to  London  on  business  :  the  features 
are  drawn,  the  faces  pale,  the  eyes 
steady,  preoccupied ;  the  mouth  open 
and,  as  it  were,  contracted  ;  the  man  is 
tired,  worn  out,  and  hardened  by  too 
much  work ;  he  runs  without  looking 


round  him.  His  whole  existence  is 
directed  to  a  single  end ;  he  must  in- 
cessantly exert  himself  to  the  utmost, 
practice  the  same  exertion,  a  profitable 
one  ;  he  has  become  a  machine.  This 
is  especially  visible  in  workmen;  per- 
severance, obstinacy,  resignation,  arc 
depicted  on  their  long  bony  and  dull 
faces.  It  is  still  more  visible  in  women 
of  the  lower  orders  :  many  are  thin, 
consumptive,  their  eyes  hollow,  their 
nose  sharp,  their  skin  streaked  with 
red  patches;  they  have  suffered  too 
much,  have  had  too  many  children, 
have  a  washed-out,  or  oppressed,  or 
submissive,  or  stoically  impassive  air; 
we  feel  that  they  have  endured  much 
and  can  endure  still  more.  Even  in  the 
middle  or  upper  class  this  patience  and 
sad  hardening  are  frequent ;  we  think 
when  we  see  them  of  those  poor  beasts 
of  burden,  deformed  by  the  harness, 
which  remain  motionless  under  the 
falling  rain  without  thinking  of  shel- 
ter. Verily  the  battle  of  life  is  harsher 
and  more  obstinate  here  than  else- 
where ;  whoever  gives  way,  falls.  Be- 
neath the  rigor  of  climate  and  competi- 
tion, amidst  the  strikes  of  industry,  the 
weak,  the  improvident,  perish  or  are 
degraded  ;  then  comes  gin  and  does 
its  work ;  thence  the  long  files  of 
wretched  women  who  sell  themselves 
by  night  in  the  Strand  to  pay  their 
rent ;  thence  those  shameful  quarters 
of  London,  Liverpool,  all  the  great 
towns,  those  spectres  in  tatters,  gloomy 
or  drunk,  who  crowd  the  dram-shops, 
who  fill  the  streets  with  their  dirty 
linen,  and  their  rags  hung  out  on 
ropes,  who  lie  on  a  soot-heap,  amidst 
troops  of  wan  children  ;  horrible  shoals, 
whither  descend  all  whom  their  wound- 
ed, idle,  or  feeble  arms  could  not  keep 
on  the  surface  of  the  great  stream. 
The  chances  of  life  are  tragic  here, 
and  the  punishment  of  improvidei  e 
cruel.  ^  We  soon  understand  why,' un- 
der tins  obligation  to  fight  and  grow 
hard,  fine  sensations  disappear;  why 
taste  is  blunted,  how  man  becomes  un- 
graceful and  stiff  ;  how  discords,  exag- 
gerations, mar  the  costume  and  the 
fashion;  why  movements  and  forms 
become  finally  energetic  and  discord- 
ant, like  the  motions  of  a  machine. 
If  the  man  is  German  by  race,  tem- 
perament, and  mind,  he  has  been  com- 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


573 


pelled  in  process  of  time  to  fortify, 
alter,  altogether  turn  aside  his  original 
nature ;  he  is  no  longer  a  primitive 
animal,  but  a  well-trained  animal ;  his 
body  and  mind  have  been  transformed 
by  strong  food,  by  bodily  exercise,  by 
austere  religion,  by  public  morality, 
by  political  strife,  by  perpetuity  of  ef- 
fort;  he  has  become  of  all  men  the 
most  capable  of  acting  usefully  and 
powerfully  in  all  directions,  the  most 
productive  and  effectual  laborer,  as 
his  ox  has  become  the  best  animal  for 
food,  his  sheep  the  best  for  wool,  his 
horse  the  best  for  racing 

II. 

Indeed,  there  is  no  greater  spectacle 
than  his  work ;  in  no  age  or  amongst 
no  nation  on  the  earth,  I  believe,  has 
matter  ever  been  better  handled  and 
utilized.  If  we  enter  London  by  water, 
we  see  an  accumulation  of  toil  and 
work  which  has  no  equal  on  this  plan- 
et. Paris,  by  comparison,  is  but  an 
elegant  city  of  pleasure  ;  the  Seine, 
with  its  quays,  a  pretty,  serviceable 
plaything.  Here  all  is  vast.  I  have 
seen  Marseilles,  Bordeaux,  Amster- 
dam, but  I  had  no  idea  of  such  a  mass. 
From  Greenwich  to  London  the  two 
shores  are  a  continuous  wharf:  mer- 
chandise is  always  being  piled  up, 
sacks  hoisted,  ships  moored  ;  ever  new 
warehouses  for  copper,  beer,  ropework, 
tar,  chemicals.  Docks,  timber-yards, 
calking-basins,  and  shipbuilders' yards, 
multiply  and  encroach  on  each  other. 
On  the  left  there  is  the  iron  frame- 
work of  a  church  being  finished,  to  be 
sent  to  India.  The  Thames  is  a  mile 
broad,  and  is  but  a  populous  street  of 
vessels,  a  winding  workyard.  Steam- 
boats, sailing  vessels,  ascend  and  de- 
scend, come  to  anchor  in  groups  of 
I  wo,  three,  ten,  then  in  long  files,  then 
in  dense  rows  ;  there  are  five  or  six 
thousand  of  them  at  anchor.  On 
the  right,  the  docks,  like  so  many  in- 
tricate, maritime  streets,  disgorge  or 
store  up  the  vessels.  If  we  get  on  a 
height,  we  see  vessels  in  the  distance 
by  hundreds  and  thousands,  fixed  as  if 
on  the  land  :  their  masts  in  a  line,  their 
slender  rigging,  make  a  spider-web 
which  girdles  the  horizon.  Yet  on  the 
river  itself,  towards  the  west,  we  see 


an  inextricable  forest  of  masts,  yards 
and  cables  ;  the  ships  are  unloading, 
fastened  to  one  another,  mingled  with 
chimneys,  amongst  the  pulleys  of  the 
storehouses,  cranes,  capstans,  and  all 
the  implements  of  the  vast  and  cease- 
less toil.  A  foggy  smoke,  penetrated 
by  the  sun,  wraps  them  in  its  russet 
veil  ;  it  is  the  heavy  and  smoky  air  of 
a  big  hot-house  ;  soil  and  man,  light 
and  air,  all  is  transformed  by  work. 
If  we  enter  one  of  these  docks,  the  im- 
pression will  be  yet  more  overwhelm- 
ing :  each  resembles  a  town  ;  always 
ships,  still  more  ships,  in  a  line,  show- 
ing their  heads ;  their  wide  sides,  their 
copper  chests,  like  monstrous  fishes 
under  their  breastplate  of  scales. 
When  we  are  on  the  grouni,  we  see 
that  this  breastplate  is  fifty  feet  high  ; 
many  ships  are  of  three  thousand  or 
four  thousand  tons.  Clippers  three 
hundred  feet  long  are  on  the  point  of 
sailing  for  Australia,  Ceylon,  America. 
A  bridge  is  raised  by  machinery  ;  it 
weighs  a  hundred  tons,  and  only  one 
man  is  needed  to  raise  it.  Here  are 
the  wine  stores — there  are  thirty  thou- 
sands tuns  of  port  in  the  cellars  ;  here 
the  place  for  hides,  here  for  tallow, 
here  for  ice.  The  store  for  groceries 
extends  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see,  col- 
ossal, sombre  as  a  picture  by  Rem- 
brandt, filled  with  enormous  vats,  and 
crowded  with  many  men,  who  move 
about  in  the  flickering  shade.  The 
universe  tends  to  this  centre.  Like  a 
heart,  to  which  blood  flows,  and  from 
which  it  pours,  money,  goods,  business 
arrive  hither  from  the  four  quarters  of 
the  globe,  and  flow  thence  to  the  dis- 
tant poles.  And  this  circulation  seems 
natural,  so  well  is  it  conducted.  The 
cranes  turn  noiselessly  ;  the  tuns  seem 
to  move  of  themselves  ;  a  little  car 
rolls  them  at  once,  and  without  effort ; 
the  bales  descend  by  their  own  weight 
on  the  inclined  planes,  which  lead 
them  to  their  place.  Clerks,  without 
flurry,  call  out  the  numbers  ;  men  push 
or  pull  without  confusion,  calmly,  hus- 
banding their  labor;  whilst  the  sto- . 
lid  master,  in  his  black  hat,  gravely, 
with  spare  gestures,  and  without  one 
word,  directs  the  whole. 

Now  let  us  take  rail  and  go  to  Glas- 
gow, Birmingham,  Liverpool,  Man- 
chester, to  see  their  industry.  As  we 


574 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV. 


advance  into  the  coal  country,  the  air 
'•s  darkened  with  smoke  ;  the  chimneys, 
high  as  obelisks,  are  in  hundreds,  and 
cover  the  plain  as  far  as  we  can  see  ; 
many  and  various  rows  of  lofty  build- 
ings, in  red  monotonous  brick,  pass  be- 
fore our  eyes,  like  files  of  economical 
and  busy  beehives.  The  blast-fur- 
naces flame  through  the  smoke  ;  I 
counted  sixteen  in  one  group.  The 
refuse  of  minerals  in  heaped  up  like 
mountains;  the  engines  run  like  black 
ants,  with  monotonous  and  violent  mo- 
tion, and  suddenly  we  find  ourselves 
swallowed  up  in  a  monstrous  town. 
This  manufactory  has  five  thousand 
hands,  one  mill  300,000  spindles.  The 
Manchester  warehouses  are  Babyloni- 
an edifices  of  six  stories  high,  and  wide 
in  proportion.  In  Liverpool  there  are 
5000  ships  along  the  Mersey,  which 
choke  one  another  up;  more  wait  to 
enter.  The  docks  are  six  miles  long, 
and  the  cotton  warehouses  on  the  side 
extend  their  vast  red  rampart  out  of 
sight.  All  things  here  seem  built  in 
unmeasured  proportions,  and  as  though 
by  colossal  arms.  We  enter  a  mill  ; 
nothing  but  iron  pillars,  as  thick  as 
tree-trunks,  cylinders  as  big  as  a 
man ;  locomotive  shafts  like  vast 
oaks,  notching  machines  which  send 
up  iron  chips,  rollers  which  bend  sheet- 
iron  like  paste,  fly-wheels  which  be- 
come invisible  by  the  swiftness  of  their 
revolution.  Eight  workmen,  com- 
manded by  a  kind  of  peaceful  colossus, 
pushed  into  and  pulled  from  the  fire  a 
tree  of  red-hot  iron  as  big  as  my  body. 
Coal  has  produced  all  this.  England 
produces  twice  as  much  coal  as  the 
rest  of  the  world.  It  has  also  brick,  on 
account  of  the  great  schists,  which  are 
close  to  the  surface  ;  it  has  also  estu- 
aries filled  by  the  sea,  so  as  to  make 
natural  ports.  Liverpool  and  Man- 
chester, and  about  ten  towns  of  40,000 
to  1000,000  souls,  are  springing  up  in 
the  basin  of  Lancashire.  If  we  glance 
over  a  geological  map  we  see  whole 
parts  shaded  with  black  ;  they  repre- 
sent the  Scotch,  the  North  of  England, 
the  Midland,  the  Welsh,  the  Irish  coal 
districts.  The  old  antediluvian  forests, 
accumulating  here  their  fuel,  have 
stored  up  the  power  which  moves  mat- 
ter, and  the  sea  furnishes  the  true  road 
by  which  matter  can  be  transported. 


Man  himself,  mind  and  body,  seems 
created  to  make  the  most  of  these  ad- 
vantages. His  muscles  are  firm,  and 
his  mind  can  support  tedium.  He  is 
less  subject  to  weariness  and  disgust 
than  other  men.  He  works  as  well  in 
the  tenth  hour  as  in  the  first.  No  on? 
handles  machines  better;  he  has  ther 
regularity  and  precision.  Two  worU 
men  in  a  cotton-mill  do  the  woik  d 
three,  or  even  four,  French  workmen 
Let  us  look  now  in  the  statistics  hov 
many  leagues  of  stuffs  they  manufac- 
ture every  year,  how  many  millions  of 
tons  they  export  and  import,  how  many 
tens  of  millions  they  produce  and  con- 
sume ;  let  us  add  the  industrial  or 
commercial  states  they  have  founded, 
or  are  founding,  in  America,  China,  In- 
dia, Australia;  and  then  perhaps, 
reckoning  men  and  money- value, — con- 
sidering that  their  capital  is  seven  or 
eight  times  greater  than  that  of  France, 
that  their  population  has  doubled  in 
fifty  years,  that  their  colonies,  wher- 
ever the  climate  is  healthy,  are  becom- 
ing new,  Englands,  —  we  will  obtain 
some  notion,  very  slight,  very  imper- 
fect, of  a  work  whose  magnitude  the 
eyes  alone  can  measure. 

There  remains  yet  one  of  its  parts  to 
explore,  the  cultivation  of  the  land. 
From  the  railway  carriage  we  see  quite 
enough  to  understand  it  :  a  field  with 
a  hedge,  then  another  field  with  an- 
other hedge,  and  so  on :  at  times  vast 
squares  of  turnips  ;  all  this  well  laid 
out,  clean,  glossy ;  no  forests,  here  and 
there  only  a  cluster  of  trees.  The 
country  is  a  great  kitchen-garden — a 
manufactory  of  grass  and  meat.  Noth- 
ing is  left  to  nature  and  chance  ;  all  is 
calculated,  regulated,  arranged  to  pro- 
duce and  to  bring  in  profits.  If  we 
look  at  the  peasants,  we  find  no  gen- 
uine peasants ;  nothing  like  French 
peasants, — a  sort  of  fellahs,  akin  to  the 
soil,  mistrustful  and  uncultivated,  sep- 
arated by  a  gulf  from  the  townsmen. 
The  countryman  here  is  like  an  arti- 
san; and,  in  fact,  a  field  is  a  manufac- 
tory, with  a  farmer  for  the  foreman. 
Proprietors  and  farmers  lavish  their 
capital  like  great  contractors.  They 
drain  the  land,  and  have  a  rotation  of 
crops;  they  have  produced  cattle,  the 
richest  in  returns  of  any  in  the  world 
they  have  introduced  steam-engine 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


into  cultivation,  and  into  the  rearing  of 
cattle ;     they  perfect  already   perfect 
stables.     The  greatest  of  the  aristoc- 
racy take  a  pride  in  it ;  many  country 
gentlemen  have  no  other  occupation. 
Prince    Albert,   near  Windsor,   had  a 
model  farm,  and  this  farm  brought  in 
money.     A  few  years  ago  the  papers 
announced   that   the    Queen   had   dis- 
covered a  cure  for  the  turkey-disease. 
Under  this  universal  effort,*  the  pro- 
ducts of  agriculture  have  doubled  in 
fifty    years.     In   England,   two   and  a 
half  acres  (hectare]  receive  eight  or  ten 
times  more  manure  than  the  same  num- 
ber of  French  acres  ;  though  of  inferior 
quality,  the  produce  is  double  that   of 
the  French.    Thirty  persons  are  enough 
for  this  work,  when  in   France  forty 
would  be   required   for   half    thereof. 
We  come  upon  a  farm,  even  a  small 
one,  say  of  a  hundred  acres  ;  we  find 
respectable,   dignified,   well-clad   men, 
who    express   themselves   clearly   and 
sensibly  ;  a  large,  wholesome,  comfort- 
able   dwelling — often    a   little    porch, 
with  creepers — -a  well-kept  garden,  or- 
namental trees,  the  inner  walls  white- 
washed yearly,  the  floors  washed  week- 
ly, —  an    almost    Dutch     cleanliness ; 
therewith  plenty   of    books  —  travels, 
treatises  on  agriculture,  a  few  volumes 
of  religion  or  history ;  and  above  all, 
the  great  family  Bible.     Even  in  the 
poorest  cottages  we  find  a  few  objects 
of   comfort   and   recreation ;    a    large 
cast-iron  stove,  a  carpet,  nearly  always 
paper  on  the  walls,  one  or  two  moral 
tales,  and  always  the  Bible.     The  cot- 
tage is  clean ;  the   habits  are  orderly  ; 
the  plates,  with  their  blue  pattern,  reg- 
ularly arranged,  look  well   above  the 
shining   dresser ;     the    red    floor-tiles 
have  been  swept;  there  are  no  broken 
or  dirty  panes  ;  no  doors  off  hinges, 
shutters  unhung,  stagnant  pools,  strag- 
gling dunghills,  as  amongst  the  French 
villagers  ;  the  little  garden  is  kept  free 
from    weeds;    frequently    roses    and 
honeysuckle  round  the  door  ;  and  on 
Sunday  we    can  see   the   father   and 
mother,    seated    by    a    well-scrubbed 
table,  with  tea,  bread  and  butter,  en- 
joying their  home,  and  the  order  they 
have  established  there.    In  France  the 
peasant  on   Sunday  leaves  his  hut  to 

*  Le"once  de  Lavergne  Economic  rurale  en 
A  ngleterre,  passim. 


I 


575 

/isit  his  land:  what  he  aspires  to  is 
)ossession  :  what  Englishmen  love  is 
comfort.  There  is  no  land  in  which 
hey  demand  more  in  this  respect.  An 
Englishman  said  to  me,  not  very  long 
igo :  "  Our  great  vice  is  the  strong 
iesire  we  feel  for  all  good  and  com- 
:ortable  things.  We  have  too  many 
wants,  we  spend  too  much.  As  soon 
as  our  peasants  have  a  little  money, 
they  buy  the  best  sherry  and  the  best 
clothes  they  can  get,  instead  of  buying 
a  bit  of  land."  * 

As  we  rise  to  the  upper  classes,  this 
taste  becomes  stronger.  In  the  middle 
ranks  a  man  burdens  himself  with  toil, 
to  give  his  wife  gaudy  dresses,  and  to 
"11  his  house  with  the  hundred  thou- 
sand baubles  of  quasi-luxury.  Higher 
still,  the  inventions  of  comfort  are  so 
multiplied  that  people  are  bored  by- 
them  ;  there'  are  too  many  newspapers 
and  reviews  on  the  table  ;  too  many 
kinds  of  carpets,  washstands,  matches, 
towels  in  the  dressing-room ;  their 
refinement  is  endless  ;  in  thrusting  our 
feet  into  slippers,  we  might  imagine 
that  twenty  generations  of  inventors 
were  required  to  bring  sole  and  lining 
to  this  degree  of  perfection.  We  can 
not  conceive  clubs  better  furnished 
with  necessaries  and  superfluities, 
houses  so  well  arranged  and  managed, 
pleasure  and  abundance  so  cleverly 
understood,  servants  so  reliable,  re- 
spectful, handy.  Servants  in  the  last 
census  were  "  the  most  numerous  class 
of  Her  Majesty's  subjects;"  in  Eng 
land  there  are  five  where  in  France 
they  have  two.  When  I  saw  in  Hyde 
Park  the  rich  young  ladies,  the  gentle- 
men riding  or  driving,  when  I  thought 
of  their  country  houses,  their  dress, 
their  parks  and  stables,  I  said  to  my- 
self that  verily  this  people  is  consti- 
tuted after  the  heart  of  economists :  I 
mean,  that  it  is  the  greatest  producer 
and  the  greatest  consumer  in  the  world; 
that  none  is  more  apt  at  squeezing  out 
and  absorbing  the  quintessence  of 

*  De  Foe  was  of  the  same  opinion,  and  pre- 
tended that  economy  was  not  an  English  vir- 
tue, and  that  an  Englishman  can  hardly  live 
with  twenty  shillings  a  week,  while  a  Dutch* 
man  with  the  same  money  becomes  wealthy, 
and  leaves  his  children  very  well  off.  An  Eng- 
lish labourer  lives  poor  and  wretchedly  with 
nine  shillings  a  week,  whilst  a  Dutchman  lives 
very  comfortably  with  the  same  wages. 


MODERN  LIFE. 


576 


things  ,  that  it  has  developed  its  wants 
at  the  same  time  as  its  resources  ;  and 
we  involuntarily  think  of  those  insects 
which,  after  their  metamorphosis,  are 
suddenly  provided  with  teeth,  feelers, 
unwearying  claws,  admirable  and  ter- 
rible instruments,  fitted  to  dig,  saw, 
build,  do  every  thing,  but  furnished 
also  with  incessant  hunger  and  four 
stomachs. 

III. 

How  is  this  ant-hill  governed  ?  As 
the  train  moves  on,  we  perceive,  amidst 
farms  and  tilled  lands,  the  long  wall  of 
a  park,  the  frontage  of  a  castle,  more 
generally  of  some  vast  ornate  mansion, 
a  sort  of  country  town-house,  of  infe- 
rior architecture,  Gothic  or  Italian  pre- 
tensions, but  surrounded  by  beautiful 
lawns,  large  trees  scrupulously  pre- 
served. Here  lives  the  rich  bourgeois  ; 
I  am  wrong,  the  word  is  false — I  must 
say  gentleman :  bourgeois  is  a  French 
word,  and  signifies  the  lazy  parvenus, 
who  devote  themselves  to  rest,  and 
take  no  part  in  public  life  ;  here  it  is 
quite  different ;  the  hundred  or  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  families, 
who  spend  a  thousand  and  more  an- 
nually, really  govern  the  country.  And 
this  is  no  government  imported,  im- 
planted artificially  and  from  without ; 
it  is  a  spontaneous  and  natural  govern- 
ment. As  soon  as  men  wish  to  act 
together,  they  need  leaders  ;  every  as- 
sociation, voluntary  or  not,  has  one  ; 
whatever  it  be,  state,  army,  ship,  or 
parish,  it  cannot  do  without  a  guide  to 
find  the  road,  to  take  the  lead,  call  the 
rest,  scold  the  laggards.  In  vain  we 
call  ourselves  independent;  as  soon  as 
we  march  in  a  body,  we  need  a  leader  ; 
we  look  right  and  left  expecting  him 
to  show  himself.  The  great  thing  is 
to  pick  him  out,  to  have  the  best,  and 
not  to  follow  another  in  his  stead;  it 
is  a  great  advantage  that  there  should 
be  one,  and  that  we  should  acknowl- 
edge him.  These  men,  without  pop- 
ular election,  or  selection  from  govern- 
ment, find  him  ready  made  and  recog- 
nized in  the  large  landed  proprietor,  a 
man  whose  family  has  been  long  in  the 
country,  influential  through  his  connec- 
tions, dependents,  tenantry,  interested 
above  all  else  by  his  great  estates  in 


[BOOK  IV. 


the  affairs  of  the  neighborhood,  expert 
in  directing  these  affairs  which  his 
:amily  have  managed  for  three  gener- 
ations, most  fitted  by  education  to  give 
*ood  advice,  and  by  his  influence  to 
[ead  the  common  enterprise  to  a  good 
result.  Indeed,  it  is  thus  that  things 
"all  out;  rich  men  leave  London  by 
tiundreds  every  day  to  spend  a  day  in 
the  country ;  there  is  a  meeting  on  the 
affairs  of  the  country  or  of  the  church ; 
they  are  magistrates,  overseers,  pres- 
idents of  all  kinds  of  societies,  and  this 
gratuitously.  One  has  built  a  bridge 
at  his  own  expense,  another  a  chapel 
or  a  school ;  many  establish  public  li- 
braries, where  books  are  lent  out,  with 
warmed  and  lighted  rooms,  in  which 
the  villagers  in  the  evening  can  read 
the  papers,  play  draughts,  chess,  and 
have  tea  at  low  charges, — in  a  word, 
simple  amusements  which  may  keep 
thenrfrom  the  public-house  and  gin- 
shop.  Many  of  them  give  lectures ; 
their  sisters  or  daughters  teach  in  Sun- 
day schools  ;  in  fact,  they  provide  for 
the  ignorant  and  poor,  at  their  own  ex- 
pense, justice,  administration,  civiliza- 
tion. I  know  a  very  rich  man,  who  in 
his  Sunday  school  taught  singing  to 
little  girls.  Lord  Palmerston  offered 
his  park  for  archery  meetings ;  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  opens  his  daily 
to  the  public,  "  requesting,"  this  is  the 
word  used,  "  the  public  not  to  destroy 
the  grass."  A  firm  and  proud  senti- 
ment of  duty,  a  genuine  public  spirit,  a 
noble  idea  of  what  a  gentleman  owes 
to  himself,  gives  them  a  moral  superi- 
ority which  sanctions  their  command  ; 
probably  from  the  time  of  the  old 
Greek  cities,  no  education  or  condition 
has  been  seen  in  which  the  innate  no- 
bility of  man  has  received  a  more 
wholesome  or  completer-  development. 
In  short,  they  are  magistrates  and  pa- 
trons from  their  birth,  leaders  of  the 
great  enterprises  in  which  capital  is 
risked,  promoters  of  all  charities,  all 
improvements,  all  reforms,  and  with 
the  honors  of  command  they  accept  its 
burdens.  For  observe,  in  contrast 
with  the  aristocracies  of  other  coun- 
tries, they  are  well  educated,  liberal, 
and  march  in  the  van,  not  in  the  rear  of 
public  civilization.  They  are  not  draw- 
ing-room exquisites,  like  the  French 
marquises  of  the  eighteenth  century: 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


577 


an  English  lord  visits  his  fisheries, 
studies  the  system  of  liquid  manures, 
speaks  to  the  purpose  about  cheese  ; 
and  his  son  is  often  a  better  rower, 
walker,  and  boxer  than  the  farmers. 
They  are  not  malcontents,  like  the 
French  nobility,  behind  their  age,  de- 
voted to  whist,  and  regretting  the  mid- 
dle ages.  They  have  travelled  through 
Europe,  and  often  further ;  they  know 
languages  and  literature  ;  their  'daugh- 
ters read  Schiller,  Manzoni,  and  La- 
martine  with  ease.  By  means  of  re- 
views, newspapers,  innumerable  vol- 
umes of  geography,  statistics,  and 
travels,  they  have  the  world  at  their 
finger-ends.  They  support  and  pre- 
side over  scientific  societies ;  if  the 
free  inquirers  of  Oxford,  amidst  con- 
ventional rigor,  have  been  able  to 
give  their  explanations  of  the  Bible, 
it  is  because  they  knew  themselves  to 
be  backed  by  enlightened  laymen  of 
the  highest  rank.  There  is  also  no 
danger  that  this  aristocracy  should  be- 
come a  set ;  it  renews  itself ;  a  great 
physician,  a  profound  lawyer,  an  illus- 
trious general,  become  ennobled  and 
found  families.  When  a  manufacturer 
or  merchant  has  gained  a  large  fortune, 
he  first  thinks  of  acquiring  an  estate  ; 
after  two  or  three  generations  his  fam- 
ily has  taken  root  and  shares  in  the 
government  of  the  country :  in  this 
way  the  best  saplings  of  the  great  pop- 
ular forests  fill  up  the  aristocratic 
nursery.  Observe,  finally,  that  an 
aristocracy  in  England  is  not  an  iso- 
lated fact.  Everywhere  there  are 
leaders  recognized,  respected,  followed 
with  confidence  and  deference,  who 
feel  their  responsibility,  and  carry  the 
burden  as  well  as  the  advantages  of 
the  dignity.  Such  an  aristocracy  exists 
in  marriage,  where  the  man  incontest- 
ably  rules,  followed  by  his  wife  to  the 
end  of  the  world,  faithfully  waited  for 
In  the  evenings,  unshackled  in  his  bus- 
iness, of  which  he  does  not  speak. 
There  is  such  in  the  family,  when  the 
father  *  can  disinherit  his  children, 
and  keeps  up  with  them,  in  the  most 
petty  circumstances  of  daily  life,  a  de- 
gree of  authority  and  dignity  unknown 
in  France :  if  in  England  a  son,  through 
ill-health,  has  been  away  for  some  time 

*  In  familiar  language,  the  father  is  called  in 
England  the  governor  ;  in  France  le  banquier. 


from  his  home,  he  dare  not  come  into 
the  country  to  see  his  father  without 
first  asking  if  he  may  come  ;  a  servant 
to  whom  I  gave  my  card  refused  to 
take  it,  saying,  "  Oh  !  I  dare  not  hand 
it  in  now.  Master  is  dining."  There 
is  respect  in  all  ranks,  in  the  work- 
shops as  well  as  in  the  fields,  in  the 
army  as  in  the  family.  Throughout 
there  are  inferiors  and  superiors  who 
feel  themselves  so ;  if  the  mechanism 
of  established  power  were  thrown  out 
of  gear,  we  should  behold  it  recon- 
structed of  itself  ;  below  the  legal  con- 
stitution is  the  social,  and  human  action 
is  forced  into  a  solid  mould  prepared 
for  it. 

It  is  because  this  aristocratic  network 
is  strong  that  human  action  can  be 
free  ;  for  local  and  natural  government 
being  rooted  throughout,  like  ivy,  by  a 
hundred  small,  ever-growing  fibres,  sud- 
den movements,  violent  as  they  are, 
are  not  capable  of  pulling  it  up  alto- 
gether. In  vain  men  speak,  cry  out, 
call  meetings,  hold  processions,  form 
leagues :  they  will  not  demolish  the 
state  ;  they  have  not  to  deal  with  a  set 
of  functionaries  who  have  no  real  hold 
on  the  country,  and  who,  like  all  ex- 
ternal applications,  can  be  replaced  by 
another  set :  the  thirty  or  forty  gentle- 
men of  a  district,  rich,  influential,  trust- 
ed, useful  as  they  are,  will  become  the 
leaders  of  the  district.  "  As  we  see  in 
the  papers,"  says  Montesquieu,  speak- 
ing of  England,  "  that  they  are  playing 
the  devil,  we  fancy  that  the  people 
will  revolt  to-morrow."  Not  at  all,  it 
is  their  way  of  speaking;  they  only 
talk  loudly  and  rudely.  Two  days 
after  I  arrived  in  London,  I  saw  ad- 
vertising men  walking  with  a  placard 
on  their  backs  and  their  stomachs, 
bearing  these  words  :  "  Great  usurpa- 
tion I  Outrage  of  the  Lords,  in  their 
vote  on  the  budget,  against  the  rights 
of  the  people."  But  then  the  placard 
added,  "  Fellow-countrymen,  petition  I" 
Things  end  thus ;  they  argue  freely, 
and  if  the  reasoning  is  good  it  will 
spread.  Another  time  in  Hyde  Park, 
orators  were  declaiming  in  the  open 
air  against  the  Lords,  who  were  called 
rogues.  The  audience  applauded  or 
hissed,  as  it  pleased  them.  "After  all/' 
said  an  Englishman  to  me,  "this  is 
how  we  manage  our  business.  With 
2S 


MODERN  LIFE. 


578 

us,  when  a  man  has  an  idea,  he  writes 
it ;  a  dozen  men  think  it  good,  and  all 
contribute  money  to  publish  it;  this 
creates  a  little  association,  which  grows, 
prints  cheap  pamphlets,  gives  lectures, 
then  petitions,  calls  forth  public  opin- 
ion, and  at  last  takes  the  matter  into 
Parliament ;  Parliament  refuses  or  de- 
lays it ;  yet  the  matter  gains  weight : 
the  majority  of  the  nation  pushes, 
forces  open  the  doors,  and  then  you'll 
have  a  law  passed."  It  is  open  to 
every  one  to  do  this;  workmen  can 
league  against  their  masters ;  in  fact, 
their  associations  embrace  all  England; 
at  Preston  I  believe  there  was  once 
a  strike  which  lasted  more  than  six 
months.  They  will  sometimes  mob, 
but  never  revolt ;  they  know  political 
economy  by  this  time,  and  understand 
that  to  do  violence  to  capital  is  to  sup- 
press work.  Their  chief  quality  is 
coolness  ;  here,  as  elsewhere,  tempera- 
ment has  great  influence.  Anger,  blood 
does  not  rise  at  once  to  their  eyes,  as  in 
the  southern  nations ;  a  long  interval 
always  separates  idea  from  action,  and 
wise  arguments,  repeated  calculations, 
occupy  the  interval.  If  we  go  to  a 
meeting,  we  see  men  of  every  condi- 
tion, ladies  who  come  for  the  thirtieth 
time  to  hear  the  same  speech,  full  of 
figures,  on  education,  cotton,  wages. 
They  do  not  seem  to  be  wearied  ;  they 
can  bring  argument  against  argument, 
be  patient,  protest  gravely,  reco'mmence 
their  protest ;  they  are  the  same  people 
who  wait  for  the  train  on  the  platform, 
without  getting  crushed,  and  who  play 
cricket  for  a  couple  of  hours  without 
raising  their  voices  or  quarrelling  for 
an  instant.  Two  coachmen,  who  run 
into  one  another,  set  themselves  free 
without  storming  or  scolding.  Thus 
their  political  association  endures  ; 
they  can  be  free  because  they  have 
natural  leaders  and  patient  nerves. 
After  all,  the  state  is  a  machine  like 
other  machines  ;  let  us  try  to  have  good 
wheels,  and  take  care  not  to  break 
them;  Englishmen  have  the  double 
advantage  of  possessing  very  good 
ones,  and  of  managing  them  coolly. 

IV. 

Such  is  our  Englishman,  with  his 
laws  and  his  administration.  Now 
that  he  has  private  comfort  and  public 


[BOOK  IV 


;ecurity,  what  will  he  do,  and  how  will 
le  govern  himself  in  this  higher,  nobler 
domain,  to  which  man  climbs  in  order 
o  contemplate  beauty  and  truth  ?  At 
all  events,  the  arts  do  not  lead  him 
here.  That  vast  London  is  monu- 
mental ;  but,  like  the  castle  of  a  man 
vho  has  become  rich,  every  thing  there 
s  well  preserved  and  costly,  but  noth- 
ng  more.  Those  lofty  houses  of  mas- 
sive stone,  burdened  with  porches, 
short  columns,  Greek  decorations,  are 
jenerally  gloomy ;  the  poor  columns  of 
:he  monuments  seem  washed  with  ink. 
On  Sunday,  in  foggy  weather,  we  would 
:hink  ourselves  in  a  cemetery  ;  the  per- 
:ect  readable  names  on  the  houses,  in 
3rass  letters,  are  like  sepulchral  in- 
scriptions. There  is  nothing  beautiful : 
at  most,  the  varnished  middle-class 
louses,  with  their  patch  of  green,  are 
pleasant ;  we  feel  that  they  are  well 
kept,  commodious,  capital  for  a  busi- 
ness man  who  wants  to  amuse  himself 
and  unbend  after  a  hard  day's  work. 
But  a  finer  and  higher  sentiment  could 
relish  nothing  here.  As  to  the  statues, 
it  is  difficult  not  to  laugh  at  them.  We 
see  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  with  a 
cocked  hat  and  iron  plumes  ;  Nelson, 
with  a  cable  which  serves  him  for  a 
tail,  planted  on  his  column,  and  pierced 
by  a  lightning-conductor,  like  a  rat  im- 
paled on  the  end  of  a  pole ;  or  again, 
the  half-dressed  Waterloo  Generals, 
crowned  by  Victory.  The  English, 
though  flesh  and  bone,  seem  manu- 
factured out  of  sheet-iron :  how  much 
stiff er  will  English  statues  look  ?  They 
pride  themselves  on  their  painting  ;  at 
least  they  study  it  with  surprising 
minuteness,  in  the  Chinese  fashion; 
they  can  paint  a  truss  of  hay  so  exactly, 
that  a  botanist  will  tell  the  species  of 
every  stalk;  one  artist  lived  three 
months  under  canvas  on  a  heath,  so 
that  he  might  thoroughly  know  heath. 
Many  are  excellent  observers,  especial- 
ly of  moral  expression,  and  succeed 
very  well  in  showing  the  soul  in  the 
face ;  we  are  instructed  by  looking  at 
them  ;  we  go  through  a  course  of  psy- 
chology with  them  ;  they  can  illustrate 
a  novel ;  we  are  touched  by  the  poetic 
and  dreamy  meaning  of  many  of  their 
landscapes.  But  in  genuine  painting, 
picturesque  painting,  they  are  revolt- 
ing. I  do  not  think  there  were  ever 


:HAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


579 


laid  upon  canvas  such  crude  colors, 
such  stiff  forms,  stuffs  so  much  like 
tin.  such  glaring  contrasts.  Fancy  an 
opera  with  nothing  but  false  notes  in 
it.  We  may  see  landscapes  painted 
blood-red,  trees  which  split  the  canvas, 
turf  which  looks  like  a  pot  of  over- 
turned green,  Christs  looking  as  if  they 
were  baked  and  preserved  in  oil,  ex- 
pressive stags,  sentimental  dogs,  un- 
rlressed  women,  to  whom  we  should 
like  forthwith  to  offer  a  garment.  In 
music,  they  import  the  Italian  opera  ; 
it  is  an  orange-tree  kept  up  at  great 
cost  in  the  midst  of  turnips.  The  arts 
require  idle, delicate  minds, — not  stoics, 
especially  not  puritans, — easily  shocked 
by  dissonance,  inclined  to  visible  pleas- 
ure, employing  their  long  periods  of 
leisure,  their  free  reveries,  in  harmoni- 
ously arranging,  and  with  no  other  ob- 
ject but  enjoyment,  forms,  colors,  and 
sounds.  I  need  not  say  that  here  the 
bent  of  mind  is  quite  the  opposite  ; 
and  we  see  clearly  enough  why,  amidst 
these  combative  politicians,  these  la- 
borious toilers,. these  men  of  energetic 
action,  art  can  but  produce  exotic  or 
ill-shaped  fruit. 

Not  so  in  science ;  but  in  science 
there  are  two  divisions.  It  may  be 
treated  as  a  business,  to  glean  and  ver- 
ify observations,  to  combine  experi- 
ments, to  arrange  figures,  to  weigh  prob- 
abilities, to  discover  facts,  partial  laws, 
to  possess  laboratories,  libraries,  so- 
cieties charged  with  storing  and  in- 
creasing positive  knowledge  ;  in  all  this 
Englishmen  excel.  They  have  even  a 
Lyell,  a  Darwin,  an  Owen,  able  to  em- 
brace and  renew  a  science  ;  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  vast  edifice,  the  indus- 
trious masons,  masters  of  the  second 
rank,  are  not  lacking ;  it  is  the  great 
architects,  the  thinkers,  the  genuine 
speculative  minds,  who  fail  them ; 
philosophy,  especially  metaphysics,  is 
as  little  indigenous  here  as  music  and 
painting ;  they  import  it,  and  yet  they 
leave  the  best  part  on  the  road.  Car- 
lyle  was  obliged  to  transform  it  into  a 
mystical  poetry,  humorous  and  pro- 
phetic fancies  ;  Hamilton  touched  upon 
it  only  to  declare  it  chimerical ;  Stuart 
Mill  and  Buckle  only  seized  the  most 
palpable  part, — a  heavy  residuum,  posi- 
tivism. It  is  not  in  metaphysics  that  the 
English  mind  can  find  its  vent.  It  is  on 


other  objects  that  the  spirit  of  liberal 
inquiry — the  sublime  instincts  of  the 
mind,  the  craving  for  the  universal 
and  the  infinite,  the  desire  of  ideal  and 
perfect  things — will  fall  back.  Let  us 
take  the  day  on  which  the  hush  of 
business  leaves  a  free  field  for  disin- 
terested aspirations.  There  is  no  more 
striking  spectacle  for  a  foreigner  than 
Sunday  in  London.  The  streets  are 
empty,  and  the  churches  full.  An  Act 
of  Parliament  forbids  any  playing  to- 
day, public  or  private  ;  the  public- 
houses  are  not  allowed  to  harbor  peo- 
ple during  divine  service.  Moreover, 
all  respectable  people  are  at  worship, 
the  seats  are  full :  it  is  not  as  in 
France,  where  there  are  none  but  ser- 
vants, old  women,  a  few  sleepy  people, 
of  private  means,  and  a  sprinkling  of 
elegant  ladies  ;  but  in  England  we  sea 
men  well  dressed,  or  at  least  decently 
clad,  and  as  many  gentlemen  as  ladies 
in  church.  Religion  does  not  remain  out 
of  the  pale,  and  below  the  standard  of 
public  culture;  the  young,  the  learned, 
the  best  of  the  nation,  all  the  upper  and 
middle  classes,  continue  attached  to  it. 
The  clergyman,  even  in  a  villagers  not  a 
peasant's  'son,  with  not  over  much  pol- 
ish, just  out  of  the  seminary,  shackled 
in  a  cloistral  education,  separated  from 
society  by  celibacy,  half-buried  in  me- 
diasvalism.  In  England  he  is  a  man  of 
the  times,  often  a  man  of  the  world, 
often  of  good  family,  with  the  interests, 
habits,  freedom  of  other  men  ;  keeping 
sometimes  a  carriage,  several  servants, 
having  elegant  manners,  generally  well 
informed,  who  has  read  and  still  reads. 
On  all  these  grounds  he  is  able  to  be  in 
his  neighborhood  the  leader  of  ideas, 
as  his  neighbor  the  squire  is  the  leader 
of  business.  If  he  does  not  walk  in 
the  same  path  as  the  free-thinkers,  he 
is  not  more  than  a  step  or  two  behind 
them ;  a  modern  man,  a  Parisian,  can 
talk  with  him  on  all  lofty  themes,  and 
not  perceive  a  gulf  between  his  own 
mind  and  the  clergyman's.  Strictly 
speaking,  he  is  a  layman  like  ourselves  ; 
the  onlv  difference  is.  that  he  is  a  su- 
perintendent of  morality.  Even  in  his 
externals,  except  for  occasional  bands 
and  the  perpetual  white  tie,  he  is  like 
us ;  at  first  sight  we  would  take  him 
for  a  professor,  a  magistrate,  or  a  no- 
tary ;  and  his  sermons  agree  with  hia 


58° 


person.  He  does  not  anathematize 
the  world  ;  in  this  his  doctrine  is  mod- 
ern ;  he  follows  the  broad  path  in 
which  the  Renaissance  and  the  Refor- 
mation impelled  religion.  When 
Christianity  arose,  eighteen  centuries 
ago,  it  was  in  the  East,  in  the  land  of  the 
Essenes  and  Therapeutists,  amid  uni- 
versal dejection  and  despair,  when  the 
only  deliverance  seemed  a  renunciation 
of  the  world,  an  abandonment  of  civil 
life,  destruction  of  the  natural  instincts, 
and  a  daily  waiting  for  the  kingdom  of 
God.  When  it  rose  again,  three  cen- 
turies ago,  it  was  in  the  West,  amongst 
laborious  and  half-free  peoples,  amidst 
universal  restoration  and  invention, 
when  man,  improving  his  condition, 
regained  confidence  in  his  worldly  des- 
tiny, and  widely  expanded  his  faculties. 
No  wonder  if  the  new  Protestantism 
differs  from  the  ancient  Christianity,  if 
it  enjoins  action  instead  of  preaching 
asceticism,  if  it  authorizes  comforts  in 
place  of  prescribing  mortification,  if  it 
honors  marriage,  work,  patriotism,  in- 
quiry, science,  all  natural  affections 
and  faculties,  in  place  of  praising  celib- 
acy, withdrawal  from  the  world,  scorn 
of  the  age,  ecstasy,  captivity  of  mind, 
and  mutilation  of  the  heart.  By  this 
infusion  of  the  modern  spirit,  Christi- 
anity has  received  new  blood,  and 
Protestantism  now  constitutes,  with 
science,  the  two  motive  organs,  and,  as 
it  were,  the  double  heart  of  European 
life.  For,  in  accepting  the  rehabilita- 
tion of  the  world,  it  has  not  renounced 
the  purification  of  man's  heart ;  on 
the  contrary,  it  is  towards  this  that  it 
has  directed  its  whole  effort.  It  has 
cutoff  from  religion  all  the  portions 
which  are  nut  this  very  purification, 
and,  by  reducing  it,  has  strengthened 
it.  An  institution,  like  a  machine,  and 
like  a  man,  is  the  more  powerful  for 
being  more  special :  a  work  is  done 
better  because  it  is  done  singly,  and 
because  we  concentrate  ourselves  upon 
it.  By  the  suppression  of  legends  and 
religious  observances,  human  thought 
in  its  entirety  has  been  concentrated 
on  a  single  object — moral  amelioration. 
It  is  of  this  men  speak  in  the  churches, 
gravely  and  coldly,  with  a  succession  of 
sensible  and  solid  arguments  ;  how  a 
man  ought  to  reflect  on  his  duties,  mark 
them  one  by  one  in  his  mind,  make  for 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  IV, 


himself  principles,  have  a  sort  of  inner 
code,  freely  accepted  and  firmly  estab- 
lished, to  which  he  may  refer  all  his 
actions  without  bias  or  hesitation  ;  how 
these  principles  may  be  rooted  by  prac- 
tice ;  how  unceasing  examination,  per- 
sonal effort,  the  continual  edification 
of  himself  by  himself,  ought  slowly  to 
confirm  our  resolution  in  uprightness. 
These  are  the  questions  which,  with  a 
multitude  of  examples,  proofs,  appeals 
to  daily  experience,*  are  brought  for- 
ward in  all  the  pulpits,  to  develop  in  man 
a  voluntary  reformation,  a  guard  and 
empire  over  himself,  the  habit  of  self-re- 
straint, and  a  kind  of  modern  stoicism, 
almost  as  noble  as  the  ancient.  On 
all  hands  laymen  help  in  this;  and 
moral  warning,  given  by  literature  as 
well  as  by  theology,  harmoniously 
unites  society  and  the  clergy.  Hardly 
ever  does  a  book  paint  a  man  in  a  dis- 
interested manner  :  critics,  philoso- 
phers, historians,  novelists,  poets  even, 
give  a  lesson,  maintain  a  theory,  unmask 
or  punish  a  vice,  represent  a  tempta- 
tion overcome,  relate  the  history  of  a 
character  being  formed.  Their  exact 
and  minute  description  of  sentiments 
ends  always  in  approbation  or  blame ; 
they  are  not  artists,  but  moralists  :  it  is 
only  in  a  Protestant  country  that  we 
will  find  a  novel  entirely  occupied  in 
describing  the  progress  of  moral  senti- 
ment in  a  child  of  twelve.f  All  co- 
operate in  this  direction  in  religion, 
and  even  in  the  mystic  part  of  it. 
Byzantine  distinctions  and  subtleties 
have  been  allowed  to  fall  away  ;  Ger- 
manic inquisitiveness  and  speculations 
have  not  been  introduced  ;  the  God  of 
conscience  reigns  alone ;  feminine 
sweetness  has  been  cut  off;  we  do  not 
find  the  husband  of  souls,  the  lovable 
consoler,  whom  the  author  of  the  Imi- 
tation of  Christ  follows  even  in  his  ten- 
der dreams  ;  something  manly  breathes 
from  religion  in  England  ;  we  find  that 
the  Old  Testament,  the  severe  Hebrew 
Psalms,  have  left  their  imprint  here. 
It  is  no  longer  an  intimate  friend  to 
whom  a  man  confides  his  petty  desires, 

*  Let  the  reader,  amongst  many  others,  pe- 
ruse the  sermons  of  Dr.  Arnold,  delivered  in  the 
School  Chapel  at  Rugby. 

t  The  Wide  Wide  World,  by  Elizabeth 
Wetherell  (an  American  book).  See  also  the 
novels  of  Miss  Yonge,  and  chiefly  those  ol 
George  Eliot. 


CHAP.  III.] 


THE  PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


his  small  troubles,  a  sort  of  affection- 
ate and  quite  human  priestly  guide  ; 
it  is  no  longer  a  king  whose  relations 
and  courtiers  he  tries  to  gain  over,  and 
from  whom  he  looks  for  favor  or  place  ; 
we  see  in  him  only  a  guardian  of  duty, 
and  we  speak  to  him  of  nothing  else. 
What  we  ask  of  him  is  the  strength  to 
be  virtuous,  the  inner  renewal  by  which 
we  become  capable  of  always  doing 
good;  and  such  a  prayer  is  in  itself  a 
sufficient  lever  to  tear  a  man  from  his 
weaknesses.  What  we  know  of  the 
Deity  is  that  he  is  perfectly  righteous ; 
and  such  a  reliance  suffices  to  repre- 
sent all  the  events  of  life  as  an  approach 
to  the  reign  of  righteousness.  Strictly 
speaking,  righteousness  alone  exists ; 
the  world  is  a  figure  which  conceals  it, 
but  heart  and  conscience  sustain  it,  and 
there  is  nothing  important  or  true  in 
man  but  the  embrace  by  which  he  holds 
it.  So  speak  the  old  grave  prayers, 
the  severe  hymns  which  are  sung  in 
the  church  accompanied  by  the  organ. 
Though  a  Frenchman,  and  brought  up 
in  a  different  religion,!  listened  to  them 
with  a  sincere  admiration  and  emotion. 
Serious  and  grand  poems,  which,  open- 
ing a  path  to  the  Infinite,  let  in  a  ray 
of  light  into  the  limitless  darkness, 
and  satisfy  the  deep  poetic  instincts. 
the  vague  desire  of  sublimity  and  mel- 
ancholy, which  this  race  has  manifest- 
ed from  its  origin,  and  which  it  has 
preserved  to  the  end. 

V. 

As  the  basis  of  the  present  as  well 
as  of  the  past  ever  reappears  an  inner 
and  persistent  cause,  the  character  of 
the  race  ;  transmission  and  climate 
have  maintained  it ;  a  violent  perturba- 
tion— the  Norman  Conquest — warped 
it  ;  finally,  after  various  oscillations,  it 
was  manifested  by  the  conception  of  a 
special  ideal,  which  gradually  fashioned 
or  produced  religion,  literature,  insti- 
tutions. Thus  fixed  and  expressed,  it 
was  henceforth  the  mover  of  .the  rest ; 
it  explains  the  present,  on  it  depends 


581 


the  future  ;  its  force  and  direction  will 
produce  the  present  and  future  civiliza- 
tion. Now  that  great  historic  violences 
— I  mean  the  destructions  and  enslave- 
ments of  peoples — have  become  almost 
impracticable,  each  nation  can  develop 
its  life  according  to  its  own  conception 
of  life;  the  chances  of  a  war,  a  disco  very, 
have  no  hold  but  on  details  ;  national 
inclinations  and  aptitudes  alone  now 
show  the  great  features  of  a  national 
history;  when  twenty-five  millions  of 
men  conceive  the  good  and  useful  after 
a  certain  type,  they  will  seek  and  end 
by  attaining  this  kind  of  the  good  and 
useful.  The  Englishman  has  hence- 
forth his  priest,  his  gentleman,  his 
manufacture,  his  comfort,  and  his 
novel.  If  we  wish  to  know  in  what 
sense  this  work  will  alter,  we  must  in- 
quire in  what  sense  the  central  concep- 
tion will  change.  A  vast  revolution 
has  taken  place  during  the  last  three 
centuries  in  human  intelligence, — like 
those  regular  and  vast  uprisings  which, 
displacing  a  continent,  displace  all  the 
prospects.  We  know  that  positive  dis- 
coveries go  on  increasing  day  by  day, 
that  they  will  increase  daily  more  and 
more,  that  from  object  to  object  they 
reach  the  most  lofty,  that  they  begin 
by  renewing  the  science  of  man,  that 
their  useful  application  and  their  phil- 
osophical consequences  are  ceaselessly 
unfolded  ;  in  short,  that  their  universal 
encroachment  will  at  last  comprise  the 
whole  human  mind.  From  this  body 
of  invading  truth  springs  in  addition 
an  original  conception  of  the  good  and 
the  useful,  and,  moreover,  a  new  idea 
of  church  and  state,  art  and  industry, 
philosophy  and  religion.  This  has  its 
power,  as  the  old  idea  had ;  it  is 
scientific,  if  the  other  was  national ;  it  is 
supported  on  proved  facts,  if  the  other 
was  upon  established  things.  Already 
their  opposition  is  being  manifested  : 
already  their  labors  begin;  and  we  may 
affirm  beforehand,  that  the  proximate 
condition  of  English  civilization  will 
depend  upon  their  divergence  or  their 
agreement. 


HISTORY   OF    ENGLISH    LITERATURE. 


BOOK  y. 
MODERN    AUTHORS. 


INTRODUCTORY    NOTE. 

THE  translator  thinks  it  due  to  M .  Taine  to 
state,  that  the  fifth  book,  on  the  Modern  Au- 
thors, was  written  whilst  Dickens,  Thackeray, 
Macaulay,  and  Mill  were  still  alive.  He  also 
gives  the  original  preface  of  that  book: — 

"  This  fifth  book  is  the  complement  to  the 
History  of  English  Literature;  it  is  written 
on  another  plan,  because  the  subject  is  differ- 
ent. The  present  period  is  not  yet  completed, 
and  the  ideas  which  govern  it  are  in  process  of 
formation,  that  is,  in  the  rough.  We  cannot 
therefore  as  yet  systematically  arrange  them 
"\Vhen  documents  are  still  mere  indications, 
history  is  necessarily  reduced  to  "  studies  j" 
knowledge  is  moulded  from  life  ;  and  our  con- 
clusions cannot  be  other  than  incomplete,  so 
long  as  the  facts  which  suggest  them  are  un- 
finished. Fifty  years  hence  the  history  of  this 
age  may  be  written  ;  in  the  mean  time  we  can 
but  sketch  it.  I  have  selected  from  contem- 
porary English  writers  the  most  original 
minds,  the  most  consistent,  and  the  most  con- 
trasted ;  they  may  be  regarded  as  specimens, 
representing  the  common  features,  the  oppos- 
ing tendencies,  and  consequently  the  general 
direction  of  the  public  mind. 

"  They  are  only  specimens.  By  the  side  of 
Macaulay  and  Carlyle  we  have  historians  like 
llallam,  Buckle,  and  Grote  ;  by  the  side  of 
D  ckens,  novel-writers  like  Bulwer,  Charlotte 
Btonte,  Mrs.  Gaskell,  George  Eliot,  and 
jrany  more  ;  by  the  side  of  Tennyson,  poets 
liice  Elizabeth  Browning  ;  by  the  side  of  Stuart 
Mill,  philosophers  like  Hamilton,  Bain,  and 
Herbert  Spencer.  I  pass  over  the  vast  num- 
ber of  men  of  talent  who  write  anonymously  in 
reviews,  and  who,  like  soldiers  in  an  army,  dis- 
play at  times  more  clearly  than  their  generals 
the  faculties  and  inclinations  of  their  time  and 
their  country.  If  we  look  for  the  common 
marks  in  this  multitude  of  varied  minds,  we 
shall,  I  think,  find  the  two  salient  features 
which  I  have  already  pointed  out.  One  of 
these  features  is  proper  to  English  civilization, 
the  other  to  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth 


century.  The  one  is  national,  the  other  Euro- 
pean. On  the  one  hand,  special  to  this  peo- 
Ele,  their  literature  is  an  inquiry  instituted  into 
umanity,  altogether  positive,  and  consequent- 
ly only  partially  beautiful  or  philosophical,  but 
very  exact,  minute,  useful,  and  moreover  very 
moral ;  and  this  to  such  a  degree,  that  some- 
times the  generosity  or  purity  of  its  aspirations 
raises  it  to  a  height  which  no  artist  or  philoso- 
pher has  transcended.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
common  with  the  various  peoples  of  our  age, 
this  literature  s"bordinates  dominant  creeds 
and  institutions  to  private  inquiry  and  estab- 
lished science — I  mean,  to  that  irresponsible 
tribunal  which  is  erected  in  each  man's  indi- 
vidual conscience,  and  to  that  universal  author- 
ity which  the  diverse  human,  judgments,  mu- 
tually rectified,  and  controlled  by  practice,  bor- 
row from  the  verifications  of  experience,  and 
from  their  own  harmony. 

"  Whatever  be  the  judgment  passed  on  these 
tendencies  and  on  these  doctrines,  we  cannot, 
I  think,  refuse  them  the  merit  of  spontaneity 
and  originality.  They  are  living  and  thriving 
plants.  The  six  writers,  described  in  this  vol- 
ume, have  expressed  efficacious  and  complete 
ideas  on  God,  nature,  man,  science,  religion, 
art,  and  morality.  To  produce  such  ideas  we 
have  in  Europe  at  this  day  but  three  nations — 
England,  Germany,  and  France.  Those  of 
England  will  here  be  found  arranged,  dis- 
cussed, and  compared  with  those  of  the  otherr 
two  thinking  countries." 


CHAPTER  I. 


WERE  Dickens  dead,  his  biography 
might  be  written.  On  the  day  after  the 
burial  of  a  celebrated  man,  his  friends 
and  enemies  apply  themselves  to  the 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


work ;  his  school-fellows  relate  in  the 
newspapers  his  boyish  pranks ;  an- 
other man  recalls  exactly,  and  word  for 
word,  the  conversations  he  had  with 
him  more  than  a  score  of  years  ago. 
The  lawyer,  who  manages  the  affairs  of 
the  deceased,  draws  up  a  list  of  the 
different  offices  he  has  filled,  his  titles, 
dates  and  figures,  and  reveals  to  the 
matter-of-fact  readers  how  the  money 
left  has  been  invested,  and  how  the 
fortune  has  been  made ;  the  grand- 
nephews  and  second  cousins  publish 
an  account  of  his  acts  of  humanity,  and 
the  catalogue  of  his  domestic  virtues. 
If  there  is  no  literary  genius  in  the 
family,  they  select  an  Oxford  man,  con- 
scientious, learned,  who  treats  the  de- 
ceased like  a  Greek  author,  collects  end- 
less documents,overloads  them  with  end- 
less comments,  crowns  the  whole  with 
endless  discussions,and  comes  ten  years 
later,  some  fine  Christmas  morning, 
with  his  white  tie  and  placid  smile,  to 
present  to  the  assembled  family  three 
quartos  of  eight  hundred  pages  each, 
the  easy  style  of  which  would  send  a 
German  from  Berlin  to  sleep.  He  is 
embraced  by  them  with  tears  in  their 
eyes  ;  they  make  him  sit  down ;  he  is 
the  chief  ornament  at  their  feasts  ;  and 
his  work  is  sent  to  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view. The  latter  groans  at  the  sight 
of  the  enormous  present,  and  tells  off 
a  young  and  intrepid  member  of  the 
staff  to  concoct  some  kind  of  a  biogra- 
phy from  the  table  of  contents.  An- 
other advantage  of  posthumous  biogra- 
phies is,  that  the  dead  man  is  no  longer 
there  to  refute  either  biographer  or 
man  of  learning. 

Unfortunately  Dickens  is  still  alive, 
and  refutes  the  biographies  made  of 
him.  What  is  worse,  he  claims  to  be 
his  own  biographer.  His  translator  in 
French  once  asked  him  for  a  few  partic- 
ulars of  his  life  ;  Dickens  replied  that 
he  kept  them  for  himself.  Without 
doubt,  David  Copperfield,  his  best  novel, 
has  much  the  appearance  of  a  confes- 
sion ;  *  but  where  does  the  confession 

*  M.  Taine  was  not  wrong  in  thinking  so. 
In  the  Life  of  Charles  Dickens  by  J.  Forster 
we  find  (vol.  i.  p.  8)  the  following  words  : — 
"  And  here  I  may  at  once  expressly  mention, 
what  already  has  been  hinted,  that  even  as 
Fielding  described  himself  and  his  belongings 
in  Captain  Booth  and  Amelia,  and  protested 
always  that  he  had  writ  in  his  books  nothing 
more  than  he  had  seen  in  life,  so  it  may  be 


end,  and  how  far  does  fiction  embroider 
truth  ?  All  that  is  known,  or  rather 
all  that  is  told,  is  that  Dickens  was 
born  in  1812,  that  he  is  the  son  of  a 
shorthand-writer,  that  he  was  himself  at 
first  a  shorthand-writer,  that  he  was 
poor  and  unfortunate  in  his  youth,  tha 
his  novels,  published  in  parts,  have 
gained  for  him  a  great  fortune  and  an 
immense  reputation.  The  leader  may 
conjecture  the  rest ;  Dickens  will  tell  it 
him  one  day,  when  he  writes  his  me- 
moirs. Meanwhile  he  closes  the  door 
and  leaves  outside  the  too  inquisitive 
folk  who  go  on  knocking.  He  has  a 
right  to  do  so.  Though  a  man  may  be 
illustrious,  he  is  not  on  that  account 
public  property ;  he  is  not  compelled 
to  be  confidential ;  he  still  belongs  to 
himself;  he  may  reserve  of  himself 
what  he  thinks  proper.  If  we  give  our 
works  to  our  readers,  we  do  not  give 
our  lives.  Let  us  be  satisfied  with 
what  Dickens  has  given  us.  Forty 
volumes  suffice,  and  more  than  suffice, 
to  enable  us  to  know  a  man  well ; 
moreover,  they  show  of  him  all  that  it 
is  important  to  know.  It  is  not  through 
the  accidental  circumstances  of  his  life 
that  he  belongs  to  history,  but  by  his 
talent ;  and  his  talent  is  in  his  books. 
A  man's  genius  is  like  a  clock ;  it  has 
its  mechanism,  and  amongst  its  parts  a 
mainspring.  Find  out  this  spring,  show 
how  it  communicates  movement  to  the 
others,  pursue  this  movement  from 
part  to  part  down  to  the  hands  in  which 
it  ends.  This  inner  history  of  genius 
does  not  depend  upon  the  outer  history 
of  the  man  ;  and  it  is  worth  more. 

§  i. — THE  AUTHOR. 
I. 

The  first  question  which  should  be 
asked  in  connection  with  an  artist  is 
this :  How  does  he  regard  objects  ? 
With  what  clearness,  what  energy,  what 
force  ?  The  reply  defines  his  whole 
work  beforehand ;  for  in  a  writer  of 
novels  the  imagination  is  the  master 

said  of  Dickens,  in  more  especial  relation  to 
David  Copperfield.  Many  guesses  have  been 
nade  since  his  death,  connecting  David's  auto- 
biography with  his  own.  .  .  .  There  is  not 
only  truth  in  all  this,  but  it  will  very  shortly  be 
seen  that  the  identity  went  deeper  than  any 
lad  supposed,  and  covered  experiences  not 
.ess  startling  in  the  reality  than  they  appear  t« 
ae  in  the  fiction." — TR. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


faculty ;  the  art  of  composition,  good 
taste,  the  feeling  of  what  is  true,  de- 
pend upon  it  ;  one  degree  more  of 
vehemence  destroys  the  style  which  ex- 
presses it,  changes  the  characters  which 
it  produces,  breaks  the  plot  in  which  it 
is  enclosed.  Consider  the  imaginative 
power  of  Dickens,  and  you  will  perceive 
therein  the  cause  of  his  faults  and  his 
meiits,  his  power  and  his  excess. 

II. 

There  is  a  painter  in  him,  and  an 
English  painter.  \Never  surely  did  a 
mind  figure  to  itself  with  more  exact 
detail  or  greater  force  all  the  parts  and 
tints  of  a  picture.  -  Read  this  descrip- 
tion of  a  storm  ;  the  images  seem 
photographed  by  dazzling  flashes  of 
lightning  : 

"  The  eye,  partaking  of  the  quickness  of  the 
flashing  light,  saw  it  in  its  every  gleam  a  mul- 
titude of  objects  which  it  could  not  see  at 
steady  noon  in  fifty  times  that  period.  Bells  in 
steeples,  with  the  rope  and  wheel  that  moved 
them  ;  ragged  nests  of  birds  in  cornices  and 
nooks  :  faces  full  of  consternation  in  the  tilted 
waggons  that  came  tearing  past:  their  fright- 
ened teams  ringing  out  a  warning  which  the 
thunder  drowned  ;  harrows  and  ploughs  left 
out  in  fields  ;  miles  upon  miles  of  hedge-di- 
vided country,  with  the  distant  fringe  of  trees 
as  obvious  as  the  scarecrow  in  the  beanfield 
close  at  hand  ;  in  a  trembling,  vivid,  nickering 
instant,  everything  was  clear  and  plain  :  then 
came  a  flush  of  red  into  the  yellow  light ;  a 
change  to  blue  ;  a  brightness  so  intense  that 
there  was  nothing  else  but  light ;  and  then  the 
deepest  and  profoundest  darkness."  * 

An  imagination  so  lucid  and  energet- 
ic cannot  but  animate  inanimate  objects 
without  an  effort.  It  provokes  in  the 
mind  in  which  it  works  extraordinary 
emotions!  and  the  author  pours  over  the 
objects  which  he  figures  to  himself,some- 
thing  of  the  ever-welling  passion  which 
overflows  in  him.  \  Stones  for  him  take 
i  voice,  white  walls  swell  out  into  big 
phantoms,  black  wells  yawn  hideously 
and  mysteriously  in  the  darkness  ;  le- 
gions of  strange  creatures  whirl  shud- 
dering over  the  fantastic  landscape  ; 
blank  nature  is  peopled,  inert  matter 
moves.  But  the  images  remain  clear  ; 
in  this  madness  there  is  nothing  vague 
or  disorderly  ;  imaginary  objects  are 
designed  with  outlines  as  precise  and 
details  as  numerous  as  real  objects,  and 
the  dream  is  equal  to  the  reality. 

*  Martin  Chitzzlewit,  ch.  xlii.  The  trans- 
lator has  used  the  "  Charles  Dickens "  edi- 
tion, 1868,  18  vols. 


585 


There  is,  amongst  others,  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  night  wind,  quaint  and 
powerful,  which  recalls  certain  pages  of 
Notre-Dame  de  Paris.  The  source  of 
this  description,  as  of  all  those  of  Dick- 
ens, is  pure  imagination.  He  does  not, 
like  Walter  Scott,  describe  in  order 
to  give  his  reader  a  map,  and  to  lay 
down  the  locality  of  his  drama.  He 
does  not,  like  Lord  Byron,  describe 
from  love  of  magnificent  nature,  and  in 
order  to  display  a^splendid  succession 
of  grand  pictures.!  He  dreams  neither 
of  attaining  exactness  nor  of  selecting 
beauty.  Struck  with  a  certain  specta- 
cle, he  is  transported,  and  breaks  out 
into  unforeseen  figures.  Now  it  is  the 
yellow  leaves,  pursued  by  the  wind, 
fleeing  and  jostling,  shivering,  scared, 
in  a  giddy  chase,  clinging  to  the  furrows, 
drowned  in  the  ditches,  perching  on 
the  trees.*  Here  it  is  the  night  wind, 
sweeping  round  a  church,  moaning  as 
it  tries  with  its  unseen  hand  the  win- 
dows and  the  doors,  and  seeking  out 
some  crevices  by  which  to  enter  : 

"  And  when  it  has  got  in  ;  as  one  not  finding 
what  he  seeks,  whatever  that  may  be  ;  it  wails 
and  howls  to  issue  forth  again :  and,  not  con- 
tent with  stalking  through  the  aisles,  and  glid- 
ing round  and  round  the  pillars,  and  tempting 
the  deep  organ,  soars  up  to  the  roof,  and 
strives  to  rend  the  rafters  :  then  flings  itself 
despairingly  upon  the  stones  below,  and  passes, 
muttering,  into  the  vaults.  Anon,  it  comes  up 


*  "  It  was  small  tyranny  for  a  respectable 
wind  to  go  wreaking  its  vengeance  on  such  poor 
creatures  as  the  fallen  leaves  ;  but  this  wind 
happening  to  come  up  with  a  great  heap  of  them 
just  after  venting  its  humour  on  the  insulted 
Dragon,  did  so  disperse  and  scatter  them  that 
they  fled  away,  pell-mell,  some  here,  some  there, 
rolling  over  each  other,  whirling  round  and 
round  upon  their  thin  edges,  taking  frantic 
flights  into  the  air,  and  playing  all  manner  of 
extraordinary  gambols  in  the  extremity  of  their 
distress.  Nor  was  this  enough  for  its  malicious 
fnry  :  for,  not  content  with  driving  them 
abroad,  it  charged  small  parties  of  them  and 
hunted  them  into  the  wheelwright's  saw-pit, 
and  below  the  planks  and  timbers  in  the  yard, 
and,  scattering  the  saw-dust  in  the  air,  it 
looked  for  them  underneath,  and  when  it  did 
meet  with  any,  whew  !  how  it  drove  them  on 
and  followed  at  their  heels! 

"  The  scared  leaves  only  flew  the  faster  for 

all  this,  and  a  giddy  chase  it  was  :  for  thev  got 

into  unfrequented  places,  where  there  was  no 

utlet,  and  where  their  pursuer  kept  the 


dying  round  and  round  at  his  pleasure  ;  and 
they  crept  under  the  eaves  of  houses,  and  clung 
tightly  to  the  sides  of  hay-ricks,  like  bats  ;  and 


ey  crept  under  the  eaves  of  houses,  and  clung 

ghtly  to  the  sides  of  hay-ricks,  like  bats  ;  and 

tore  in  at  open  chamber  windows,  and  cowered 

close  to  hedges  ;  and,  in  short,  went  anywhere 

for  safety."  —  (Martin  Chuzzlewit,  ch.  li.) 

25* 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


586 


stealthily,  and  creeps  along  the  walls:  seeming 
to  read,  in  whispers,  the  Inscriptions  sacred  to 
the  Dead.  At  some  of  these,  it  breaks  out 
shrilly,  as  with  laughter  ;  and  at  others,  moans 
and  cries  as  if  it  were  lamenting."  * 

Hitherto  you  have  only  recognized  the 
sombre  imagination  of  a  man  of  the 
north.  A  little  further  you  perceive  the 
impassioned  religion  of  a  revolutionary 
Protestant,  when  he  speaks  to  you  of 
"  a  ghostly  sound  too,  lingering  within 
the  altar;  where  it  seems  to  chaunt,  in 
its  wild  way,  of  Wrong  and  Murder 
done,  and  false  Gods  worshipped  ;  in 
defiance  of  the  Tables  of  the  Law,  which 
look  so  fair  and  smooth,  but  are  so 
flawed  and  broken.  Ugh!  Heaven 
preserve  us,  sitting  snugly  round  the 
fire  !  It  has  an  awful  voice,  that  wind 
at  Midnight,  singing  in  a  church!" 
But  an  instant  after,  the  artist  speaks 
again  ;  he  leads  you  to  the  belfry,  and 
in  the  jingle  of  the  accumulated  words, 
communicates  to  your  nerves  the  sensa- 
tion of  an  aerial  tempest.  The  wind 
whistles,  blows,  and  gambols  in  the 
arches :  "  High  up  in  the  steeple, 
where  it  is  free  to  come  and  go  through 
many  an  airy  arch  and  loophole,  and 
to  twist  and  twine  itself  about  the  giddy 
stair,  and  twirl  the  groaning  weather'- 
cock,  and  make  the  very  tower  shake 
and  shiver  !  "  f  Dickens  has  seen  it  all 
in  the  old  belfry  ;  his  thought  is  a  mir- 
ror ;  not  the  smallest  or  ugliest  detail 
escapes  him.  He  has  counted  "  the 
iron  rails  ragged  with  rust  ;  "  "  the 
sheets  of  lead,"  wrinkled  and  shrivelled, 
which  crackle  and  heave  beneath  the 
unaccustomed  tread  ;  "  the  shabby 
nests "  which  "  the  birds  stuff  into 
corners  "  of  the  old  oaken  joists  and 
beams  ;  the  gray  dust  heaped  up  ;  "  the 
speckled  spiders,  indolent  and  fat  with 
long  security,"  which,  hanging  by  a 
thread,  "  swing  idly  to  and  fro  in  the 
vibration  of  the  bells,"  and  which 
*  ciimb  up  sailor-like  in  quick-alarm, 
or  drop  upon  the  ground  and  ply  a  score 
of  nimble  legs  to  save  one  life."  This 
picture  captivates  us.  Kept  up  at  such 
a  height,  amongst  the  fleeting  clouds 
which  cast  their  shadows  over  the  town 
and  the  feeble  lights  scarce  distinguish- 
ed in  the  mist,  we  feel  a  sort  of  dizzi- 
ness ;  and  we  nearly  discover,  with 
Dickens,  thought  and  a  soul  in  the 
*  The  Chimes,  first  quarter.  \  Ibid. 


[BOOK  V 


metallic  voice    of    the   chimes  which 
inhabit  this  trembling  castle. 

He  writes  a  storv  about  them,  and  it 
is  not  the  first.  Dickens  is  a  poet  ;  he 
is  as  much  at  home  in  the  imaginative 
world  as  in  the  actual.  Here  the  chimes 
are  talking  to  the  old  messenger  and 
consoling  him.  Elsewhere  it  is  the 
Cricket  on  the  Hearth  singing  of  all 
domestic  joys,  and  bringing  before  the 
eyes  of  the  lonely  master  the  happy 
evenings,  the  intimate  conversations, 
the  comfort,  the  quiet  cheerfulness 
which  he  has  enjoyed,  and  which  he  has 
no  longer.  In  another  tale  it  is  the 
history  of  a  sick  and  precocious  child 
who  feels  itself  dying,  and  who,  sleeping 
'n  the  arms  of  its  sister,  hears  the  dis- 
tant song  of  the  murmuring  waves 
which  rocked  him  to  sleep.  Objects, 
with  Dickens,  take  their  hue  from  the 
thoughts  of  his  characters.  His  im- 
agination is  so  lively,  that  it  carries 
every  thing  with  it  in  the  path  which  it 
chooses.  If  the  character  is  happy,  the 
stones,  flowers,  and  clouds  must  be 
happy  too  ;  if  he  is  sad,  nature  must 
weep  with  him.  Even  to  the  ugly 
houses  in  the  street,  all  speak.  The 
style  runs  through  a  swarm  of  visions; 
it 'breaks  out  into  the  strangest  oddities. 
Here  is  a  young  girl,  pretty  and  good, 
who  crosses  Fountain  Court  and  the 
law  purlieus  in  search  of  her  brother. 
What  can  be  more  simple  ?  what  even 
more  trivial  ?  Dickens  is  carried  away 
by  it.  To  entertain  her,  he  summons 
up  birds,  trees,  houses,  the  fountain, 
the  offices,  law  papers,  and  much  be- 
sides. It  is  a  folly,  and  it  is  all  but  an 
enchantment : 

"  Whether  there  was  life  enough  left  in  the 
slow  vegetation  of  Fountain  Court  for  the 
smoky  shrubs  to  have  any  consciousness  of  the 
brightest  and  purest-hearted  little  woman  in 
the  world,  is  a  question  for  gardeners,  and 
those  who  are  learned  in  the  loves  of  plants. 
But  that  it  was  a  good  thing  for  that  same 
paved  yard  to  have  such  a  delicate  little  figure 
flitting  through  it  ;  that  it  passed  like  a  smile 
from  the  grimy  old  houses,  and  the  worn  flag- 
stones, and  left  them  duller,  darker,  sterner 
than  before  ;  there  is  no  sort  of  doubt.  The 
Temple  fountain  might  have  leaped  up  twenty 
feet  to  greet  the  spring  of  hopeful  maiden- 
hood, that  in  her  person  stole  on,  sparkling, 
through  the  dry  and  dusty  channels  of  the 
Law  ;  the  chirping  sparrows,  bred  in  Temple 
chinks  and  crannies,  might  have  held  their 
peace  to  listen  to  imaginary  sky-larks,  as  so 
fresh  a  little  creature  passed  ;  the  dingy  boughs, 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


g 
b 


unused  to  droop,  otherwise  than  in  their  puny 
growth,  might  have  bent  down  in  a  kindred 
gracefulness,  to  shed  their  benedictions  on  her 
raceful  head  ;  old  love-letters,  shut  up  in  iron 
oxes  in  the  neighbouring  offices,  and  made  of 
no  account  among  the  heaps  of  family  papers 
into  which  they  had  strayed,  and  of  which,  in 
their  degeneracy,  they  formed  a  part,  might 
have  stirred  and  fluttered  with  a  moment's  rec- 
ollection of  their  ancient  tenderness,  as  she 
went  lightly  by.  Anything  might  have  hap- 
pened that  did  not  happen,  and  never  will,  for 
the  love  of  Ruth."  * 

This  is  far-fetched,  without  doubt. 
French  taste,  always  measured,  revolts 
against  these  affected  strokes,  these 
sickly  prettinesses.  And  yet  this  af- 
fectation is  natural  ;  Dickens  does  not 
hunt  after  quaintnesses  ;  they  come 
to  him.  His  excessive  imagination  is 
like  a  string  too  tightly  stretched  ;  it 
produces  of  itself,  without  any  violent 
shock,  sounds  not  heard  elsewhere. 

We  shall  see  how  it  is  excited.  Im- 
agine a  shop,  no  matter  what  shop, 
the  most  repulsive  ;  that  of  a  mathe- 
matical-instrument maker.  Dickens 
sees  the  barometers,  chronometers, 
telescopes,  compasses,  charts,  maps, 
sextants,  speaking  trumpets,  and  so 
forth.  He  sees  so  many,  sees  them  so 
clearly,  they  are  crowded  and  crammed, 
they  replace  each  other  so  forcibly  in 
his  brain,  which  they  fill  and  obstruct  ; 
there  are  so  many  geographical  and 
nautical  ideas  exposed  under  the  glass 
cases  hung  from  the  ceiling,  nailed  to 
the  wall,  they  swamp  him  from  so 
many  sides,  and  in  such  abundance, 
that  he  loses  his  judgment.  "  The 
shop  itself,  partaking  of  the  general 
infection,  seemed  almost  to  become  a 
snug,  sea-going,  ship-shape  concern, 
wanting  only  good  sea-room,  in  the 
event  of  an  unexpected  launch,  to  work 
its  way  securely  to  any  desert  island  in 
the  world."  t 

The  difference  between  a  madman 
and  a  man  of  genius  is  not  very  great. 
Napoleon,  who  knew  men,  said  so  to 
Esquirol.J  The  same  faculty  leads  us 
to  glory  or  throws  us  into  a  cell  in  a 
lunatic  asylum.  It  is  visionary  imagi- 
nation which  forges  the  phantoms  of 
the  madman  and  creates  the  person- 
ages of  an  artist,  and  the  classifications 
serving  for  the  first  may  serve  for  the 
second.  The  imagination  of  Dickens 

*  Martin  Chuzzlevuii,  ch.  xlv. 
t  Dombey  and  Son,  ch.  iv. 
j  See  ante,  nota,  page  123. 


587 


is  like  that  of  monomaniacs.  To  plunge 
oneself  into  an  idea,  to  be  absorbed  by 
it,  to  see  nothing  else,  to  repeat  it  under 
a  hundred  forms,  to  enlarge  it,  to  carry 
it,  thus  enlarged,  to  the  eye  of  the  spec- 
tator, to  dazzle  and  overwhelm  him 
with  it,  to  stamp  it  upon  him  so  firmly 
and  deeply  that  he  can  never  again  tear 
it  from  his  memory, — these  are  the 
great  features  of  this  imagination  and 
style.  In  this,  David  Copperfield  is  a 
masterpiece.  Never  did  objects  remain 
more  visible  and  present  to  the  memory 
of  a  reader  than  those  which  he  de- 
scribes. The  old  house,  the  parlor, 
the  kitchen,  Peggotty's  boat,  and  above 
all  the  school  play-ground,  are  interiors 
whose  relief,  energy,  and  precision  are 
unequalled.  Dickens  has  the  passion 
and  patience  of  the  painters  of  his  na- 
tion ;  he  reckons  his  details  one  by  one, 
notes  the  various  hues  of  the  old  tree- 
trunks  ;  sees  the  dilapidated  cask,  the 
greenish  and  broken  flagstones,  the 
chinks  of  the  damp  walls  ;  he  distin- 
guishes the  strange  smells  which  rise 
'rom  them ;  marks  the  size  of  the  mil- 
dewed spots,  reads  the  names  of  the 
scholars  carved  on  the  door,  and  dwells 
on  the  form  of  the  letters.  And  this 
minute  description  has  nothing  cold 
about  it :  if  it  is  thus  detailed,  it  is  be- 
cause the  contemplation  was  intense ; 
it  proves  its  passion  by  its  exactness. 
We  felt  this  passion  without  account- 
ing for  it ;  suddenly  we  find  it  at  the 
end  of  a  page  ;  the  boldness  of  the 
style  renders  it  visible,  and  the  violence 
of  the  phrase  attests  the  violence  of  the 
impression.  Excessive  metaphors  bring 
before  the  mind  grotesque  fancies.  We 
feel  ourselves  beset  by  extravagant  vis- 
ions. Mr.  Mells  take  his  flute,  and  blows 
on  it,  says  Copperfield,  "  until  I  almost; 
thought'  he  would  gradually  blow  his 
whole  being  into  the  large  hole  at  the 
top,  and  ooze  away  at  the  keys."  * 
Tom  Pinch,  disabused  at  last,  discov- 
ers that  his  master  Pecksniff  is  a  hyp- 
ocritical  rogue.  He  "  had  so  long 
been  used  to  i  teep  the  Pecksniff  of  his 
fancy  in  his  tea,  and  spread  him  out 
upon  his  toast,  and  take  him  as  a  relish 
with  his  beer,  that  he  made  but  a  poor 
breakfast  on  the  first  morning  after  his 
expulsion."  t  We  think  of  Hoffmann's 

*  David  Copperfield,  ch.  v. 

t  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  ch.  xxxvi. 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BooK  V 


fantastic  tales;  we  are  arrested  by  a 
fixed  idea,  and  our  head  begins  to  ache. 
These  eccentricities  are  in  the  style 
of  sickness  rather  than  of  health. 

Therefore  Dickens  is  admirable  in 
depicting  hallucinations.  We  see  that 
he  feels  himself  those  of  his  characters, 
that  he  is  engrossed  by  their  ideas,  that 
he  enters  into  their  madness.  As  an 
Englishman  and  a  moralist,  he  has  de- 
scribed remorse  frequently.  Perhaps 
it  may  be  said  that  he  makes  a  scare- 
crow of  it,  and  that  an  artist  is  wrong 
to  transform  himself  into  an  assistant 
of  the  policeman  and  the  preacher. 
What  of  that  ?  The  portrait  of  Jonas 
Chuzzlewit  is  so  terrible,  that  we  may 
pardon  it  for  being  useful.  Jonas, 
leaving  his  chamber  secretly,  has 
treacherously  murdered  his  enemy,  and 
thinks  henceforth  to  breathe  in  peace  ; 
but  the  recollection  of  the  murder  grad- 
ually disorganizes  his  mind,  like  poison. 
He  is  no  longer  able  to  control  his 
ideas  ;  they  bear  him  on  with  the  fury 
of  a  terrified  horse.  He  is  forever 
thinking,  and  shuddering  as  he  thinks, 
of  the  room  where  people  believed  he 
slept.  He  sees  this  room,  counts  the 
tiles  of  the  floor,  pictures  the  long  folds 
of  the  dark  curtains,  the  tumbled  bed, 
the  door  at  which  some  one  might  have 
knocked.  The  more  he  wants  to  escape 
from  this  vision,  the  more  he  is  im- 
mersed in  it ;  it  is  a  burning  abyss  in 
which  he  rolls,  struggling,  with  cries 
atd  sweats  of  agony.  He  fancies  him- 
self lying  in  his  bed,  as  he  ought  to  be, 
and  an  instant  after  he  sees  himself 
there.  He  fears  this  other  self.  The 
dream  is  so  vivid,  that  he  is  not  sure 
that  he  is  not  in  London.  "  He  became 
in  a  manner  his  own  ghost  and  phan- 
tom." And  this  imaginary  being,  like 
a  mirror,  only  redoubles  before  his  con- 
science the  image  of  assassination  and 
punishment.  He  returns,  and  shuffles, 
with  pale  face,  to  the  door  of  his  cham- 
ber. He,  a  man  of  business,  a  man  of 
figures,  a  coarse  machine  of  positive 
reasoning,  has  become  as  fanciful  as  a 
nervous  woman.  "  He  stole  on,  to  the 
door,  on  tiptoe,  as  if  he  dreaded  to  dis- 
turb his  own  imaginary  rest."  At  the 
moment  when  he  turns  the  key  in  the 
lock,  "  a  monstrous  fear  beset  his  mind. 
What  if  the  murdered  man  were  there 
before  him."  At  last  he  enters,  and 


tumbles  into  bed,  burnt  up  with  fever 
"  He  buried  himself  beneath  the  blan- 
kets," so  as  to  try  not  to  see  "  that  in- 
fernal room ;  "  he  sees  it  more  clearly 
still.  The  rustling  of  the  clothes,  the 
buzz  of  an  insect,  the  beatings  of  his 
heart,  all  cry  to  him  Murderer  !  His 
mind  fixed  with  "  an  agony  of  listen- 
ing "  on  the  door,  he  ends  by  thinking 
that  people  open  it ;  he  hears  it  creak, 
His  senses  are  distorted ;  he  dares  not 
mistrust  them,  he  dares  no  longer  be- 
lieve in  them ;  and  in  this  nightmare, 
in  which  drowned  reason  leaves  noth- 
ing but  a  chaos  of  hideous  forms,  he 
finds  no  reality  but  the  incessant  bur- 
den of  his  convulsive  despair.  Thence- 
forth all  his  thoughts,  dangers,  the 
whole  world  disappears  for  him  in 
"  the  one  dread  question  only,"  "  When 
would  they  find  the  body  in  the  wood  ? " 
He  forces  himself  to  distract  his 
thoughts  from  this  ;  they  remain  stamp- 
ed and  glued  to  it ;  they  hold  him  to  it 
as  by  a  chain  of  iron.  He  continually 
figures  himself  going  into  the  wood, 
"  going  softly  about  it  and  about  it 
among  the  leaves,  approaching  it  near- 
er and  nearer  through  a  gap  in  the 
boughs,  and  startling  the  very  flies,  that 
were  thickly  sprinkled  all  over  it,  like 
heaps  of  dried  currants."  His  mind 
was  fixed  and  fastened  on  the  discovery, 
for  intelligence  of  which  he  listened 
intently  to  every  cry  and  shout ;  listen- 
ed when  any  one  came  in,  or  went  out ; 
watched  from  the  window  the  people 
who  passed  up  and  down  the  street. 
At  the  same  time,  he  has  ever  before 
his  eyes  that  corpse  "  lying  alone  in  the 
wood  ; "  "  he  was  for  ever  showing 
and  presenting  it,  as  it  were,  to  every 
creature  whom  he  saw.  '  Look  here  ! 
do  you  know  of  this  ?  Is  it  found  ? 
Do  you  suspect  me  ?  '  If  he  had  been 
condemned  to  bear  the  body  in  his 
arms,  and  lay  it  down  for  recognition 
at  the  feet  of  every  one  he  met,  it  could 
not  have  been  more  constantly  with 
him,  or  a  cause  of  more  monotonous 
and  dismal  occupation  than  it  was  in 
this  state  of  his  mind."  * 

Jonas  is  on  the  verge  of  madness. 
There  are  other  characters  quite  mad 
Dickens  has  drawn  three  or  four  por« 
traits  of  madmen,  very  funny  at  first, 
sight,  but  so  true  that  they  are  in  re* 
*  Martin  Chuzzlewit^  ch.  li. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


589 


ality  horrible.  It  needed  an  imagina- 
tion like  his,  irregular,  excessive,  capa- 
ble of  fixed  ideas,  to  exhibit  the  de- 
rangements of  reason.  Two  especially 
there  are,  which  make  us  laugh,  and 
which  make  us  shudder.  Augustus,  a 
gloomy  maniac,  who  is  on  the  point  of 
marrying  Miss  Pecksniff ;  and  poor 
Mr.  Dick,  partly  an  idiot,  partly  a 
monomaniac,  who  lives  with  Miss  Trot- 
wood.  To  understand  these  exalta- 
tions, these  unforeseen  gloominesses, 
these  incredible  summersaults  of  per- 
verted sensitiveness ;  to  reproduce 
these  hiatuses  of  thought,  these  inter- 
ruptions of  reasoning,  this  recurrence 
of  a  word,  always  the  same,  which 
breaks  in  upon  a  phrase  attempted  and 
overturns  renascent  reason  ;  to  see  the 
stupid  smile,  the  vacant  look,  the  fool- 
ish and  uneasy  physiognomy  of  these 
haggard  old  children  who  painfully 
grope  about  from  one  idea  to  another, 
and  stumble  at  every  step  on  the  thres- 
hold of  the  truth  which  they  cannot 
attain,  is  a  faculty  which  Hoffmann 
alone  has  possessed  in  an  equal  degree 
with  Dickens.  The  play  of  these 
shattered  reasons  is  like  the  creaking 
of  a  door  on  its  rusty  hinges  ;  it  makes 
one  sick  to  hear  it.  We  find  in  it,  if 
we  like,  a  discordant  burst  of  laughter, 
but  we  discover  still  more  easily  a 
groan  and  a  lamentation,  and  we  are 
terrified  to  gauge  the  lucidity,  strange- 
ness, exaltation,  violence  of  imagination 
which  has  produced  such  creations, 
which  has  carried  them  on  and  sus- 
tained them  unbendingly  to  the  end, 
and  which  found  itself  in  its  proper 
sphere  in  imitating  and  producing  their 
irrationality. 

III. 

.,' 

mcvTo  what  can  this  force  be  applied  ? 
imaginations  differ  not  only  in  their 
r/.it lire,  but  also  in  their  object ;  after 
having  guaged  their  energy,  we  must 
define  their  domain  ;  in  the  wide  world 
the  artist  makes  a  world  for  himself  ; 
involuntarily  he  chooses  a  class  of  ob- 
jects which  he  prefers ;  others  do  not 
warm  his  genius,  and  he  does  not  per- 
ceive them.  *  Dickens  does  not  perceive 
great  things  this  is  the  second  feature 
of  h's  imagination.  Enthusiasm  seizes 
him  in  connection  with  every  thing, 
especially  in  connection  with  vulgar 


objects,  a  curiosity  shop,  a  sign-post,  a 
town-crier.  He  has  vigor,  he  does  not 
attain  beauty.  His  instrument  pro- 
duces vibrating,  but  not  harmonious 
sounds.  If  he  is  describing  a  house,  he 
will  draw  it  with  geometrical  clearness; 
the  will  put  all  its  colors  in  relief,  dis- 
cover a  face  and  thought  in  the  shutters 
and  the  spouts  ;  he  will  make  a  sort  of 
human  being  out  of  the  house,  grimac- 
ing and  forcible,  which  attracts  our 
attention,  and  which  we  shall  never 
forget  ;^but  he  will  not  see  the  grandeur 
of  the  long  monumental  lines,  the  calm 
majesty  of  the  broad  shadows  boldly 
divided  by  the  white  plaster  ;  the  cheer- 
fulness of  the  light  which  covers  them, 
and  becomes  palpable  in  the  black  nich- 
es in  which  it  dives  as  though  to  rest 
and  to  sleep,  llf  he  is  painting  a  land- 
scape, he  will  perceive  the  haws  which 
dot  with  their  red  fruit  the  leafless 
hedges,  the  thin  vapor  steaming  from  a 
distant  stream,  the  motions  of  an  insect 
in  the  grass ;  ibut  the  deep  poetry 
which  the  author  of  Valentine  and 
Andre*  would  have  felt,  will  escape 
him.  He  will  be  lost,  like  the  painters 
of  his  country,  in  the  minute  and  im- 
passioned observation  of  small  things  ; 
he  will  have  no  love  of  beautiful  forms 
and  fine  colors.  He  will  not  perceive 
that  the  blue  and  the  red,  the  straight 
line  and  the  curve,  are  enough  to  com- 
pose vast  concerts,  which  amidst  so 
many  various  expressions  maintain  a 
grand  serenity,  and  open  up  in  the 
depths  of  the  soul  a  spring  of  health 
and  happiness.  Happiness  is  lacking 
in  him ;  his  inspiration  is  a  feverish 
rapture,  which  does  not  select  its  ob- 
jects, which  animates  promiscuously 
the  ugly,  the  vulgar,  the  ridiculous,  and 
which  communicating  to  his  creations 
an  indescribable  jcrkiness  and  violence, 
deprives  them  of  the  delight  and  har- 
mony which  in  other  hands  they  might 
have  retained.  Miss  Ruth  is  a  very 
pretty  housekeeper  ;  she  puts  on  her 
apron  ;  what  a  treasure  this  apron  is  ! 
Dickens  turns  it  over  and  over,  like  a 
milliner's  shopman  who  wants  to  sell 
it.  She  holds  it  in  her  hands,  then  she 
puts  it  round  her  waist,  ties  the  strings, 
spreads  it  out,  smoothes  it  that  it  may 
fall  well.  What  does  she  not  do  with 
her  apron  ?  And  how  delighted  ia 
*  Novels  of  George  Sand. 


59° 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


Dickens  during  these  innocent  occupa- 
tions ?  He  utters  little  exclamations 
of  joyous  fun.  "  Oh  heaven,  what  a 
wicked  little  stomacher  !  "  He  apos- 
trophizes a  ring,  he  sports  round  Ruth, 
he  is  so  delighted  that  he  claps  his 
hands.  It  is  much  worse  when  she  is 
making  the  pudding  ;  there  is  a  whole 
scene,  dramatic  and  lyric,  with  exclama- 
tions, protasis,  sudden  inversions  as 
complete  as  a  Greek  tragedy.  These 
kitchen  refinements  and  this  waggery  of 
imagination  make  us  think,  by  way  of 
contrast,  of  the  household  pictures  of 
George  Sand,  of  the  room  of  Genevieve 
the  flower-girl.  She,  like  Ruth,  is 
making  a  useful  object,  very  useful, 
since  she  will  sell  it  to-morrow  for  ten- 
pence  ;  but  this  object  is  a  full-blown 
rose,  whose  fragile  petals  are  moulded 
by  her  fingers  as  by  the  fingers  of  a 
fairy,  whose  fresh  corolla  is  purpled 
with  a  vermilion  as  tender  as  that  of 
her  cheeks ;  a  fragile  masterpiece 
which  bloomed  on  an  evening  of  poetic 
emotion,  whilst  from  her  window  she 
beheld  in  the  sky  the  piercing  and 
divine  eyes  of  the  stars,  and  in  the 
depths  of  her  virgin  heart  murmured 
the  first  breath  of  love.  Dickens  does 
not  need  such  a  sight  for  his  transports ; 
a  stage-coach  throws  him  into  dithy- 
rambs ;  the  wheels,  the  splashing,  the 
cracking  whip,  the  clatter  of  the  horses, 
harness,  the  vehicle;  here  is  enough  to 
transport  him.  He  feels  sympathetic- 
ally the  motion  of  the  coach  ;  it  bears 
him  along  with  it ;  he  hears  the 
gallop  of  the  horses  in  his  brain,  and 
goes  off,  uttering  this  ode,  which  seems 
to  proceed  from  the  guard's  horn : 

"  Yoho,  among  the  gathering  shades  ;  mak- 
ing of  no  account  the  deep  reflections  of  the 
trees,  but  scampering  on  through  light  and 
darkness,  all  the  same,  as  if  the  light  of  Lon- 
don, fifty  miies  away,  were  quite  enough  to 
travel  by,  and  some  to  spare.  Yoho,  beside 
the  vil.age  green,  where  cricket-players  linger 
vet,  and  every  little  indent  tion  made  in  the 
fresh  grass  by  bat  or  wicket,  ball  or  player's 
foot,  sheds  out  its  perfume  on  the  m'qht. 
Away  with  four  fresh  horses  from  the  Bald- 
faced  Stag,  where  topers  congregate  about  the 
door  admiring ;  and  the  last  team,  with  traces 
hanging  loose,  go  roaming  off  towards  the 
pond,  until  observed  and  shouted  after  by  a 
dozen  throats,  while  volunteering  boys  pursue 
them.  Now,  with  a  clattering  of  hoofs  and 
striking  out  of  fiery  sparks,  across  the  old  stone 
bridge,  and  down  again  into  the  shadowy  road, 
and  through  the  open  gate,  and  far  away,  away 
into  the  wold.  Yoho  !  I 


"Yoho,  behind  there,  stop  that  bugle  ftr  \ 
moment!  Come  creeping  over  to  the  front, 
along  the  coach-roof,  guard,  and  make  one  at 
this  basket !  Not  that  we  slacken  in  our  pace 
the  while,  not  we:  we  rather  put  the  bits  of 
blood  upon  their  mettle,  for  the  greater  glory 
cf  the  snack.  Ah!  It  is  long  since  this  bottle 
of  old  wine  was  brought  into  contact  with  the 
mellow  breath  of  night,  you  may  depend,  and 
rare  good  stuff  it  is  to  wet  a  bugler's  whistle 
with.  Only  try  it.  Don't  be  afraid  of  turning 
up  your  finger,  Bill,  another  pull  !  Now,  take 
your  breath,  and  try  the  bugle,  Bill.  There's 
music!  There's  a  tone!  'Over  the  hills 
and  far  away,"  indeed,  Yoho!  The  skittish 
mare  is  all  alive  to-night.  Yoho!  Yoho! 

"  See  the  bright  moon  ;  high  up  before  we 
know  it;  making  the  earth  reflect  the  objects 
on  its  breast  like  water.  Hedges,  trees,  low 
cottages,  church  steeples,  blighted  stumps  and 
flourishing  young  slips,  have  all  grown  vain 
upon  the  sudden,  and  mean  to  contemplate 
their  own  fair  images  till  morning.  The  pop- 
lars yonder  rustle,  that  their  quivering  leaves 
may  see  themselves  upon  the  ground.  Not  so 
the  oak;  trembling  does  not  become  him; 
and  he  watches  himself  in  his  stout  old  burly 
steadfastness,  without  the  motion  of  \\  twig. 
The  moss-grown  gate,  ill  poised  upon  its  creak- 
ing hinges,  crippled  and  decayed,  swings  to 
and  fro  before  its  glass  like  some  fantastic 
dowager  ;  while  our  own  ghostly  likeness 
travels  on,  Yoho!  Yoho!  through  ditch  and 
brake,  upon  the  ploughed  land  and  the  smooth, 
along  the  steep  hill-side  and  steeper  wall,  as  if 
it  were  a  phantom-Hunter. 

"  Clouds  too  !  And  a  mist  upon  the  Hol- 
low! Not  a  dull  fog  that  hides  it,  but  a  light, 
airy,  gauze-like  mist,  which  in  our  eyes  ol 
modest  admiration  gives  a  new  charm  to  the 
beauties  it  is  spread  before  :  as  real  gauze  has 
done  ere  now,  and  would  again,  so  please  you, 
though  we  were  the  Pope.  Yoho  !  Why,  now 
we  travel  like  the  Moon  herself.  Hiding  this 
minute  in  a  grove  of  trees,  next  minute  in  a 
patch  of  vapour,  emerging  now  upon  our 
broad,  clear  course,  withdrawing  now,  but  al- 
ways dashing  on,  our  journey  is  a  counterpart 
of  hers.  Yoho  !  A  match  against  the  Moon ! 

"  The  beauty  of  the  night  is  hardly  felt, 
when  Day  comes  leaping  up.  Yoho !  Two 
stages,  and  the  country  roads  are  almost 
changed  to  a  continuous  street.  Yoho,  past 
market  gardens,  rows  of  houses,  villas,  cres- 
cents, terraces,  and  squares ;  past  waggons, 
coaches,  carts  ;  past  early  workmen,  late  strap" 
glers,  drunken  men,  and  sober  carriers  -/^ 
loads ;  past  brick  and  mortar  in  its  iufy 
shape  ;  and  in  among  the  rattling  pavemiorS 
where  a  jaunty-seat  upon  a  coach  is  not  so  easy 
to  preserve  !  Yoho,  down  countless  turnings, 
and  through  countless  mazy  ways,  until  an  old 
Inn-yard  is  gained,  and  Tom  Pinch,  gettirg 
down,  quite  stunned  and  giddy,  is  in  Lon- 
don !  "  * 

All  this  to  tell  us  that  Tom  Pinch  is 
come  to  London  !  This  fit  of  lyric 
poetry,  in  which  the  most  poetic  'ex- 
travagances spring  from  the  most  vul- 
gar commonplaces,  like  sickly  flowers 
*  Martin  Chuzzleivit,  ch.  xxxvi. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL—DICKENS. 


S91 


growing  in  a  broken  old  flower-pot,  dis- 
plays in  its  natural  and  quaint  contrasts 
all  the  sides  of  Dickens'  imagination. 
We  shall  have  his  portrait  if  we  picture 
to  ourselves  a  man  who,  with  a  stewpan 
in  one  hand  and  a  postillion's  whip  in 
the  other,  took  to  making  prophecies. 

IV. 


The  reader  already  foresees  what 
vehement  emotions  this  species  of 
imagination  will  produce.  The  mode  of 
conception  in  a  man  governs  the  mode 
of  thought^/  When  the  mind,  barely 
attentive,  follows  the  indistinct  outlines 
of  a  rough  sketched  image,  joy  and 
grief  glide  past  him  with  insensible 
touch.  When  the  mind,  with  rapt  at- 
tention, penetrates  the  minute  details 
of  a  precise  image,  joy  and  grief  shake 
the  whole  man. 

^Dickens  has  this  attention,  and  sees 
these  details:  this  is  why  he  meets 
everywhere  with  objects  of  exaltation^ 
He  never  abandons  his  impassioned 
tone ;  he  never  rests  in  a  natural  style 
and  in  simple  narrative  ;  he  only  rails 
or  weeps  ;  he  writes  but  satires  or 
elegies.  \  He  has  the  feverish  sensibility 
of  a  woman  who  laughs  loudly,  or  melts 
into  tears  at  the  sudden  shock  of  the 
slightest  occurrence^)  This  impassioned 
style  is  extremely  potent,  and  to  it  may 
be  attributed  half  the  glory  of  Dickens. 
The  majority  of  men  have  only  weak 
emotions.  We  labor  mechanically,  and 
pawn  much  ;  three-fourths  of  things 
leave  us  cold  ;\  we  go  to  sleep  by  habit, 
and  we  no  longer  remark  the  household 
scenes,  petty  details,  stale  adventures, 
which  are  the  basis  of  our  existence.  A 
man  comes,  who  suddenly  renders  them 
interesting  ;  nay,  who  makes  them  dra- 
matic, changes  them  into  objects  of 
admiration,  tenderness  and  dreadj 
Without  leaving  the  fireside  or  tne 
omnibus,  we  are  trembling,  our  eyes 
full  of  tears,  or  shaken  by  fits  of  inex- 
tinguishable laughter.  We  are  trans- 
formed, our  life  is  doubled ;  our  soul 
had  been  vegetating ;  now  it  feels, 
suffers,  loves.  The  contrast,  the  rapid 
succession,  the  number  of  the  senti- 
ments, add  further  to  its  trouble  ;  we 
are  immersed  for  two  hundred  pages  in 
a  torrent  of  new  emotions,  contrary  and 
increasing,  which  communicates  its 


I 


violence  to  the  mind,  which  carries  it 
away  in  digressions  and  falls,  and  only 
casts  it  on  the  bank  enchanted  and  ex- 
hausted. It  is  an  intoxication,  and  on 
a  delicate  soul  the  effect  would  be  too 
forcible  ;  but  it  suits  the  English  pub- 
lic»and  that  public  has  justified  it. 
/This  sensibility  can  hardly  have 
more  than  two  issues — laughter  and 
tears.  There  are  others,  but  the)  are 
only  reached  by  lofty  eloquence  ;  they 
are  the  path  to  sublimity,  and  we  have 
seen  that  for  Dickens  this  path  is  cut 
off.  Yet  there  is  iT-Qwrjter  who  knows 
better  how  to  toucn^and  melt ;  he 
makes  us  weep,  absolutely  shed  tears  ; 
before  reading  him  we  did  not  know 
there  was  so  much  pity  in  the  heart. 
The  grief  of  a  child,  who  wishes  to  be 
loved  by  his  father,  and  whom  his 
father  does  not  love  ;  the  despairing 
love  and  slow  death  of  a  poor  half-im- 
becile young  man  ;  all  these  pictures  of 
secret  grief  leave  an  ineffaceable  im- 
pression. The  tears  which  he  sheds 
are  genuine,  and  compassion  is  their 
only  source.  Balzac,  George  Sand, 
Stendhal  have  also  recorded  human 
miseries  ;  is  it  possible  to  write  with- 
out recording  them?  I  But  they  do  not 
seek  them  out,  they  hit  upon  them ; 
they  do  not  dream  of  displaying  them 
to  us  ;  they  were  going  elsewhere,  and 
met  them  on  their  way.  They  love  art 
better  than  men.  |  They  delight  only  in 
setting  in  motion  the  springs  of  pas- 
sions, in  combining  large  systems  of 
events,  in  constructing  powerful  char- 
acters :  they  do  not  write  from  sympa- 
thy with  t)ae  wretched,  but  from  love  of 
beauty.  '(When  we  have  finished 
George  Sand's  Mauprat,  our  emotion 
is  not  pure  sympathy;  we  feel,  in 
addition,  a  deep  admiration  for  the 
greatness  and  the  generosity  of  lov$. 
When  we  have  come  to  the  end  of 
Balzac's  Le  Ptre  Goriot,  our  heart  is 
pained  by  the  tortures  of  that  anguish  ; 
but  the  astonishing  inventiveness,  the 
accumulation  of  facts,  the  abundance  of 
general  ideas,  the  force  of  analysis, 
transport  us  into  the  world  of  science, 
and  our  painful  sympathy  is  calmed  by 
the  spectacle  of  this  physiology  of  the 
heart.  Dickens  never  calms  our  sym- 
pathy ;  he  selects  subjects  in  which  it 
alone,  and  more  than  elsewhere,  is  un- 
folded :  the  long  oppression  of  children 


592 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BooK  V 


persecuted  and  starved  by  their  school- 
master ;  the  life  of  the  factory-hand 
Stephen,  robbed  and  degraded  by  his 
wife,  driven  away  by  his  fellow-work- 
men, accused  of  theft,  lingering  six 
days  at  the  bottom  of  a  pit  into  which 
he  has  fallen,  maimed,  consumed  by 
fever,  and  dying  when  he  is  at  length 
discovered.  Rachael,  his  only  friend, 
is  there ;  and  his  delirium,  his  cries, 
the  storm  of  despair  in  which  Dickens 
envelopes  his  characters,  have  prepared 
the  way  for  the  painful  picture  of  this 
resigned  death.  The  bucket  brings  up 
a  poor,  crushed  human  creature,  and 
we  see  "  the  pale,  worn,  patient  face 
looking  up  to  the  sky,  whilst  the  right 
hand,  shattered  and  hanging  down, 
seems  as  if  waiting  to  be  taken  by  an- 
other hand."  Yet  he  smiles,  and  feebly 
said  "  Rachael !  "  She  stooped  down, 
and  bent  over  him  until  her  eyes  were 
between  his  and  the  sky,  for  he  could 
not  so  much  as  turn  them  to  look  at 
her.  Then  in  broken  words  he  tells 
her  of  his  long  agony.  Ever  since  he 
was  born  he  has  met  with  nothing  but 
misery  and  injustice ;  it  is  the  rule — the 
weak  suffer,  and  are  made  to  suffer. 
This  pit  into  which  he  had  fallen  "  has 
cost  hundreds  and  hundreds  o'  men's 
lives — fathers,  sons,  brothers,  dear  to 
thousands  an'  thousands,  an'  keeping 
'em  fro'  want  and  hunger.  .  .  .  The 
men  that  works  in  pits  .  .  .  ha'  pray'n 
an'  pray'n .the  lawmakers  for  Christ's 
sake  not  to  let  their  work  be  murder  to 
'em,|but  to  spare  'em  for  th'  wives  and 
children,  that  they  loves  as  well  as 
&entlefok  loves  theirs  ;  "  all  in  vain, 
y  When  the  pit  was  in  work,  it  killed 
wi'out  need ;  when  't  is  let  alone,  it 
kills  wi'out  need."  *  Stephen  says  this 
without  anger,  quietly,  merely  as  the 
truth.  He  has  his  caluminator  before 
him  ;  he  does  not  get  angry,  accuses  no 
one ;  he  only  charges  old  Gradgrind  to 
clear  him  and  make  his  name  good 
with  all  men  as  soon  as  he  shall  be 
dead.  His  heart  is  up  there  in  heaven, 
where  he  has  seen  a  star  shining.  In 
his  agony,  on  his  bed  of  stones,  he  has 
gazed  upon  it,  and  the  tender  and 
touching  glance  of  the  divine  star  has 
calmed,  bv  its  mystical  serenity,  the 
anguish  of  mind  and  body. 

*  Hard  Timgs,  bk.  3,  ch.  vi. 


"'It  ha'  shined  upon  me,' he  said  reter- 
ently,  'in  my  pain  and  trouble  down  below.  It 
ha'  shined  into  my  mind.  I  ha'  lookn  at't  and 
thowt  o'  thee,  Rachael,  till  the  muddle  in  my 
mind  have  cleared  awa,  above  a  bit,  I  hope.  II 
soom  ha'  been  wantin'  in  unnerstan'in'  xie 
better,  I,  too,  ha'  been  wantin'  in  unnerstan~m' 
them  better. 

"  '  In  my  pain  an'  trouble,  lookin'  up  yon- 
der,—wi'  it  shinin*  on  me. — I  ha'  seen  more 
clear,  and  ha'  made  it  my  dyin'  prayer  that  aw 
th'  world  may  on'y  coom  toogether  more,  an* 
get  a  better  unnerstan'in'  o'  one  another,  than 
when  I  were  in't  my  own  weak  seln. 

<l '  Often  as  I  coom  to  myseln,  and  found  it 
shinin'  on  me  down  there  in  my  trouble,  I 
thowt  it  were  the  star  as  guided  to  Our  Sav- 
iour's home.  I  awmust  think  it  be  the  very 
star !  ' 

"They  carried  him  very  gently  along  the 
fields,  and  down  the  lanes,  and  over  the  wide 
landscape  ;  Rachael  always  holding  the  hand 
in  hers.  Very  few  whispers  broke  the  mourn- 
ful silence.  It  was  soon  a  funeral  procession. 
The  star  had  shown  him  where  to  find  the  God 
of  the  poor  ;  and  through  humility,  and  sor- 
row, and  forgiveness,  he  had  gone  to  his  Re- 
deemer's rest."  * 

This  same  writer  is  the  most  railing, 
the  most  comic,  the  most  jocose  of 
English  authors.  And  it  is  moreover 
a  singular  gayety  !  It  is  the  only  kind 
which  would  harmonize  with  this  im- 
passioned sensibility.  There  a  laugh- 
ter akin  to  tears.  Satire  is  the  sister 
of  elegy :  if  the  second  pleads  for  the 
oppressed,  the  first  combats  the  op« 
pressors.  Feeling  painfully  all  the 
wrongs  that  are  committed,  and  the 
vices  that  are  practised,  Dickens 
avenges  himself  by  ridicule.  He  does 
not  paint,  he  punishes.  Nothing  could 
be  more  damaging  than  those  long 
chapters  of  sustained  irony,  in  which 
the  sarcasm  is  pressed,  line  after  line, 
more  sanguinary  and  piercing  in  the 
chosen  adversary.  There  are  five  or 
six  against  the  Americans, — their  venal 
newspapers,  their  drunken  journalists, 
their  cheating  speculators,  their  women 
authors,  their  coarseness,  their  famil- 
iarity, their  insolence,  their  brutality,— 
enough  to  captivate  an  absolutist,  and  to 
justify  the  French  Liberal  who,  return- 
ing from  New  York,  embraced  with 
tears  in  his  eyes  the  first  gendarme 
whom  he  saw  on  landing  at  Havre. 
Starting  of  commercial  companies,  in- 
terviews between  a  member  of  Parlia 
ment  and  his  constituents,  instructions 
of  3  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  his  secretary,  the  outward  dis- 

*  Ibid. 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


593 


play  of  great  banking-houses,  the  lay- 
ing of  the  first  stone  of  a  public  build- 
ing, every  kind  of  ceremony  and  lie  of 
English  society  are  depicted  with  the 
fire  and  bitterness  of  Hogarth.  There 
are  parts  where  the  comic  element  is 
so  violent,  that  it  has  the  semblance  of 
vengeance,  —  as  the  story  of  Jonas 
Chuzzlewit.  "  The  very  first  word 
which  this  excellent  boy  learnt  to  spell 
was  gain,  and  the  second  (when  he  came 
into  two  syllables)  was  money."  This 
fine  education  had  unfortunately  pro- 
duced two  results  :  first,  that,  "  having 
been  long  taught  by  his  father  to  over- 
reach everybody,  he  had  imperceptibly 
acquired  a  love  of  overreaching  that 
venerable  monitor  himself  ;  "  secondly, 
that  being  taught  to  regard  every  thing 
as  a  matter  of  property,  "  he  had  gradu- 
ally come  to  look  with  impatience  on 
his  parent  as  a  certain  amount  of  per- 
sonal estate,"  who  would  be  very  well 
"  secured,"  in  that  particular  descrip- 
tion of  strong-box  which  is  commonly 
called  a  coffin,  and  banked  in  the 
grave.*  "  Is  that  my  father  snoring, 
Pecksniff  ?  "  asked  Jonas  ;  "  tread  upon 
his  foot ;  will  you  be  so  good  ?  The 
foot  next  you  is  the  gouty  one."  f 
Young  Chuzzlewit  is  introduced  to  us 
with  this  mark  of  attention  ;  we  may 
judge  by  this  of  his  other  feelings.  In 
reality,  Dickens  is  gloomy,  like  Ho- 
garth ;  but,  like  Hogarth,  he  makes  us 
burst  with  laughter  by  the  buffoonery 
of  his  invention  and  the  violence  of  his 
caricatures.  He  pushes  his  characters 
to  absurdity  with  unwonted  boldness. 
Pecksniff  hits  off  moral  phrases  and  sen- 
timental actions  in  so  grotesque  a  man- 
ner, that  they  make  him  extravagant. 
Never  were  heard  such  monstrous  ora- 
torical displays.  Sheridan  had  already 
painted  an  English  hypocrite,  Joseph 
Surface  ;  but  he  differs  from  Pecksniff 
as  much  as  a  portrait  of  the  eighteenth 
century  differs  from  a  cartoon  of  Ptmch. 
Dickens  makes  hypocrisy  so  deformed 
and  monstrous,  that  his  hypocrite 
ceases  to  resemble  a  man ;  we  would 
call  him  one  of  those  fantastic  figures 
whose  nose  is  greater  than  his  body. 
This  exaggerated  comicality  springs 
from  excess  of  imagination.  Dickens 
uses  the  same  spring  throughout.  The 
better  to  make  us  see  the  object  he 
*  Martin  Chuzzleiuit ',  ch.  viii.  f  Ibid. 


shows  us,  he  dazzles  the  reader's  eyes 
with  it ;  but  the  reader  is  amused  by 
this  irregular  fancy  :  the  fire  of  the  ex- 
ecution makes  him  forget  that  the 
scene  is  improbable,  and  he  laughs 
heartily  as  he  listens  to  the  underta- 
ker, Mould,  enumerating  the  consola- 
tions which  filial  piety,  well  backed  b$ 
money,  may  find  in  his  shop.  What 
grief  could  not  be  softened  by 

"  '  Four  horses  to  each  vehicle  .  .  .  velvet 
trappings  .  .  .  drivers  in  cloth  cloaks  and  top 
boots  .  .  .  the  plumage  of  the  ostrich,  dyed 
black  .  .  .  any  number  of  walking  attendants, 
dressed  in  the  first  style  of  funeral  fashion,  and 
carrying  batons  tipped  with  brass  ...  a  place 
in  Westminster  Abbey  itself,  if  he  choose  to 
invest  it  in  such  a  purchase.  Oh  !  do  not  let 
us  say  that  gold  is  dross,  when  it  can  buy  such 
things  as  these.'  'Ay,  Mrs.  Gamp,  you  are 
right,'  rejoined  the  undertaker.  *  We  should 
be  an  honoured  calling.  We  do  good  by 
stealth,  and  blush  to  have  it  mentioned  in  our 
little  bills.  How  much  consolation  may  I—- 
even I,'  cried  Mr.  Mould,  'have  diffused 
among  my  fellow-creatures  by  means  of  my 
four  long-tailed  prancers,  never  harnessed  un- 
der ten  pund  ten !  '  "  * 

Usually  Dickens  remains  grave 
whilst  drawing  his  caricatures.  Eng- 
lish wit  consists  in  saying  very  jocular 
things  in  a  solemn  manner.  Tone  and 
ideas  are  then  in  contrast ;  every  con- 
trast makes  a  strong  impression.  Dick- 
ens loves  to  produce  them,  and  his 
public  to  hear  them. 

If  at  times  he  forgets  to  castigate 
his  neighbor,  if  he  tries  to  sport,  to 
amuse  himself,  he  is  not  the  more  hap- 
py for  all  that.  The  chief  element  of 
the  English  character  is  its  want  of 
happiness.  The  ardent  and  tenacious 
imagination  of  Dickens  is  impressed 
with  things  too  firmly,  to  pass  lightly  and 
gayly  over  the  surface.  He  leans  too 
heavily  on  them,  he  penetrates,  works 
into,  hollows  them  out ;  all  these  vio- 
lent actions  are  efforts,  and  all  efforts 
are  sufferings.  To  be  happy,  a  man 
must  be  light-minded,  as  a  Frenchman 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  or  sensuat, 
as  an  Italian  of  the  sixteenth  ;  a  man 
must  not  get  anxious  about  things,  if 
he  wishes  to  enjoy  them.  Dickens  does 
get  anxious,  and  does  not  enjoy.  Let 
us  take  a  little  comical  accident,  such 
as  we  meet  with  in  the  street — a  gust 
of  wind  which  blows  about  the  gar- 
ments of  a  street-porter.  Scaramouche 

*  Ibid.  ch.  xix. 


594 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


will  grin  with  good  humor ;  Le  Sage 
smile  like  a  diverted  man  ;  both  will 
r»ass  by  and  think  no  more  of  it.  Dick- 
ens muses  over  it  for  half  a  page.  He 
sees  so  clearly  all  the  effects  of  the 
wind,  he  puts  himself  so  entirely  in  its 
place,  he  imagines  for  it  a  will  so  im- 
passioned and  precise,  he  shakes  the 
clothes  of  the  poor  man  hither  and 
thither  so  violently  and  so  long,  he 
turns  the  gust  into  a  tempest,  into  a 
persecution  so  great,  that  we  are  made 
giddy ;  and  even  whilst  we  laugh,  we 
feel  in  ourselves  too  much  emotion  and 
compassion  to  laugh  heartily  : 

"  And  a  breezy,  goose-skinned,  blue-nosed, 
red-eyed,  stony-toed,  tooth-chattering  place  it 
was,  t«  wait  in,  in  the  winter  time,  as  Toby 
Veck  well  knew.  The  wind  came  tearing 
round  the  corner — especially  the  east  wind- 
as  if  it  had  sallied  forth,  express,  from  the  con- 
fines of  the  earth,  to  have  a  blow  at  Toby. 
And  often  times  it  seemed  to  come  upon  him 
sooner  than  it  had  expected  ;  for,  bouncing 
round  the  corner,  and  passing  Toby,  it  would 
suddenly  wheel  round  again,  as  if  it  cried : 
'  Why,  here  he  is  !  '  Incontinently  his  little 
white  apron  would  be  caught  up  over  his  head 
like  a  naughty  boy's  garments,  and  his  feeble 
little  cane  would  be  seen  to  wrestle  and  struggle 
unavailingly  in  his  hand,  and  his  legs  would 
undergo  tremendous  agitation  ;  and  Toby  him- 
self, all  aslant,  and  facing  now  in  this  direction, 
now  in  that,  would  be  so  banged  and  buffeted, 
and  touzJed,  and  worried,  and  hustled,  and 
lifted  off  his  feet,  as  to  render  it  a  state  of  things 
but  one  degree  removed  from  a  positive  miracle 
that  he  wasn't  carried  up  bodily  into  the  air  as 
a  colony  of  frogs  or  snails  or  other  portable 
creatures  sometimes  are,  and  rained  down  again, 
to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  natives,  on 
some  strange  corner  of  the  world  where  ticket- 
porters  are  unknown."  * 

If  now  we  would  picture  in  a  glance 
this  imagination, — so  lucid,  so  violent, 
so  passionately  fixed  on  the  object  se- 
lected, so  deeply  touched  by  little 
things,  so  wholly  attached  to  the  de- 
tails and  sentiments  of  vulgar  life,  so 
fertile  in  incessant  emotions,  so  power- 
ful in  rousing  painful  pity,  sarcastic 
raillery,  nervous  gayety, — we  must  fan- 
cy a  London  street  on  a  rainy  winter's 
night.  The  flickering  light  of  the  gas 
dazzles  our  eyes,  streams  through  the 
shop  windows,  floods  over  the  passing 
forms  ;  and  its  harsh  light,  settling 
upon  their  contracted  features,  brings 
out,  with  endless  detail  and  damaging 
force,  their  wrinkles,  deformities,  trou 
bled  expression.  If  in  this  close  and 

*  TV*  Chimes,  the  first  quarter. 


dirty  crowd  we  discover  the  fresh  face 
of  a  young  girl,  this  artificial  light 
covers  it  with  false  and  excessive  lights 
and  shades  ;  it  makes  it  stand  out 
against  the  rainy  and  cold  blackness 
with  a  strange  halo.  The  mind  is 
struck  with  wonder ;  but  we  carry  out 
hand  to  our  eyes  to  cover  them,  and 
whilst  we  admire  the  force  of  this  light, 
we  involuntarily  think  of  the  real  coun 
try  sun  and  the  tranquil  beauty  of  day 

§  2.— THE   PUBLIC. 


I. 


Plant  this  talent  on  English  soil ; 
the  literary  opinion  of  the  country  will 
direct  its  growth  and  explain  its  fruits. 
For  this  public  opinion  is  its  private 
opinion  ;  it  does  not  submit  to  it  as  to 
an  external  constraint,  but  feels  it  in- 
wardly as  an  inner  persuasion ;  it 
does  not  hinder,  but  develops  it,  and 
only  repeats  aloud  what  it  said  to  itself 
in  a  whisper. 

The  counsels  of  this  public  taste  are 
somewhat  like  this;  the  more  power- 
ful because  they  agree  with  its  natural 
inclination,  and  urge  it  upon  its  special 
course  : — 

"  Be  moral.  All  your  novels  must 
be  such  as  may  be  read  by  young  girls. 
We  are  practical  minds,  and  we  would 
not  have  literature  corrupt  practical 
life.  We  believe  in  family  life,  and 
we  would  not  have  literature  paint 
the  passions  which  attack  family  life. 
We  are  Protestants,  and  we  have  pre- 
served something  of  the  severity  of  our 
fathers  against  enjoyment  and  passions. 
Amongst  these,  love  is  the  worst.  Be- 
ware of  resembling  in  this  respect  the 
most  illustrious  of  our  neighbors.  Love 
is  the  hero  of  all  George  Sand's  novels. 
Married  or  not,  she  thinks  it  beautiful, 
holy,  sublime  in  itself ;  and  she  says 
so.  Don't  believe  this  ;  and  if  you  do 
believe  it,  don't  say  it.  It  is  a  bad  ex- 
ample. Love  thus  represented  makes 
marriage  a  secondary  matter.  It  ends 
in  marriage,  or  destroys  it,  or  does 
without  it,  according  to  circumstances  ; 
but  whatever  it  does,  it  treats  it  as  in- 
ferior ;  it  does  not  recognize  any  holi 
ness  in  it,  beyond  that  which  love  gives 
it,  and  holds  it  impious  if  it  is  excluded. 
A  novel  of  this  sort  is  a  plea  for  the 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


595 


heart,  the  imagination,  enthusiasm, 
nature ;  but  it  is  also  often  a  plea 
against  society  and  law :  we  do  not 
suffer  society  and  law  to  be  touched, 
directly  or  indirectly.  To  present  a 
feeling  as  divine,  to  make  all  institu- 
tions bow  before  it,  to  carry  it  through 
a  series  of  generous  actions,  to  sing 
with  a  sort  of  heroic  inspiration  the 
combats  which  it  wages  and  the  attacks 
which  it  sustains,  to  enrich  it  with  all 
the  force  of  eloquence,  to  crown  it  with 
all  the  flowers  of  poetry,  is  to  paint  the 
life,  which  it  results  in," as  more  beauti- 
ful and  loftier  than  others,  to  set  it 
far  above  all  passions  and  duties,  in  a 
sublime  region,  on  a  throne,  whence  it 
shines  as  a  light,  a  consolation,  a  hope, 
and  draws  all  hearts  towards  it.  Per- 
haps this  is  the  world  of  artists ;  it  is 
not  the  world  of  ordinary  men.  Per- 
haps it  is  true  to  nature ;  we  make 
nature  give  way  before  the  interests  of 
society.  George  Sand  paints  impas- 
sioned women ;  paint  you  for  us  good 
women.  George  Sand  makes  us  desire 
to  be  in  love ;  do  you  make  us  desire 
to  be  married. 

"  This  has  its  disadvantages  without 
doubt ;  art  suffers  by  it,  if  the  public 
gains.  Though  your  characters  give 
the  best  examples,  your  works  will  be 
of  less  value.  No  matter;  you  may 
console  yourself  with  the  thought  that 
you  are  moral.  Your  lovers  will  be 
uninteresting ;  for  the  only  interest 
natural  to  their  age  is  the  violence  of 
passion,  and  you  cannot  paint  passion. 
In  Nicholas  Nickleby  you  will  show  two 
good  young  men,  like  all  young  men, 
marrying  two  good  young  women,  like 
all  young  women  ;  in  Martin  Chuzzleivit 
you  will  show  two  more  good  young 
men,  perfectly  resembling  the  other 
two,  marrying  again  two  good  young 
women,  perfectly  resembling  the  other 
two  ;  in  Dombey  and  Son  there  will  be 
only  one  good  young  man  and  one  good 
young  woman.  Otherwise  there  is  no 
difference.  And  so  on.  The  number 
of  your  marriages  is  marvellous,  and 
you  marry  enough  couples  to  people 
England.  What  is  more  curious  still, 
they  are  all  disinterested,  and  the  young 
man  and  young  woman  snap  their 
fingers  at  money  as  sincerely  as  in  the 
Opera  Comique.  You  will  not  cease 
to  dwell  on  the  pretty  shynesses  of 


the  betrothed,  the  tears  of  the  mothers, 
the  tears  of  all  the  guests,  the  amusing 
and  touching  scenes  of  the  dinner 
table  ;  you  will  create  a  crowd  of 
family  pictures,  all  touching,  and  al- 
most all  as  agreeable  as  screen-paint- 
ings. The  reader  is  moved  ;  he  thinks 
he  is  beholding  the  innocent  loves  and 
virtuous  attentions  of  a  little  boy  and 
girl  of  ten.  He  should  like  to  say  to 
them  :  *  Good  little  people,  continue  to 
be  very  proper.'  But  the  chief  interest 
will  be  for  young  girls,  who  will  learn  in 
how  devoted  and  yet  suitable  a  manner 
a  lover  ought  to  court  his  intended.  If 
you  venture  on  a  seduction,  as  in  Cop- 
perfield,  you  do  not  relate  the  progress, 
ardor,  intoxication  of  love  ;  you  only 
depict  its  miseries,  despair,  and  re- 
morse. If  in  Copperfield  and  the  Cricket 
on  the  Hearth  you  present  a  troubled 
marriage  and  a  suspected  wife,  you 
hasten  to  restore  peace  to  the  marriage 
and  innocence  to  the  wife ;  and  you 
will  deliver,  by  her  mouth,  so  splendid 
a  eulogy  on  marriage,  that  it  might 
serve  for  a  model  to  Emile  Augier.  * 
If  in  Hard  Times  the  wife  treads  on 
the  border  of  crime,  she  shall  check 
herself  there.  If  in  Dombey  and  Son 
she  flees  from  her  husband's  roof,  she 
remains  pure,  only  incurs  the  appear- 
ance of  crime,  and  treats  her  lover  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  reader  wishes 
to  be  the  husband.  If,  lastly,  in  Cop- 
perfield you  relate  the  emotions  and 
foliies  of  love,  you  will  rally  this  poor 
affection,  depict  its  littlenesses,  not  ven- 
ture to  make  us  hear  the  ardent,  gener- 
ous, undisciplined  blast  of  the  all-pow- 
erful passion;  you  turn  it  into  a  toy 
for  good  children,  or  a  pretty  marriage- 
trinket.  But  marriage  will  compensate 
you.  Your  genius  of  observation  and 
taste  for  details  is  exercised  on  the 
scenes  of  domestic  life ;  you  will  excel 
in  the  picture  of  a  fireside,  family  pi  at- 
tie,  children  on  the  kees  of  their  mother, 
a  husband  watching  by  lamplight  by 
the  side  of  his  sleeping  wife,  the  heart 
full  of  joy  and  courage,  because  it  feels 
that  it  is  working  for  its  own.  You 
will  describe  charming  or  grave  por- 
traits of  women ;  of  Dora,  who  after  mar- 
riage continues  to  be  a  little  girl,  whose 
pouting,  prettinesses,  childishnesses, 

*  A  living  French  author,  whose  dramas  are 
all  said  to  have  a  moral  purpose — TR. 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


laughter,  make  the  house  gay,  like  the 
chirping  of  a  bird  ;  Esther,  whose  per- 
fect goodness  and  divine  innocence 
cannot  be  affected  by  trials  or  years  ; 
Agnes,  so  calm,  patient,  sensible,  pure, 
worthy  of  respect,  a  very  model  of  a 
wife,  sufficient  in  herself  to  claim  for 
marriage  the  respect  which  we  demand 
for  it.  And  when  it  is  necessary  to 
show  the  beauty  of  these  duties,  the 
greatness  of  this  conjugal  love,  the 
depth  of  the  sentiment  which  ten  years 
of  confidence,  cares,  and  reciprocal  de- 
votion have  created,  you  will  find  in 
your  sensibility,  so  long  constrained, 
speeches  as  pathetic  as  the  strongest 
words  of  love.  * 

"  The  worst  novels  are  not  those 
which  glorify  love.  A  man  must  live 
across  the  Channel  to  dare  what  the 
French  have  dared.  In  England,  some 
admire  Balzac ;  but  no  man  would 
tolerate  him.  Some  pretend  that  he 
is  not  immoral ;  but  every  one  will 
recognize  that  he  always  and  every- 
where makes  morality  an  abstraction. 
George  Sand  has  only  celebrated  one 
passion;  Balzac  has  celebrated  them 
all.  He  has  considered  them  as  forces  ; 
and  holding  that  force  is  beautiful,  he 
has  supported  them  by  their  causes, 
surrounded  them  by  their  circum- 
stances, developed  them  in  their  ef- 
fects, pushed  them  to  an  extreme,  and 
magnified  them  so  as  to  make  them  into 
sublime  monsters,  more  systematic  and 
more  true  than  the  truth.  We  do  not 
admit  that  a  man  is  only  an  artist,  and 
nothing  else.  We  would  not  have  him 
separate  himself  from  his  conscience, 
and  lose  sight  of  the  practical.  We 
will  never  consent  to  see  that  such  is 
the  leading  feature  of  our  own  Shak- 
speare  ;  we  will  not  recognize  that  he, 
like  Balzac,  brings  his  heroes  to  crime 
and  monomania,  and  that,  like  him,  he 
lives  in  a  land  of  pure  logic  and  im- 
agination. We  have  changed  much 
since  the  sixteenth  centur}%  and  we 
condemn  now  what  we  approved  form- 
erly. We  would  not  have  the  reader 
interested  in  a  miser,  an  ambitious 
man,  a  rake.  And  he  is  interested  in 
them  when  the  writer,  neither  praising 
nor  blaming,  sets  himself  to  unfold  the 
mood,  training,  shape  of  the  head,  and 

*  David  Copp>r field,  ch.  Ixv.  ;  the  scene  be- 
tween the  docto  •  and  his  wife. 


habits  of  mind  which  have  impressed 
in  him  this  primitive  inclination,  to 
prove  the  necessity  of  its  effects,  to 
lead  it  through  all  its  stages,  to  show 
the  greater  power  which  age  and  con- 
tentment give,  to  expose  the  irresistible 
fall  which  hurls  man  into  madness  or 
death.  The  reader,  caught  by  this  rea- 
soning, admires  the  work  which  it  has 
produced,  and  forgets  Ao  be  indignant 
against  the  personage  created  He 
says,  What  a  splendid  miser !  and 
thinks  not  of  the  evils  which  avarice 
causes.  He  becomes  a  philosopher 
and  an  artist,  and  remembers  not  that 
he  is  an  upright  man.  Always  recol- 
lect that  you  are  such  and  renounce 
the  beauties  which  may  flourish  on  this 
evil  soil. 

"Amongst  these  the  first  is  great- 
ness. A  man  must  be  interested  in 
passions  to  comprehend  their  full  ef- 
fect, to  count  all  their  springs,  to  de- 
scribe their  whole  course.  They  are 
diseases ;  if  a  man  is  content  to  blame 
them  he  will  never  know  them ;  if  you 
are  not  a  physiologist,  if  you  are  not 
enamoured  of  them,  if  you  do  not  make 
your  heroes  out  of  them,  if  you  do  not 
start  with  pleasure  at  the  sight  of  a 
fine  feature  of  avarice,  as  at  the  sight 
of  a  valuable  symptom,  you  will  not 
be  able  to  unfold  their  vast  system,  and 
to  display  their  fatal  greatness.  You 
will  not  have  this  immoral  merit ;  and, 
moreover,  it  does  not  suit  your  species 
of  mind.  Your  extreme  sensibility, 
and  ever-ready  irony,  must  needs  be 
exercised  ;  you  have  not  sufficient  calm- 
ness to  penetrate  to  the  depths  of  a 
character,  you  prefer  to  weep  over  or 
to  rail  at  it ;  you  lay  the  blame  on  it, 
make  it  your  friend  or  foe,  render  it 
touching  or  odious  ;  you  do  not  depict 
it ;  you  are  too  impassioned,  and  not 
enough  inquisitive.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  tenacity  of  your  imagination,  the 
vehemence  and  fixity  with  which  you 
impress  your  thought  into  the  detail 
you  wish  to  grasp,  limit  your  knowl- 
edge, arrest  you  in  a  single  feature, 
prevent  you  from  reaching  all  the  parts 
of  a  soul,  and  from  sounding  its  depths. 
Your  imagination-  is  too  lively,  too 
meagre.  These,  then,  are  Jhe  char- 
acters you  will  outline.  You  will  grasp 
a  personage  in  a  single  attitude,  you 
will  see  of  him  only  that,  and  you  will 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


597 


impose  it  upon  him  from  beginning  to 
end.  His  face  will  always  have  the 
same  expression,  and  this  expression 
will  be  almost  always  a  grimace.  Your 
personages  will  have  a  sort  of  knack 
which  will  not  quit  them.  Miss  Mercy 
will  laugh  at  every  word  ;  Mark  Tapley 
will  say  'jolly 'in  every  scene;  Mrs. 
Gamp  will  be  ever  talking  of  Mrs. 
Harris  ;  Dr.  Chillip  will  not  venture  a 
single  action  free  from  timidity;  Mr. 
Micawber  will  speak  through  three 
volumes  the  same  kind  of  emphatic 
phrases,  and  will  pass  five  or  six  times, 
with  comical  suddenness,  from  joy  to 
grief.  Each  of  your  characters  will  be 
a  vice,  a  virtue,  a  ridicule  personified  ; 
and  the  passion,  with  which  you  endow 
it,  will  be  so  frequent^  so  invariable,  so 
absorbing,  that  it  will  no  longer  be 
like  a  living  man,  but  an  abstraction  in 
man's  clothes.  The  French  have  a 
Tartuffe  like  your  Pecksniff,  but  the 
hypocrisy  which  he  represents  has  not 
destroyed  the  other  traits  of  his  char- 
acter ;  if  he  adds  to  the  comedy  by  his 
vice,  he  belongs  to  humanity  by  his 
nature.  He  has,  besides  his  ridiculous 
feature,  a  character  and  a  mood  ;  he  is 
coarse,  strong,  red  in  the  face,  brutal, 
sensual ;  the  vehemence  of  his  blood 
makes  him  bold  ;  his  boldness  makes 
him  calm  ;  his  boldness,  his  calm,  his 
quick  decision,  his  scorn  of  men,  make 
him  a  great  politician.  When  he  has 
entertained  the  public  through  five 
acts,  he  still  offers  to  the  psychologist 
and  the  physician  more  than  one  sub- 
ject of  study.  Your  Pecksniff  will 
offer  nothing  to  these.  He  will  only 
serve  to  instruct  and  amuse  the  public. 
He  will  be  a  living  satire  of  hypocrisy, 
and  nothing  more.  If  you  give  him  a 
taste  for  brandy,  it  is  gratuitously ;  in 
the  mood  which  you  assign  to  him, 
nothing  requires  it ;  he  is  so  steeped 
in  oily  hypocrisy,  in  softness,  in  a  flow- 
ing style,  in  literary  phrases,  in  tender 
morality,  that  the  rest  of  his  nature  has 
disappeared ;  it  is  a  mask,  and  not  a 
man.  But  this  mask  is  so  grotesque 
and  energetic,  that  it  will  be  useful  to 
the  public,  and  will  diminish  the  num- 
ber of  hvpocrites.  It  is  our  end  and 
yours,  and  the  list  of  your  characters 
will  have  rather  the  effect  of  a  book  of 
satires  than  of  a  portrait  gallery. 

'*  For  the  same  reason,  these  satires, 


though  united,  will  continue  effectu 
ally  detached,  and  will  not  constitute  a 
genuine  collection.  You  began  with 
essays,  and  your  larger  novels  are  only 
essays,  tagged  together.  The  only 
means  of  composing  a  natural  and  solid 
whole  is  to  write  the  history  of  a  pas- 
sion or  of  a  character,  to  take  them  up 
at  their  birth,  to  see  them  increase, 
alter,  become  destroyed,  to  understand 
the  inner  necessity  for  their  develop- 
ment. You  do  not  follow  this  devel- 
opment ;  you  always  keep  your  char- 
acter in  the  same  attitude ;  he  is  a 
miser,  or  a  hypocrite,  or  a  good  man  to 
the  end,  and  always  after  the  same 
fashion  :  thus  he  has  no  history.  You 
can  only  change  the  circumstances  in 
which  he  is  met  with,  you  do  not 
change  him ;  he  remains  motionless, 
and  at  every  shock  that  touches  him, 
emits  the  same  sound.  The  variety  of 
events  which  you  contrive  is  therefore 
only  an  amusing  phantasmagoria  ;  they 
have  no  connection,  they  do  not  form  a 
system,  they  are  but  a  heap.  You  will 
only  write  lives,  adventures,  memoirs, 
sketches,  collections  of  scenes,  and 
you  will  not  be  able  to  compose  an  ac- 
tion. But  if  the  literary  taste  of  your 
nation,  added  to  the  natural  direction 
of  your  genius,  imposes  upon  you 
moral  intentions,  forbids  you  the 
lofty  depicture  of  characters,  vetoes 
the  composition  of  united  aggregates, 
it  presents  to  your  observation,  sen- 
sibility, and  satire,  a  succession  of 
original  figures  which  belong  only  to 
England,  which,  drawn  by  your  hand, 
will  form  a  unique  gallery,  and  which, 
with  the  stamp  of  your  genius,  will 
offer  that  of  your  country  and  of  your 
time/' 

§  3. — THE  CHARACTERS. 
I. 

Take  away  the  grotesque  characters, 
who  are  only  introduced  to  fill  up  and 
to  excite  laughter,  and  you  will  find 
that  all  Dickens'  characters  belong  to 
two  classes — people  who  have  feelings 
and  emotions,  and  people  who  have 
none.  He  contrasts  the  souls  which 
nature  creates  with  those  which  society 
^deforms.  One  of  his  last  novels,  Hard 
Times,  is  an  abstract  of  all  the  rest. 
He  there  exalts  instinct  above  rea 


59* 


son,  intuition  of  heart  above  positive 
knowledge  ;  he  attacks  education  built 
on  statistics,  figures,  and  facts ;  over- 
whelms the  positive  and  mercantile 
spirit  with  misfortune  and  ridicule  ; 
and  the  aristocrat ;  falls  foul  of  manu- 
facturing towns,  combats  the  pride, 
harshness,  selfishness  of  the  merchant 
towns  of  smoke  and  mud,  which  fetter 
the  body  in  an  artificial  atmosphere, 
and  the  mind  in  a  factitious  existence. 
He  seeks  out  poor  artisans,  mounte- 
banks, a  foundling,  and  crushes  be- 
neath their  common  sense,  generosity, 
delicacy,  courage,  and  gentleness,  the 
false  science,  false  happiness,  and  false 
virtue  of  the  rich  and  powerful  who 
despise  them.  He  satirises  oppressive 
society ;  mourns  over  oppressed  na- 
ture ;  and  his  elegiac  genius,  like  his 
satirical  genius,  finds  ready  to  his  hand 
in  the  English  world  around  him,  the 
sphere  which  it  needs  for  its  develop- 
ment. 

II. 

The  first  fruits  of  English  society  is 
hypocrisy.  It  ripens  here  under  the 
double  breath  of  religion  and  morality  ; 
we  know  their  popularity  and  sway 
across  the  Channel.  In  a  country 
where  it  is  shocking  to  laugh  on  Sun- 
day, where  the  gloomy  Puritan  has 
preserved  something  of  his  old  rancor 
against  happiness,  where  the  critics  of 
ancient  history  insert  dissertations  on 
the  relative  virtue  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
it  is  natural  that  the  appearance  of 
morality  should  be  serviceable.  It  is 
a  needful  coin :  those  who  lack  good 
money  coin  bad ;  and  the  more  public 
opinion  declares  it  precious,  the  more 
it  is  counterfeited.  This  vice  is  there- 
fore English.  Mr.  Pecksniff  is  not 
found  in  France.  His  speech  would 
disgust  Frenchmen.  If  they  have  an 
affectation,  it  is  not  of  virtue,  but  of 
vice :  if  they  wish  to  succeed,  they 
would  be  wrong  to  speak  of  their  prin- 
ciples: they  prefer  to  confess  their 
weaknesses ;  and  if  they  have  quacks, 
they  are  boasters  of  immorality.  They 
had  their  hypocrites  once,  but  it  was 
when  religion  was  popular.  Since  Vol- 
taire, Tartuffe  is  impossible.  French- 
men no  longer  try  to  affect  a  piety 
which  would  deceive  no  one  and  lead 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BooK  V 


to  nothing.  Hypocrisy  comes  and 
goes,  varying  with  the  state  of  morals, 
religion,  and  mind :  we  can  see,  then, 
how  Pecksniff's  suits  the  dispositions 
of  his  country.  English  religion  is  not 
very  dogmatical,  but  wholly  moral. 
Therefore  Pecksniff  does  not,  like 
Tartuffe,  utter  theological  phrases  ;  he 
expands  altogether  in  philanthropic 
tirades.  He  has  progressed  with  the 
age  ;  he  has  become  a  humanitarian 
philosopher.  He  calls  his  daughter. 5 
Mercy  and  Charity.  He  is  tender,  he 
is  kind,  he  gives  vent  to  domestic  ef- 
fusions. He  innocently  exhibits,  when 
visited,  charming  domestic  scenes  ;  he 
displays  his  paternal  heart,  marital 
sentiments,  the  kindly  feeling  of  a 
good  master.  The  family  virtues  are 
honored  nowadays ;  he  must  mufHe 
himself  therewith.  Orgon  formerly 
said,  as  taught  by  Tartuffe : 

"  My  brother,   children,   mother,   wife  might 

die! 

You  think   I'll  care  ;  no  surely,  no  I    not 
I!"* 

Modern  virtue  and  English  piety 
think  otherwise ;  we  must  not  despise 
this  world  in  view  of  the  next ;  we  must 
improve  it.  Tartuffe  speaks  of  his 
hair-shirt  and  his  discipline  ;  Peck- 
sniff, of  his  comfortable  little  parlor, 
of  the  charm  of  friendship,  the  beau- 
ties of  nature.  He  tries  to  make 
men  "  dwell  in  unity."  He  is  like  a 
member  of  the  Peace  Society.  He 
develops  the  most  touching  considera- 
tions on  the  benefits  and  beauties  of 
union  among  men.  It  will  be  impossi- 
ble to  hear  him  without  being  affected. 
Men  are  refined  nowadays,  they  have 
read  much  elegiac  poetry  ;  their  sensi- 
bility is  more  active ;  they  can  no 
longer  be  deceived  by  the  coarse  im- 
pudence of  Tartuffe.  This  is  why  Mr. 
Pecksniff  will  use  gestures  of  sublime 
long-suffering,  smiles  of  ineffable  com- 
passion, starts,  free  and  easy  move- 
ments, graces,  tendernesses  which  will 
seduce  the  most  reserved  and  charm 
the  most  delicate.  The  English  in 

*  "  Et  je  verrais  mourir  frere,  enfants,  mere, 

et  femme 

Que  je  m'en  soucierais  autant  que  da 
cela." 

These  lines,  said  by  Orgon  to  this  brother 
in-law  Cteante,  are  from  Moliere's  Tartujfe,  \ 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


599 


t 


their  Parliament,  meetings,  associa- 
tions, public  ceremonies,  have  learned 
the  oratorical  phraseology,  the  abstract 
terms,  the  style  of  political  economy, 
of  the  newspaper  and  the  prospectus. 
Pecksniff  talks  like  a  prospectus.  He 
possesses  its  obscurity,  its  wordiness, 
and  its  emphasis.  He  seems  to  soar 
above  the  earth,  in  the  region  of  pure 
ideas,  in  the  bosom  of  truth.  He  re- 
sembles an  apostle,  brought  up  in  the 
7imes  office.  He  spouts  general  ideas 
on  every  occasion.  He  finds  a  moral 
lesson  ir.  the  ham  and  eggs  he  has  just 
eaten.  As  he  folds  his  napkin,  he 
rises  to  lofty  contemplations  : 

Even  the  worldly  goods  of  which  we  have 
just  disposed,  even  they  have  their  moral.  See 
how  they  come  and  go.  Every  pleasure  is 
transitory."  * 

"  '  The  process  of  digestion,  as  I  have  been 
Informed  by  anatomical  friends,  is  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  works  of  nature.  I  do  not 
know  how  it  may  be  with  others,  but  it  is  a 
great  satisfaction  to  me  to  know,  when  regal- 
ing on  my  humble  fare,  that  I  am  putting  in 
motion  the  most  beautiful  machinery  with  which 
we  have  any  acquaintance.  I  really  feel  at  such 
times  as  if  I  was  doing  a  public  service.  When 
I  have  wound  myself  up,  if  I  may  employ  such 
a  term,'  said  Mr.  Pecksniff  with  exquisite  ten- 
derness, '  and  know  that  I  am  Going,  I  feel  that 
in  the  lesson  afforded  by  the  works  within  me, 
I  am  a  Benefactor  to  my  Kind!  '  "  f 

We  recognize  a  new  species  of  hypoc- 
risy. Vices,  like  virtues,  change  in 
every  age. 

The  practical,  as  well  as  the  moral 
spirit,  is  English  ;  by  commerce,  labor, 
and  government,  this  people  has  ac- 
quired the  taste  and  talent  for  busi- 
ness ;  this  is  why  they  regard  the 
French  as  children  and  madmen.  The 
excess  of  this  disposition  is  the  de- 
struction of  imagination  and  sensibil- 
ity. Man  becomes  a  speculative  ma- 
chine, in  which  figures  and  facts  are 
,set  in  array ;  he  denies  the  life  of  the 
mind,  and  the  joys  of  the  heart;  he 
sees  in  the  world  nothing  but  loss  and 
gain  ;  he  becomes  hard,  harsh,  geedy, 
and  avaricious  ;  he  treats  men  as  ma- 
chinery ;  on  a  certain  day  he  finds 
himself  simply  a  rrerchant,  banker, 
statistician;  he  has  ceased  to  be  a 
man.  Dickens  has  multiplied  por- 
traits of  the  positive  man  —  Ralph 
Nickleby,  Scrooge,  Anthony  Chuzzle- 
wit,  Jonas  Chuzzlewit,  Alderman  Cute, 

*  Martin  Chuzzlewit^  ch.  ii. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  viii. 


Mr.  Murdstone  and  his  sister,  Boun- 
derby,  Gradgrind :  we  can  find  them 
in  all  his  novels.  Some  are  so  by 
education,  others  by  nature  ;  but  all 
are  odious,  for  they  all  rail  at  and  de- 
stroy kindness,  sympathy,  compassion, 
disinterested  affections,  religious  emo- 
tions, a  fanciful  enthusiasm,  all  that  is 
lovely  in  man.  They  oppress  children, 
strike  women,  starve  the  poor,  insult 
the  wretched.  The  best  are  machines 
of  polished  steel,  methodically  per- 
forming their  official  duties,  and  not 
knowing  that  they  make  others  suffer, 
These  kinds  of  men  are  not  found  in 
France.  Their  rigidity  is  not  in  the 
French  character.  They  are  produced 
in  England  by  a  school  which  has  its 
philosophy,  its  great  men,  its  glory, 
and  which  has  never  been  established 
amongst  the  French.  More  than  once, 
it  is  true,  French  writers  have  depict- 
ed avaricious  men,  men  of  business, 
and  shopkeepers  :  Balzac  is  full  of 
them ;  but  he  explains  them  by  their 
imbecility,  or  makes  them  monsters, 
like  Grandet  and  Gobseck.  Those  of 
Dickens  constitute  a  real  class,  and 
represent  a  national  vice.  Read  this 
passage  of  Hard  Times,  and  see  if, 
body  and  soul,  Mr.  Gradgrind  is  not 
wholly  English  : 

" '  Now_what  I  want  is  Facts.  Teach  these 
boys  and  girls  nothing  but  Facts.  Facts  alone 
are  wanted  in  life.  Plant  nothing  else,  and  root 
out  everything  else.  You  can  only  form  the 
minds  of  reasoning  animals  upon  Facts  ;  noth- 
ing else  will  ever  be  of  any  service  to  them. 
This  is  the  principle  on  which  I  bring  up  my 
own  children,  and  this  is  the  principle  on  which 
I  bring  up  these  children.  Stick  to  Facts,  sir !  ' 

"  The  scene  was  a  plain,  bare,  monotonous 
vault  of  a  schoolroom,  and  the  speaker's  square 
forefinger  emphasised  his  observations  by  un- 
derscoring every  sentence  with  a  line  on  the 
schoolmaster's  sleeve.  The  emphasis  was 
helped  by  the  speaker's  square  wall  of  a  fore- 
head, which  had  his  eyebrows  for  its  bare, 
while  his  eyes  found  commodious  cellarage  in 
two  dark  caves,  overshadowed  by  the  wall. 
The  emphasis  was  helped  by  the  speaker's 
mouth,  which  was  wide,  thin,  and  hard  set.  The 
emphasis  was  helped  by  the  speaker's  voice, 
which  was  inflexible,  dry  and  dictatorial.  The 
emphasis  was  helped  by  the  speaker's  hair, 
which  bristled  on  the  skirts  of  his  bald  head,  a 
plantation  of  firs  to  keep  the  wind  from  its 
shining  surface,  all  covered  with  knobs,  like 
the  crust  of  a  plum-pie,  as  if  the  head  had 
scarcely  warehouse-room  for  the  hard  facts 
stored  inside.  The  speaker's  obstinate  cnr- 
riage,  square  coat,  square  legs,  square  shoul- 
ders— nay,  his  very  neckcloth,  trained  to  take 
him  by  the  throat  with  an  unaccommodating 


6oo 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


grasp,  like  a  stubborn  fact,  as  it  was— all 
helped  emphasis. 

"  *  In  this  life  we  want  nothing  but  Facts, 
sir  ;  nothing  but  Facts ! ' 

"  The  speaker,  and  the  schoolmaster,  and  the 
third  grown  person  present,  all  backed  a  little, 
and  swept  with  their  eyes  the  inclined  plane  of 
little  vessels  then  and  there  arranged  in  order, 
ready  to  have  imperial  gallons  of  facts  poured 
into  them  until  they  were  full  to  the  brim.* 

"  '  THOMAS  GRADGRIND,  sir !  A  man  of  real- 
rties.  A  man  of  facts  and  calculations.  A  man 
whe  proceeds  upon  the  principle  that  two  and  two 
are  four,  and  nothing  over,  and  who  is  not  to  be 
talked  into  allowing  for  anything  over.  Thomas 
Gradgrind,  sir — peremptorily  Thomas — Thomas 
Gradgrind.  With  a  rule  and  a  pair  of  scales, 
and  the  multiplication  table  always  in  his 
pocket,  sir,  ready  to  weigh  and  measure  any 
parcel  of  human  nature,  and  tell  you  exactly 
what  it  comes  to.  It  is  a  mere  question  of 
figures,  a  case  of  simple  arithmetic.  You 
might  hope  to  get  some  other  nonsensical  be- 
lief into  the  head  of  George  Gradgrind,  or 
Augustus  Gradgrind,  or  John  Gradgrind,  or 
Joseph  Gradgrind  (all  supposititious,  non-exist- 
ent persons),  but  into  the  head  of  Thomas 
Gradgrind — no,  sir! ' 

"  In  such  terms  Mr.  Gradgrind  always  ment- 
ally introduced  himself,  whether  to  his  private 
circle  of  acquaintance,  or  to  the  public  in  gen- 
eral. In  such  terms,  no  doubt,  substituting 
the  words  'boys  and  girls'  for  'sir,'  Thomas 
Gradgrind  now  presented  Thomas  Gradgrind 
to  the  little  pitchers  before  him,  who  were  to 
be  filled  so  full  of  facts."  t 

Another  fault  arising  from  the  habit 
of  commanding  and  striving  is  pride. 
It  abounds  in  an  aristocratic  country, 
and  no  one  has  more  soundly  rated 
aristocracy  than  Dickens  ;  all  his  por- 
traits are  sarcasms.  James  Harthouse, 
a  dandy  disgusted  with  every  thing, 
chiefly  with  himself,  and  rightly  so ; 
Lord  Frederick  Verisopht,  a  poor 
duped  idiot,  brutalized  with  drink, 
whose  wit  consists  in  staring  at  men 
and  sucking  his  cane  ;  Lord  Feenix,  a 
sort  of  mechanism  of  parliamentary 
phrases,  out  of  order,  and  hardly  able  to 
finish  the  ridiculous  periods  into  which 
he  always  takes  care  to  lapse  ;  Mrs. 
Skewton,  a  hideous  old  ruin,  a  coquette 
to  the  last,  demanding  rose-colored 
curtains  for  her  death -bed,  and  parad- 
ing her  daughter  through  all  the  draw- 
ing rooms  of  England  in  order  to  sell 
her  to  some  vain  husband ;  Sir  John 
Chester,  a  wretch  of  high  society,  who, 
for  fear  of  compromising  himself,  re- 
fuses to  save  his  natural  son,  and  re- 
fuses it  with  all  kinds  of  airs,  as  he 
finishes  his  chocolate.  But  the  most 
English  picture  of  the  aristocratic  spirit 

*  Hard  Times ;  book  i.  ch.  i.     t  Ibid.  ch.  ii. 


is  the  portrait  of  a.  London  merchant, 
Mr.  Dombey. 

In  France  people  do  not  look  for 
types  among  the  merchants,  but  they 
are  found  among  that  class  in  England, 
as  forcible  as  in  the  proudest  chateaux. 
Mr.  Dombey  loves  his  house  as  if  he 
were  a  nobleman,  as  much  as  himself. 
If  he  neglects  his  daughter  and  longs 
for  a  son,  it  is  to  perpetuate  the  old 
name  of  his  bank.  He  has  his  ances- 
tors in  commerce,  and  he  likes  to  have 
his  descendants  in  the  same  branch  of 
business.  He  maintains  traditions, 
and  continues  a  power.  At  this  height 
of  opulence,  and  with  this  scope  of 
action,  he  is  a  prince,  and  with  a 
prince's  position  he  has  his  feelings. 
We  see  there  a  character  which  could 
only  be  produced  in  a  country  whose 
commerce  embraces  the  globe,  where 
merchants  are  potentates,  where  a 
company  of  merchants  has  trafficked  in 
continents,  maintained  wars,  destroyed 
kingdoms,  founded  an  empire  of  a  him 
dred  million  men.  The  pride  of  such 
a  man  is  not  petty,  but  terrible ;  it  is 
so  calm  and  high,  that  to  find  a  parallel 
we  must  read  again  the  Memoires  of  the 
Duke  of  Saint  Simon.  Mr.  Dombey 
has  always  commanded,  and  it  does 
not  enter  his  mind  that  he  could  yield  to 
any  one  or  any  thing.  He  receives  flat- 
tery as  a  tribute  to  which  he  has  a  right, 
and  sees  men  beneath  him,  at  a  vast 
distance,  as  beings  made  to  beseech 
and  obey  him.  His  second  wife,  proud 
Edith  Skewton,  resists  and  scorns  him  ; 
the  pride  of  the  merchant  is  pitted 
against  the  pride  of  the  high-born 
woman,  and  the  restrained  outbursts  of 
this  growing  opposition  reveal  an  in- 
tensity of  passion,  which  souls  thus 
born  and  bred  alone  can  feel.  Edith, 
to  avenge  herself,  flees  on  the  anniver- 
sary of  her  marriage,  and  gives  her- 
self the  appearance  of  being  an  adult- 
eress. It  is  then  that  his  inflexible 
pride  asserts  itself  in  all  its  rigidity. 
He  has  driven  out  of  the  house  his 
daughter,  whom  he  believes  the  ac- 
complice of  his  wife ;  he  forbids 
the  one  or  the  other  to  be  recalled  to 
his  memory ;  he  commands  his  sister 
and  his  friends  to  be  silent ;  he  re- 
ceives guests  with  the  same  tone  and 
the  same  coldness.  With  despair  in 
his  heart,  and  feeling  bitterly  the  in- 


CHAP.  I.] 


THE  NOVEL— DICKENS. 


601 


suit  offered  to  him  by  his  wife,  the  con- 
scientiousness of  his  failure,  and  the 
idea  of  public  ridicule,  he  remains  as 
firm,  as  haughty,  as  calm  as  ever.  He 
launches  out  more  recklessly  in  specu- 
lations, and  is  ruined  ;  he  is  on  the 
point  of  suicide.  Hitherto  all  was 
well :  the  bronze  column  continued 
whole  and  unbroken  ;  but  the  exigen- 
cies of  public  morality  mar  the  idea  of 
the  book.  His  daughter  arrives  in  the 
nick  of  time.  She  entreats  him ;  his 
feelings  get  the  better  of  him,  she 
carries  him  off ;  he  becomes  the  best 
of  fathers,  and  spoils  a  fine  novel. 

III. 

Let  us  look  at  some  different  per- 
sonages. In  contrast  with  these  bad 
and  factitious  characters,  produced  by 
national  institutions,  we  find  good 
creatures  such  as  nature  made  them  ; 
and  first,  children. 

We  have  none  in  French  literature. 
Racine's  little  Joas  could  only  exist  in 
a  piece  composed  for  the  ladies'  col- 
lege of  Saint  Cyr ;  the  little  child 
speaks  like  a  prince's  son,  with  noble 
and  acquired  phrases,  as  if  repeating 
his  catechism.  Nowadays  these  por- 
traits are  only  seen  in  France  in  New- 
year's  books,  written  as  models  for 
good  children.  Dickens  painted  his 
with  special  gratification;  he  did  not 
think  of  edifying  the  public,  and  he  has 
charmed  it.  All  his  children  are  of 
extreme  sensibility;  they  love  much, 
and  they  crave  to  be  loved.  To  under- 
stand this  gratification  of  the  painter, 
and  this  choice  of  characters,  we  must 
think  of  their  physical  type.  English 
children  have  a  color  so  fresh,  a  com- 
plexion so  delicate,  a  skin  so  transpa- 
rent, eyes  so  blue  and  pure,  that  they 
are  like  beautiful  flowers.  No  wonder 
if  a  novelist  loves  them,  lends  to  their 
soul  a  sensibility  and  innocence  which 
shine  forth  from  their  looks,  if  he  thinks 
that  these  frail  and  charming  roses  are 
crushed  by  the  coarse  hands  which 
try  to  bend  them.  We  must  also 
imagine  to  ourselves  the  households  in 
which  they  grow  up.  When  at  five 
o'clock  the  merchant  and  the  clerk 
leave  their  office  and  their  business, 
they  return  as  quickly  as  possible  to 
the  pretty  cottage,  where  their  children 


have  played  all  day  on  the  lawn.  The 
fire-side  by  which  they  will  pass  the 
evening  is  a  sanctuary,  and  domestic 
tenderness  is  the  only  poetry  they  need. 
A  child  deprived  of  these  affections 
and  this  happiness  seems  to  be  de- 
prived of  the  air  we  breathe,  and  the 
novelist  does  not  find  a  volume  too 
much  to  explain  its  unhappiness.  Dick- 
ens has  recorded  it  in  ten  volumes,  and 
at  last  he  has  written  the  history  of 
David  Copperfield.  David  is  loved  t  y 
his  mother,  and  by  an  honest  servar.t 
girl,  Peggotty;  he  plays  with  her  in 
the  garden;  he  watches  her  sew;  he 
reads  to  her  the  natural  history  of  croc- 
odiles ;  he  fears  the  hens  and  geese, 
which  strut  in  a  menacing  and  ferocious 
manner  in  the  yard  ;  he  is  perfectly 
happy.  His  mother  marries  again, 
and  all  changes.  The  father-in-law 
Mr.  Murdstone,  and  his  sister  Jane, 
are  harsh,  methodical,  cold  beings. 
Poor  little  David  is  every  moment 
wounded  by  harsh  words.  He  dare 
not  speak  or  move ;  he  is  afraid  to  kiss 
his  mother;  he  feels  himself  weighed 
down,  as  by  a  leaden  cloak,  by  the 
cold  looks  of  the  new  master  and  mis- 
tress. He  falls  back  on  himself; 
mechanically  studies  the  lessons  as- 
signed him  ;  cannot  learn  them  so  great 
is  his  dread  of  not  knowing  them.  He 
is  whipped,  shut  up  with  bread  and 
water  in  a  lonely  room.  He  is  terrified 
by  night,  and  fears  himself.  He  asks 
himself  whether  in  fact  he  is  not  bad 
or  wicked,  and  weeps.  This  incessant 
terror,  hopeless  and  issueless,  the  spec- 
tacle of  this  wounded  sensibility  and 
stupefied  intelligence,the  long  anxieties' 
the  sleepless  nights,  the  solitude  of  the 
poor  imprisoned  child,  his  passionate 
desire  to  kiss  his  mother  or  to  weep  on 
the  breast  of  his  nurse, — all  this  is  sad 
to  see.  These  children's  griefs  are  as 
heart-felt  as  the  sorrows  of  a  man.  It 
is  the  history  of  a  frail  plant,  whict 
was  flourishing  in  a  warm  air,  beneatn 
a  mild  sun,  and  which,  suddenly  trans- 
planted to  the  snow,  sheds  its  leaves 
and  withers. 

The  working-classes  are  like  children, 
dependent,  not  very  cultivated,  akin  to 
nature,  and  liable  to  oppression.  And 
so  Dickens  extols  them.  That  is  not 
new  in  France  ;  the  novels  of  Eugene 
Sue  have  given  us  more  than  one  ex- 
26 


6O2 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


ample,  and  the  theme  is  as  old  as  Rous- 
seau ;  but  in  the  hands  of  the  English 
writer  it  has  acquired  a  singular  force. 
His  heroes  possess  feelings  so  delicate, 
and  are  so  self-sacrificing,  that  we  can- 
not admire  them  sufficiently.  They  have 
nothing  vulgar  but  their  pronunciation  ; 
the  rest  is  but  nobility  and  generosity. 
We  see  a  mountebank  abandon  his 
daughter,  his  only  joy,  for  fear  of  in- 
iuiing  her  in  any  way.  A  young  wom- 
an devotes  herself  to  save  the  unwor- 
thy wife  of  a  man  who  loves  her,  and 
whom  she  loves ;  the  man  dies ;  she 
continues,  from  pure  self-sacrifice,  to 
care  for  the  degraded  creature.  A 
poor  wagoner,  who  thinks  his  wife  un- 
faithful, loudly  pronounces  her  inno- 
cent, and  all  his  vengeance  is  to  think 
only  of  loading  her  with  tenderness 
and  kindness.  None,  according  to 
Dickens,  feel  so  strongly  as  they  do  the 
happiness  of  loving  and  being  loved — 
the  pure  joys  of  domestic  life.  None 
have  so  much  compassion  for  those  poor 
deformed  and  infirm  creatures  whom 
they  so  often  bring  into  the  world,  and 
who  seem  only  born  to  die.  None  have 
a  juster  and  more  inflexible  moral 
sense.  I  confess  even  that  Dickens' 
heroes  unfortunately  resemble  the  in- 
dignant fathers  of  French  melodramas. 
When  old  Peggotty  learns  that  his  niece 
is  seduced,  he  sets  off,  stick  in  hand, 
and  walks  over  France,  Germany,  and 
Italy,  to  find  her  and  bring  her  back  to 
duty.  But  above  all,  they  have  an 
English  sentiment,  which  fails  in 
Frenchmen  :  they  are  Christians.  It 
is  not  only  women,  as  in  France,  who 
take  refuge  in  the  idea  of  another 
world  ;  men  turn  also  their  thoughts 
towards  it.  In  England,  where  there 
are  so  many  sects,  and  every  one 
chooses  his  own,  each  one  believes  in 
the  religion  he  has  made  for  himself; 
am  this  noble  sentiment  raises  still 
higner  the  throne  upon  which  the  up- 
rightness of  their  resolution  and  the 
delicacy  of  their  heart  has  placed 
them. 

In  reality,  the  novels  of  Dickens  can 
all  be  reduced  to  one  phrase,  to  wit : 
Be  good,  and  love  :  there  is  genuine 
joy  only  in  the  emotions  of  the  heart  ; 
sensibility  is  the  whole  man.  Leave 
science  to  the  wise,  pride  to  the  nobles, 
Hixury  to  the  rich ;  have  compassion 


on  humble  wretchedness ;  the  smallest 
and  most  despised  being  may  in  him- 
self be  worth  as  much  as  thousands  of 
the  powerful  and  the  proud.  Take 
care  not  to  bruise  the  delicate  souls 
which  flourish  in  all  conditions,  under 
all  costumes,  in  all  ages.  Believe  that 
humanity,  pity,  forgiveness,  are  the 
finest  things  in  man ;  believe  that  in- 
timacy, expansion,  tenderness,  tears, 
are  the  sweetest  things  in  the  world. 
To  live  is  nothing ;  to  be  powerful, 
learned,  illustrious,  is  little  ;  to  be  use- 
ful is  not  enough.  He  alone  has  lived 
and  is  a  man  who  has  wept  at  the 
remembrance  of  a  kind  action  which  he 
himself  has  performed  or  received. 

IV. 

We  do  not  believe  that  this  contrast 
between  the  weak  and  the  strong,  or 
this  outcry  against  society  in  favor  of 
nature,  are  the  caprice  of  an  artist  or 
the  chance  of  the  moment.  When  we 
penetrate  deeply  into  the  history  of 
English  genius,  we  find  that  its  primi- 
tive foundation  was  impassioned  sensi- 
bility, and  that  its  natural  expression 
was  lyrical  exaltation.  Both  were 
brought  from  Germany,  and  make  up 
the  literature  existing  before  the  Con- 
quest. After  an  interval  you  find  them 
again  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when 
the  French  literature,  introduced  from 
Normandy,  had  passed  away  :  they  are 
the  very  soul  of  the  nation.  But  the 
education  of  this  soul  was  opposite  to 
its  genius ;  its  history  contradicted  its 
nature ;  and  its  primitive  inclination 
has  clashed  with  all  the  great  events 
wrhich  it  has  created  or  suffered.  The 
chance  of  a  victorious  invasion  and  an 
imposed  aristocracy,  whilst  establishing 
the  enjoyment  of  political  liberty,  has 
impressed  on  the  character  habits  of 
strife  and  pride.  The  chance  of  an 
insular  position,  the  necessity  of  com- 
merce, the  abundant  possession  of  the 
first  materials  for  industry,  have  de- 
veloped the  practical  faculties  and  the 
positive  mind.  The  acquisition  of  these 
habits,  faculties,  and  mind,  to  which 
must  be  added  former  hostile  feelings 
to  Rome,  and  an  inveterate  hatred 
against  an  oppressive  church,  has  given 
birth  to  a  proud  and  reasoning  religion, 
replacing  submission  by  independence, 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  TEA  CKERA  Y. 


poetic  theology  by  practical  morality, 
and  faith  by  discussion.  Politics, 
business,  and  religion,  like  three  pow- 
erful machines,  have  created  a  new 
man  above  the  old.  Stern  dignity, 
self-command,  the  need  of  authority, 
severity  in  its  exercise,  strict  morality, 
without  compromise  or  pity,  a  taste  for 
figures  and  dry  calculation,  a  dislike  of 
facts  not  palpable  and  ideas  not  useful, 
ignorance  of  the  invisible  world,  scorn 
of  the  weaknesses  and  tendernesses  of 
the  heart, — such  are  the  dispositions 
which  the  stream  of  facts  and  the 
ascendency  of  institutions  tend  to  con- 
firm in  their  souls.  But  poetry  and 
domestic  life  prove  that  they  have  only 
half  succeeded.  The  old  sensibility, 
oppressed  and  perverted,  still  lives  and 
works.  The  poet  subsists  under  the 
Puritan,  the  trader,  the  statesman. 
The  social  man  has  not  destroyed  the 
natural  man.  This  frozen  crust,  this 
unsociable  pride,  this  rigid  attitude, 
often  cover  a  good  and  tender  nature. 
It  is  the  English  mask  of  a  German 
head ;  and  when  a  talented  writer, 
often  a  writer  of  genius,  reaches  the 
sensibility  which  is  bruised  or  buried 
by  education  and  national  institutions, 
he  moves  his  reader  in  the  most  inner 
depths,  and  becomes  the  master  of  all 
hearts. 


CHAPTER  II. 

jcontxmdb: — Iljadbrag. 
I. 

THE  novel  of  manners  in  England 
multiplies,  and  for  this  there  are  several 
reasons :  first,  it  is  born  there,  and 
every  plant  thrives  well  in  its  own 
soil  ;  secondly,  it  is  a  natural  outlet : 
there  is  no  music  in  England  as  in 
Germany,  or  conversation  as  in  France  ; 
and  men  who  must  think  and  feel  find 
in  it  a  means  of  feeling  and  thinking. 
On  the  other  hand,  women  take  part  in 
it  with  eagerness ;  amidst  the  stagna- 
tion of  gallantry  and  the  coldness  of 
religion,  it  gives  scope  for  imagination 
and  dreams.  Finally,  by  its  minute 
details  and  practical  counsels,  it  opens 


603 


up  a  career  to  the  precise  and  moral 
mind.  The  critic  thus  is,  as  it  were, 
swamped  in  this  copiousness  ;  he  must 
select  in  order  to  grasp  the  whole,  and 
confine  himself  to  a  few  in  order  to 
embrace  all. 

In  this  crowd  two  men  have  ap- 
peared of  superior  talent,  original  and 
contrasted,  popular  on  the  same 
grounds,  ministers  to  the  same  cause, 
moralists  in  comedy  and  drama,  de- 
fenders of  natural  sentiments  against 
social  institutions  ;  who  by  the  pre- 
cision of  their  pictures,  the  depth  of 
their  observations,  the  succession  and 
bitterness  of  their  attacks,  have  re- 
newed, with  other  views  and  in  another 
style,  the  old  combative  spirit  of  Swift 
and  Fielding. 

One,  more  ardent,  more  expansive, 
wholly  given  up  to  rapture,  an  impas- 
sioned painter  of  crude  and  dazzling 
pictures,  a  lyric  prose-writer,  omnipo- 
tent in  laughter  and  tears,  plunged  into 
fantastic  invention,  painful  sensibility, 
vehement  buffoonery ;  and  by  the  bold- 
ness of  his  style,  the  excess  of  his  emo- 
tions, the  grotesque  familiarity  of  his 
caricatures,  he  has  displayed  all  the 
forces  and  weaknesses  of  an  artist,  all 
the  audacities,  all  the  successes,  and 
all  the  oddities  of  the  imagination. 

The  other,  more  contained,  better 
informed  and  stronger,  a  lover  of  moral 
dissertations,  a  counsellor  of  the  pub- 
lic, a  sort  of  lay  preacher,  less  bent  on 
defending  the  poor,  more  bent  on  cen- 
suring man,  has  brought  to  the  aid  of 
satire  a  sustained  common  sense,  a 
great  knowledge  of  the  heart,  consum- 
mate cleverness,  powerful  reasoning,  a 
treasure  of  meditated  hatred,  and  has 
persecuted  vice  with  all  the  weapons 
of  reflection.  By  this  contrast  the  one 
completes  the  other  ;  and  we  may  form 
an  exact  idea  of  English  taste,  by  plac- 
ing the  portrait  of  William  Makepeace 
Thackeray  by  the  side  of  that  of 
Charles  Dickens. 

§  i. — THE  SATIRIST. 
II. 

No  wonder  if  in  England  a  novelist 
writes  satires.  A  gloomy  and  reflec- 
tive man  is  impelled  to  it  by  his  char- 
acter ;  he  is  still  further  impelled  by 
the  surrounding  manners.  He  is  not 


604 


permitted  to  contemplate  passions  as 
poetic  powers ;  he  is  bidden  to  appre- 
ciate them  as  moral  qualities.  His  pic- 
tures become  sentences ;  he  is  a  coun- 
sellor rather  than  an  observer,  a  judge 
rather  than  an  artist.  We  see  by  what 
machinery  Thackeray  has  changed 
novel  into  satire. 

I  open  at  random  his  three  great 
works — Pendennis,  Vanity  Fair,  The 
Newcomes.  Every  scene  sets  in  relief 
a  moral  truth  :  the  author  desires  that 
0.1  every  page  we  should  form  a  judg- 
ment on  vice  and  virtue  ;  he  has  blamed 
or  approved  beforehand,  and  the  dia- 
logues or  portraits  are  to  him  only 
means  by  which  he  adds  our  approba- 
tion to  his  approbation,  our  blame  to 
his  blame.  He  is  giving  us  lessons  ; 
and  beneath  the  sentiments  which  he 
describes,  as  beneath  the  events  which 
he  relates,  we  continually  discover 
rules  for  our  conduct  and  the  inten- 
tions of  a  reformer. 

On  the  first  page  of  Pendennis  we 
see  the  portrait  of  an  old  major,  a  man 
of  the  world,  selfish  and  vain,  seated 
comfortably  in  his  club,  at  the  table 
by  the  fire,  and  near  the  window,  envied 
by  surgeon  Glowry,  whom  nobody  ever 
invites,  seeking  in  the  records  of  aris- 
tocratic entertainments  for  his  own 
name,  gloriously  placed  amongst  those 
of  illustrious  guests.  A  family  letter 
arrives.  Naturally  he  puts  it  aside 
and  reads  it  carelessly  last  of  all.  He 
utters  an  exclamation  of  horror  ;  his 
nephew  wants  to  marry  an  actress.  He 
has  places  booked  in  the  coach  (charg- 
ing the  sum  which  he  disburses  for  the 
seats  to  the  account  of  the  widow  and 
the  young  scapegrace  of  whom  he  is 
guardian),  and  hastens  to  save  the 
young  fool.  If  there  were  a  low  mar- 
riage, what  would  become  of  his  invi- 
tations ?  The  manifest  conclusion  is  : 
Let  us  not  be  selfish,  or  vain,  or  fond 
of  good  living,  like  the  major. 

Chapter  the  second  :  Pendennis,  the 
father  of  the  young  man  in  love,  had 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BooK  V 


to  be  a  gentleman."  He  comes  into 
money ;  is  called  Doctor,  marries  the 
very  distant  relative  of  a  lord,  tries  to 
get  acquainted  with  high  families.  He 
boasts  to  the  last  day  of  his  life  of 


having  been  invited  by  Sir  Pepin  Rib- 
stone  to  an  entertainment.  He  buys 
a  small  estate,  tries  to  sink  the  apothe- 
cary, and  shows  off  in  the  new  glory  of 
a  landed  proprietor.  Each  of  these 
details  is  a  concealed  or  evident  sar 
casm,  which  says  to  the  reader :  "  My 
good  friend,  remain  the  honest  John 
Tomkins  that  you  are  ;  and  for  the 
love  of  your  son  and  yourself,  avoid 
taking  the  airs  of  a  great  nobleman." 

Old  Pendennis  dies.  His  son,  the 
noble  heir  of  the  domain,  "  Prince  of 
Pendennis  and  Grand  Duke  of  Fair- 
oaks,"  begins  to  reign  over  his  mother, 
his  cousin,  and  the  servants.  He  sends 
wretched  verses  to  the  county  papers, 
begins  an  epic  poem,  a  tragedy  in 
which  sixteen  persons  die,  a  scathing 
history  of  the  Jesuits,  and  defends 
church  and  king  like  a  loyal  Tory.  He 
sighs  after  the  ideal,  wishes  for  an  un- 
known maiden,  and  falls  in  love  with 
an  actress,  a  woman  of  thirty-two,  who 
learns  her  parts  mechanically,  as  ig- 
norant and  stupid  as  can  be.  Young 
folks,  my  dear  friends,  you  are  all  af- 
fected, pretentious,  dupes  of  yourselves 
and  of  others.  Wait  to  judge  the 
world  until  you  have  seen  it,  and  do 
not  think  you  are  masters  when  you  are 
scholars. 

The  lesson  continues  and  lasts  as 
long  as  the  life  of  Arthur.  Like  Le 
Sage  in  Gil  Bias,  and  Balzac  in  Le 
Pere  Goriot,  the  author  of  Pendennis 
depicts  a  young  man  having  some  tal- 
ent, endowed  with  good  feelings,  even 
generous,  desiring  to  make  a  name, 
whilst,  at  the  same  time,  he  falls  in  with 
the  maxims  of  the  world  ;  but  Le  Sage 
only  wished  to  amuse  us,  and  Balzac 
only  wished  to  stir  our  passions : 
Thackeray,  from  beginning  to  end,  la- 
bors to  correct  us. 

This  intention  becomes  still  more 
evident  if  we  examine  in  detail  one  of 
his  dialogues  and  one  of  his  pictures. 
We  will  not  find  there  impartial  ener- 
gy, bent  on  copying  nature,  but  atten- 
tive thoughtfulness,  bent  on  transform- 
ing into  satire  objects,  words,  and 
events.  All  the  words  of  the  character 
are  chosen  and  weighed,  so  as  to  be 
odious  or  ridiculous.  It  accuses  itself, 
is  studious  to  display  vice,  and  behind 
its  voice  we  hear  the  voice  of  the 
writer  who  judges,  unmasks,  and  pun- 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NOVEL— THACKERAY. 


ishes  it.  Miss  Crawley,  a  rich  old 
woman,  falls  ill.*  Mrs.  Bute  Crawley, 
her  relative,  hastens  to  save  her,  and  to 
save  the  inheritance.  Her  aim  is  to  have 
excluded  from  the  will  a  nephew, 
Captain  Rawdon,  an  old  favorite,  pre- 
sumptive heir  of  the  old  lady.  This 
Rawdon  is  a  stupid  guardsman,  a  fre- 
quenter of  taverns,  a  too  clever  gam- 
bler, a  duellist,  and  a  roue.  Fancy  the 
capital  opportunity  for  Mrs.  Bute,  the 
respectable  mother  of  a  family,  the 
worthy  spouse  of  a  clergyman,  accus- 
tomed to  write  her  husband's  sermons  ! 
From  sheer  virtue  she  hates  Captain 
Rawdon,  and  will  not  suffer  that  such 
a  good  sum  of  money  should  fall  into 
such  bad  hands.  Moreover,  are  we 
not  responsible  for  our  families  ?  and 
is  it  not  for  us  to  publish  the  faults  of 
our  relatives  ?  It  is  our  strict  duty, 
and  Mrs.  Bute  acquits  herself  of  hers 
conscientiously.  She  collects  edifying 
stories  of  her  nephew,  and  therewith 
she  edifies  the  aunt.  He  has  ruined  so 
and  so  ;  he  has  wronged  such  a  woman. 
He  has  duped  this  tradesman  ;  he  has 
killed  this  husband.  And  above  all, 
'  unworthy  man,  he  has  mocked  his 
aunt !  Will  that  generous  lady  con- 
tinue to  cherish  such  a  viper  ?  Will  she 
suffer  her  numberless  sacrifices  to  be  re- 
paid by  such  ingratitude  and  such  ridi- 
cule ?  We  can  imagine  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal eloquence  of  Mrs.  Bute.  Seated  at 
the  foot  of  the  bed,  she  keeps  the  pa- 
tient in  sight,  plies  her  with  draughts, 
enlivens  her  with  terrible  sermons,  and 
mounts  guard  at  the  door  against  the 
probable  invasion  of  the  heir.  The  siege 
was  well  conducted,  the  legacy  attacked 
so  obstinately  must  be  yielded  up  ;  the 
virtuous  fingers  of  the  matron  grasped 
beforehand  and  by  anticipation  the  sub- 
stantial heap  of  shining  sovereigns. 
And  yet  a  carping  spectator  might  have 
found  some  faults  in  her  management. 
Mrs.  Bute  managed  rather  too  well. 
She  forgot  that  a  woman  persecuted 
with  sermons,  handled  like  a  bale  of 
goods,  regulated  like  a  clock,  might 
take  a  dislike  to  so  harassing  an  au- 
thority. What  is  worse,  she  forgot 
that  a  timid  old  woman,  confined  to 

*  Vanity  Fair.  [Unless  the  original  octavo 
edition  is  mentioned,  the  translator  has  always 
used  the  collected  edition  of  Thackeray's  works 
in  small  octavo,  1855-1868,  14  vols.] 


605 


the  house,  overwhelmed  with  preach 
ings,  poisoned  with  pills,  might  die  be- 
fore having  changed  her  will,  and  leave 
all,  alas,  to  her  scoundrelly  nephew. 
Instructive  and  formidable  example 
Mrs.  Bute,  the  honor  of  her  sex,  the 
consoler  of  the  sick,  the  counsellor  of 
her  family,  having  ruined  her  health  to 
look  after  her  beloved  sister-in-law, 
and  to  preserve  the  inheritance,  was 
just  on  the  point,  by  her  exemplary  de- 
votion, of  putting  the  patient  in  her 
coffin,  and  the  inheritance  in  the  hands 
of  her  nephew. 

Apothecary  Clump  arrives  ;  he  trem- 
bles for  his  dear  client ;  she  is  worth  to 
him  two  hundred  a  year  ;  he  is  resolved 
to  save  this  precious  life,  in  spite  yf 
Mrs.  Bute.  Mrs.  Bute  interrupts  3'm, 
and  says :  "  I  am  sure,  my  dear  Mr. 
Clump,  no  efforts  of  mine  have  been 
wanting  to  restore  our  dear  invalid, 
whom  the  ingratitude  of  her  nephew 
has  laid  on  the  bed  of  sickness.  I 
never  shrink  from  personal  discomfort ; 
I  never  rufuse  to  sacrifice  myself.  .  . 
I  would  lay  down  my  life  for  my  duty, 
or  for  any  member  of  my  husband's 
family.*  The  disinterested  apotheca- 
ry returns  to  the  charge  heroically. 
Immediately  she  replies  in  the  finest 
strain;  her  eloquence  flows  from  her 
lips  as  from  an  over-full  pitcher.  She 
cries  aloud  :  "  Never,  as  long  as  nature 
supports  me,  will  I  desert  the  post  of 
duty.  As  the  mother  of  a  family  and  the 
wife  of  an  English  clergyman,  I  humbly 
trust  that  my  principles  are  good. 
When  my  poor  James  was  in  the  small- 
pox, did  I  allow  any  hireling  to  nurse 
him?  No!"  The  patient  Clump 
scatters  about  sugared  compliments, 
and  pressing  his  point  amidst  interrup- 
tions, protestations,  offers  of  sacrifice, 
railings  against  the  nephew,  at  last  hits 
the  mark.  He  delicately  insinuates 
that  the  patient  "  should  have  change, 
fresh  air,  gayety."  "  The  sight  of  her 
horrible  nephew  casually  in  the  Park, 
where  I  am  told  the  wretch  drives  with 
the  brazen  partner  of  his  crimes,"  Mrs. 
Bute  said  (letting  the  cat  of  selfishness 
out  of  the  bag  of  secrecy),  "would 
cause  her  such  a  shock,  that  we  should 
have  to  bring  her  back  to  bed  again. 
She  must  not  go  out,  Mr.  Clump.  She 
shall  not  go  out  as  long  as  I  remain  to 
*  Vanity  Fairt  ch.  xix. 


6o6 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


watch  over  her.  And  as  for  my  health, 
what  matters  it  ?  I  give  it  cheerfully, 
sir.  I  sacrifice  at  the  altar  of  my  duty." 
It  is  clear  that  the  author  attacks  Mrs. 
Bute  and  all  legacy-hunters.  He  gives 
her  ridiculous  airs,  pompous  phrases, 
a  transparent,  coarse,  and  blustering 
hypocrisy.  The  reader  feels  hatred  and 
disgust  for  her  the  more  she  speaks. 
He  would  unmask  her  ;  he  is  pleased  to 
see  her  assailed,  driven  into  a  corner, 
taken  in  by  the  polished  manoeuvres  of 
her  adversary,  and  rejoices  with  the 
author,  who  tears  from  her  and  empha- 
sizes the  shameful  confession  of  her 
tricks  and  her  greed. 

Having  arrived  so  far,  satirical  re- 
flection quits  the  literary  form.  In  or- 
der the  better  to  develop  itself,  it  ex- 
hibits itself  alone.  Thackery  now  at- 
tacks vice  himself,  and  in  his  own  name. 
No  author  is  more  fertile  in  disserta- 
tions ;  he  constantly  enters  his  story  to 
reprimand  or  instruct  us  ;  he  adds  the- 
oretical to  active  morality.  We  might 
glean  from  his  novels  one  or  two  vol- 
umes of  essays  in  the  manner  of  La 
Bruyere  or  of  Addison.  There  are 
essays  on  love,  on  vanity,  on  hypocrisy, 
on  meanness,  on  all  the  virtues,  all  the 
vices  ;  and  turning  over  a  few  pages, 
we  shall  find  one  on  the  comedies  of 
legacies,  and  on  too  attentive  rela- 
tives : 

"  What  a  dignity  it  gives  an  old  lady,  that 
balance  at  the  banker's  !  How  tenderly  we 
look  at  her  faults,  if  she  is  a  relative  (and  may 
every  reader  have  a  score  of  such),  what  a  kind, 
good-natured  old  creature  we  find  her!  How 
the  junior  partner  of  Hobbs  and  Dobbs  leads 
her  smiling  to  the  carriage  with  the  lozenge 
upon  it,  and  the  fat  wheezy  coachman  !  H  ow, 
when  she  comes  to  pay  us  a  visit,  we  generally 
find  an  opportunity  to  let  our  friends  know  her 
station  in  the  world  !  We  say  (and  with  per- 
fect truth)  I  wish  I  had  Miss  MacWhirter's 
signature  to  a  cheque  for  five  thousand  pounds. 
She  wouldn't  miss  it,  says  your  wife.  She  is 
my  aunt,  say  you,  in  an  easy  careless  way, 
when  your  friend  asks  if  Miss  MacWhirter  is 
any  relative  ?  Your  wife  is  perpetually  sending 
her  little  testimonies  of  affection  ;  your  little 
girls  work  endless  worsted  baskets,  cushions, 
and  foot-stools  for  her.  What  a  good  fire 
there  is  in  her  room  when  she  comes  to  pay  you 
a  visit,  although  your  wife  laces  her  stays  with- 


out one  !  The  house  during  her  stay  assumes 
a  festive,  neat,  warm,  jovial,  snuo:  appearance 
not  visible  at  other  seasons.  You  yourself, 


deat  sir,  forget  to  go  to  sleep  after  dinner,  and 
find  yourself  all  of  a  sudden  (though  you  in- 
variably lose)  very  fond  of  a  rubber.  What 
good  dinners  you  have  —  game  every  day,  Malm- 
sey-Madeira, ind  no  end  of  fish  from  London  ! 


Even  the  servants  in  the  kitchen  share  in  the 
general  prosperity  ;  and,  somehow,  during  the 
stay  oi  Miss  MacWhirter's  fat  coachman,  the 
beer  is  grown  much  stronger,  and  the  consump- 
tion of  tea  and  sugar  in  the  nursery  (where  her 
maid  takes  her  meals)  is  not  regarded  in  the 
least.  Is  it  so,  or  is  it  not  so  ?  I  appeal  to  the 
middle  classes.  Ah,  gracious  powers!  I  wish 
you  would  send  me  an  old  aunt — a  maiden  aunt 
— an  aunt  with  a  lozenge  on  her  carriage,  and 
a  front  of  light  coffee-coloured  hair — how  my 
children  should  work  workbags  for  her,  and  my 
Julia  and  I  would  make  her  comfortab'e! 
Sweet  —  sweet  vision  I  Foolish  —  fool.sb 
dream! "  * 

There  is  no  disguising  it.  The  read* 
er  most  resolved  not  to  be  warned,  is 
warned.  When  we  have  an  aunt  with 
a  good  sum  to  leave,  we  shall  value 
our  attentions  and  our  tenderness  at 
their  true  worth.  The  author  has  ta- 
ken the  place  of  our  conscience,  and 
the  novel,  transformed  by  reflection, 
becomes  a  school  of  manners. 

III. 

The  lash  is  laid  on  very  heavily  in 
this  school ;  it  is  the  English  taste. 
About  tastes  and  whips  there  is  no  dis- 
puting ;  but  without  disputing  we  may 
understand,  and  the  surest  means  of 
understanding  the  English  taste  is  to 
compare  it  with  the  French  taste. 

I  see  in  France,  in  a  drawing-room  of 
men  of  wit,or  in  an  artist's  studio,  a  score 
of  lively  people  :  they  must  be  amused, 
that  is  their  character.  You  may  speak 
to  them  of  human  wickedness,  but  on 
condition  of  diverting  them.  If  you 
get  angry,  they  will  be  shocked ;  if  you 
teach  a  lesson,  they  will  yawn.  Laugh, 
it  is  the  rule  here — not  cruelly,  or  from 
manifest  enmity,  but  in  good  humor  and 
in  lightness  of  spirit.  This  nimble  wit 
must  act;  the  discovery  of  a  clean 
piece  of  folly  is  a  fortunate  hap  for  it. 
As  a  light  flame,  it  glides  and  flickers 
in  sudden  outbreaks  on  the  mere  sur- 
face of  things.  Satisfy  it  by  imitating 
it,  and  to  please  gay  people  be  gay.  Be 
polite,  that  is  the  second  command- 
ment, very  like  the  other.  You  speak  to 
sociable,  delicate,  vain  men,  whom  you 
must  take  care  not  to  offend,  but  whom 
you  must  flatter.  You  would  wound 
them  by  trying  to  carry  conviction  by 
force,  by  dint  of  solid  arguments,  by  a 
display  of  eloquence  and  indignation. 
Do  them  the  honor  of  supposing  that 

*  Vanity  Fair,  ch.  ix. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NOVEL— THACKERAY. 


607 


they  understand  you  at  the  first  word, 
that  a  hinted  smile  is  to  them  as  good 
as  a  sound  syllogism,  that  a  fine  allu- 
sion caught  on  the  wing  reaches  them 
better  than  the  heavy  onset  of  a  du]l 
geometrical  satire.  Think,  lastly  (be- 
tween ourselves),  that,  in  politics  as  in 
religion,  they  have  been  for  a  thousand 
years  very  well  governed,over  governed; 
that  when  a  man  is  bored  he  desires  to 
be  so  no  more ;  that  a  coat  too  tight 
splits  at  the  elbows  and  elsewhere. 
They  are  critics  from  choice;  from 
choice  they  like  to  insinuate  forbidden 
things  ;  and  often,  by  abuse  of  logic, 
by  transport,  by  vivacity,  from  ill  hu- 
mor, they  strike  at  society  through 
government,  at  morality  through  re- 
ligion. They  are  scholars  who  have 
been  too  long  under  the  rod;  they 
break  the  windows  in  opening  the 
doors.  I  dare  not  tell  you  to  please 
them  :  I  simply  remark  that,  in  order 
to  please  them,  a  grain  of  seditious 
humor  will  do  no  harm. 

I  cross  seven  leagues  of  sea,  and 
here  I  am  in  a  great  unadorned  hall, 
with  a  multitude  of  benches,  with  gas 
burners,  swept,  orderly,  a  debating  club 
or  a  preaching  house.  There  are  five 
hundred  long  faces,  gloomy  and  sub- 
dued ;  *  and  at  the  first  glance  it  is 
clear  that  they  are  not  there  to  amuse 
themselves.  In  this  land  a  grosser 
mood,  overcharged  with  a  heavier  and 
stronger  nourishment,  has  deprived  im- 
pressions of  their  swift  nobility,  and 
thought,  less  facile  and  prompt,  has 
lost  its  vivacity  and  its  gayety.  If  we 
rail  before  them,  we  must  think  that  we 
are  speaking  to  attentive,  concentrated 
men,  capable  of  durable  and  profound 
sensations,  incapable  of  changeable  and 
sudden  emotion.  Those  immobile  and 
contracted  faces  will  preserve  the  same 
attitude  ;  they  resist  fleeting  and  half- 
formed  smiles  ;  they  cannot  unbend ; 
and  their  laughter  is  a  convulsion  as 
stiff  as  their  gravity.  Let  us  not  skim 
over  our  subject,  but  lay  stress  upon 
it ;  let  us  not  pass  over  it  lightly,  but 
impress  it ;  let  us  not  dally,  but  strike  ; 
be  assured  that  we  must  vehemently 
move  vehement  passions,  and  that 
shocks  are  needed  to  set  these  nerves 

*  Thackeray,  in  his  Book  of  Snobs,  says  : 
"Their  usual  English  expression  of  intense 
gloom  and  subdued  agony. 


in  motion.  Let  us  also  not  forget  that 
our  hearers  are  practical  minds,  lovers 
of  the  useful ;  that  they  come  here  to 
be  taught ;  that  we  owe  them  solid 
truths  ;  that  their  common  sense,  some- 
what contracted,  does  not  fall  in  with 
hazardous  extemporizations  or  doubtful 
hints ;  that  they  demand  worked  out 
refutations  and  complete  explanations ; 
and  that  if  they  have  paid  to  come  in, 
it  was  to  hear  advice  which  they  might 
apply,  and  satire  founded  on  proof. 
Their  mood  requires  strong  emotions  ; 
their  mind  asks  for  precise  demonstra- 
tions. To  satisfy  their  mood,  we  must 
not  merely  scratch,  but  torture  vice ;  to 
satisfy  their  mind  we  must  not  rail  in 
sallies,  but  by  arguments.  One  word 
more :  down  there,  in  the  midst  of  the 
assembly,  behold  that  gilded,  splendid 
book,  resting  royally  on  a  velvet  cush- 
ion. It  is  the  Bible ;  around  it  there 
are  fifty  moralists,  who  a  while  ago  met 
at  the  theatre  and  pelted  an  actor  off 
the  stage  with  apples,  who  was  guilty 
of  having  the  wife  of  a  citizen  for  his 
mistress.  If  with  our  finger-tip,  with 
all  the  compliments  and  disguises  jn 
the  world,  we  touch  a  single  sacred 
leaf,or  the  smallest  moral  conventional- 
ism, immediately  fifty  hands  will  fasten 
themselves  on  our  coat  collar  and  put 
us  out  at  the  door.  With  Englishmen 
we  must  be  English,  with  their  passion 
and  their  common  sense  adopt  their 
leading-strings.  Thus  confined  to  rec- 
ognize truths,  satire  will  become  more 
bitter,  and  will  add  the  weight  of  public 
belief  to  the  pressure  of  logic  and  the 
force  of  indignation. 

IV. 

No  writer  was  better  gifted  than 
Thackeray  for  this  kind  of  satire,  be- 
cause no  faculty  is  more  proper  to  satire 
than  reflection.  Reflection  is  concen- 
trated attention,  and  concentrated  at- 
tention increases  a  hundredfold  the 
force  and  duration  of  emotions.  He 
who  is  immersed  in  the  contemplation 
of  a  vice,  feels  a  hatred  of  vice,  and  the 
intensity  of  his  hatred  is  measured  by 
the  intensity  of  his  contemplation.  At 
first  anger  is  a  generous  wine,  which 
intoxicates  and  excites  ;  when  preserv- 
ed and  shut  up,  it  becomes  a  liquor 
burning  all  that  it  touches,  and  corrod- 


6o8 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


ing  even  the  vessel  which  contains  it. 
Of  all  satirists,  Thackeray,  after  Swift, 
is  the  most  gloomy.  Even  his  country- 
men have  reproached  him  with  depict- 
ing the  world  uglier  than  it  is.*  Indig- 
nation, grief,  scorn,  disgust,  are  his 
ordinary  sentiments.  When  he  di- 
gresses, and  imagines  tender  souls,  he 
exaggerates  their  sensibility,  in  order 
to  render  their  oppression  more  odious. 
The  selfishness  which  wounds  them 
appears  horrible,  and  their  resigned 
sweetness  is  a  mortal  insult  to  their 
tyrants  :  it  is  the  same  hatred  which 
has  calculated  the  kindliness  of  the 
victims  and  the  harshness  of  the  perse- 
cutors.f 

This  anger,  exasperated  by  reflection, 
is  also  armed  by  reflection.  It  is  clear 
that  the  author  is  not  carried  away 
by  passing  indignation  or  pity.  He 
has  mastered  himself  before  speaking. 
He  has  often  weighed  the  rascality 
which  he  is  about  to  describe.  He  is 
in  possession  of  the  motives,  species, 
results,  as  a  naturalist  is  of  his  classifi- 
cations. He  is  sure  of  his  judgment, 
and  has  matured  it.  He  punishes  like 
a  man  convinced,  who  has  before  him 
a  heap  of  proofs,  who  advances  noth- 
ing without  a  document  or  an  argu- 
ment, who  has  foreseen  all  objections 
and  refuted  all  excuses,  who  will  never 
pardon,  who  is  right  in  being  inflexible, 
who  is  conscious  of  his  justice,  and  who 
rests  his  sentence  and  his  vengeance 
on  all  the  powers  of  meditation  and 
equity.  The  effect  of  this  justified  and 
contained  hatred  is  overwhelming. 
When  we  have  read  to  the  end  of  Bal- 
zac's novels,  we  feel  the  pleasure  of  a 
naturalist  walking  through  a  museum, 
past  a  fine  collection  of  specimens  and 
monstrosities.  When  we  have  read  to 
the  end  of  Thackeray,  we  feel  the  shud- 
der of  a  stranger  brought  before  a  mat- 
tress in  the  operating-room  of  an  hos- 
pital, on  the  day  when  cautery  is  ap- 
plied or  a  limb  is  taken  off. 

In  such  a  case  the  most  natural 
weapon  is  serious  irony,  because  it 
bears  witness  to  concentrated  hatred : 
he  who  employs  it  suppresses  his  first 
feeling ;  he  feigns  to  be  speaking 

*  The  Edinburgh  Review. 

t  See  the  character  of  Amelia  in  Vanity 
Fair,  and  of  Colonel  Newcome  in  the  Neiu~ 
cotttes. 


against  himself,  and  constrains  himself 
to  take  the  part  of  his  adversary.  On 
the  other  hand,  this  painful  and  volun 
tary  attitude  is  the  sign  of  excessive 
scorn  ;  the  protection  which  apparently 
is  afforded  to  an  enemy  is  the  worst  of 
insults.  The  author  seems  to  say  :  "  I 
am  ashamed  to  attack  you  ;  you  are  so 
weak  that,  even  supported,  you  mus* 
fall ;  your  reasonings  are  your  shame, 
and  your  excuses  are  your  condemna- 
tion." Thus  the  more  serious  the  irony, 
the  stronger  it  is  ;  the  more  you  take 
care  to  defend  your  adversary,  the  more 
you  degrade  him  ;  the  more  you  seem  to 
aid  him,  the  more  you  crush  him.  This 
is  why  Swift's  grave  sarcasm  is  so 
terrible  ;  we  think  he  is  showing  re- 
spect, and  he  slays  ;  his  approbation  is 
aflagellation.  Amongst  Swift's  pupils, 
Thackeray  is  the  first.  Several  chap- 
ters in  the  Book  of  Snobs — that,  for  in- 
stance, on  literary  snobs — are  worthy 
of  Gulliver.  The  author  has  been  pass- 
ing in  review  all  the  snobs  of  England  ; 
what  will  he  say  of  his  colleagues,  the 
literary  snobs  ?  Will  he  dare  to  speak 
of  them  ?  Certainly  : 

"  My  dear  and  excellent  querist,  whom  does 
the  Schoolmaster  flog  so  resolutely  as  his  own 
son  ?  Didn't  Brutus  chop  his  offspring's  head 
off  ?  You  have  a  very  bad  opinion  indeed  of 
the  present  state  of  Literature  and  of  literary 
men,  if  you  fancy  that  any  one  of  us  would 
hesitate  to  stick  a  knife  into  his  neighbour  pen- 
man, if  the  latter's  death  could  do  the  State 
any  service. 

But  the  fact  is,  that  in  the  literary  profes- 
sion there  are  no  Snobs.  Look  round  at  the 
whole  body  of  British  men  of  letters,  and  I 
defy  you  to  point  out  among  them  a  single  in- 
stance of  vulgarity,  or  envy,  or  assumption. 

"  Men  and  women,  as  far  as  I  have  known 
them,  they  are  all  modest  in  their  demeanour, 
elegant  in  their  manners,  spotless  in  their  lives, 
and  honourable  in  tl>eir  conduct  to  the  world  and 
to  each  other.  You  may  occasionally,  it  is  true, 
hear  one  literary  man  abusing  his  brother  ;  but 
why  ?  Not  in  the  least  out  of  malice  ;  not  at 
all  from  envy  ;  merely  from  a  sense  of  trut?l 
and  public  duty.  Suppose,  for  instance,  I  good-- 
naturedly point  out  a  blemish  in  my  friend  Mr* 
Punch's  person,  and  say  Mr.  P.  has  a  hump- 
back, and  his  nose  and  chin  are  more  crooked 
than  those  features  in  the  Apollo  or  Antinous, 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  consider  as  our 
standards  of  beauty  ;  does  this  argue  malice 
on  my  part  towards  Mr.  .Punch  ?  Not  in  the 
least.  It  is  the  critic's  duty  to  point  out  defects 
as  well  as  merits,  and  he  invariably  does  his 
duty  with  the  utmost  gentleness  and  can- 
dour. .  .  . 

"  That  sense  of  equality  and  fraternity 
amongst  Authors  has  always  struck  me  as  one  of 
the  most  amiable  characteristics  of  the  class.  It 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


is  because  we  know  and  respect  each  other, 
that  the  world  respects  us  so  much  ;  that  we 
hold  such  a  good  position  in  society,  and  de- 
mean ourselves  so  irreproachably  when  there. 

"  Literary  persons  are  held  in  such  esteem 
by  the  nation,  that  about  two  of  them  have 
been  absolutely  invited  to  Court  during  the 
present  reign  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  towards 
the  end  of  the  season,  one  or  two  will  be  asked 
to  dinner  by  Sir  Robert  Peel. 

"They  are  such  favourites  with  the  public, 
that  they  are  continually  obliged  to  have  their 
pictures  taken  and  published  ;  and  one  or  two 
could  be  pointed  out,  of  whom  the  nation  in- 
sists upon  having  a  fresh  portrait  every  year. 
Nothing  can  be  more  gratifying  than  this  proof 
of  the  affectionate  regard  which  the  people  has 
for  its  instructors. 

"  Literature  is  held  in  such  honour  in  Eng- 
land, that  there  is  a  sum  of  near  twelve  hun- 
dred pounds  per  annum  set  apart  to  pension 
deserving  persons  following  that  profession. 
And  a  great  compliment  this  is,  too,  to  the  pro- 
fessors, and  a  proof  of  their  generally  prosperous 
and  flourishing  condition.  They  are  generally 
so  rich  and  thrifty,  that  scarcely  any  money  is 
wanted  to  help  them."  * 

We  are  tempted  to  make  a  mistake  ; 
and  to  comprehend  this  passage,  we 
must  remember  that,  in  an  aristocrati- 
cal  and  monarchical  society,  amidst 
money-worship  and  adoration  of  rank, 
poor  and  low-born  talent  is  treated  as 
its  low-birth  and  poverty  deserve  !  t 
What  makes  these  ironies  yet  stronger, 
is  their  length;  some  are  prolonged 
during  a  whole  tale,  like  the  Fatal 
Boots.  A  Frenchman  could  not  keep 
up  a  sarcasm  so  long.  It  would  escape 
right  or  left  through  various  emotions  ; 
it  would  change  countenance,  and  not 
preserve  so  fixed  an  attitude  —  the 
mark  of  such  a  decided  animosity,  so 
calculated  and  bitter.  There  are 
characters  which  Thackeray  develops 
through  three  volumes — Blanche  Am- 
ory,  Rebecca  Sharp  —  and  of  whom 
he  never  speaks  but  with  insult  ;  both 
are  base,  and  he  never  introduces 
them  without  plying  them  with  tender- 
nesses ;  dear  Rebecca  !  tender  Blanche ! 
The  tender  Blanche  is  a  sentimental 
and  literary  young  creature,  obliged  to 
live  with  her  parents,  who  do  not  un- 
derstand her.  She  suffers  so  much, 
that  she  ridicules  them  aloud  before 
everybody  ;  she  is  so  oppressed  by  the 
folly  of  her  mother  and  father-in-law, 
that  she  never  omits  an  opportunity  of 

*  The  Book  of  Snobs,  ch.  xvi.  ;  on  Literary 
Snobs . 

t  Stendhal  says  :  "  L'esprit  et  le  ge*nie  per- 
dent  vingt-cinq  pour  cent  de  leur  valeur  en 
abordant  en  Angleterre." 


609 


making  them  feel  their  folly.  In  good 
conscience,  could  she  do  otherwise  i 
Would  it  not  be  on  her  part  a  lack  of 
sincerity  to  affect  a  gayety  which  she 
has  not,  or  a  respect  which  she  can 
not  feel  ?  We  understand  that  the 
poor  child  is  in  need  of  sympathy. 
When  she  gave  up  her  dolls,  this  lov- 
ing heart  became  first  enamoured  of 
Trenmor,  a  high-souled  convict,  the 
fiery  Stenio,  Prince  Djalma,  and  other 
heroes  of  French  novels.  Alas,  the 
imaginary  world  is  not  sufficient  for 
wounded  souls,  and  to  satisfy  the  crav- 
ing for  the  ideal,  for  satiety,  the  heart 
at  last  gives  itself  up  to  beings  of  this 
world.  At  eleven  years  of  age  Miss 
Blanche  felt  tender  emotions  towards 
a  young  Savoyard,  an  organ-grinder  at 
Paris,  whom  she  persisted  in  believing 
to  be  a  prince  carried  off  from  his  pa- 
rents ;  at  twelve  an  old  and  hideous 
drawing  master  had  agitated  her  your.£ 
heart ;  at  Madame  de  Carmel's  board- 
ing-school a  correspondence  by  letter 
took  place  with  two  young  gentlemen 
of  the  College  Charlemagne.  Dear 
forlorn  girl,  her  delicate  feet  are  al- 
ready wounded  by  the  briars  in  her 
path  of  life ;  every  day  her  illusions 
shed  their  leaves;  in  vain  she  puts 
them  down  in  verse,  in  a  little  book 
bound  in  blue  velvet,  with  a  clasp  of 
gold,  entitled  Mes  Larmes.  In  this 
isolation,  what  is  she  to  do  ?  She 
grows  enthusiastic  over  the  young  la- 
dies whom  she  meets,  feels  a  magnetic 
attraction  at  sight  of  them,  becomes 
their  sister,  except  that  she  casts  them 
aside  to-morrow  like  an  old  dress :  we 
cannot  command  our  feelings,  and 
nothing  is  more  beautiful  than  the 
natural.  Moreover,  as  the  amiable 
child  has  much  taste,  a  lively  imagina- 
tion, a  poetic  inclination  for  change, 
she  keeps  her  maid  Pincott  at  work 
day  and  night.  Like  a  delicate  person, 
a  genuine  dilettante  and  lover  of  the 
beautiful,  she  scolds  her  for  her  heavy 
eyes  and  her  pale  face  : 

"  Our  muse,  with  the  candour  which  distin- 
guished her,  never  failed  to  remind  her  attend- 
ant of  the  real  state  of  matters.  '  I  should  send 
you  away,  Pincott,  for  you  are  a  great  deal  too 
weak,  and  your  eyes  are  tailing  you,  and  you  are 
always  crying  and  snivelling,  and  wanting  the 
doctor ;  but  I  wish  that  your  parents  at  home 
should  be  supported,  and  1  go  on  enduring  for 
their  sake,  mind,'  the  dear  Blanche  would  say 
to  her  timid  little  attendant.  Or,  *  Piucott, 
26* 


6io 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


your  wretched  appearance  and  slavish  manner, 
and  red  eyes,  positively  give  me  the  migraine  ; 
and  I  think  I  shall  make  you  wear  rouge,  so 
that  you  may  look  a  little  cheerful  ; '  or,  '  Pin- 
cott,  I  can't  bear,  even  for  the  sake  of  your 
starving  parents,  that  you  should  tear  my  hair 
out  of  my  head  in  that  manner  ;  and  I  will 
thank  you  to  write  to  them  and  say  that  I  dis- 
pense with  your  services.'  "  * 

This  fool  of  a  Pincott  does  not  appre- 
ciate her  good  fortune.  Can  one  be 
sad  in  serving  such  a  superior  being  as 
Miss  Blanche  ?  How  delightful  to 
furnish  her  with  subjects  for  her  style  ! 
for,  to  confess  the  truth,  Miss  Blanche 
has  not  disdained  to  write  "some 
very  pretty  verses  about  the  lonely 
little  tiring-maid,  whose  heart  was  far 
away,"  "  sad  exile  in  a  foreign  land." 
Alas  !  the  slightest  event  suffices  to 
wound  this  too  sensitive  heart.  At 
the  least  "emotion  her  tears  flow,  her 
feelings  are  shaken,  like  a  delicate  but- 
terfly, crushed  as  soon  as  touched. 
There  she  goes,  aerial,  her  eyes  fixed 
on  heaven,  a  faint  smile  lingering  round 
her  rosy  lips,  a  touching  sylphide,  so 
consoling  to  all  who  surround  her,  that 
every  one  wishes  her  at  the  bottom  of 
a  well. 

One  step  added  to  serious  irony 
leads  us  to  serious  caricature.  Here, 
as  before,  the  author  pleads  the  rights 
of  his  neighbor ;  the  only  difference  is, 
that  he  pleads  them  with  too  much 
warmth  ;  it  is  insult  upon  insult.  Un- 
der this  head  it  abounds  in  Thackeray. 
Some  of  his  grotesques  are  outrage- 
ous: for  instance,  M.  Alcide  de  Miro- 
bolant,  a  French  cook,  an  artist  in 
sauces,  who  declares  his  passion  to 
Miss  Blanche  through  the  medium  of 
symbolic  dishes,  and  thinks  himself  a 
gentleman ;  Mrs.  Major  O'Dowd,  a 
sort  of  female  grenadier,  the  most 
pompous  and  talkative  of  Irishwomen, 
bent  on  ruling  the  regiment,  and  marry- 
ing the  bachelors  will  they  nill  they ; 
Miss  Briggs,  an  old  companion  born  to 
receive  insults,  to  make  phrases  and  to 
shed  tears  ;  the  Doctor,  who  proves  to 
his  scholars  who  write  bad  Greek, 
that  habitual  idleness  and  bad  con- 
struing lead  to  the  gallows.  These 
calculated  deformities  only  excite  a 
sad  smile.  We  always  perceive  be- 
hind the  oddity  of  the  character  the 

*  These  remarks  are  only  to  be  found  in  the 
octavo  edition  of  Pendennis. — TR. 


sardonic  air  of  fhe  painter,  and  we 
conclude  that  the  human  race  is  base 
and  stupid.  Other  figures  less  exag- 
gerated, are  not  more  natural.  We 
see  that  the  author  throws  them  ex- 
pressly into  palpable  follies  and  mark- 
ed contradictions.  Such  is  Miss  Craw- 
ley,  an  old  maid,  without  any  morals, 
and  a  free-thinker,  who  praises  un- 
equal marriages,  and  falls  into  a  fit 
when  on  the  next  page  her  nephew 
makes  one  ;  who  calls  Rebecca  Sharp 
her  equal,  and  at  the  same  time  bids 
her  "  put  some  coals  on  the  fire : " 
who,  on  learning  the  departure  of  her 
favorite,  cries  with  despair,  "  Gracious 
goodness,  and  who's  to  make  my  choc- 
olate ? "  These  are  comedy  scenes, 
and  not  pictures  of  manners.  There 
are  twenty  such.  You  see  an  excellent 
aunt,  Mrs.  Hoggarty,  of  Castle  Hog- 
garty,  settling  down  in  the  house  of 
her  nephew  Titmarsh,  throw  him  into 
vast  expenses,  persecute  his  wife, 
drive  away  his  friends,  make  his  mar- 
riage unhappy.  The  poor  ruined  fel- 
low is  thrown  into  prison.  She  de- 
nounces him  to  the  creditors  with  gen- 
uine indignation,  and  reproaches  him 
with  perfect  sincerity.  The  wretch  has 
been  his  aunt's  executioner ;  she  has 
been  dragged  by  him  from  her  home, 
tyrannized  over  by  him,  robbed  by  him, 
outraged  by  his  wife.  She  writes : 

"  Such  waist  and  extravygance  never,  never, 

never  did  I   see.     Butter  waisted  as  if  it  had 

been  dirt,  coles  flung  away,  candles  burned  at 

both  ends ;  .  .  .  and  now  you  have  the  audas- 

aty,  being  placed   in   prison   justly  for  your 

rimes,  for  cheating  me  of   ^3000.  .  .    .   You 

ome  upon  me  to  pay  your  detts !     No,  sir,  it 

s  quite  enough  that  your  mother  should  go  on 

he  parish,  and  that  your  wife  should  sweep  the 

treets,    to  which    you   have   indeed    brought 

hem  ;  /,  at  least  .  .  .  have  some  of  the  com- 

orts  to  which  my  rank  entitles  me.    The  furni- 

ur  in  this  house  is  mine  ;  and  as   I  presume 

ou  intend  your  lady  to  sleep  in  the  streets,  I 

ive  you  warning  that  I  shall  remove  it  all  to- 

lorrow.    Mr.  Smithers  will  tell  you  that  I  had 

itended  to  leave  you  my  intire  fortune.  I  have 

his  morning,  in  his  presents,  solamly  toar  up 

my  will,  and  hereby  renounce  all  connection 

with  you  and  your  beggarly  family.     /*.  S. — I 

ook  a  viper  into   my  bosom,   and  it  stun% 

ne"  * 

This  just  and  compassionate  woman 
finds  'her  match,  a  pious  man,  John 
Brough,  Enquire,  M.P.,  director  of  the 
Independent  West  Diddlesex  Fire  and 
*  The  History  of  Samuel  Titmarsh  and  tht 
Great  Hoggarty  Diamond^  ch.  xi. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


Life  Insurance  Company.  This  vir- 
tuous Christian  has  sniffed  from  afar 
the  cheering  odor  of  her  lands,  houses, 
stocks,  and  other  landed  and  personal 
property,  tie  pounces  upon  the  fine 
property  of  Mrs.  Hoggarty,  is  sorry  to 
see  that  it  only  brings  that  lady  four 
per  cent.,  and  resolves  to  double  her 
income.  He  calls  upon  her  at  her 
lodgings  when  her  face  was  shockingly 
swelled  and  bitten  by  —  never  mind 
what : 

"  '  Gracious  heavens  !  *  shouted  John  Brough, 
Esquire,  *  a  lady  of  your  rank  to  suffer  in  this 
way! — the  excellent  relative  of  my  dear  boy, 
Titmnrsh  !  Never,  madam — never  let  it  be  said 
that  Mrs.  Hoggarty  of  Castle  Hoggarty  should 
be  subject  to  such  horrible  humiliation,  while 
John  Brough  has  a  home  to  offer  her — a  hum- 
ble, happy  Christian  home,  madam,  though  un- 
like, perhaps,  the  splendour  to  which  you  have 
been  accustomed  in  the  course  of  your  distin- 
guished career.  Isabella,  my  love  ! — Belinda  ! 
speak  to  Mrs.  Hoggarty.  Tell  her  that  John 
Brough's  house  is  hers  from  garret  to  cellar.  I 
repeat  it,  madam,  from  garret  to  cellar.  I  de- 
sire— I  insist— I  order,  that  Mrs.  Hoggarty  of 
Castle  Hoggarty's  trunks  should  be  placed  this 
instant  in  my  carriage  !  '  "  * 

This  style  raises  a  laugh,  if  you  will, 
but  a  sad  laugh.  We  have  just  learned 
that  man  is  a  hypocrite,  unjust,  tyran- 
nical, blind.  In  our  vexation  we  turn 
to  the  author,  and  we  see  on  his  lips 
only  sarcasms,  on  his  brow  only  cha- 
grin. 

V. 

Let  us  look  carefully  ;  perhaps  in 
Jess  grave  matters  we  shall  find  sub- 
ject of  genuine  laughter.  Let  us  con- 
sider, not  a  rascality,  but  a  misadven- 
ture ;  rascality  revolts,  a  misadventure 
might  amuse.  But  amusement  alone 
is  not  here;  even  in  a  diversion  the 
satire  retains  its  force,  because  re- 
flection retains  its  intensity.  There  is 
in  English  fun  a  seriousness,  an  effort, 
an  application  that  is  marvellous,  and 
their  comicalities  are  composed  with 
as  much  klowledge  as  their  sermons. 
The  powerful  attention  decomposes 
its  object  in  all  its  parts,  and  repro- 
duces it  with  illusive  detail  and  relief. 
Swift  describes  the  land  of  speaking 
horses,  the  politics  of  Lilliput,  the  in- 
ventors of  the  Flying  Island,  with  de- 
tails as  precise  and  harmonious  as  an 
experienced  traveller,  an  exact  in- 

*The  History  of  Samuel  Titmarsh  and  the 
Great  Hoggarty  Diamond^  ch.  ix. 


quirer  into  manners  and  countries 
Thus  supported,  the  impossible  mon- 
ster and  the  literary  grotesque  enter 
upon  actual  existence,  and  the  phan- 
toms of  imagination  take  the  consist- 
ency of  objects  which  we  touch. 
Thackeray  introduces  this  impertur- 
bable gravity,  this  solid  conception, 
this  talent  for  illusion,  into  his  farce. 
Let  us  study  one  of  his  moral  essays ; 
he  wishes  to  prove  that  in  the  world 
we  must  conform  to  received  customs, 
and  he  transforms  this  commonplace 
into  an  Oriental  anecdote.  Let  us 
count  up  the  details  of  manners,  geog- 
raphy, chronology,  cookery,  the  math- 
ematical designation  of  every  object, 
person,  and  gesture,  the  lucidity  of  im- 
agination, the  profusion  of  local  truths  ; 
we  will  then  understand  why  his  rail- 
lery produces  so  original  and  biting  an 
impression,  and  we  will  find  here  the 
same  degree  of  study  and  the  same 
attentive  energy  as  in  the  foregoing 
ironies  and  exaggerations :  his  humor 
is  as  reflective  as  his  hatred  ;  he  has 
changed  his  attitude,  not  his  faculty : 

"  I  am  naturally  averse  to  egotism,  and  hate 
self-laudation  consumedly  ;  but  I  can't  help  re- 
lating here  a  circumstance  illustrative  of  the 
point  in  question,  in  which  I  must  think  I  acted 
with  considerable  prudence. 

"  Being  at  Constantinople  a  few  years  since 
— (on  a  delicate  mission) — the  Russians  were 
playing  a  double  game,  between  ourselves,  and 
it  became  necessary  on  our  part  to  employ  an 
extra  negotiator — Leckerbiss  Pasha  of  Rou- 
melia,  then  Chief  Galeongee  of  the  Porte,  gave 
a  diplomatic  banquet  at  his  summer  palace  at 
Bujukdere.  I  was  on  the  left  of  the  Galeongee; 
and  the  Russian  agent  Count  de  Diddloff  on 
his  dexter  side.  Diddloff  is  a  dandy  who  would 
die  of  a  rose  in  aromatic  pain  :  he  had  tried  to 
have  me  assassinated  three  times  in  the  course 
of  the  negotiation  :  but  of  course  we  were 
friends  in  public,  and  saluted  each  other  in  the 
most  cordial  and  charming  manner. 

"  The  Galeongee  is — or  was,  alas !  for  a  bow- 
string has  done  for  him — a  staunch  supporter  of 
the  old  school  of  Turkish  politics.  We  dined 
with  our  fingers,  and  had  flaps  of  bread  for 
plates  ;  the  only  innovation  he  admitted  was 
the  use  of  European  liquors,  in  which  he  in- 
dulged with  great  gusto.  He  was  an  enor- 
mous eater.  Amongst  the  dishes  a  very  largo 
one  was  placed  before  him  of  a  lamb  dressed  iti 
its  wool,  stuffed  with  prunes,  garlic,  assafcetida, 
capsicums,  and  other  condiments,  the  most 
abominable  mixture  that  ever  mortal  smelt  or 
tasted.  The  Galeongee  ate  of  this  hugely  ; 
and,  pursuing  the  Eastern  fashion,  insisted  on 
helping  his  friends  right  and  left,  and  when  he 
came  to  a  particularly  spicy  morsel,  would  push 
it  with  his  own  hands  into  his  guests'  very 
mouths. 


612 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


"  I  never  shall  forget  the  look  of  poor  Didd- 
loff,  when  his  Excellency,  rolling  up  a  large 
quantity  of  this  into  a  ball,  and  exclaiming, 
'  Buk,  Buk  '  (it  is  very  good),  administered 
the  horrible  bolus  to  Diddloff.  The  Russian's 
eyes  rolled  dreadfully  as  he  received  it:  he 
swallowed  it  with  a  grimace  that  I  thought  must 
precede  a  convulsion,  and  seizing  a  bottle  next 
him,  which  he  thought  was  Sauterne,  but  which 
turned  out  to  be  French  brandy,  he  drank  off 
nearly  a  pint  before  he  knew  his  error.  It 
finished  him  ;  he  was  carried  away  from  the 
dining-room  almost  dead,  and  laid  out  to  cool 
Ln  a  summer-house  on  the  Bosphorus. 

"  When  it  came  to  my  turn,  I  took  down  the 
condiment  with  a  smile,  said  '  Bismillah,' 
licked  my  lips  with  easy  gratification,  and  when 
the  next  dish  was  served,  made  up  a  ball  my- 
self so  dexterously,  and  popped  it  down  the  old 
Galeongee's  m  mth  with  so  much  grace,  that 
his  heart  was  won.  Russia  was  put  out  of 
Court  at  once,  and  the  treaty  of  Kabobanople 
was  signed.  As  for  Diddloff,  all  was  over  with 
him,  he  was  recalled  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  Sir 
Roderick  Murchison  saw  him,  under  the  No, 
3967,  working  in  the  Ural  mines."  * 

The  anecdote  is  evidently  authentic ; 
and  when  De  Foe  related  the  apparition 
of  Mrs.  Veal,  he  did  not  better  imitate 
the  style  of  an  authenticated  account. 

VI. 

Such  attentive  reflection  is  a  source 
of  sadness.  To  amuse  ourselves  with 
human  passions,  we  must  consider 
them  as  inquisitive  men,  like  shifting 
puppets,  or  as  learned  men,  like  regu- 
lated wheels,  or  as  artists,  like  power- 
ful springs.  If  we  only  consider  them 
as  virtuous  or  vicious,  our  lost  illusions 
will  enchain  us  in  gloomy  thoughts, 
and  we  will  find  in  man  only  weakness 
and  ugliness.  This  is  why  Thackeray 
depreciates  our  whole  nature.  He 
does  as  a  novelist  what  Hobbes  does 
as  a  philosopher.  Almost  everywhere, 
when  he  describes  fine  sentiments,  he 
derives  them  from  an  ugly  source. 
Tenderness,  kindness,  love,  are  in  his 
characters  the  effect  of  the  nerves,  of 
instinct,  or  of  a  moral  disease.  Amelia 
Sedley,  his  favorite,  and  one  of  his 
masterpieces,  is  a  poor  little  woman, 
snivelling,  incapable  of  reflection  and 
decision,  blind,  a  superstitious  adorer 
of  a  coarse  and  selfish  husband,  always 
sacrificed  by  her  own  will  and  fault, 
whose  love  is  made  up  of  folly  and 
weakness,  often  unjust,  accustomed  to 
see  falsely,  and  more  worthy  of  com- 
passion than  respect.  Lady  Castle- 

*  The  nook  of  Snobs >  ch.  i.  ;  The  Snob  play- 
fully deai '.  with* 


wood,  so  good  and  tender,  is  enamored, 
like  Amelia,  of  a  drunken  and  imbecile 
boor  ;  and  her  wild  jealousy,  exasper- 
ated  on  the  slightest  suspicion,  implac- 
able against  her  husband,  giving  utter- 
ance violently  to  cruel  words,  shows 
that  her  love  springs  not  from  virtue 
but  from  mood.  Helen  Pendennis,  a 
model  mother,  is  a  somewhat  silly 
country  prude,  of  narrow  education, 
jealous  also,  and  having  in  her  jealousy 
all  the  harshness  of  Puritanism  and 
passion.  She  faints  on  learning  that 
her  son  has  a  mistress  :  it  is  "  such  a 
sin,  such  a  dreadful  sin.  I  can't  bear 
to  think  that  my  boy  should  commit 
such  a  crime.  I  wish  he  had  died, 
almost,  before  he  had  done  it."  * 
Whenever  she  is  spoken  to  of  little 
Fanny,  "  the  widow's  countenance,  al- 
ways soft  and  gentle,  assumed  a  cruel 
and  inexorable  expression."  t  Meeting 
Fanny  at  the  bedside  of  the  sick  young 
man,  she  drives  her  away,  as  if  she 
were  a  prostitute  and  a  servant.  Ma- 
ternal love,  in  her  as  in  the  others,  is 
an  incurable  blindness  :  her  son  is  her 
idol  ;  in  her  adoration  she  finds  the 
means  of  making  his  lot  unbearable, 
and  himself  unhappy.  As  to  the  love 
of  the  men  for  the  women,  if  we  judge 
from  the  pictures  of  the  author,  we  can 
but  feel  pity  for  it,  and  look  on  it  as 
ridiculous.  At  a  certain  age,  according 
tq  Thackeray,  nature  speaks  :  we  meet 
Somebody  ;  a  fool  or  not,  good  or  bad, 
we  adore  her ;  it  is  a  fever.  At  the  age 
of  six  months  dogs  have  their  disease  ; 
man  has  his  at  twenty.  If  a  man  loves, 
it  is  not  because  the  lady  is  lovable, 
but  because  it  is  his  nature  so  to  do. 
"  Do  you  suppose  you  would  drink  if 
you  were  not  thirsty,  or  eat  if  you  were 
not  hungry  ?  "  J 

He  relates  the  history  of  this  hunger 
and  thirst  with  a  bitter  vigor.  He 
seems  like  an  intoxicated  man  grown 
sober,  railing  at  drunkenness.  He  ex- 
plains at  length,  in  a  half  sarcastic  tone, 
the  follies  which  Major  Dobbin  com- 
mits for  the  sake  of  Amelia  ;  how  the 
Major  buys  bad  wines  from  her  father  ; 
how  he  tells  the  postillions  to  make 
haste,  how  he  rouses  the  servants,  per- 
secutes his  friends,  to  see  Amelia  more 
quickly ;  how,  after  ten  years  of  sacri« 


*  Pendennis,  ch.  liv. 
t  Ibid.  ch.  ii. 


t  Ibid.  ch.  liii. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


fke,  tenderness,  and  service,  he  sees 
that  he  is  held  second  to  an  old  portrait 
of  a  faithless,  coarse,  selfish,  and  dead 
husband.  The  saddest  of  these  ac- 
counts is  that  of  the  first  love  of  Pen- 
dennis — Miss  Fotheringay,  the  actress, 
whom  he  loves,  a  matter-of-faot  person, 
a  good  housekeeper,  who  has  the  mind 
and  education  of  a  kitchen-maid.  She 
speaks  to  the  young  man  of  the  fine 
weather,  and  the  pie  she  has  just  been 
making  :  Pendennis  discovers  in  these 
two  phrases  a  wonderful  depth  of  in- 
tellect and  a  superhuman  majesty  of 
devotion.  He  asks  Miss  Fotheringay, 
who  has  just  been  playing  Ophelia,  if 
the  latter  loved  Hamlet.  Miss  Fother- 
ingay answers : 

"  4  In  love  with  such  a  little  ojous  wretch  as 
that  stunted  manager  of  a  Bingley?'  She 
bristled  with  indignation  at  the  thought.  Pen 
explained  it  was  not  of  her  he  spoke,  but  of 
Ophelia  of  the  play.  '  Oh,  indeed  ;  if  no  of- 
fence was  meant,  none  was  taken :  but  as  for 
Bingley,  indeed,  she  did  not  value  him — not 
that  glass  of  punch.'  Pen  next  tried  her  on 
Kotzebue.  '  Kotzebue  ?  who  was  he  ?  '  '  The 
author  of  the  play  in  which  she  had  been  per- 
forming so  admirably.'  '  She  did  not  know 
that — the  man's  name  at  the  beginning  of  the 
book  was  Thompson,'  she  said.  Pen  laughed' 
at  her  adorable  simplicity." 

"  '  How  beautiful  she  is,'  thought  Pen,  can- 
tering homewards.  '  Pendennis,  Pendennis— 
how  she  spoke  the  word  !  Emily,  Emily  !  how 
good,  how  noble,  how  beautiful,  how  perfect 
she  is! '"  * 

The  first  volume  runs  wholly  upon  this 
contrast ;  it  seems  as  though  Thackeray 
says  to  his  reader :  "  My  dear  brothers 
in  humanity,  we  are  rascals  forty-nine 
days  in  fifty ;  in  the  fiftieth,  if  we  escape 
pride,  vanity,  wickedness,  selfishness, 
it  is  because  we  fall  into  a  hot  fever  : 
our  folly  causes  our  devotion." 

VII. 

Yet,  short  of  being  Swift,  a  man 
must  love  something  ;  he  cannot  always 
be  wounding  and  destroying ;  and  the 
heaf  1,  wearied  of  scorn  and  hate,  needs 
repose  in  praise  and  tenderness.  More- 
over, to  blame  a  fault  is  to  laud  the 
contrary  quality ;  and  a  man  cannot 
sacrifice  a  victim  without  raising  an 
altar :  it  is  circumstance  which  fixes 
on  the  one,  and  which  builds  up  the 
other;  and  the  moralist  who  combats 
the  dominant  vice  of  his  country  and  his 
age,  preaches  the  virtue  contrary  to  the 
*  Pendennis)  ch.  v. 


6i3 


vice  of  his  age  and  his  country  In  an 
aristocratical  and  commercial  society, 
this  vice  is  selfishness  and  pride! 
Thackeray  therefore  extols  sweetness 
and  tenderness.  Let  love  and  kindness 
be  blind,  instinctive,  unreasoning, 
ridiculous,  it  matters  little  :  such  as 
they  are,  he  adores  them  ;  and  there  is 
no  more  singular  contrast  than  that  of 
his  heroes  and  of  his  admiration.  He 
creates  foolish  women,  and  kneels  be- 
fore them ;  the  artist  within  him  con- 
tradicts the  commentator:  the  firsi' 
is  ironical,  the  second  laudatory ;  the 
first  represents  the  pettiness  of  love, 
the  second  writes  its  panegyric;  the 
top  of  the  page  is  a  satire  in  action,  the 
bottom  is  a  dithyramb  in  periods.  The 
compliments  which  he  lavishes  on 
Amelia  Sedley,  Helen  Pendennis, 
Laura,  are  infinite ;  no  author  ever 
more  visibly  and  incessantly  paid  court 
to  his  female  creations ;  he  sacrifices 
his  male  creations  to  them,  not  once, 
but  a  hundred  times  : 

"  Very  likely  female  pelicans  like  so  to  bleed 
under  the  selfish  little  beaks  of  their  young 
ones:  it  is  certain  that  women  do.  There  must 
be  some  sort  of  pleasure  which  we  men  don't 
understand,  which  accompanies  the  pain  of 
being  sacrificed.*  .  .  .  Do  not  let  us  men  de- 
spise these  instincts  because  we  cannot  feel 
them.  These  women  were  made  for  our  com- 
fort and  delectation,  gentlemen, — with  all  the 
rest  of  the  minor  animals.  1"  .  .  .  Be  it  for  a 
reckless  husband,  a  dissipated  son,  a  darling 
scapegrace  of  a  brother,  how  ready  their  hearts 
are  to  pour  out  their  best  treasures  for  the 
benefit  of  the  cherished  person  ;  and  what  a 
deal  of  this  sort  of  enjoyment  are  we,  on  our 
side,  ready  to  give  the  soft  creatures !  There 
is  scarce  a  man  that  reads  this,  but  has  admin- 
istered pleasure  in  that  fashion  to  his  woman- 
kind, and  has  treated  them  to  the  luxury  of  for- 
giving him."  t 

When  he  enters  the  room  of  a  good 
mother,  or  of  a  young  honest  girl,  he 
casts  down  his  eyes  as  on  the  threshold 
of  a  sanctuary.  In  the  presence  of 
Laura  resigned,  pious,  he  checks  him- 
self : 

"  And  as  that  duty  was  performed  quite 
noiselessly— while  the  supplications  which  en- 
dowed her  with  the  requisite  strength  for  fulfill- 
ing it,  also  took  place  in  her  own  chamber,  away 
from  all  mortal  sight,  —we, too,  must  be  perforce 
silent  about  these  virtues  of  hers,  which  no  more 
bear  public  talking  about  than  a  flower  will  bear 
to  bloom  in  a  ball-room."  § 


*  Pendennis,  ch.  xxi.  This  passage  is  only 
found  in  the  octavo  edition. — TR. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  xxi. 

\  Ibid.  ch.  xxi.  These  words  are  only  found 
in  the  octavo  edition. — TR.  §  Ibid.  ch.  li, 


614 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


Like  Dickens,  he  has  a  reverence  for 
the  family,  for  tender  and  simple  senti- 
ments, calm  and  pure  contentments, 
such  as  are  relished  by  the  fireside  be- 
tween a  child  and  a  wife.  When  this 
misanthrope,  so  reflective  and  harsh, 
lights  upon  a  filial  effusion  or  a  mater- 
nal grief,  he  is  wounded  in  a  sensitive 
place,  and,  like  Dickens,  he  makes  us 
weep.* 

We  have  enemies  because  we  have 
friends,  and  aversions  because  we  have 
preferences.  If  we  prefer  devoted 
kindliness  and  tender  affections,  we 
dislike  arrogance  and  harshness  ;  the 
cause  of  love  is  also  the  cause  of  hate  ; 
and  sarcasm,  like  sympathy,  is  the 
criticism  of  a  social  form  and  a  public 
vice.  This  is  why  Thackeray's  novels 
are  a  war  against  aristocracy.  Like 
Rousseau,  he  praised  simple  and 
affectionate  manners ;  like  Rousseau, 
he  hated  the  distinction  of  ranks. 

He  wrote  a  whole  book  on  this,  a  sort 
of  moral  and  half  political  pamphlet, 
the  Book  of  Snobs.  The  word  does  not 
exist  in  France,  because  they  have  not 
the  thing.  The  snob  is  a  child  of 
aristocratical  societies;  perched  on  his 
step  of  the  long  ladder,  he  respects  the 
man  on  the  step  above  him,  and  de 
spises  the  man  on  the  step  below,  with- 
out inquiring  what  they  are  worth, 
solely  on  account  of  their  position  ;  in 
his  innermost  heart  he  finds  it  natural 
to  kiss  the  boots  of  the  first,  and  to 
kick  the  second.  Thackeray  reckons 
up  at  length  the  degrees  of  this  habit. 
Hear  his  conclusion : 

"  I  can  bear  it  no  longer — this  diabolical  in- 
vention of  gentility,  which  kills  natural  kindli- 
ness and  honest  friendship.  Proper  pride,  in- 
deed !  Rank  and  precedence,  forsooth !  The 
table  of  ranks  and  degrees  is  a  lie  and  should  be 
flung  into  the  fire.  Organise  rank  and  prece- 
dence !  that  was  well  for  the  masters  of  cere- 
monies of  former  ages.  Come  forward,  some 
great  marshal,  and  organise  Equality  in  so- 
ciety." 

Then  he  adds,  with  common  sense, 
altogether  English  bitterness  and 
familiarity : 

"  If  ever  our  cousins  the  Smigsmags  asked 
me  to  meet  Lord  Longears,  I  would  like  to  take 
an  opportunity  after  dinner,  and  say,  in  the 
most  good-natured  way  in  the  world  : — Sir, 

*  See,  for  example,  in  the  Great  Hogg-arty 
Diamond,  the  death  of  the  little  child.  The 
Bjok  of  Snobs  ends  thus  :  "  Fun  is  good,  Truth 
1st  still  better,  and  Love  best  of  all. 


Fortune  makes  you  a  present  of  a  number  ol 
thousand  pounds  every  year.  The  ineffable 
wisdom  of  our  ancestors  has  placed  you  as  a 
chief  and  hereditary  legislator  over  me  Our 
admirable  Constitution  (the  pride  of  Britons  and 
envy  of  surrounding  nations)  obliges  me  to  re- 
ceive you  as  my  senator,  superior,  and  guardian. 
Your  eldest  son,  Fitz-Heehaw,  is  sure  of  a  place 
in  Parliament ;  your  younger  sons,  the  Da 
Brays,  will  kindly  condescend  to  be  post-cap-« 
tains  and  lieutenant-colonels,  and  to  represent 
us  in  foreign  courts,  or  to  take  a  good  living 
when  it  falls  convenient.  These  prizes  our  ad- 
mirable Constitution  (the  pride  and  envy  of, 
etc.)  pronounces  to  be  your  due  ;  withoutcou.it 
of  your  dulness,  your  vices,  your  selfishness  ; 
of  your  entire  incapacity  and  folly.  Dull  as  you 
rriay  be  (and  we  have  as  good  a  right  to  assume 
that  my  lord  is  an  ass,  as  the  other  proposition, 
that  he  is  an  enlightened  patriot) ; — dull,  I  say, 
as  you  may  be,  no  one  will  accuse  you  of  such 
monstrous  folly,  as  to  suppose  that  you  are  in- 
different to  the  good  luck  which  you  possess, 
or  have  any  inclination  to  part  with  it.  No — 
and  patriots  as  we  are,  under  happier  circum- 
stances, Smith  and  I,  I  have  no  doubt,  were 
we  dukes  ourselves,  would  stand  by  our  order. 

"  We  would  submit  good-naturedly  to  sit  in  a 
high  place.  We  would  acquiesce  in  that  admir- 
able Constitution  (pride  and  envy  of,  etc.)  which 
made  us  chiefs  and  the  world  our  inferiors  ;  we 
would  not  cavil  particularly  at  that  notion  of 
hereditary  superiority  which  brought  so  many 
simple  people  cringing  to  our  knees.  May  be 
we  would  rally  round  the  Corn-Laws  ;  we  would 
make  a  stand  against  the  Reform  Bill ;  we  would 
die  rather  than  repeal  the  acts  against  Catholics 
and  Dissenters;  we  would,  by  our  noble  system 
of  class-legislation,  bring  Ireland  to  its  present 
admirable  condition. 

"  But  Smith  and  I  are  not  Earls  as  yet.  We 
don't  believe  that  it  is  for  the  interest  of 
Smith's  army,  that  young  De  Bray  should  be  a 
Colonel  at  five-and-twenty,  of  Smith's  diplo- 
matic relations,  that  Lord  Longears  should  go 
ambassador  to  Constantinople, — of  our  politics, 
that  Longears  should  but  his  hereditary  foot 
into  them. 

"  This  booing  and  cringing  Smith  believes  to 
be  the  act  of  Snobs  ;  and  he  will  do  all  in  his 
might  and  main  to  be  a  Snob,  and  to  submit  to 
Snobs  no  longer.  To  Longears  he  says,  '  We 
can't  help  seeing,  Longears,  that  we  are  as  good 
as  you.  We  can  spell  even  better ;  we  can 
think  quite  as  rightly  ;  we  will  not  have  you  for 
our  master,  or  black  your  shoes  any  more.'  "  * 

Thackeray's  opinion  on  politics  only 
continues  his  remarks  as  a  moralist.  If 
he  hates  aristocracy,  it  is  less  because 
it  oppresses  man  than  because  it  cor- 
rupts him;  in  deforming  social  life,  it 
deforms  private  life ;  in  establishing 
injustice,  it  establishes  vice  ;  after  hav- 
ing made  itself  master  of  the  govern- 
ment, it  poisons  the  soul :  and  Thack- 
eray finds  its  trace  in  the  perversity  and 
foolishness  of  all  classes  and  all  senti- 
ments. 

*  The  Book  of  Snobs,  last  chapter. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


The  king  opens  this  list  of  vengeful 
portraits.  It  is  George  IV.,  "  the  first 
gentleman  in  Europe."  This  great 
monarch,  so  justly  regretted,  could  cut 
out  a  coat,  drive  a  four-in-hand  nearly  as 
well  as  the  Brighton  coachman,  and 
play  the  fiddle  well.  "In  the  vigor  of 
youth  and  the  prime  force  of  his  inven- 
tion, he  invented  Maraschino  punch,  a 
shoe-buckle,  and  a  Chinese  pavilion, 
the  most  hideous  building  in  the 
world : " 

"  Two  boys  had  leave  from  their  loyal  mas- 
ters to  go  from  Slaughter  House  School  where 
they  were  educated,  and  to  appear  on  Drury 
Lane  stage,  amongst  a  crowd  which  assembled 
there  to  greet  the  king.  THE  KING?  There 
he  was.  Beef-eaters  were  before  the  au^i  st 
box  :  the  Marquis  of  Steyne  (Lord  of  the  IV  ,v- 
der  Closet)  and  other  great  officers  of  state 
where  behind  the  chair  on  which  he  sate,  He 
sate — florid  of  face,  portly  of  person,  covered 
with  orders,  and  in  a  rich  curling  head  of  hair 
— How  we  sang  God  save  him  !  How  the  house 
rocked  and  shouted  with  that  magnificent  music. 
How  they  cheered,  and  cried,  and  waved  hand- 
kerchiefs. Ladies  wept :  mothers  clasped  their 
children  :  some  fainted  with  emotion.  .  .  .  Yes, 
we  saw  him.  Fate  cannot  deprive  us  of  that. 
Others  have  seen  Napoleon.  Some  few  still 
exist  who  have  beheld  Frederick  the  Great, 
Doctor  Johnson,  Marie  Antoinette,  etc. — be  it 
our  reasonable  boast  to  our  children,  that 
we  saw  George  the  Good,  the  Magnificent,  the 
Great."  * 

Dear  prince !  the  virtues  emanating 
from  his  heroic  throne  spread  through 
the  hearts  of  all  his  courtiers.  Who- 
ever presented  a  better  example  than 
the  Marquis  of  Steyne  ?  -  This  lord,  a 
king  in  his  own  house,  tried  to  prove 
that  he  was  so.  He  forces  his  wife  to 
sit  at  table  beside  women  without  any 
character,  his  mistresses.  Like  a  true 
prince  he  had  for  his  special  enemy  his 
eldest  son,  presumptive  heir  to  the 
marquisate,  whom  he  leaves  to  starve, 
and  compels  to  run  into  debt.  He  is 
now  making  love  to  a  charming  person, 
Mrs.  Rebecca  Crawley,  whom  he  loves 
for  her  hypocrisy,  coolness,  and  un 
equalled  insensibility.  The  Marquis, 
by  dint  of  debasing  and  oppressing  al 
who  surround  him,  ends  by  hating  anc1 
despising  men ;  he  has  no  taste  for 
any  thing  but  perfect  rascalities.  Re- 
becca rouses  him  ;  one  day  even  she 
transports  him  with  enthusiasm.  She 
plays  Clytemnestra  in  a  charade,  and 
her  husband  Agamemnon ;  she  ad- 

*  Vanity  Fair,  ch.  xlviii.    This  passage  is 
only  found  in  the  original  octavo  edition. — TR. 


ances  to  the  bed,  a  dagger  in  her 
land ;  her  eyes  are  lighted  up  with  a 
imile  so  ghastly,  that  people  quake  as 
hey  look  at  her  ;  Brava !  brava  !  old 
•>teyne's  strident  voice  was  heard  roar- 

ng  over  all  the  rest,  "  By ,  she'd  do 

t,  too  !  "  We  can  hear  that  he  has  the 
:rue  conjugal  feeling.  His  conversation 
s  remarkably  frank.  "  I  can't  send 
Briggs  away,"  Becky  said. — "  You  owe 
ler  her  wages,  I  suppose,"  said  the 
Deer. — "  Worse  than  that,  I  have  ruined 
icr." — "  Ruined  her  ?  then  why  don't 

u  turn  her  out  ? " 

He  is,  moreover,  an  accomplished 
gentleman,  of  fascinating  sweetness ;  he 
:reats  his  women  like  a  pacha,  and  his 
words  are  like  blows.  Let  us  read 
again  the  domestic  scene  in  which  he 
2;ives  the  order  to  invite  Mrs.  Crawley. 
Lady  Gaunt,  his  daughter-in-law,  says 
that  she  will  not  be  present  at  dinner, 
and  will  go  home.  His  lordship  an- 
swered : 

:  I  wish  you  would,  and  stay  there.  You 
will  find  the'bailiffs  at  Bareacres  very  pleasant 
company,  and  I  shall  be  freed  from  lending 
money  to  your  relations,  and  from  your  own 
damned  tragedy  airs.  Who  are  you  to  give 
orders  here?  You  have  no  money.  You've 
got  no  brains.  You  were  here  to  have  chil- 
dren, and  you  have  not  had  any.  Gaunt' s 
tired  of  you  ;  and  George's  wife  is  the  only 
person  in  the  family  who  doesn't  wish  you 
were  dead.  Gaunt  would  marry  again  if  you 
were.  .  .  .  You,  forsooth,  must  give  yourself 
airs  of  virtue.  .  .  .  Pray,  madame,  shall  I  tell 

£)u    some    little    anecdotes   about   my   Lady 
areacres,  your  mamma  ? "  * 

The  rest  is  in  the  same  style.  His 
daughters-in-law,  driven  to  despair, 
say  they  wish  they  were  dead.  This 
declaration  rejoices  him,  and  he  con- 
cludes with  these  words  :  "  This  Tem- 
ple of  Virtue  belongs  to  me.  And  if 
I  invite  all  Newgate  or  all  Bedlam 
here,  by — ,  they  shall  be  welcome." 
The  habit  of  despotism  makes  despots, 
and  the  best  me^ns  of  implanting  des« 
pots  in  families,  is  to  preserve  nobles 
in  the  State. 

Let  us  take  rest  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  country  gentleman.  The- 
innocence  of  the  fields,  hereditary  re- 
spect, family  traditions,  the  pursuit  of 
agriculture,  the  exercise  of  local  mag- 
istracy, must  have  produced  these  up- 
right and  sensible  men,  full  of  kindness 
and  probity,  protectors  of  their  coun- 
*  Vanity  Fair,  ch.  xlix. 


6i6 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BooK  V 


ty,  and  servants  of  flieir  country.  Sir 
Pitt  Crawley  is  a  model ;  he  has  four 
thousand  a  year  and  two  parliamentary 
boroughs.  It  is  true  that  these  are 
rotten  boroughs,  and  that  he  sells  the 
second  for  fifteen  hundred  a  year.  He 
is  an  excellent  steward,  and  shears  his 
farmers  so  close  that  he  can  only  find 
bankrupt-tenants.  A  coach  proprietor, 
a  government  contractor,  a  mine  pro- 
prietor, he  pays  his  subordinates  so 
badly,  and  is  so  niggard  in  outlay,  that 
hi*  mines  "  are  filled  with  water ;  and 
is  for  his  coach-horses,  every  mail  pro- 
prietor in  the  kingdom  knew  that  he 
lost  more  horses  than  any  man  in  the 
country;"  the  Government  flung  his 
contract  of  damaged  beef  upon  his 
hands.  A  popular  man,  he  always  pre- 
fers the  society  of  a  horse-dealer  to  the 
company  of  a  gentleman.  "  He  was 
fond  of  drink,  of  swearing,  of  joking  with 
the  farmers'  daughters ;  .  .  .  would 
cut  his  joke  and  drink  his  glass  with  a 
tenant,  and  sell  him  up  the  next  day  ; 
or  have  his  laugh  with  the  poacher  he 
was  transporting  with  equal  good 
humor."  He  speaks  with  a  country 
accent,  has  the  mind  of  a  lackey,  the 
habits  of  a  boor.  At  table,  waited  on 
by  three  men  and  a  butler,  on  massive 
silver,  he  inquires  into  the  dishes,  and 
the  beasts  which  have  furnished  them. 
"What  ship  was  it,  Horrocks,  and 
when  did  you  kill  ? "  "  One  of  the 
black-faced  Scotch,  Sir  Pitt :  we  killed 
on  Thursday.  "  "  Who  took  any  ? " 
"Steel  of  Mudbury  took  the  saddle 
and  two  legs,  Sir  Pitt;  but  he  says 
the  last  was  too  young  and  confound- 
ed woolly,  Sir  Pitt."  "  What  became 
of  the  shoulders  ? "  The  dialogue 
goes  on  in  the  same  tone  ;  after  the 
Scotch  mutton  comes  the  Black  Kent- 
ish pig :  these  animals  might  be  Sir 
Pitt's  family,  so  much  is  he  interested 
in  them.  As  for  his  daughters,  he  lets 
them  stray  to  the  gardener's  cottage, 
where  they  pick  up  their  education. 
As  for  his  wife,  he  beats  her  from  time 
to  time.  If  he  pays  his  people  one 
farthing  more  than  he  owes  them  he 
asks  it  back.  "  A  farthing  a  day  is 
seven  shillings  a  year:  seven  shillings 
a  year  is  the  interest  of  seven  guineas. 
Take  care  of  your  farthings,  old  Tink- 
er, and  your  guineas  will  come  quite 
nat'ral."  "He  never  gave  away  a 


farthing  in  his  life,"  growled  Tinker. 
"  Never,  and  never  will :  it  is  against 
my  principle."  He  is  impudent,  brutal, 
coarse,  stingy,  shrewd,  extravagant ; 
but  is  courted  by  ministers,  is  a  high- 
sheriff,  honored,  powerful,  he  rolls  in  a 
gilded  carriage,  and  is  one  of  the  pil- 
lars of  the  State. 

These  are  the  rich  ;  probably  money 
has  corrupted  them.  Let  us  look  for 
a  poor  aristocrat,  free  from  tempta- 
tions ;  his  lofty  mind,  left  to  itself,  vrilJ 
display  all  its  native  beauty.  Sir 
Francis  Clavering  is  in  this  case.  He 
has  played,  drunk,  and  supped  until 
he  has  nothing  more  left.  Transac- 
tions at  the  gambling  table  speedily 
effected  his  ruin  ;  he  had  been  forced 
to  sell  out  of  his  regiment ;  had  shown 
the  white  feather,  and  after  frequenting 
all  the  billiard-rooms  in  Europe,  been 
thrown  into  prison  by  his  uncourteous 
creditors.  To  get  out  he  married  a 
good-natured  Indian  widow,  who  out- 
rages spelling,  and  whose  money  was 
left  her  by  her  father,  a  disreputable 
old  lawyer  and  indigo-smuggler.  Clav- 
ering ruins  her,  goes  on  his  knees  to 
obtain  gold  and  pardon,  swears  on  the 
Bible  to  contract  no  more  debts,  and 
when  he  goes  out  runs  straight  to  the 
money-lender.  Of  all  the  rascals  that 
novelists  have  ever  exhibited,  he  is  the 
basest.  He  has  neither  resolution  nor 
common  sense  ;  he  is  simply  a  man  in 
a  state  of  dissolution.  He  swallows 
insults  like  water,  weeps,  begs  pardon, 
and  begins  again.  He  debases  himself, 
prostrates  himself,  and  the  next  mo- 
ment swears  and  storms,  to  fall  back 
into  the  depths  of  the  extremest  coward- 
ice. He  implores,  threatens,  and  in 
the  same  quarter  of  an  hour  accepts 
the  threatened  man  as  his  intimate 
confidant  and  friend  : 

"  Now,  ain't  it  hard  that  she  won't  trust  me 
with  a  sinsrle  tea-spoon  ;  ain't  it  ungentleman- 
like,  Altamont  ?  You  know  my  lady's  of  low 
birth — that  is — I  beg  your  pardon — hem — that 
is,  it's  most  cruel  of  her  not  to  show  more  con- 
fidence in  me.  And  the  very  servants  begin  to 
laugh — the  dam  scoundrels!  .  .  .  They  don't 
answer  my  bell  ;  and — and  my  man  was  at 
Vauxhall  last  night  with  one  of  my  dress  shirts 
and  my  velvet  waistcoat  on,  I  know  it  was 
mine — the  confounded  impudent  blackguard  I 
—  and  he  went  on  dancing  before  my  ftyes,  con- 
found him  !  <»  I'm  sure  he'll  live  to  be  hanged — 
he  deserves  to  be  hanged — all  those  infernal 
rascals  of  valets  !  "  * 

*  PendenniS)  ch.  Ix 


CHAP. 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


615 


His  conversation  is  a  compound  of 
oaths,  whines,  and  ravings  ;  he  is  not  a 
man,  but  the  wreck  of  a  man :  there 
survive  in  him  but  the  discordant  re- 
mains of  vile  passions,  like  the  frag- 
ments of  a  crushed  snake,  which,  un- 
able to  bite,  bruise  themselves  and 
wriggle  about  in  their  slaver  and  mud. 
The  sight  of  a  bank-note  makes  him 
launch  blindly  into  amass  of  entreaties 
and  lies.  The  future  has  disappeared 
for  him,  he  sees  but  the  present.  He 
will  sign  a  bill  for  twenty  pounds  at 
three  months  to  get  a  sovereign.  His 
degradation  has  become  imbecility; 
his  eyes  are  shut ;  he  does  not  see  that 
his  protestations  excite  mistrust,  that 
his  lies  excite  disgust,  that  by  his  very 
baseness  he  loses  the  fruit  of  his  base- 
ness ;  so  that  when  he  comes  in,  a  man 
feels  a  violent  inclination  to  take  the 
honorable  baronet,  the  member  of  par- 
liament, the  proud  inhabitant  of  a 
historic  house,  by  the  neck,  and  pitch 
him,  like  a  basket  of  rubbish,  from  the 
top  of  the  stairs  to  the  bottom. 

We  must  stop.  A  volume  would  not 
exhaust  the  list  of  perfections  which 
Thackeray  discovers  in  the  English 
aristocracy.  The  Marquis  of  Farintosh, 
twenty-fifth  of  his  name,  an  illustrious 
fool,  healthy  and  full  of  self-conceit, 
whom  all  the  women  ogle  and  all  the 
men  bow  to  ;  Lady  Kew,  an  old  woman 
of  the  world,  tyrannical  and  corrupted, 
at  enmity  with  her  daughter,  and  a 
matchmaker ;  Sir  Barnes  Newcome,one 
of  the  most  cowardly  of  men,  the  wick- 
edest, the  falsest,  the  best  abused  and 
beaten  who  has  ever  smiled  in  a  draw- 
ing-room or  spoken  in  Parliament.  I 
see  only  one  estimable  character,  and 
he  is  not  in  the  front  rank — Lord  Kew, 
who,  after  many  follies  and  excesses,  is 
touched  by  his  Puritan  old  mother  and 
repents.  But  these  portraits  are  sweet 
compared  to  the  dissertations;  the 
commentator  is  still  more  bitter  than 
the  artist ;  he  wounds  more  in  speak- 
ing than  in  making  his  personages 
speak.  We  must  read  his  biting  dia- 
tribes against  marriages  for  the  sake 
of  money  or  rank,  and  against  the 
sacrifice  of  girls  ;  against  the  inequality 
of  inheritance  and  the  envy  of  young- 
er sons ;  against  the  education  of 
ihe  nobles,  and  their  traditionary  in- 
solence j  against  the  purchase  of  com- 


missions in  the  army,  the  isolation  01 
classes,  the  outrages  on  nature  and 
family,  invented  by  society  and  law. 
Behind  this  philosophy  is  shown  a  sec 
ond  gallery  of  portraits  as  insulting  as 
the  first;  for  inequality,  having  cor- 
rupted the  great  men  whom  it  exalts, 
corrupts  the  small  men  whom  it  de- 
grades ;  and  the  spectacle  of  envy  01 
baseness  in  the  small,  is  as  ugly  as  that 
of  insolence  or  despotism  in  the  great. 
According  to  Thackeray,  English  so- 
ciety is  a  compound  of  flatteries  and 
intrigues,  each  striving  to  hoist  himself 
up  a  step  higher  on  the  social  ladder 
and  to  push  back  those  who  are  climb- 
ing. To  be  received  at  court,  to  see 
one's  name  in  the  papers  amongst  a 
list  of  illustrious  guests,  to  give  a  cup 
of  tea  at  home  to  some  stupid  and 
bloated  peer ;  such  is  the  supreme 
limit  of  human  ambition  and  felicity. 
For  one  master  there  are  always  a  hun- 
dred lackeys.  Major  Pendennis,  a  res- 
olute man,  cool  and  clever,  has  con- 
tracted this  leprosy.  His  happiness 
to-day  is  to  bow  to  a  lord.  He  is  only 
at  peace  in  a  drawing-room,  or  in  a 
park  of  the  aristocracy.  He  craves  to 
be  treated  with  that  humiliating  con- 
descension wherewith  the  great  over- 
whelm their  inferiors.  He  pockets 
lack  of  attention  with  ease,  and  dines 
graciously  at  a  noble  board,  where  he 
is  invited  twice  in  three  years  to  stop 
a  gap.  He  leaves  a  man  of  genius  or 
a  woman  of  wit,  to  converse  with  a 
titled  fool  or  a  tipsy  lord.  He  prefers 
being  tolerated  at  a  Marquis'  to  being 
respected  at  a  commoner's.  Having 
exalted  these  fine  dispositions  into 
principles,  he  inculcates  them  on  his 
nephew,  whom  he  loves,  and  to  push 
him  on  in  the  world,  offers  him  in  mar- 
riage a  basely  acquired  fortune  and  the 
daughter  of  a  convict.  Others  glide 
through  the  proud  drawing-rooms,  not 
with  parasitic  manners,  but  on  account 
of  their  splendid  balance  at  the  bank- 
er's. Once  upon  a  time  in  France,  the 
nobles  manured  their  estates  with  the 
money  of  citizens  ;  now  in  England 
the  citizens  ennoble  their  money  by 
marrying  a  lady  of  noble  birth.  For  a 
hundred  thousand  pounds  to  the  father, 
Pump,  the  merchant,  marries  Lady 
Blanche  Stiffneck,  who,  though  mar- 
ried, remains  my  Lady.  Naturally 


6i8 


MODERN  AUTHORS 


[BOOK  V. 


pe 
fri 


young  Pump  is  scorned  by  her,  as  a 
tradesman,  and  moreover,  hated  for 
having  made  her  half  a  woman  of  the 
eople.  He  dare  not  see  his  own 
riends  in  his  own  house,  they  are  too 
vulgar  for  his  wife.  He  dare  not  visit 
the  friends  of  his  wife;  they  are  too 
high  for  him.  He  is  his  wife's  butler, 
the  butt  of  his  father-in-law,  the  serv- 
ant of  his  son,  and  consoles  himself  by 
thinking  that  his  grandsons,  when  they 
become  Lord  Pump,  will  blush  for  him 
and  never  mention  his  name.*  A 
third  means  of  entering  the  aristocracy 
is  to  ruin  oneself,  and  never  see  any 
one.  This  ingenious  method  is  em- 
ployed by  Mrs.  Major  Ponto  in  the 
country.  She  has  an  incomparable 
governess  for  her  daughters,  who 
thinks  that  Dante  is  called  Alighieri 
because  he  was  born  at  Algiers,  but 
who  has  educated  two  marchionesses 
and  a  countess. 

"  Some  one  wondered  we  were  not  enlivened 
by  the  appearance  of  some  of  the  neighbours. 
—  We  can't  in  pur  position  of  life,  we  can't 
well  associate  with  the  attorney's  family,  as  I 
leave  you  to  suppose  —  and  the  Doctor  —  one 
may  ask  one's  medical  man  to  one's  table,  cer- 
tainly :  but  his  family.  —  The  people  in  that 
large  red  house  just  outside  of  the  town.  — 
What  !  the  chateau-calicot.  That  purse-proud 
ex-linendraper.  —  The  parson  —  Oh  !  he  used  to 
preach  in  a  surplice.  He  is  a  Puseyite  1  " 

This  sensible  Ponto  family  yawns  in 
solitude  for  six  months,  and  the  rest  of 
the  year  enjoys  the  gluttony  of  the 
country-squires  whom  they  regale,  and 
the  rebuffs  of  the  great  lords  whom 
they  visit.  The  son,  an  officer  of  the 
hussars,  requires  to  be  kept  in  luxury 
so  as  to  be  on  an  equality  with  his  no- 
ble comrades,  and  his  tailor  receives 
above  three  hundred  a  year  out  of  the 
nine  hundred  which  make  up  the  whole 
family  income.!  I  should  never  end, 
if  I  recounted  all  the  villanies  and 
miseries  which  Thackeray  attributes  to 
thi  aristocratic  spirit,  the  division  of 
families,  the  pride  of  the  ennobled  sis- 
ter, the  jealousy  of  the  sister  who  has 
not  been  ennobled,  the  degradation  of 
the  characters  trained  up  from  school 
to  reverence  the  little  lords,  the  abase^ 
ment  of  the  daughters  who  strive  to 
compass  noble  marriages,  the  rage  of 

*  The  Book  of  Snobs,  ch.  viii.  ;  Great  City 
Snobs, 

t  Ibid.  ch.  xxvi  ',  On  Some  Country  Snobs. 


snubbed  vanity,  the  meanness  of  the 
attentions  offered,  the  triumph  of  folly, 
the  scorn  of  talent,  the  consecrated 
injustice,  the  heart  rendered  unnatural, 
the  morals  perverted.  Before  this 
striking  picture  of  truth  and  genius,  we 
need  remember  that  this  injurious  ine- 
quality is  the  cause  of  a  wholesome 
iberty,  that  social  injustice  produces 
Dolitical  welfare,  that  a  class  of  heredi- 
:ary  nobles  is  a  class  of  hereditar)  states- 
men, that  in  a  century  and  a  half  Eng- 
and  has  had  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  good  government,  that  in  a  century 
and  a  half  France  has  had  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  bad  government,  that 
all  is  compensated,  and  that  it  is  possi- 
ble to  pay  dearly  for  capable  leaders, 
a  consistent  policy,  free  elections,  and 
:he  control  of  the  government  by  the 
nation.  We  must  also  remember  that 
this  talent,  founded  on  intense  reflec- 
tion, concentrated  in  moral  prejudices, 
could  not  but  have  transformed  the 
picture  of  manners  into  a  systematic 
and  combative  satire,  exasperate  satire 
into  calculated  and  implacable  animos- 
ity, blacken  human  nature,  and  attack 
again  and  again  with  studied,  redoubled 
and  natural  hatred,  the  chief  vice  of  his 
country  and  of  his  time. 

§  2. — THE  ARTIST. 
VIII. 

In  literature  as  well  as  in  politics,  we 
cannot  have  every  thing.  Talents,  like 
happiness,  do  not  always  follow  snit. 
Whatever  constitution  it  selects,  a  peo- 
ple is  always  half  unhappy  ;  whatever 
genius  he  has,  a  writer  is  always  half 
impotent.  We  cannot  preserve  at  once 
more  than  a  single  attitude.  To  trans- 
form the  novel  is  to  deform  it  :  he  who, 
like  Thackeray,  gives  to  the  novel 
satire  for  its  object,  ceases  to  give  it 
art  for  its  rule,  and  the  complete 
strength  of  the  satirist  is  the  weakness 
of  the  novelist. 

What  is  a  novelist  ?  In  my  opinion 
he  is  a  psychologist,  who  naturally  and 
involuntarily  sets  psychology  at  work  ; 
he  is  nothing  else,  nor  more.  He  loves 
to  picture  feelings,  to  perceive  their 
connections,  their  precedents,  their 
consequences  ;  and  he  indulges  in  this 
pleasure.  In  his  eyes  they  are  forces, 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


having  various  directions  and  magni- 
tudes. About  their  justice  or  injustice 
he  troubles  himself  little.  He  intro- 
duces them  in  characters,  conceives 
the  dominant  quality,  perceives  the 
traces  which  this  leaves  on  the  others, 
marks  the  discordant  or  harmonious 
influences  of  temperament,  of  education, 
of  occupation,  and  labors  to  manifest 
the  invisible  world  of  inward  inclina- 
tions and  dispositions  by  the  visible 
world  of  outward  words  and  actions. 
To  this  is  his  labor  reduced.  What- 
ever these  bents  are,  he  cares  little. 
A  genuine  painter  sees  with  pleas- 
ure a  well-shaped  arm  and  vigorous 
muscles,  even  if  they  be  employed  in 
knocking  down  a  man.  A  genuine 
novelist  enjoys  the  contemplation  of  the 
greatness  of  a  harmful  sentiment,  or  the 
organized  mechanism  of  a  pernicious 
character.  He  has  sympathy  with 
talent,  because  it  is  the  only  faculty 
which  exactly  copies  nature  :  occupied 
in  experiencing  the  emotions  of -his  per- 
sonages, he  only  dreams  of  marking 
their  vigor,  kind,  and  mutual  action. 
He  represents  them  to  us  as  they  are, 
whole,  not  blaming,  not  punishing,  not 
mutilating  them  ;  he  transfers  them  to 
us  intact  and  separate,  and  leaves  to 
us  the  right  of  judging  if  we  desire  it. 
His  whole  effort  is  to  make  them  visi- 
ble, to  unravel  the  types  darkened  and 
altered  by  the  accidents  and  imperfec- 
tions of  real  life,  to  set  in  relief  grand 
human  passions,  to  be  shaken  by  the 
greatness  of  the  beings  whom  he  ani- 
mates, to  raise  us  out  of  ourselves  by 
the  force  of  his  creations.  We  recog- 
nize art  in  this  creative  power,  impaV- 
tial  and  universal  as  nature,  freer  and 
more  potent  than  nature,  taking  up  the 
rough-drawn  or  disfigured  work  of  its 
rival  in  order  to  correct  its  faults  and 
give  effect  to  its  conceptions. 

All  is  changed  by  the  intervention  of 
satire  ;  and  more  particularly,  the  part 
of  the  author.  When  in  an  ordinary 
novel  he  speaks  in  his  own  name,  it  is 
to  explain  a  sentiment  or  mark  the 
cause  of  a  faculty  ;  in  a  satirical  novel 
it  is  to  give  us  moral  advice.  It  has 
been  seen  to  how  many  lessons  Thack- 
eray subjects  us.  That  they  are  good 
one's  no  one  disputes  ;  but  at  least  they 
take  the  place  of  useful  explanations. 
A  third  of  a  volume,  being  occupied  by 


619 


warnings,  is  lost  to  art.  Summoned  to 
reflect  on  our  faults,  we  know  the 
character  less.  The  author  designedly 
neglects  a  hundred  delicate  shades 
which  he  might  have  discovered  and 
shown  to  us.  The  character,  less  com- 
plete, is  less  lifelike  ;  the  interest,  less 
concentrated,  is  less  lively.  Turned 
away  from  it  instead  of  brought  back 
to  it,  our  eyes  wander  and  forget  it  ; 
instead  of  being  absorbed,  we  are  ab- 
sent in  mind.  And,  what  is  worse,  we 
end  by  experiencing  some  degree  ot 
weariness.  We  judge  these  sermons 
true,  but  repeated  till  we  are  sick  of 
them,  we  fancy  ourselves  listening  to 
college  lectures,  or  handbooks  for  the 
use  of  young  priests.  We  find  similar 
things  in  books  with  gilt  edges  and 
pictured  covers,  given  as  Christmas 
presents  to  children.  Are  we  much 
rejoiced  to  learn  that  marriages  for  the 
sake  of  money  or  rank  have  their  incon- 
veniency,  that  in  the  absence  of  a  friend 
we  readily  speak  evil  of  him,  that  a  son 
often  afflicts  his  mother  by  his  irregu- 
larities, that  selfishness  is  an  ugly  fault  ? 
All  this  is  true  ;  but  it  is  too  true.  We 
listen  in  order  to  hear  new  things. 
These  old  moralities,  though  useful 
and  well  spoken,  smack  of  the  paid 
pedant,  so  common  in  England,  the 
clergyman  in  -the  white  tie,  standing 
bolt  upright  in  his  room,  and  droning, 
for  three  hundred  a  year,  daily  admoni- 
tion to  the  young  gentlemen  whom 
parents  have  sent  to  his  educational 
hothouse. 

This  regular  presence  of  a  moral 
intention  spoils  the  novel  as  well  as 
the  novelist.  It  must  be  confessed,  a 
volume  of  Thackeray  has  the  cruel  mis- 
fortune of  recalling  the  novels  of  Miss 
Edgeworth  or  the  stories  of  Canon 
Schmidt.  Here  is  one  which  shows 
us  Pendennis  proud,  extravagant,  hair- 
brained,  lazy,  shamefully  plucked  at 
his  examination;  whilst  his  companions, 
less  intellectual  but  more  studious, 
take  high  places  in  honors  or  pass  with 
decent  credit.  This  edifying  contrast 
does  not  warn  us  ;  we  do  not  wish  to 
go  back  to  school  ;  we  shut  the  book, 
and  recommend  it  like  medicine,  to 
our  little  cousin.  Other  puerilities,  less 
shocking,  end  in  wearying  us  just  as 
much.  We  do  not  like  the  prolonged  con- 
trast between  good  Colonel  Newcorne 


620 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


and  his  wicked  relatives.  The  Colonel 
gives  money  and  cakes  to  every  child, 
money  and  shawls  to  all  his  cousins, 
money  and  kind  words  to  all  the  ser- 
vants ;  and  these  people  only  answer 
him  with  coldness  and  coarseness.  It 
is  clear,  from  the  first  page,  that  the 
author  would  persuade  us  to  be  affable, 
and  we  kick  against  the  too  matter-of- 
course  invitation  ;  we  don't  want  to  be 
scolded  in  a  novel  ;  we  are  in  a  bad 
humor  with  this  invasion  of  pedagogy. 
We  wanted  to  go  to  the  theatre  ;  we 
have  been  taken  in  by  the  outside  bill, 
and  we  growl  sotto  voce,  to  find  ourselves 
at  a  sermon. 

Let  us  console  ourselves :  the  charac- 
ters suffer  as  much  as  we  ;  the  author 
spoils  them  in  preaching  to  us ;  they, 
like  us,  are  sacrificed  to  satire.  He 
does  not  animate  beings,  he  lets  pup- 
pets act.  He  only  combines  their 
actions  to  make  them  ridiculous,  odious 
or  disappointing.  After  a  few  scenes 
we  recognize  the  spring,  and  thence- 
forth we  are  always  foreseeing  when  it 
is  going  to  act.  This  foresight  deprives 
the  character  of  half  its  truth,  and  the 
reader  of  half  his  illusion.  Perfect  fool- 
eries, complete  mischances,  unmitigat- 
ed wickednesses,  are  rare  things.  The 
events  and  feelings  of  real  life  are  not 
so  arranged  as  to  make  such  calculated 
contrasts  and  such  clever  combinations. 
Nature  does  not  invent  these  dramatic 
effects  :  we  soon  see  that  we  are  be- 
fore the  foot-lights  in  front  of  bedizened 
actors,  whose  words  are  written  for 
them,  and  their  gestures  arranged. 

To  bring  before  our  mind  exactly 
this  alteration  of  truth  and  art,  we 
must  compare  two  characters  step  by 
step.  There  is  a  personage,  unani- 
mously recognized  as  Thackeray's 
masterpiece,  Becky  Sharp,  an  intrigu- 
ante and  a  bad  character,  but  a  supe- 
rior and  well-mannered  woman.  Let 
us  compare  her  to  a  similar  personage 
of  Balzac  in  les  Parents  pa^wres,  Val- 
erie Marneffe.  The  difference  of  the 
two  works  will  exhibit  the  difference 
of  the  two  literatures.  As  the  English 
excel  as  moralists  and  satirists,  so  the 
French  excel  as  artists  and  novel  writ- 
ers. 

Balzac  loves  his  Valerie  ;  this  is  why 
he  explains  and  magnifies  her.  He 
does  not  labor  to  make  her  odious,  but 


intelligible.  He  gives  her  the  educa- 
tion of  a  prostitute,  a  "  husband  as 
depraved  as  a  prison  full  of  galley- 
slaves,"  luxurious  habits,  recklessness, 
prodigality,  womanly  nerves,  a  pretty 
woman's  dislikes,  an  artist's  rapture. 
Thus  born  and  bred,  her  corruption  is 
natural.  She  needs  elegance  as  she  needs 
air.  She  takes  it  no  matter  whence, 
remorselessly  as  we  drink  water  from 
the  first  stream.  She  is  not  worse 
than  her  profession,  she  has  all  ita 
innate  and  acquired  excuses,  of  mood, 
tradition,  circumstances,  necessity  ;  she 
has  all  its  powers,  abandon,  charms, 
mad  gayety,  alternations  of  triviality 
and  elegance,  sudden  audacity,  com- 
ical devices,  magnificence  and  suc- 
cess. She  is  perfect  of  her  kind,  like 
a  proud  and  dangerous  horse,  which 
we  admire  while  we  fear  it.  Balzac 
delights  to  paint  her  only  for  the  sake 
of  his  picture.  He  dresses  her,  lays  on 
for  her  her  patches,  arranges  her  gar- 
ments, trembles  before  her  dancing- 
girl's  motions.  He  details  her  gestures 
with  as  much  pleasure  and  truth  as  if 
he  were  her  waiting-woman.  His  ar- 
tistic curiosity  is  fed  on  the  least  traits 
of  character  and  manners.  After  a 
violent  scene,  he  pauses  at  a  spare 
moment,  and  shows  her  idle,  stretched 
on  her  couch  like  a  cat,  yawning  and 
basking  in  the  sun.  Like  a  physiolo- 
gist, he  knows  that  the  nerves  of  the 
beast  of  prey  are  softened,  and  that  it 
only  ceases  to  bound  in  order  to  sleep. 
But  what  bounds  !  She  dazzles,  fasci- 
nates ;  she  defends  herself  successively 
against  three  proved  accusations,  re- 
futes evidence,  alternately  humiliates 
and  glorifies  herself,  rails,  adores,  de- 
monstrates, changing  a  score  of  times 
her  voice,  her  ideas,  tricks,  and  all 
this  in  one  quarter  of  an  hour.  An 
old  shopkeeper,  protected  against 
emotions  by  trade  and  avarice,  trem- 
bles at  her  speech :  "  She  sets  her  feet 
on  my  heart,  crushes  me,  stuns  me. 
Ah,  what  a  woman  !  When  she  looks 
cold  at  me  it  is  worse  than  a  stomach- 
ache. .  .  How  she  tripped  down  the 
steps,  making  them  bright  with  her 
looks ! "  Everywhere  passion,  for  «, 
atrocity,  conceal  the  ugliness  and  t-_»r- 
ruption.  Attacked  in  her  fortune  by 
a  respectable  woman,  Mad.  Marneffe 
gets  up  an  incomparable  comedy,  play 


CHAP.  II.]. 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


621 


cd  with  a  great  poet's  eloquence  and 
exaltation,  and  broken  suddenly  by  the 
burst  of  laughter  and  coarse  triviality 
of  a  porter's  daughter  on  the  stage. 
Style  and  action  are  raised  to  the 
height  of  an  epic.  "  When  the  words 
*  Hulot  and  two  hundred  thousand 
francs '  were  mentioned,  Valerie  gave 
a  passing  look  from  between  her  two 
?ong  eyelids,  like  the  glare  of  a  cannon 
through  its  smoke."  A  little  further, 
caught  in  the  act  by  one  of  her  lovers, 
a  Brazilian,  and  quite  capable  of  kill- 
ing her,  she  blenched  for  an  instant  ; 
but  recovering  the  same  moment,  she 
checked  her  tears.  "  She  came  to 
him  and  looked  so  fiercely  that  her  eyes 
glittered  like  daggers."  Danger  roused 
and  inspired  her,  and  her  excited  nerves 
propel  genius  and  courage  to  her  brain. 
To  complete  the  picture  of  this  impet- 
uous nature,  superior  and  unstable, 
Balzac  at  the  last  moment  makes  her 
repent.  To  proportion  her  fortune  to 
her  vice,  he  leads  her  triumphantly 
through  the  ruin,  death,  or  despair  of 
twenty  people,  and  shatters  her  in  the 
supreme  moment  by  a  fall  as  terrible 
as  her  success. 

Before  such  passion  and  logic,  what 
is  Becky  Sharp  ?  A  calculating  plotter, 
cool  in  temperament,  full  of  common 
sense,  an  ex-governess,  having  parsi- 
monious habits,  a  genuine  woman  of 
business,  always  proper,  always  active, 
unsexed,  void  of  the  voluptuous  soft- 
ness and  diabolical  transport  which 
can  give  brilliancy  to  her  character  and 
charm  to  her  profession.  She  is  not  a 
prostitute,  but  a  petticoated  and  heart- 
less barrister.  Nothing  is  more  fit  to 
inspire  aversion.  The  author  loses  no 
opportunity  of  expressing  his  own; 
through  two-thirds  of  the  book  he  pur- 
sues her  with  sarcasms  and  misfor- 
tunes ;  he  puts  only  false  words,  per- 
fidi?us  actions,  revolting  sentiments  in 
her  mouth.  From  her  coming  on  the 
stage,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  treated 
with  rare  kindness  by  a  simple-minded 
family,  she  lies  from  morning  to  night- 
and  by  coarse  expedients  tries  to  fish 
there  for  a  husband.  The  better  to 
crush  her,  Thackeray  himself  sets  forth 
all  this  baseness,  these  lies  and  indecen- 
cies. Rebecca  ever  so  gentle  pressed 
the  hand  of  fat  Joseph :  "  It  was  an 
advance,  and  as  such,  perhaps,  some 


ladies  of  indisputable  correctness  an£ 
gentility  will  condemn  the  action  as 
immodest ;  but,  you  see,  poor  dear 
Rebecca  had  all  this  work  to  do  herself. 
If  a  person  is  too  poor  to  keep  a  ser- 
vant, though  ever  so  elegant,  he  must 
sweep  his  own  rooms  :  if  a  dear  girl 
has  no  dear  mamma  to  settle  matters 
with  the  young  man,  she  must  do  it  for 
herself."  *  Whilst  Becky  was  a  gover- 
ness at  Sir  Pitt  Crawl ey's,  she  gains  the 
friendship  of  her  pupils,  by  reading  to 
them  the  tales  of  Crebillon  the 
younger,  and  of  Voltaire.  She  writes 
to  her  friend  Amelia  :  "  The  rector's 
wife  paid  me  a  score  of  compliments 
about  the  progress  my  pupils  made, 
and  thought,  no  doubt,  to  touch  my 
heart — poor,  simple,  country  soul  !  as  if 
I  cared  a  fig  about  my  pupils."  t  This 
phrase  is  an  imprudence  hardly  natural 
in  so  careful  a  person,  and  the  author 
adds  it  gratuitously  to  her  part,  to 
make  it  odious.  A  little  further 
Rebecca  is  grossly  adulatory  and  mean 
to  old  Miss  Crawley ;  and  her  pomp- 
ous periods,  manifestly  false,  instead 
of  exciting  admiration  raise  disgust. 
She  is  selfish  and  lying  to  her  husband, 
and  knowing  that  he  is  on  the  field  of 
battle,  busies  herself  only  in  getting  to- 
gether a  little  purse.  Thackeray  de- 
signedly dwells  on  the  contrast :  the 
heavy  dragoon  "  went  through  the 
various  items  of  his  little  catalogue  of 
effects,  striving  to  see  how  they  might 
be  turned  into  money  for  his  wife's 
benefit,  in  case  any  accident  should  be- 
fall him."  "  Faithful  to  his  plan  of 
economy,  the  captain  dressed  himself 
in  his  oldest  and  shabbiest  uniform  "  to 
get  killed  in  : 

"  And  this  famous  dandy  of  Windsor  and 
Hyde  Park  went  off  on  his  campaign  .  .  . 
with  something  like  a  prayer  on  the  lips  for  the 
woman  he  was  leaving.  He  took  her  up  from 
the  ground,  and  held  her  in  his  arms  for  a  min- 
ute, tight  pressed  against  his  strong  beating 
heart.  His  face  was  purple  and  his  eyes  dim, 
as  he  put  her  down  and  left  her.  ...  And 
Rebecca,  as  we  have  said,  wisely  determined 
not  to  give  way  to  unavailing  sentimentality  on 
her  husband's  departure.  .  .  .  '  What  a  fright 
1  seem,'  she  said,  examining  herself  in  the 
glass,  '  and  how  pale  this  pink  makes  one  look.' 
So- she  divested  herself  of  this  pink  raiment  , 
.  .  .  then  she  put  her  bouquet  of  the  ball  into 
a  glass  of  water,  and  went  to  bed,  and  slept 
very  comfortably."  t 


*  Vanity  Fair,  ch.  iv. 
$  Ibid.  ch.  xxx. 


f  Ibid.  ch.  xi. 


622 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


/"BooK  V. 


From  these  examples  judge  of  the 
rest.  Thackeray's  whole  business  is 
to  degrade  Rebecca  Sharp.  He  con- 
victs her  of  being  harsh  to  her  son, 
robbing  tradesmen,  deceiving  every- 
body. And  after  all,  he  makes  her  a 
dupe ;  whatever  she  does,  comes  to 
nothing.  Compromised  by  the  advan- 
ces which  she  has  lavished  on  foolish 
Joseph,  she  momentarily  expects  an 
offer  of  marriage.  A  letter  comes, 
announcing  that  he  has  gone  to  Scot- 
land, and  presents  his  compliments  to 
Miss  Rebecca.  Three  months  later, 
she  secretly  marries  Captain  Rawdon, 
a  poor  dolt.  Sir  Pitt  Crawley,  Raw- 
don's  father,  throws  himself  at  her  feet, 
with  four  thousand  a  year,  and  offers 
her  his  hand.  In  her  consternation 
she  weeps  despairingly.  '*  Married, 
married,  married  already  ! "  is  her  cry  ; 
and  it  is  enough  to  pierce  sensitive 
souls.  Later,  she  tries  to  win  her 
sister-in-law  by  passing  for  a  good 
mother.  "  Why  do  you  kiss  me  here  ?  " 
asks  her  son  ;  "  you  never  kiss  me  at 
home."  The  consequence  is  com- 
plete discredit ;  once  more  she  is  lost. 
The  Marquis  of  Steyne,  her  lover,  pre- 
sents her  to  society,  loads  her  with 
jewels,  bank-notes,  and  has  her  husband 
appointed  to  some  island  in  the  East. 
The  husband  enters  at  the  wrong  mo- 
ment, knocks  my  lord  down,  restores 
the  diamonds,  and  drives  her  away. 
Wandering  on  the  Continent,  she  tries 
five  or  six  times  to  grow  rich  and  ap- 
pear honest.  Always,  at  the  moment 
of  success,  accident  brings  her  to  the 
ground.  Thackeray  sports  with  her, 
as  a  child  with  a  cockchafer,  letting 
her  hoist  herself  painfully  to  the  top  of 
the  ladder,  in  order  to  pluck  her  down 
by  the  foot  and  make  her  tumble  dis- 
gracefully He  ends  by  dragging  her 
through  taverns  and  greenrooms,  and 
pointing  his  finger  at  her  from  a  dis- 
tance, as  a  gamester,  a  drunkard,  is  un- 
willing to  touch  her  further.  Or  the 
last  page  he  installs  her  vulgarly  in  a 
smal  fortune,  plundered  by  doubtful 
devices,  and  leaves  her  in  bad  odor, 
uselessly  hypocritical,  abandoned  to 
the  shadiest  society.  Beneath  this 
storm  of  irony  and  contempt,  the 
heroine  is  dwarfed,  illusion  is  weaken- 
ed, interest  diminished,  art  attenuated, 
poetry  disappears,  and  the  character, 


more  useful,  has  become  less  trv*  and 
beautiful. 

IX. 

Suppose  that  a  happy  chance  lays 
aside  these  causes  of  weakness,  and 
keeps  open  these  sources  of  talent. 
Amongst  all  these  transformed  novels 
appears  a  single  genuine  one,  elevated, 
touching,  simple,  original,  the  history 
of  Henry  Esmond.  Thackeray  has 
not  written  a  Jess  popular  nor  a  i.  ore 
beautiful  story. 

This  book  comprises  the  fictitious 
memoirs  of  Colonel  Esmond,  a  contem- 
porary of  Queen  Anne,  who,  after  a 
troubled  life  in  Europe,  retired  with 
his  wife  to  Virginia,  and  became  a 
planter  there.  Esmond  speaks;  and 
the  necessity  of  adapting  the  tone  to 
the  character  suppresses  the  satirical 
style,  the  reiterated  irony,  the  bitter 
sarcasm,  the  scenes  contrived  to  ridi- 
cule folly,  the  events  combined  to 
crush  vice.  Thenceforth  we  enter  the 
real  world;  we  let  illusion  guide  us, 
we  rejoice  in  a  varied  spectacle,  easily 
unfolded,  without  moral  intention.  We 
are  no  more  harassed  by  personal 
advice  ;  we  remain  in  our  place,  calm, 
sure,  no  actor's  finger  pointed  at  us  to 
warn  us  at  an  interesting  moment  that 
the  piece  is  played  on  our  account,  and 
to  do  us  good.  At  the  same  time,  and 
unconsciously,  we  are  at  ease.  Quitting 
bitter  satire,  pure  narration  charms  us  ; 
we  take  rest  from  hating.  We  are 
like  an  army  surgeon,  who,  after  a  day 
of  fights  and  manoeuvres,  sits  on  a 
hillock  and  beholds  the  motion  in  the 
camp,  the  procession  of  carriages,  and 
the  distant  horizon  softened  by  the 
sombre  tints  of  evening. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  long  reflec- 
tions, which  seem  vulgar  and  out  of  place 
under  the  pen  of  the  writer,  become 
natural  and  interesting  in  the  mouth 
of  the  chief  character  in  this  Kovel. 
Esmond  is  an  old  man,  writing  or 
his  children,  and  remarking  upon  his 
experience.  He  has  a  right  to  juuge 
life ;  his  maxims  are  suitable  to  his 
years  :  having  passed  into  sketches  of 
manners,  they  lose  their  pedantic  air  ; 
we  hear  them  complacently,  and  per- 
ceive, as  we  turn  the  page,  the  calm 
and  sad  smile  which  has  dictated  them. 

With  the  reflections  we  endure  the 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


623 


details.  Elsewhere,  the  minute  de- 
scriptions appear  frequently  puerile; 
we  blamed  the  author  for  dwelling, 
with  the  preciseness  of  an  English 
painter,  on  school  adventures,  coach 
scenes,  inn  episodes ;  we  thought  that 
*his  intense  studiousness,  unable  to 
grasp  lofty  themes  of  art,  was  com- 
pelled to  stoop  to  microscopical  ob- 
servations and  photographic  details. 
L  Here  every  thing  is  changed.  A  writer 
of  memoirs  has  a  right  to  record  his 
childish  impressions.  His  distant  rec- 
ollections, mutilated  remnants  of  a 
forgotten  life,  have  a  peculiar  charm  ; 
we  accompany  him  back  to  infancy.  A 
Latin  lesson,  a  soldier's  march,  a  ride 
behind  some  one,  become  important 
events  embellished  by  distance ;  we 
enjoy  his  peaceful  and  familiar  pleas- 
ure, and  feel  with  him  avast  sweetness 
in  seeing  once  more,  with  so  much 
ease  and  in  so  clear  a  light,  the  well- 
known  phantoms  of  the  past.  Minute 
detail  adds  to  the  interest  in  adding  to 
the  naturalness.  Storie's  of  campaign 
life,  random  opinions  on  the  books  and 
events  of  the  time,  a.  hundred  petty 
scenes,  a  thousand  petty  facts,  mani- 
festly useless,  are  on  that  very  account 
illusory.  We  forget  the  author,  we 
listen  to  the  old  Colonel,  we  find  our- 
selves carried  back  a  hundred  years, 
and  we  have  the  extreme  pleasure,  so 
uncommon,  of  believing  in  what  we 
read. 

Whilst  the  subject  obviates  the 
faults,  or  turns  them  into  virtues,  it 
offers  for  these  virtues  the  very  finest 
theme.  A  powerful  reflection  has  de- 
composed and  reproduced  the  manners 
of  the  time  with  a  most  astonishing  fidel- 
ity. Thackeray  knows  Swift,  Steele, 
Addison,  St.  John,  Marlborough,  as  well 
as  the  most  attentive  and  learned  histor- 
ian. He  depicts  their  habits,  household, 
conversation,  like  Walter  Scott  himself; 
and,  what  W  liter  Scott  could  not  do, 
he  imitates  their  style  so  that  we  are 
deceived  by  it ;  and  many  of  their  au- 
thentic phrases,  inwoven  with  the  text 
cannot  be  distinguished  from  it.  This 
perfect  imitation  is  not  limited  to  a  few 
select  scenes,  but  pervades  the  whole 
volume.  Colonel  Esmond  writes  as  peo- 
ple wrote  in  the  year  1700.  The  feat,  I 
was  going  to  say  the  genius,  is  as  great 
as  the  attempt  of  Paul  Louis  Courier, 


in  imitating  successfully  the  style  of 
ancient  Greece.  The  style  of  Esmond 
has  the  calmness,  the  exactness,  the 
simplicity,  the  solidity  of  the  classics. 
Our  modern  temerities,  our  prodigal 
imagery,  our  jostled  figures,  our  habit 
of  gesticulation,  our  striving  for  effect, 
all  our  bad  literary  customs  have  dis- 
appeared. Thackeray  must  have  gone 
back  to  the  primitive  sense  of  words, 
discovered  their  forgotten  shades  of 
meaning,  recomposed  an  obliterated 
state  of  intellect  and  a  lost  species  of 
ideas,  to  make  his  copy  approach  so 
closely  to  the  original.  The  imagina- 
tion of  Dickens  himself  would  have 
failed  in  this.  To  attempt  and  accomp- 
lish this,  needed  all  the  sagacity,  calm- 
ness, and  power  of  knowledge  and 
meditation. 

But  the  masterpiece  of  the  work  is 
the  character  of  Esmond.  Thackeray 
has  endowed  him  with  that  tender 
kindliness,  almost  feminine,  which  he 
everywhere  extols  above  all  other  hu- 
man virtues,  and  that  self-mastery 
which  is  the  effect  of  habitual  reflec- 
tion. These  are  the  finest  qualities  of 
his  psychological  armory  ;  each  by  its 
contrast  increases  the  value  of  the 
other.  We  see  a  hero,  but  original 
and  new,  English  in  his  cool  resolution, 
modelled  by  the  delicacy  and  sensibility 
of  his  heart. 

Henry  Esmond  is  a  poor  child,  the 
supposed  bastard  of  Lord  Castlewood, 
brought  up  by  his  heirs.  In  the  open- 
ing chapter  we  are  touched  by  the 
modulated  and  noble  emotion  which 
we  retain  to  the  end  of  the  work.  Lady 
Castlewood,  on  her  first  visit  to  the 
castle,  comes  to  him  in  the  "  book-room 
or  yellow  gallery  ;  "  being  informed  by 
the  house-keeper  who  the  little  boy  is, 
she  blushes  and  walks  back  ;  the  next 
instant,  touched  by  remorse,  she  re- 
turns : 

"With  a  look  of  infinite  pity  and  tenderness 
in  her  eyes,  she  tcok  his  hand  again,  placing 
her  other  fair  hand  on  his  head,  and  saying 
some  words  to  him,  which  were  so  kind,  and 
said  in  a  voice  so  sweet,  that  the  boy,  who  had 
never  looked  upon  so  much  beauty  before,  felt 
as  if  the  touch  of  a  superior  being  or  angel 
smote  him  down  to  the  ground,  and  kissed  the 
fair  protecting  hand  as  he  knelt  on  one  knee. 
To  the  very  last  hour  of  his  life,  Esmond  re- 
membered the  lady  as  she  then  spoke  and 
looked,  the  rings  on  her  fair  hands,  the  very 
spent  of  her  robe,  the  beam  of  her  eyes  lighting 


624 


up  with  surprise  and  kindness,  her  lips  bloom- 
ing in  a  smile,  the  sun  making  a  golden  halo 
round  her  hair.*  .  .  .  There  seemed,  as  the 
boy  thought,  in  every  look  or  gesture  of  this 
fair  creature,  an  angelical  softness  and  bright 
pity — in  motion  or  repose  she  seemed  gracious 
alike  ;  the  tone  of  her  voice,  though  she  ut- 
tered words  ever  so  trivial,  gave  him  a  pleasure 
that  amounted  almost  to  anguish.  It  cannot  be 
called  love,  that  a  lad  of  twelve  years  of  age, 
little  more  than  a  menial,  felt  for  an  exalted 
lady,  his  mistress  ;  but  it  was  worship."  f 

This  noble  and  pure  feeling  is  expand- 
ed by  a  series  of  devoted  actions,  re- 
lated with  extreme  simplicity ;  in  the 
least  words,  in  the  turn  of  a  phrase,  in 
a  chance  conversation,  we  perceive  a 
great  heart,  passionately  grateful,  never 
tiring  of  doing  a  kindness,  or  a  service, 
sympathizing,  friendly,  giving  advice, 
defending  the  honor  of  the  family  and 
the  fortune  of  the  children.  Twice  Es- 
mond interposed  between  Lord  Castle- 
wood  and  Mohun  the  duellist ;  it  was 
not  his  fault  that  the  murderer's  weapon 
did  not  reach  his  own  breast.  When 
Lord  Castlewood  on  his  deathbed  re- 
vealed that  Esmond  was  not  a  bastard, 
but  that  the  title  and  fortune  of  Castle- 
wood  were  lawfully  his,  the  young  man, 
without  a  word,  burned  the  confession 
which  would  have  rescued  him  from 
the  poverty  and  humiliation  in  which 
he  had  so  long  pined.  Insulted  by  the 
Lady  Castlewood,  sick  of  a  wound  re- 
ceived by  his  kinsman's  side,  accused 
of  ingratitude  and  cowardice,  he  per- 
sisted in  his  silence  with  the  justifica- 
tion in  his  hand :  "  And  when  the 
struggle  was  over  in  Harry's  mind,  a 
glow  of  righteous  happiness  filled  it ; 
and  it  was  with  grateful  tears  in  his 
eyes  that  he  returned  thanks  to  God 
for  that  decision  which  he  had  been 
enabled  to  make."  $  Later,  being  in 
love,  but  sure  not  to  marry  if  his  birth 
remained  under  a  cloud  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world,  having  repaid  his  benefac- 
tress, whose  son  he  had  saved,  entreated 
by  her  to  resume  the  name  which  be- 
longed to  him,  he  smiled  sweetly,  and 
gravely  replied  : 

"  *  It  was  settled  twelve  years  since,  by  my 
dear  lord's  bedside,'  says  Colonel  Esmond. 
'The  children  must  know  nothing  of  this. 
Frank  and  his  heirs  after  him  must  bear  our 
name.  'Tis  his  rightfully  ;  I  have  not  even  a 

*  The  History  of  Henry  Esmond,  bk.  i. 
ch.  i. 

t  Ibid.  bk.  i.  ch.  vii.      %  Ibid.  bk.  ii.  ch.  i. 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


proof  of  that  marriage  of  my  father  and  mother, 
though  my  poor  lord,  on  his  deathbed,  told  me 
that  Father  Holt  had  brought  such  a  proof  to 
Castlewood.  I  would  not  seek  it  when  I  was 
abroad.  I  went  and  looked  at  my  poor  mother's 
grave  in  her  convent.  What  matter  to  her 
now?  No  court  of  law  on  earth,  upon  my 
mere  word,  would  deprive  my  Lord  Viscount 
and  set  me  up.  I  am  the  head  of  the  house, 
dear  lady  ;  but  Frank  is  Viscount  of  Castle- 
wood still.  And  rather  than  disturb  him,  I 
would  turn  monk,  or  disappear  in  America.' 

"  As  he  spoke  so  to  his  dearest  mistress,  for 
whom  he  would  have  been  willing  to  give  up 
his  life,  or  to  make  any  sacrifice  any  day,  the 
fond  creature  flung  herself  down  on  her  knees 
before  him,  and  kissed  both  his  hands  in  an 
outbreak  of  passionate  love  and  gratitude,  such 
as  could  not  but  melt  his  heart,  and  make  him 
feel  very  proud  and  tnankful  that  God  had 
given  him  the  power  to  show  his  love  for  her, 
and  to  prove  it  by  some  little  sacrifice  on  his 
own  part.  To  be  able  to  bestow  benefits  or 
happiness  on  those  one  loves  is  sure  the  great- 
est blessing  conferred  upon  a  man — and  what 
wealth  or  name,  or  gratification  of  ambition  or 
vanity,  could  compare  with  the  pleasure  Es- 
mond now  had  of  being  able  to  confer  some 
kindness  upon  his  best  and  dearest  friends? 

"  '  Dearest  saint,'  says  he,  'purest soul,  that 
has  had  so  much  to  surfer,  that  lias  blest  the 
poor  lonely  orphan  with  such  a  treasure  of 
love.  'Tis  for  me  to  kneel,  not  for  you  :  'tis 
for  me  to  be  thankful  that  I  can  make  you 
happy.  Hath  my  life  any  other  aim  ?  Blessed 
be  God  that  I  can  serve  you ! '  "  * 

This  noble  tenderness  seems  still  more 
touching  when  contrasted  with  the 
surrounding  circumstances.  Esmond 
goes  to  the  wars,  serves  a  political 
party,  lives  amidst  dangers  and  bustle, 
judging  revolutions  and  politics  from 
a  lofty  point  of  view ;  he  becomes  a 
man  of  experience,  well  informed,  learn- 
ed, far-sighted,  capable  of  great  enter- 
prises, possessing  prudence  and  cour- 
age, harassed  by  his  own  thoughts  and 
griefs,  ever  sad  and  ever  strong.  He 
ends  by  accompanying  to  England  the 
Pretender,  half -brother  of  Queen  Anne, 
and  keeps  him  disguised  at  Castle- 
wood, awaiting  the  moment  when  the 
queen,  dying  and  won  over  to  the  Tory 
cause,  should  declare  him  her  heir. 
This  young  prince,  a  true  Stuart,  pays 
court  to  Lord  Castlewood's  daughter 
Beatrix,  whom  Esmond  loves,  and  gets 
out  at  night  to  join  her.  Esmond, 
who  waits  for  him,  sees  the  crown  lost 
and  his  house  dishonored.  His  insulted 
honor  and  outraged  love  break  forth  in 
a  proud  and  terrible  rage.  Pale,  with 
set  teeth,  his  brain  on  fire  by  four 
sleepless  nights  of  anxiety,  he  keeps 
*  Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  ii. 


CHAP.  II.] 


THE  NO  VEL—  THA  CKERA  Y. 


his  mind  clear,  and  his  voice  calm  ;  he 
explains  to  the  prince  with  perfect 
etiquette,  and  with  the  respectful  cold- 
ness of  an  official  messenger,  the  folly 
which  the  prince  has  committed,  and 
the  villany  which  the  prince  contem- 
plated. The  scene  must  be  read  to 
see  how  much  superiority  and  passion 
this  calmness  and  bitterness  imply : 

"'What  mean  you,  my  lord?'  says  the 
Prince,  and  muttered  something  about  a  guet- 
a-pens,  which  Esmond  caught  up. 

"  '  The  snare,  Sir,'  said  he,  '  was  not  of  our 
laying ;  it  is  not  we  that  invited  you.  We 
came  to  avenge,  and  not  to  compass,  the  dis- 
honour of  our  family.' 

"  '  Dishonour !  Morbleu  I  there  has  been  no 
dishonour,'  says  the  Prince,  turning  scarlet, 
'  only  a  little  harmless  playing.' 

' '  That  was  meant  to  end  seriously.' 

"  '  I  swear,'  the  Prince  broke  out  impetu- 
ously, '  upon  the  honour  of  a  gentleman,  my 
lords  ' — 

"  '  That  we  arrived  in  time.  No  wrong  hath 
been  done,  Frank,'  says  Colonel  Esmond, 
turning  round  to  young  Castlewood,  who  stood 
at  the  door  as  the  talk  was  going  on.  '  See  ! 
here  is  a  paper  whereon  his  Majesty  hath 
deigned  to  commence  some  verses  in  honour, 
or  dishonour,  of  Beatrix.  Here  is,  "  Madame  " 
and  "  Flamme,"  "  Cruelle  "  and  "  Rebelle," 
and  "  Amour "  and  "  Jour,"  in  the  Royal 
writing  and  spelling.  Had  the  Gracious  lover 
been  happy,  he  had  not  passed  his  time  in 
sighing.'  In  fact,  and  actually  as  he  was 
speaking,  Esmond  cast  his  eyes  down  towards 
the  table,  and  saw  a  paper  on  which  my  young 
Prince  had  been  scrawling  a  madrigal,  that 
was  to  finish  his  charmer  on  the  morrow. 

"  '  Sir,'  says  the  Prince,  burning  with  rage 
(he  had  assumed  his  Royal  coat  unassisted  by 
this  time),  '  did  I  come  here  to  receive  insults?  ' 

"  '  To  confer  them,  may  it  please  your  Maj- 
esty,' says  the  Colonel,  with  a  very  low  bow, 
'and  the  gentlemen  of  our  family  are  come  to 
thank  you.' 

"  '  Malediction  ! '  says  the  young  man,  tears 
starting  into  his  eyes  with  helpless  rage  and 
mortification.  '  What  will  you  with  me,  gen- 
tlemen?' 

"  '  If  your  Majesty  will  please  to  enter  the 
next  apartment,'  says  Esmond,  preserving  his 
grave  tone,  '  I  have  some  papers  there  which  I 
would  gladly  submit  to  you,  and  by  your  per- 
mission I  will  lead  the  way  ; '  and  taking  the 
taper  up,  and  backing  before  the  Prince  with 
very  great  ceremony,  Mr.  Esmond  passed  into 
the  little  Chaplain  s  room,  through  which  we 
had  just  entered  into  the  house: — 'Please  to 
set  a  chair  for  his  Majesty,  Frank,'  says  the 
Colonel  to  his  companion,  who  wondered  al- 
most as  much  at  this  scene,  and  was  as  much 
puzzled  by  it,  as  the  other  actor  in  it.  Then 
poing  to  the  crypt  over  the  mantel-piece,  the 
Colonel  opened  it,  and  drew  thence  the  papers 
which  so  long  had  lain  there. 

"  '  Here,  may  it  please  your  Majesty,'  says 
he,  'is  the  Patent  of  Marquis  sent  over  by 
your  Royal  Father  at  St-  Germain's  to  Vis- 
count Castlewood,  my  father :  here  is  the  wit- 


625 


nessed  certificate  of  my  father's  marriage  to  my 
mother,  and  of  my  birth  and  christening ;  I 
was  christened  of  that  religion  of  which  year 
sainted  sire  gave  all  through  life  so  shining  ex- 
ample. These  are  my  titles,  dear  Frank,  and 
this  what  I  do  with  them:  here  go  Baptism 
and  Marriage,  and  here  the  Marquisate  and 
the  August  Sign-Manual,  with  which  your  pre- 
decessor was  pleased  to  honour  our  race.'  And 
as.  Esmond  spoke  he  set  the  papers  burning  in 
the  brazier.  '  You  will  please,  sir,  to  remem- 
ber,' he  continued,  '  that  our  family  hath  ruined 
itself  by  fidelity  to  yours  ;  that  my  grandfather 
spent  his  estate,  and  gave  his  blood  and  his  son 
to  die  for  your  service  ;  that  my  dear  lord's 
grandfather  (for  lord  you  are  now,  Frank,  by 
right  and  title  too)  died  for  the  same  cause  ; 
that  my  poor  kinswoman,  my  father's  second 
wife,  after  giving  away  her  honour  to  your 
wicked  perjured  race,  sent  all  her  wealth  to  the 
King,  and  got  in  return  that  precious  title  that 
lies  in  ashes,  and  this  inestimable  yard  of  blue 
riband.  I  lay  this  at  your  feet,  and  stamp  upon 
it :  I  draw  this  sword,  and  break  it  and  deny 
you  ;  and  had  you  completed  the  wrong  you 
designed  us,  by  Heaven  I  would  have  driven 
it  through  your  heart,  and  no  more  pardoned 
you  than  your  father  pardoned  Monmouth.'  "* 

Two  pages  later  he  speaks  thus  of  his 
marriage  to  Lady  Castlewood  : 

"That  happiness  which  hath  subsequently 
crowned  it,  cannot  be  written  in  words  ;  'tis  of 
its  nature  sacfed  and  secret,  and  not  to  be 
spoken  of,  though  the  heart  be  ever  so  full  of 
thankfulness,  save  to  Heaven  and  the  One  ear 
alone — to  one  fond  being,  the  truest  and  ten- 
derest  and  purest  wife  ever  man  was  blessed 
with.  As  I  think  of  the  immense  happiness 
which  was  in  store  for  me,  and  of  the  depth 
and  intensity  of  that  love  which,  for  so  many 
years,  hath  blessed  me,  I  own  to  a  transport  of 
wonder  and  gratitude  for  such  a  boon — nay,  am 
thankful  to  have  been  endowed  with  a  heart 
capable  of  feeling  and  knowing  the  immense 
beauty  and  value  of  the  gift  which  God  hath 
bestowed  upon  me.  Sure,  love  vine  it  omnia, 
is  immeasurably  above  all  ambition,  more  pre- 
cious than  wealth,  more  noble  than  name.  He 
knows  not  life  who  knows  not  that :  he  hatn 
not  felt  the  highest  faculty  of  the  soul  who 
hath  not  enjoyed  it.  In  the  name  of  my  wife  I 
write  the  completion  of  hope,  and  the  summit 
of  happiness.  To  have  such  a  love  is  the  one 
blessing,  in  comparison  of  which  all  earthly 
joy  is  of  no  value  ;  and  to  think  of  her,  is  to 
praise  God." 

A  character  capable  of  such  contrasts 
is  a  lofty  work  ;  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  Thackeray  has  produced  no  other ; 
we  regret  that  moral  intentions  have 
perverted  these  fine  literary  faculties  ; 
and  we  deplore  that  satire  has  robbed 
art  of  such  talent. 

X. 

Who  is  he ;  and  what  is  the  value  of 
*  The  History  of  Henry  Esmond,  bk.  iii. 
ch.  xiii. 

27 


626 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


this  literature  of  which  he  is  one  of  the 
princes  ?  At  bottom,  like  every  litera- 
ture, it  is  a  definition  of  man ;  and  to 
judge  it,  we  must  compare  it  with  man. 
We  can  do  so  now ;  we  have  just  stud- 
ied a  mind,  Thackeray  himself;  we 
have  considered  his  faculties,  their  con- 
nections, results,  their  different  degrees ; 
we  have  before  our  eyes  a  model  of 
human  nature.  We  have  a  right  to 
judge  of  the  copy  by  the  model,  and  to 
control  the  definition  which  his  novels 
lay  down  by  the  definition  which  his 
character  furnishes. 

The  two  definitions  are  contrary, 
and  his  portrait  is  a  criticism  on  his 
talent.  We  have  seen  that  in  him  the 
same  faculties  produce  the  beautiful 
and  the  ugly,  force  and  weakness, 
success  and  failure  ;  that  moral  reflec- 
tion, after  having  provided  him  with 
every  satirical  power,  debases  him  in 
art ;  that,  after  having  spread  over  his 
contemporary  novels  a  tone  of  vulgar- 
ity and  falseness,  it  raises  his  historical 
novel  to  the  level  of  the  finest  produc- 
tions ;  that  the  same  constitution  of 
mind  teaches  him  the  sarcastic  and 
violent,  as  well  as  the  modulated  and 
simple  style,  the  bitterness  and  harsh- 
ness of  hate  with  the  effusion  and 
delicacy  of  love.  The  evil  and  the 
good,  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly,  the  re- 
pulsive and  the  agreeable,  are  in  him 
then  but  remoter  effects,  of  slight  im- 
portance, born  of  changing  circum- 
stances, acquired  and  fortuitous  qual- 
ities, not  essential  and  primitive,  dif- 
ferent forms  which  different  streams 
present  in  the  same  current.  So  it  is 
with  other  men.  Doubtless  moral  qual- 
ities are  of  the  first  rank ;  they  are 
the  motive  power  of  civilization,  and 
constitute  the  nobleness  of  the  indi- 
vidual ;  society  exists  by  them  alone, 
and  by  them  alone  man  is  great.  But 
if  they  are  the  finest  fruit  of  the  hu- 
man plant,  they  are  not  its  root ;  they 
give  us  our  value,  but  do  not  constitute 
our  elements.  Neither  the  vices  nor  the 
virtues  of  man  are  his  nature  ;  to  praise 
or  to  blame  him  is  not  to  know  him  ; 
approbation  or  disapprobation  does  not 
define  him  ;  the  names  of  good  or  bad 
tell  us  nothing  of  what  he  is.  Put  the 
robber  Cartouche  in  an  Italian  court  of 
the  fifteenth  century ;  he  would  be  a 
great  statesman.  Transport  this  noble- 


man, stingy  and  narrow-minded,  into  a 
shop  ;  he  will  be  an  exemplary  trades- 
man. This  public  man,  of  inflexible 
probity,  is  in  his  drawing-room  an  in- 
tolerable coxcomb.  This  father  of  a 
family,  so  humane,  is  an  idiotic  politi- 
cian. Change  a  virtue  in  its  circumstan- 
ces, and  it  becomes  a  vice  ;  change  a 
vice  in  its  circumstances,  and  it  becomes 
a  virtue.  Regard  the  same  quality  from 
two  sides ;  on  one  it  is  a  fault,  on  the 
other  a  merit.  The  essential  man  is 
found  concealed  far  below  these  moral 
badges  ;  they  only  point  out  the  useful 
or  noxious  effect  of  our  inner  constitu- 
tion :  they  do  not  reveal  our  inner  con- 
stitution. They  are  safety  or  advertiz- 
ing lights  attached  to  pur  names,  to 
warn  the  passer-by  to  avoid  or  approach 
us  ;  they  are  not  the  explanatory  chart 
of  our  being.  Our  true  essence  consists 
in  the  causes  of  our  good  or  bad  qual- 
ities, and  these  causes  are  discovered 
in  the  temperament,  the  species  and 
degree  of  imagination,  the  amount  and 
velocity  of  attention,  the  magnitude 
and  direction  of  primitive  passions. 
A  character  is  a  force,  like  gravity,  or 
steam,  capable,  as  it  may  happen,  of 
pernicious  or  profitable  effects,  and 
which  must  be  defined  otherwise  than 
by  the  amount  of  the  weight  it  can  lift 
or  the  havoc  it  can  cause.  It  is  there- 
fore to  ignore  man,  to  reduce  him,  as 
Thackeray  and  English  literature  gen- 
erally do,  to  an  aggregate  of  virtues 
and  vices ;  it  is  to  lose  sight  in  him  of 
all  but  the  exterior  and  social  side ;  it 
is  to  neglect  the  inner  and  natural  ele- 
ment. We  will  find  the  same  fault  in 
English  criticism,  always  moral,  never 
psychological,  bent  on  exactly  measur- 
ing the  degree  of  human  honesty,  igno- 
rant of  the  mechanism  of  our  senti- 
ments and  faculties;  we  will  find  the 
same  fault  in  English  religion,  which 
is  but  an  emotion  or  a  discipline;  in 
their  philosophy,  destitute  of  metaphys- 
ics ;  and  if  we  ascend  to  the  source, 
according  to  the  rule  which  derives 
vices  from  virtues,  and  virtues  from 
vices,  we  will  see  all  these  weaknesses 
derived  from  their  native  energy,  their 
practical  education,  and  that  kind  of 
severe  and  religious  poetic  instinct 
which  has  in  time  past  made  them 
Protestant  and  Puritan. 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HIS  TOR  Y—MA  CA  ULA  Y. 


CHAPTER  III. 
Criiinsm  mtfr  3pGbi0rg.  — 


I. 

I  SHALL  not  here  attempt  to  write  the 
life  of  Lord  Macaulay.  It  can  only  be 
related  twenty  years  hence,  when  his 
friends  shall  have  put  together  all  their 
recollections  of  him.  As  to  what  is 
public  now,  it  seems  to  me  useless 
to  recall  it  :  every  one  knows  that  his 
father  was  an  abolitionist  and  a  phil- 
anthropist ;  that  Macaulay  passed 
through  a  most  brilliant  and  complete 
classical  education  ;  that  at  twenty-five 
his  essay  on  Milton  made  him  famous; 
that  at  thirty  he  entered  parliament, 
and  took  his  standing  there  amongst 
the  first  orators  ;  that  he  went  to  India 
to  reform  the  law,  and  that  on  his  re- 
turn he  was  appointed  to  high  offices  ; 
that  on  one  occasion  his  liberal  opin- 
ions in  religious  matters  lost  him  his 
seat  in  parliament  ;  that  he  was  re- 
elected  amidst  universal  congratula- 
tion ;  that  he  continued  to  be  the  most 
celebrated  publicist  and  the  most  ac- 
complished writer  of  the  Whig  party  ; 
and  that  on  this  ground,  towards  the 
close  of  his  life,  the  gratitude  of  his 
party  and  the  public  admiration,  made 
him  a  British  peer.  It  will  be  a  fine 
biography  to  write  —  a  life  of  honor 
and  happiness,  devoted  to  noble  ideas, 
and  occupied  by  manly  enterprizes  ; 
literary  in  the  first  place,  but  suffi- 
ciently charged  with  action  and  im- 
mersed in  business  to  furnish  sub- 
stance and  solidity  to  his  eloquence 
and  style,  to  form  the  observer  side  by 
side  with  the  artist,  and  the  thinker 
side  by  side  with  the  writer.  On  the 
present  occasion  I  will  only  describe 
the  thinker  and  writer  :  I  leave  the 
life,  I  take  his  works  ;  and  ft.st  his 
Essays. 

II. 

His  Essays  are  a  collection  of  articles 
from  reviews  :  I  confess  to  a  fondness 
for  books  of  this  kind.  In  the  first 
place,  we  can  throw  down  the  volume 
after  a  score  of  pages,  begin  at  the  end, 
or  in  the  middle  ;  we  are  not  its  slave, 
but  its  master  ;  we  can  treat  it  like  a 
newspaper  :  in  fact,  it  is  the  journal  of 


a  mind.  In  the  second  place,  it  is  mis- 
cellaneous ;  in  turning  over  a  page,  we 
pass  from  the  Renaissance  to  the  nine- 
teenth century,  from  England  to  India  : 
this  diversity  surprises  and  pleases. 
Lastly,  involuntarily,  the  author  is  in- 
discreet ;  he  displays  himself  to  us, 
keeping  back  nothing  ;  it  is  a  familiar 
conversation,  and  no  conversation  is 
worth  so  much  as  that  of  England's 
greatest  historian.  We  are  pleased  to 
mark  the  origin  of  this  generous  and 
powerful  mind,  to  discover  what  facul- 
ties have  nourished  his  talent,  what 
researches  have  shaped  his  knowledge, 
what  opinions  he  formed  on  philos- 
ophy, religion,  the  state,  literature ; 
what  he  was,  and  what  he  has  become  ; 
what  he  wishes,  and  what  he  believes. 

Seated  in  an  arm-chair,  with  our  feet 
on  the  fender,  we  see  little  by  little,  as 
we  turn  over  the  leaves  of  the  book,  an 
animated  and  thoughtful  face  arise  be- 
fore us ;  the  countenance  assumes  ex- 
pression and  clearness;  the  different 
features  are  mutually  explained  and 
lightened  up  ;  presently  the  author 
lives  again  for  us,  and  before  us ;  we 
perceive  the  causes  and  birth  of  all  his 
thoughts,  we  foresee  what  he  is  going 
to  say  ;  his  bearing  and  mode  of  speech 
are  as  familiar  to  us  as  those  of  a  man 
whom  we  see  every  day  ;  his  opinions 
correct  and  affect  our  own  ;  he  enters 
partly  into  our  thoughts  and  our  life  ; 
he  is  two  hundred  leagues  away,  and 
his  book  stamps  his  image  on  us,  as 
the  reflected  light  paints  on  the  horizon 
the  object  from  which  it  is  emitted. 
Such  is  the  charm  of  books,  which  deal 
with  all  kinds  of  subjects,  which  give 
the  author's  opinions  on  all  sorts  of 
things,  which  lead  us  in  all  directions 
of  his  thoughts,  and  make  us,  so  to 
speak,  walk  around  his  mind. 

Macaulay  treats  philosophy  in  the 
English  fashion,  as  a  practical  man. 
He  is  a  disciple  of  Bacon,  and  sets  him 
above  all  philosophers ;  he  decides 
that  genuine  science  dates  from  him ; 
that  the  speculations  of  old  thinkers 
are  only  witticisms  ;  that  for  two  thou- 
sand years  the  human  mind  was  on  a 
wrong  tack ;  that  only  since  Bacon  it 
has  discovered  the  goal  to  which  it 
must  turn,  and  the  method  by  which  it 
must  arrive  there.  This  goal  is  utility. 
The  object  of  knowledge  is  not  theory, 


628 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


but  application.  The  object  of  math- 
ematicians is  not  the  satisfaction  of  an 
idle  curiosity,  but  the  invention  of 
machines  calculated  to  alleviate  human 
labor,  to  increase  the  power  of  subdu- 
ing nature,  to  render  life  more  secure, 
commodious,  and  happy.  The  object 
of  astronomy  is  not  to  furnish  matter 
for  vast  calculations  and  poetical  cos- 
mogonies, but  to  subserve  geography 
and  to  guide  navigation.  The  object 
of  anatomy  and  the  zoological  sciences 
is  not  to  suggest  eloquent  systems  on 
the  nature  ^of  organization,  or  to  set 
before  the  eyes  the  orders  of  the  animal 
kingdom  by  an  ingenious  classification, 
but  to  conduct  the  surgeon's  hand  and 
the  physician's  prognosis.  The  object 
of  every  research  and  every  study  is  to 
augment  comfort,  to  ameliorate  the 
condition  of  man  ;  theoretical  laws  are 
serviceable  only  in  their  practical  use  ; 
the  labors  of  the  laboratory  and  the 
cabinet  receive  their  sanction  and  value 
only  through  the  u*e  made  of  them  by 
workshops  and  mills ;  the  tree  of 
knowledge  must  be  estimated  only  by 
its  fruits.  If  we  wish  to  judge  of  a 
philosophy,  we  must  observe  its  ef- 
fects ;  its  works  are  not  its  books,  but 
its  acts.  The  philosophy  of  the  an- 
cients produced  fine  writings,  sublime 
phrases,  infinite  disputes,  hollow 
dreams,  systems  displaced  by  systems, 
and  left  the  world  as  ignorant,  as  un- 
happy, and  as  wicked  as  it  found  it. 
That  of  Bacon  produced  observations, 
experiments,  discoveries,  machines,  en- 
tire arts  and  industries : 

"  It  has  lengthened  life  ;  it  has  mitigated 
pain  ;  it  has  extinguished  diseases  ;  it  has  in- 
creased the  fertility  of  the  soil  ;  it  has  given 
new  securities  to  the  mariner  ;  it  has  furnished 
new  arms  to  the  warrior  ;  it  has  spanned  great 
rivers  and  estuaries  with  bridges  of  form  un- 
known to  our  fathers  ;  it  has  guided  the  thun- 
derbolt innocuously  from  heaven  to  earth  ;  it 
has  lighted  up  the  night  with  the  splendour  of 
the  day  ;  it  has  extended  the  range  of  the  hu- 
man vision  ;  it  has  multiplied  the  power  of  the 
human  muscles  ;  it  has  accelerated  motion  ;  it 
has  annihilated  distance  ;  it  has  facilitated  in- 
tercourse, correspondence,  all  friendly  offices, 
all  despatch  of  business  ;  it  has  enabled  man 
to  descend  to  the  depths  of  the  sea,  to  soar  into 
the  air,  to  penetrate  securely  into  the  noxious 
recesses  of  the  earth,  to  traverse  the  land  in 
cars  which  whirl  along  without  horses,  and  the 
ocean  in  ships  which  run  ten  knots  an  hour 
against  the  wind."  * 


*  Macaulay's  Works,  ed.  Lady  Trevelyan,  8 
va's.  1866  ;  Essay  on  Bacon,  vi.  222. 


The  first  was  consumed  in  solving  un- 
solvable  enigmas,  fabricating  portraits 
of  an  imaginary  sage,  mounting  from 
hypothesis  to  hypothesis,  tumbling 
from  absurdity  to  absurdity;  it  de- 
spised what  was  practicable,  promised 
what  was  impracticable  ;  and  because 
it  disregarded  the  limits  of  the  human 
mind,  ignored  its  power.  The  other, 
measuring  our  force  and  weakness, 
diverted  us  from  roads  that  were  closed 
to  us,  to  start  us  on  roads  that  were 
open  to  us  ;  it  recognized  facts  and  laws, 
because  it  resigned  itself  to  remain  ig- 
norant of  their  essence  and  principles  ; 
it  rendered  man  more  happy,  because 
it  has  not  pretended  to  render  him 
perfect ;  it  discovered  great  truths  and 
produced  great  effects,  because  it  had 
the  courage  and  good  sense  to  study 
small  things,  and  to  keep  for  a  long 
time  to  petty  vulgar  experiments  ;  it 
has  become  glorious  and  powerful, 
because  it  deigned  to  become  humble 
and  useful.  Formerly,  science  fur- 
nished only  vain  pretensions  and  chi- 
merical conceptions,  whilst  it  held  it- 
self far  aloof  from  practical  existence, 
and  styled  itself  the  sovereign  of  man. 
Now,  science  possesses  acquired  truths, 
the  hope  of  loftier  discoveries,  an  ever- 
increasing  authority,  because  it  has 
entered  upon  active  existence,  and  has 
declared  itself  the  servant  of  man. 
Let  it  keep  to  its  new  functions  ;  let  it 
not  try  to  penetrate  the  region  of  the 
invisible  ;  let  it  renounce  what  must 
remain  unknown;  it  does  not  contain 
its  own  issue,  it  is  but  a  medium  ;  man 
was  not  made  for  it,  but  science  was 
made  for  man  ;  it  is  like  the  thermom- 
eters and  piles  which  it  constructs  for 
its  own  experiments  ;  its  whole  glory, 
merit,  and  office,  is  to  be  an  instru- 
ment : 

"  We  have  sometimes  thought  that  an  amus- 
ing fiction  might  be  written,  in  which  a  disciple 
of  Epictetus  and  a  disciple  of  Bacon  should  be 
introduced  as  fellow-travellers.  They  come  to 
a  village  where  the  small-pox  has  just  begun  to 
rage,  and  find  houses  shut  up,  intercourse  sus- 
pended, the  sick  abandoned,  mothers  weeping 
in  terror  over  their  children.  The  Stoic  assures 
the  dismayed  population  that  there  is  nothing 
bad  in  the  small-pox,  and  that  to  a  wise  man 
disease,  deformity,  death,  the  loss  of  friends, 
are  not  evils.  The  Baconian  takes  out  a  lan- 
cet and  begins  to  vaccinate.  They  find  a  body 
of  miners  in  great  dismay.  An  explosion  oi 
noisome  vapours  has  just  killed  many  of  those 
who  were  at  work  ;  and  the  survivors  are  afraid 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY—  MA  CAUL  AY. 


629 


to  venture  into  the  cavern.  The  Stoic  assures 
them  that  such  an  accident  is  nothing  but  a 
mere  amo-rrporiy^evov.  The  Baconian,  who  has 
no  such  fine  word  at  his  command,  contents 
himself  with  devising  a  safety-lamp.  They 
find  a  shipwrecked  merchant  wringing  his  hands 
on  the  shore.  His  vessel  with  an  inestimable 
cargo  has  just  gone  down,  and  he  is  reduced  in 
a  moment  from  opulence  to  beggary.  The 
Stoic  exhorts  him  not  to  seek  happiness  in 
things  which  lie  without  himself,  and  repeats 
the  whole  chapter  of  Epictetus,  irpbs  TOU?  -rt\v 
airopiav  SefioiKOTas.  The  Baconian  constructs 
a  diving-bell,  goes  down  in  it,  and  returns  with 
the  most  precious  effects  from  the  wreck.  It 
would  be  easy  to  multiply  illustrations  of  the 
difference  bet  ween  the  philosophy  of  thorns  and 
the  philosophy  of  fruit,  the  philosophy  of  words 
and  the  philosophy  of  works."  * 

It  is  not  for  me  to  discuss  these 
opinions  ;  it  is  for  the  reader  to  blame 
or  praise  them,  if  he  sees  fit :  I  do  not 
wish  to  criticise  doctrines,  but  to  depict 
a  man ;  and  truly  nothing  could  be 
more  striking  than  this  absolute  scorn 
for  speculation,  and  this  absolute  love 
for  the  practical.  Such  a  mind  is  en- 
tirely suitable  to  the  national  genius  : 
in  England  a  barometer  is  still  called 
a  philosophical  instrument ;  philosophy 
is  there  a  thing  unknown.  The  Eng- 
lish have  moralists,  psychologists,  but 
no  metaphysicians  :  if  there  is  one — 
Hamilton,  for  instance — he  is  a  skeptic 
in  metaphysics ;  he  has  only  read  the 
German  philosophers  to  refute  them ; 
he  regards  speculative  philosophy  as 
an  extravagance  of  visionaries,  and  is 
compelled  to  apologize  to  his  readers 
for  the  strangeness  of  his  subject,  when 
he  tries  to  make  them  understand 
somewhat  of  Hegel's  conceptions.  The 
positive  and  practical  English,  excel- 
lent politicians,  administrators,  fighters, 
and  workers,  are  no  more  suited  than 
the  ancient  Romans  for  the  abstrac- 
tions of  subtle  dialectics  and  grand  sys- 
tems ;  arid  Cicero,  too,  once  excused 
himself,  when  he  tried  to  expound  to 
his  audience  of  senators  and  public 
men,  the  deep  and  audacious  deduc- 
tions of  the  Stoics. 

III. 

The  only  part  of  philosophy  which 
pleases  men  of  this  kind  is  morality, 
because  like  them  it  is  wholly  practical, 
and  only  attends  to  actions.  Nothing 
else  was  studied  at  Rome,  and  every 

*  Macaulay's  Works  ;  Essay  on  Bacon,  vi. 
223- 


one  knows  what  place  it  holds  in  Eng- 
lish philosophy :  Hutcheson,  Price. 
Ferguson,  Wollaston,  Adam  Smithj 
Bentham,  Reid,  and  many  others,  have 
filled  the  last  century  with  dissertations 
and  discussions  on  the  rule  of  duty, 
and  the  faculty  which  discovers  our 
duty;  and  Macaulay's  Essays  are  a 
new  example  of  this  national  and  dom- 
inant inclination :  his  biographies  are 
less  portraits  than  judgments.  What 
strictly  is  the  degree  of  uprightness 
and  dishonesty  of  the  personage  he  de- 
scribes, that  is  the  important  question 
for  him ;  he  makes  all  other  questions 
refer  to  it ;  he  applies  himself  through- 
out only  to  justify,  excuse,  accuse,  or 
condemn.  If  he  speaks  of  Lord  Clive, 
Warren  Hastings,  Sir  William  Temple, 
Addison,  Milton,  or  any  other  man,  he 
devotes  himself  first  of  all  to  measure 
exactly  the  number  and  greatness  of 
their  faults  and  virtues ;  he  interrupts 
himself,  in  the  midst  of  a  narration,  to 
examine  whether  the  action,  which  he 
is  relating,  is  just  or  unjust ;  he  con- 
siders it  as  a  legist  and  a  moralist,  ac- 
cording to  positive  and  natural  law  ; 
he  takes  into  account  the  state  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  the  examples  which  sur- 
rounded the  accused,  the  principles  he 
professed,  the  education  he  has  re- 
ceived ;  he  bases  his  opinion  on  analo- 
gies drawn  from  ordinary  life,  from  the 
history  of  all  peoples,  the  laws  of  all 
countries ;  he  brings  forward  so  many 
proofs,  such  certain  facts,  such  conclu- 
sive reasonings,  that  the  best  advocate 
might  find  a  model  in  him ;  and  when 
at  last  he  pronounces  judgment,  we 
think  we  are  listening  to  the  summing 
up  of  a  judge.  If  he  analyzes  a  litera- 
ture— that  of  the  Restoration,  for  in- 
stance— he  empanels  before  the  reader 
a  sort  of  jury  to  judge  it.  He  makes 
it  appear  at  the  bar,  and  reads  the  in- 
dictment ;  he  then  presents  the  plea  of 
the  defenders,  who  try  to  excuse  its 
levities  and  indecencies  :  at  last  he  be- 
gins to  speak  in  his  turn,  and  proves 
that  the  arguments  set  forth  are  not 
applicable  to  the  case  in  question  ;  that 
the  accused  writers  have  labored  effect- 
ually and  with  premeditation,  to  corrupt 
morals  ;  that  they  not  only  employed 
unbecoming  words,  but  that  they  design- 
edly, and  with  deliberate  intent,  repre- 
sented unbecoming  things;  that  they 


630 


always  took  care  to  conceal  the  hate- 
fulness  of  vice,  to  render  virtue  ridicu- 
lous, to  make  adultery  fashionable  and 
a  necessary  exploit  of  a  man  of  taste  ; 
that  this  intention  was  all  the  more 
manifest  from  its  being  in  the  spirit  of 
the  times,  and  that  they  were  pander- 
ing to  a  crime  of  their  age.  If  I  dare 
employ,  like  Macaulay,  religious  com- 
parisons, I  should  say  that  his  criticism 
was  like  the  Last  Judgment,  in  which 
the  diversity  of  talents,  characters, 
ranks,  employments,  will  disappear  be- 
fore the  consideration  of  virtue  and 
vice,  and  where  there  will  be  no  more 
artists,  but  a  judge  of  the  righteous 
and  the  wicked. 

In  France,  criticism  has  a  freer  gait ; 
it  is  less  subservient  to  morality,  and 
more  akin  to  art.  When  we  try  to  re- 
late a  life,  or  paint  the  character  of  a 
man,  we  more  readily  consider  him  as 
a  simple  subject  of  painting  or  science  : 
we  only  think  of  displaying  the  various 
feelings  of  his  heart,  the  connection  of 
his  ideas  and  the;  necessity  of  his  ac- 
tions ;  we  do  not  judge  him,  we  only 
wish  to  represent  him  to  the  eyes,  and 
make  him  intelligible  to  the  reason. 
We  are  spectators,  and  nothing  more. 
What  matters  it  if  Peter  or  Paul  is  a 
rascal  ?  that  is  the  business  of  his  con- 
temporaries: they  suffered  from  his 
vices,  and  ought  to  think  only  of  de- 
spising and  condemning  him.  Now  we 
are  beyond  his  reach,  and  hatred  has 
disappeared  with  danger.  At  this  dis- 
tance, and  in  the  historic  perspective, 
I  see  in  him  but  a  mental  machine, 
provided  with  certain  springs,  animated 
by  a  primary  impulse,  affected  by 
various  circumstances.  I  calculate  the 
play  of  his  motives  ;  I  feel  with  him  the 
impact  of  obstacles  ;  I  see  beforehand 
the  curve  which  his  motion  will  trace 
out;  I  feel  for  him  neither  aversion 
nor  disgust  ;  I  have  left  these  feelings 
on  the  threshold  of  history,  and  I  taste 
the  very  deep  and  pure  pleasure  of  see- 
ing a  soul  act  after  a  definite  law,  in  a 
fixed  groove,  with  all  the  variety  of 
human  passions,  with  the  succession 
and  constraint,  which  the  inner  struc- 
ture of  man  imposes  on  the  external 
development  of  his  passions. 

In  a  country  where  men  are  so  much 
occupied  by  morality,  and  so  little  by 
philosophy,  there  is  much  religion. 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


For  lack  of  natural  theology  they  have 
a  positive  theology,  and  demand  from 
the  Bible  the  metaphysics  not  supplied 
by  reason.  Macaulay  is  a  Protestant 
and  though  a  very  candid  and  liberal 
man,  he  at  times  retains  the  English 
prejudices  against  the  Roman-Catholic 
religion.*  Popery  in  England  always 
passes  for  an  impious  idolatry  and  for 
a  degrading  servitude.  After  two  rev- 
olutions, Protestantism,  allied  to  liberty, 
seemed  to  be  the  religion  of  liberty  ; 
and  Roman-Catholicism,  allied  to  des- 
potism, seemed  the  religion  of  despot- 
ism :  the  two  doctrines  have  both  as- 
sumed the  name  of  the  cause  which 
they  supported  To  the  first  has  been 
transferred  the  love  and  veneration 
which  were  felt  for  the  rights  which  it 
defended ;  on  the  second  has  been 
poured  the  scorn  and  hatred  which 
were  felt  for  the  slavery  which  it  would 
have  introduced  :  political  passions 
have  inflamed  .religious  beliefs;  Prot- 
estantism has  been  confounded  with 
the  victorious  fatherland,  Roman-Cath- 
olicism with  the  conquered  enemy  ; 
prejudices  survive  when  the  strife  is 
ended,  and  to  this  day  English  Prot- 
estants do  not  feel  for  the  doctrines  of 
Roman-Catholics  the  same  good-will  or 
impartiality  which  French  Roman- 
Catholics  feel  for  the  doctrines  of  Prot- 
estants. 

But  these  English  opinions  are  mod- 
erated in  Macaulay  by  an  ardent  love 
for  justice.  He  is  a  liberal  in  the 
largest  and  best  sense  of  the  word. 
He  demands  that  all  citizens  should  be 
equal  before  the  law,  that  men  of  all 
sects  should  be  declared  capable  to  fill 
all  public  functions — that  Roman  Cath- 
olics and  Jews  may,  as  well  as  Luther- 
ans, Anglicans,  and  Calvinists,  sit  in 
Parliament.  He  refutes  Mr.  Gladstone 

*  "  Charles  himself,  and  his  creature  Lavd, 
while  they  abjured  the  innocent  badges  of 
Popery,  retained  all  its  worst  vices,- -a  co.n- 
plete  subjection  of  reason  to  authority,  a  weak 
preference  of  form  to  substance,  \  childish  pas- 
sion for  mummeries,  an  idolatrous  veneration 
for  the  priestly  character,  and,  above  all,  a 
merciless  intolerance." — Macaulay,  v.  24  ;  Mil- 
ton. 

"  It  is  difficult  to  relate  without  a  pitying 
smile,  that  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  Loyola 
saw  transubstantiation  take  place,  and  that,  as 
he  stood  praying  on  the  steps  of  the  Church  of 
St.  Dominic,  he  saw  the  Trinity  in  Unity,  and 
wept  aloud  with  joy  and  wonder." — Macaulay, 
vi.  468  ;  Rankf,  History  of  the  Po£es. 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MACAULAY. 


631 


and  the  partisans  of  State  religion  with 
incomparable  ardor  and  eloquence, 
abundance  of  proof,  and  force  of  argu- 
ment ;  he  clearly  proves  that  the  State 
is  only  a  secular  association,  that  its 
end  is  wholly  temporal,  that  its  single 
object  is  to  protect  the  life,  liberty,  and 
property  of  the  citizens ;  that  in  en- 
trusting to  it  the  defence  of  spiritual 
interests,  we  overturn  the  order  of 
things  ;  and  that  to  attribute  to  it  a  re- 
ligious belief,  is  as  though  a  man,  walk- 
ing with  his  feet,  should  also  confide  to 
his  feet  the  care  of  seeing  and  hearing. 
This  question  has  often  been  discussed 
in  France  ;  it  is  so  to  this  day  ;  but  no 
one  has  brought  to  it  more  common 
sense,  more  practical  reasoning,  more 
palpable  arguments.  Macaulay  with- 
draws the  discussion  from  the  region 
of  metaphysics  ;  he  leads  it  back  to  the 
earth  ;  he  brings  it  home  to  all  minds  ; 
he  takes  his  proofs  and  examples  from 
the  best  known  facts  of  ordinary  life ; 
he  addresses  the  shopkeeper,  the  citi- 
zen, the  artist,  the  scholar,  every  one  ; 
he  connects  the  truth,  which  he  asserts, 
with  the  familiar  and  intimate  truths 
which  no  one  can  help  admitting,  and 
which  are  believed  with  all  the  force  of 
experience  and  habit ;  he  carries  off 
and  conquers  our  belief  by  such  solid 
reasons,  that  his  adversaries  will  thank 
him  for  convincing  them;  and  if  by 
chance  a  few  amongst  us  have  need  of 
a  lesson  on  tolerance,  they  had  better 
look  for  it  in  Macaulay's  Essay  on  that 
subject. 

IV. 

This  love  of  justice  becomes  a  pas- 
sion when  political  liberty  is  at  stake  ; 
this  is  the  sensitive  point ;  and  when 
we  touch  it,  we  touch  the  writer  to  the 
quick.  Macaulay  loves  it  interestedly, 
because  it  is  the  only  guarantee  of  the 
properties,  happiness,  and  life  of  indi- 
viduals; he  loves  it  from  pride,  be- 
cause it  is  the  honor  of  man  :  he  loves 
it  from  patriotism,  because  it  is  a  lega- 
cy left  by  preceding  generations  ;  be- 
cause for  two  hundred  years  a  succession 
of  upright  and  great  men  have  defend- 
ed it  against  all  attacks,  and  preserved 
it  in  all  dangers  ;  because  it  has  made 
the  power  and  glory  of  England  ;  be- 
<:ause  in  teaching  the  citizens  to  will 


and  to  decide  for  themselves,  it  adds  to 
their  dignity  and  intelligence  ;  because 
in  assuring  internal  peace  and  continu 
ous  progress,  it  guarantees  the  land 
against  bloody  revolutions  and  silent  de- 
cay. All  these  advantages  are  perpetual 
ly  present  to  his  eyes ;  and  whoever  at- 
tacks the  liberty,  which  forms  their 
foundation,  becomes  at  once  his  enemy. 
Macaulay  cannot  look  calmly  on  the 
oppression  of  man  ;  every  outrage  on 
human  will  hurts  him  like  a  personal 
outrage.  At  every  step  bitter  words 
escape  him,  and  the  stale  adulation 
of  courtiers,  which  he  meets  with, 
brings  to  his  lips  a  sarcasm  the  more 
violent  from  being  the  more  deserved. 
Pitt,  he  says,  at  college  wrote  Latin 
verses  on  the  death  of  George  I.  In 
this  piece  "  the  Muses  are  earnestly 
entreated  to  weep  over  the  urn  of 
Caesar :  for  Caesar,  says  the  poet,  loved 
the  muses;  Caesar,  who  could  not  read 
a  line  of  Pope,  and  who  loved  nothing 
but  punch  and  fat  women."*  Else- 
where,- in  the  biography  of  Miss  Bur- 
ney,  he  relates  how  the  the  poor  young 
lady,  having  become  celebrated  by  her 
two  first  novels,  received  as  a  reward, 
and  as  a  great  favor,  a  place  of  keeper 
of  the  robes  of  Queen  Charlotte  ;  how, 
worn  out  with  watching,  sick,  nearly 
dying,  she  asked  as  a  favor  the  permis- 
sion to  depart ;  how  "  the  sweet  queen  " 
was  indignant  at  this  impertinence,  un- 
able to  understand  that  anyone  could  re- 
fuse to  die  in  and  for  her  service,  or  that 
a  woman  of  letters  should  prefer  health, 
life,  and  glory,  to  the  honor  of  folding 
her  Majesty's  dresses.  But  it  is  when 
Macaulay  comes  to  the  history  of  the 
Revolution  that  he  hauls  to  justice  and 
vengeance  those  men  who  violated  the 
rights  of  the  public,  who  hated  and  be- 
trayed the  national  cause,  who  out- 
raged liberty.  He  does  not  speak  as 
a  historian,  but  as  a  contemporary ;  it 
seems  as  though  his  life  and  his  honor 
were  at  stake,  that  he  pleaded  for  him- 
self, that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  that  he  heard  at  the  door 
the  muskets  and  swords  of  the  guards 
sent  to  arrest  Pym  and  Hampden.  M. 
Guizot  has  related  the  same  history ; 
but  we  recognize  in  his  book  the  calm 
judgment  and  impartial  emotion  of  a 

*  Macaulay,  vi.  39  ;  An  Essay  on  William 
Pittt  Earl  qf  Chatham. 


632 


philosopher.  He  does  not  condemn 
the  actions  of  Stnifford  or  Charles  ;  he 
explains  them ;  he  shows  in  Strafford 
the  imperious  character,  the  domineer- 
ing genius  which  feels  itself  born  to 
command  and  to  crush  opposition, 
whom  an  invincible  bent  rouses  against 
the  law  or  the  right  which  restrains 
him,  who  oppresses  from  a  sort  of  in- 
ner craving,  and  who  is  made  to  govern 
as  a  sword  is  to  strike.  He  shows  in 
Charles  the  innate  respect  for  royalty, 
the  belief  in  divine  right,  the  rooted  con- 
viction that  every  remonstrance  or  de- 
mand is  an  insult  to  his  crown,  an  out- 
rage on  his  rights,  an  impious  and  crimi- 
nal sedition.  Thenceforth  we  see  in  the 
strife  of  king  and  Parliament  but  the 
strife  of  two  doctrines  ;  we  cease  to  take 
an  interest  in  one  or  the  other,  to  take  an 
interest  in  both;  we  are  spectators  of  a 
drama;  we  are  no  longer  judges  at  a 
trial.  But  it  is  a  trial  which  Macaulay 
conducts  before  us ;  he  takes  a  side  in 
it ;  his  account  is  the  address  of  a  pub- 
lic prosecutor  before  the  court,  the 
most  entrancing,  the  most  acrimonious, 
the  best  reasoned,  that  was  ever  writ- 
ten. He  approves  of  the  condemna- 
tion of  Strafford  ;  he  honors  and  ad- 
mires Cromwell ;  he  exalts  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Puritans ;  he  praises  Hamp- 
den  to  such  a  degree,  that  he  calls  him 
the  equal  of  Washington;  he  has  no 
words  scornful  and  insulting  enough 
for  Laud  ;  and  what  is  more  terrible, 
each  of  his  judgments  is  justified  by  as 
many  quotations,  authorities,  historic 
precedents,  arguments,  conclusive 
proofs,  as  the  vast  erudition  of  Hallam 
or  the  calm  dialectics  of  Mackintosh 
could  have  assembled.  Judge  of  this 
transport  of  passion  and  this  withering 
logic  by  a  single  passage : 

"  For  more  than  ten  years  the  people  had 
seen  the  rights  which  were  theirs  by  a  double 
claim,  by  immemorial  inheritance  and  by  re- 
cent purchase,  infringed  by  the  perfidious  King 
who  had  recognized  them.  At  length  circum- 
stances compelled  Charles  to  summon  another 
parliament:  another  chance  was  given  to  our 
fathers  :  were  they  to  throw  it  away  as  they 
had  thrown  away  the  former?  Were  they 
again  to  be  cozened  by  le  Roi  le  veut  ?  Were 
they  again  to  advance  their  money  on  pledges 
which  had  been  forfeited  over  and  over  again  ? 
Were  they  to  lay  a  second  Petition  of  Right  at 
the  foot  of  the  throne,  to  grant  another  lavish 
aid  in  exchange  for  another  unmeaning  cere^ 
mony,  and  then  to  take  their  departure,  till, 
after  ten  yea.rs  more  of  fraud  and  oppression, 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK 


their  prince  should  again  require  a  supply  and 
again  repay  it  with  a  perjury  ?  They  were  com- 
pelled to  choose  whether  they  would  trust  a  ty- 
rant or  conquer  him.  We  think  that  they 
chose  wisely  and  nobly. 

"  The  advocates  of  Charles,  like  the  advo- 
cates of  other  malefactors  against  whom  over- 
whelming evidence  is  produced,  generally  de- 
cline all  controversy  about  the  facts,  and  content 
themselves  with  calling  testimony  to  character. 
He  had  so  many  private  virtues !  And  hac4 
James  the  Second  no  private  virtues  ?  Was 
Oliver  Cromwell,  his  bitterest  enemies  them- 
selves being  judges,  destitute  of  private  virtues  ? 
And  what,  after  all,  are  the  virtues  ascribed  to 
Charles  ?  A  religious  zeal,  not  more  sincere  than 
that  of  his  son,  and  fully  as  weak  and  narrow- 
minded,  and  a  few  of  the  ordinary  household 
decencies  which  half  the  tombstones  in  Eng- 
land claim  for  those  who  lie  beneath  them.  A 
good  father !  A  good  husband  !  Ample  apolo- 
gies indeed  for  fifteen  years  of  persecution, 
tyranny,  and  falsehood ! 

"  We  charge  him  with  having  broken  his 
coronation  oath  ;  and  we  are  told  that  he  kept 
his  marriage  vow  !  We  accuse  him  of  haying 
given  up  his  people  to  the  merciless  inflictions 
of  the  most  hot-headed  and  hard-hearted  of  pre- 
lates ;  and  the  defence  is,  thnt  he  took  his  little 
son  on  his  knee  and  kissed  him !  We  censure 
him  for  having  violated  the  articles  of  the  Peti- 
tion of  Right,  after  having,  for  good  and  valu- 
able consideration,  promised  to  observe  them  ; 
and  we  are  informed  that  he  was  accustomed  to 
hear  prayers  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning !  It 
is  to  such  considerations  as  these,  together 
with  his  Vandyke  dress,  his  handsome  face, 
and  his  peaked  beard,  that  he  owes,  we  verily 
believe,  most  of  his  popularity  with  the  present 
generation. 

"  For  ourselves,  we  own  that  we  do  not  un- 
derstand the  common  phrase,  a  good  man,  but 
a  bad  king.  We  can  as  easily  conceive  a  good 
man  and  an  unnatural  father,  or  a  good  man 
and  a  treacherous  friend.  We  cannot,  in  esti- 
mating the  character  of  an  individual,  leave 
out  of  our  consideration  his  conduct  in  the  most 
important  of  all  human  relations  ;  and  if  in  that 
relation  we  find  him  to  have  been  selfish,  cruel, 
and  deceitful,  we  shall  take  the  liberty  to  call 
him  a  bad  man,  in  spite  of  all  his  temperance  at 
table,  and  all  his  regularity  at  chapel."  * 

This  is  for  the  father ;  now  the  son 
will  receive  something.  The  reader 
will  perceive,  by  the  furious  invective, 
what  excessive  rancor  the  government 
of  the  Stuarts  left  in  the  heart  of  a 
patriot,  a  Whig,  a  Protestant,  and  an 
Englishman : 

"  Then  came  those  days,  never  to  be  reca  i*d 
without  a  blush,  the  days  of  servitude  without 
loyalty  and  sensuality  without  love,  of  dwarfish 
talents  and  gigantic  vices,  the  paradise  of  cold 
hearts  and  narrow  minds,  the  golden  age  of 
the  coward,  the  bigot,  and  the  slave.  The 
King  cringed  to  his  rival  that  he  might  trample 
on  his  people,  sank  into  a  viceroy  of  France, 
and  pocketed,  with  complacent  infamy,  her  de- 
grading  insults,  and  her  more  degrading  gold 


'  Macaulay,  v.  27  ;  Milton. 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MAC  A  ULAY. 


633 


The  caresses  of  harlots,  and  the  jests  of  buf- 
foons, regulated  the  policy  of  the  state.  The 
government  had  just  ability  enough  to  deceive, 
and  just  religion  enough  to  persecute.  The 
principles  of  liberty  were  the  scoff  of  every 
grinning  courtier,  and  the  Anathema  Marana- 
tha  of  every  fawning  dean.  In  every  high 
place,  worship  was  paid  to  Charles  and  James, 
Belial  and  Moloch  ;  and  England  propitiated 
those  obscene  and  cruel  idols  with  the  blood  of 
her  best  and  bravest  children.  Crime  succeed- 
ed to  crime,  and  disgrace  to  disgrace,  till  the 
race  accursed  of  God  and  man  was  a  second 
time  driven  forth,  to  wander  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  to  be  a  by-word  and  a  shaking  of  the 
head  lo  the  nations."  * 

This  piece,  with  all  the  biblical  meta- 
phors, which  has  preserved  something 
of  the  tone  of  Milton  and  the  Puritan 
prophets,  shows  to  what  an  issue  the 
various  tendencies  of  this  great  mind 
were  turning — what  .was  its  bent — how 
the  practical  spirit,  science  and  historic 
talent,  the  unvaried  presence  of  moral 
and  religious  ideas,  love  of  country 
and  justice,  concurred  to  make  of  Ma- 
caulay  the  historian  of  liberty. 

V. 

In  this  his  talent  assisted  him  ;  for 
his  opinions  are  akin  to  his  talent. 

What  first  strikes  us  in  him  is  the 
extreme  solidity  of  his  mind.  He  proves 
all  that  he  says,  with  astonishing  vigor 
and  authority.  We  are  almost  certain 
never  to  go  astray  in  following  him. 
If  he  cites  a  witness,  he  begins  by 
measuring  the  veracity  and  intelligence 
of  the  authors  quoted,  and  by  correct- 
ing the  errors  they  may  have  commit- 
ted, through  negligence  or  partiality. 
If  he  pronounces  a  judgment,  he  relies 
on  the  most  certain  facts,  the  clearest 
principles,  the  simplest  and  most  logi- 
cal deductions.  If  he  develops  an  ar- 
gument, he  never  loses  himself  in  a  di- 
gression ;  he  always  has  his  goal  be- 
fore his  eyes  ;  he  advances  towards  it 
by  the  surest  and  straightest  road.  If 
he  rises  to  general  considerations  he 
mounts  step  by  step  through  all  the 
grades  of  generalization,  without  omit- 
ting one  ;  he  feels  his  way  every  in- 
stant ;  he  neither  adds  nor  subtracts 
from  facts ;  he  desires  at  the  cost  of 
every  precaution  and  research,  to  ar- 
rive at  the  precise  truth.  He  knows 
an  infinity  of  details  of  every  kind;  he 
owns  a  great  number  of  philosophic 

*  Macaulay,  v.  35  ;  Milton. 


ideas  of  every  species  ;  but  his  erudi 
tion  is  as  well  tempered  as  his  philoso- 
phy, and  both  constitute  a  coin  worthy 
of  circulation  amongst  all  thinking 
minds.  We  feel  that  he  believes  noth- 
ing without  reason  ;  that  if  we  doubted 
one  of  the  facts  which  he  advances,  01 
one  of  the  views  which  he  propounds, 
we  should  at  once  encounter  a  multi- 
tude of  authentic  documents  and  a  ser- 
ried phalanx  of  convincing  arguments. 
In  France  and  Germany  we  are  too 
much  accustomed  to  receive  hypoth- 
eses for  historic  laws,  and  doubtful 
anecdotes  for  attested  events.  We  too 
often  see  whole  systems  established, 
from  day  to  day,  according  to  the  ca- 
price of  a  writer  ;  a  sort  of  castles  in  the 
air,  whose  regular  arrangement  simu- 
lates the  appearance  of  genuine  edi- 
fices, and  which  vanish  at  a  breath, 
when  we  come  to  touch  them.  We 
have  all  made  theories,  in  a  fireside 
discussion,  in  case  of  need,  when  for 
lack  of  argument  we  required  some 
fictitious  reasoning,  like  those  Chinese 
generals  who,  to  terrify  their  enemies, 
placed  amongst  their  troops  formidable 
monsters  of  painted  cardboard.  We 
have  judged  men  at  random,  under  the 
impression  of  the  moment,  on  a  de- 
tached action,  an  isolated  document ; 
and  we  have  dressed  them  up  with 
vices  or  virtues,  folly  or  genius,  with- 
out controlling  by  logic  or  criticism  the 
hazardous  decisions  to  which  our  pre- 
cipitation had  carried  us.  Thus  we 
feel  a  deep  satisfaction  and  a  sort  of 
internal  peace,  on  leaving  so  many 
doctrines  of  ephemeral  bloom  in  our 
books  or  reviews,  to  follow  the  steady 

iait  of  a  guide  so  clear  sighted,  re- 
ecfeive,  instructed,  able  to  lead  us 
aright.  We  understand  why  the  Eng- 
lish accuse  the  French  of  being  friv- 
olous, and  the  Germans  of  being  chi- 
merical. Macaulay  brings  to  the  moral 
sciences  that  spirit  of  circumspection, 
that  desire  for  certainty,  and  that  in- 
stinct of  truth,  which  make  up  the 
practical  mind,  and  which  from  the 
time  of  Bacon  have  constituted  the 
scientific  merit  and  power  of  his  na- 
tion. If  art  and  beauty  loose  by  this, 
truth  and  certainty  are  gained  ;  and  no 
one,  for  instance,  would  blame  our  au- 
thor for  inserting  the  following  demon* 
stration  in  the  life  of  Addison  : 
27* 


634 

"  He  (Pope)  asked  Addison's  advice.  Ad- 
dison said  that  the  poem  as  it  stood  was  a  deli- 
cious little  thing,  and  entreated  Pope  not  to  run 
the  risk  of  marring  what  was  so  excellent  in 
trying  to  mend  it.  Pope  aften/ards  declared 
that  this  insidious  counsel  first  opened  his  eyes 
to  the  baseness  of  him  who  gave  it. 

"  Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Pope's 
plan  was  most  ingenious,  and  that  he  afterwards 
executed  it  with  great  skill  and  success.  But 
does  it  necessarily  follow  that  Addison's  advice 
was  bad?  And  if  Addison's  advice  was  bad, 
does  it  necessarily  follow  that  it  was  given  from 
bad  motives  ?  If  a  friend  were  to  ask  us 
whether  we  would  advise  him  to  risk  his  all  in 
a  lottery  of  which  the  chances  were  ten  to  one 
against  him,  we  should  do  our  best  to  dissuade 
him  from  running  such  a  risk.  Even  if  he 
were  so  lucky  as  to  get  the  thirty  thousand 
pound  prize,  we  should  not  admit  that  we  had 
counselled  him  ill  ;  and  we  should  certainly 
think  it  the  height  of  injustice  in  him  to  accuse 
us  of  having  been  actuated  by  malice.  We 
think  Addison's  advice  good  advice.  It  rested 
on  a  sound  principle,  the  result  of  long  and 
wide  experience.  The  general  rule  undoubted- 
ly is  that,  when  a  successful  work  of  imagina- 
tion has  been  produced,  it  should  not  be  recast. 
We  cannot  at  this  moment  call  to  mind  a  single 
instance  in  which  this  rule  has  been  trans- 
gressed with  happy  effect,  except  the  instance 
of  the  Rape  of  the  Lock.  Tasso  recast  his 
Jerusalem,  Akenside  recast  his  Pleasures  of  the 
Imagination  and  his  Epistle  to  Curio.  Pope 
himself,  emboldened  no  doubt  by  the  success 
with  which  he  had  expanded  and  remodelled 
the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  made  the  same  experi- 
ment on  the  Dunciad.  All  these  attempts 
failed.  Who  was  to  foresee  that  Pope  would, 
once  in  his  life,  be  able  to  do  what  he  could  not 
himself  do  twice,  and  what  nobody  else  has 
ever  done  ? 

"  Addison's  advice  was  good.  But  had  it 
been  bad,  why  should  we  pronounce  it  dis- 
honest ?  Scott  tells  us  that  one  of  his  best 
friends  predicted  the  failure  of  Waverley.  Her- 
der adjured  Goethe  not  to  take  so  unpromising 
a  subject  as  Faust.  Hume  tried  to  dissuade 
.Robertson  from  writing  the  History  of  Charles 
the  Fifth.  Nay,  Pope  himself  was  one  of 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


those  who  prophesied  that  Cato  would  never 

succeed  on  the  stage, 

print  it  without  risking  a  representation.     But 


he  stage,  and  advised  Addison  to 


Scott,  Goethe,  Robertson,  Addison,  had  the 
good  sense  and  generosity  to  give  their  advisers 
credit  for  the  best  intentions.  Pope's  heart 
was  not  of  the  same  kind  with  theirs."  * 

What  does  the  reader  think  of  this 
lilemma,  and  this  double  series  of  in- 
ductions ?  The  demonstrations  would 
not  be  more  studied  or  rigorous,  if  a 
physical  law  were  in  question. 

This  demonstrative  talent  was  in- 
creased by  his  talent  for  development. 
Macaulay  enlightens  inattentive  minds, 
as  well  as  he  convinces  opposing 
minds  ;  he  manifests,  as  well  as  he 

*  Macaulay,  vii.  109  ;  Life  and  Writings  of 
A  ddison. 


persuades,  and  spreads  as  much  evi 
deuce  over  obscure  questions  as  certi- 
tude over  doubtful  points.  It  is  im- 
possible not  to  understand  him ;  he 
approaches  the  subject  under  e;ery  as- 
pect, he  turns  it  over  on  every  side ;  it 
seems  as  though  he  addressed  himself 
to  every  spectator,  and  studied  to  make 
himself  understood  by  every  individ- 
ual ;  he  calculates  the  scope  of  every 
mind,  and  seeks  for  each  a  fit  mode  of 
exposition ;  he  takes  us  all  by  the  hand, 
and  leads  us  alternately  to  the  end, 
which  he  has  marked  out  beforehand. 
He  sets  out  from  the  simplest  facts,  he 
descends  to  our  level,  he  brings  him- 
self even  with  our  mind  ;  he  spares  us 
the  pain  of  the  slightest  effort ;  then 
he  leads  us  on,  and  smoothes  the  road 
throughout  ;  we  rise  gradually  with- 
out perceiving  the  slope,  and  at  the 
end  we  find  ourselves  at  the  top,  after 
having  walked  as  easily  as  on  the 
plain.  When  a  subject  is  obscure,  he 
is  not  content  with  a  first  explanation  ; 
he  gives  a  second,  then  a  third  :  he 
sheds  light  in  abundance  from  all 
sides,  he  searches  for  it  in  all  regions 
of  history ;  and  the  wonderful  thing  is, 
that  he  is  never  prolix.  In  reading 
him  we  find  ourselves  in  our  proper 
sphere  ;  we  feel  as  though  we  could 
understand ;  we  are  annoyed  to  have 
taken  twilight  so  long  for  day  ;  we  re- 
joice to  see  this  abounding  light  rising 
and  leaping  forth  in  torrents  ;  the  ex- 
act style,  the  antithesis  of  ideas,  the 
harmonious  construction,  the  artfully 
balanced  paragraphs,  the  vigorous 
summaries,  the  regular  sequence  of 
thoughts,  the  frequent  comparisons, 
the  fine  arrangement  of  the  whole — not 
an  idea  or  phrase  of  his  writings  in 
which  the  talent  and  the  desire  to  ex- 
plain, the  characteristic  of  an  orator, 
does  not  shine  forth.  Macaulay  was  a 
member  of  Parliament,  and  spoke  so 
well,  we  are  told,  that  he  was  listened 
to  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  listening. 
The  habit  of  public  speaking  is  per- 
haps the  cause  of  this  incomparable 
lucidity.  To  convince  a  great  assem- 
bly, we  must  address  all  the  members  ; 
to  rivet  the  attention  of  absent-minded 
and  weary  men,  we  must  save  them 
from  all  fatigue  ;  they  must  take  in  too 
much  in  order  to  'take  in  enough. 
Public  speaking  vulgarizes  ideas;  il 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MAC AULAV. 


635 


drags  truth  from  the  height  at  which 
it  dwells,  with  some  thinkers,  to  bring 
it  amongst  the  crowd  ;  it  reduces  it  to 
the  level  of  ordinary  minds,  who,  with- 
out this  intervention,  would  only  have 
seen  it  from  afar,  and  high  above 
them.  Thus,  when  great  orators  con- 
sent to  write,  they  are  the  most  pow- 
erful of  writers  ;  they  make  philosophy 
popular  ;  they  lift  all  minds  a  stage 
higher,  and  seem  to  enlarge  human  in- 
telligence. In  the  hands  of  Cicero, 
the  dogmas  of  the  Stoics  and  the  dia- 
lectics of  the  Academicians  lose  their 
prickles.  The  subtle  Greek  arguments 
become  united  and  easy;  the  hard 
problems  of  providence,  immortality, 
highest  good,  become  public  property. 
Senators,  men  of  business,  lawyers, 
lovers  of  formulas  and  procedure,  the 
massive  and  narrow  intelligence  of 
publicists,  comprehend  the  deductions 
of  Chrysipptis  ;  and  the  book  De  Ojficiis 
has  made  the  morality  of  Panoetitis 
popular.  In  our  days,  M.  Thiers,  in 
his  two  great  histories,  has  placed 
within  reach  of  everybody  the  most 
involved  questions  of  strategy  and 
finance  ;  if  he  would  write  a  course  of 
political  economy  for  street-porters,  I 
am  sure  he  would  be  understood ;  and 
pupils  of  the  lower  classes  at  school 
have  been  able  to  read  M.  Guizot's 
History  of  Civilization. 

When,  with  the  faculty  for  proof 
and  explanation,  a  man  feels  the  desire 
of  proving,  he  arrives  at  vehemence. 
These  serried  and  multiplied  argu- 
ments which  all  tend  to  a  single  aim, 
those  reiterated  logical  points,  return- 
ing every  instant,  one  upon  the  other, 
to  shake  the  opponent,  give  heat  and 
passion  to  the  style.  Rarely  was  elo- 
quence more  captivating  than  Macau- 
lay's.  He  has  the  oratorical  afflatus  ; 
all  his  phrases  have  a  tone  ;  we  feel 
th-.it  he  would  govern  minds,  that  he  is 
irritated  by  resistance,  that  he  fights 
as  he  discusses.  In  his  books  the  dis- 
cussion always  seizes  and  carries  away 
the  reader ;  it  advances  evenly,  with 
accumulating  force,  straightforward, 
like  those  great  American  rivers,  im- 
petuous as  a  torrent  and  wide  as  a  sea. 
This  abundance  of  thought  and  style, 
this  multitude  of  explanations,  ideas, 
and  facts,  this  vast  aggregate  of  his- 
torical knowledge  goes  rolling  on, 


urged  forward  by  internal  passion 
sweeping  away  objections  in  its  coursej 
and  adding  to  the  dash  of  eloquence 
the  irresistible  force  of  its  mass  and 
weight.  We  might  say  that  the  his- 
tory of  James  II.  is  a  discourse  in  two 
volumes,  spoken  without  stopping,  and 
with  never-failing  voice.  We  see  the 
oppression  and  discontent  begin,  in- 
crease, widen,  the  partisans  of  James 
abandoning  him  one  by  one,  the  idea 
of  revolution  arise  in  all  hearts,  con- 
firmed, fixed,  the  'preparations  made, 
the  event  approaching,  growing  immi- 
nent, then  suddenly  falling  on  the 
blind  and  unjust  monarch,  and  sweep- 
ing away  his  throne  and  dynasty,  with 
the  violence  of  a  foreseen  and  fatal 
tempest.  True  eloquence  is  that  which 
thus  perfects  argument  by  emotion, 
which  reproduces  the  unity  of  events 
by  the  unity  of  passion,  which  repeats 
the  motion  and  the  chain  of  facts  by 
the  motion  and  the  chain  of  ideas. 
It  is  a  genuine  imitation  of  nature  ; 
more  complete  than  pure  analysis  ;  it 
reanimates  beings  ;  its  dash  and  vehe- 
mence form  part  of  science  and  of 
truth.  Of  whatever  subject  Macaulay 
treats,  political  economy,  morality, 
philosophy,  literature,  history,  he  is  im- 
passioned for  his  subject.  The  cur- 
rent which  bears  away  events,  excites 
in  him,  as  soon  as  he  sees  it,  a  current 
which  bears  forward  his  thought.  He 
does  not  set  forth  his  opinion ;  he 
pleads  it.  He  has  that  energetic,  sus- 
tained, and  vibrating  tone  which  dows 
down  opposition  and  conquers  belief. 
His  thought  is  an  active  force ;  it  is 
imposed  on  the  hearer  ;  it  attacks  him 
with  such  superiority,  falls  upon  him 
with  such  a  train  of  proofs,  such  a 
manifest  and  legitimate  authority,  such 
a  powerful  impulse,  that  we  never 
think  of  resisting  it ;  and  it  masters 
the  heart  by  its  vehemence,  whilst  at 
the  same  time  it  masters  the  reason  by 
its  evidence. 

All  these  gifts  are  common  to  ora- 
tors  ;  they  are  found  in  different  pro- 
portions and  degrees,  in  men  like 
Cicero  and  Livy,  Bourdaloue  and 
Bossuet,  Fox  and  Burke.  These  fine 
and  solid  minds  form  a  natural  family, 
and  all  have  for  their  chief  feature  the 
habit  and  talent  of  passing  from  par- 
ticular to  general  idease  orderly  and 


636 


successively,  as  we  climb  a  ladder  by 
setting  our  feet  one  after  the  other  on 
every  round.  The  inconvenience  of 
this  art  is  the  use  of  commonplace. 
They  who  practise  it  do  not  depict  ob- 
jects with  precision ;  they  fall  easily 
into  vague  rhetoric.  They  hold  in 
their  hands  ready-made  developments, 
a  sort  of  portable  scales,  equally  ap- 
plicable on  both  sides  of  the  same  and 
every  question.  They  continue  will- 
ingly in  a  middle  region,  amongst  the 
tirades  and  arguments  of  the  special 
pleader,  with  an  indifferent  knowledge 
of  the  human  heart,  and  a  fair  number 
of  amplifications  on  that  which  is  use- 
ful and  just.  In  France  and  at  Rome, 
amongst  the  Latin  races,  especially  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  these  men 
love  to  hover  above  the  earth,  amidst 
grand  words  or  general  considerations, 
in  the  style  of  the  drawing-room  and 
the  academy.  They  do  not  descend  to 
minor  facts,  convincing  details,  circum- 
stantial examples  of  every-day  life. 
They  are  more  inclined  to  plead  than 
to  prove.  In  this  Macaulay  is  dis- 
tinguished from  them.  His  principle 
is,  that  a  special  fact  has  more  hold  on 
the  mind  than  a  general  reflection.  He 
knows  that,  to  give  men  a  clear  and 
vivid  idea,  they  must  be  brought  back 
to  their  personal  experience.  He  re- 
marks* that,  in  order  to  make  them 
realize  a  srprm,  the  only  method  is  to 
recall  to  them  some  storm  which  they 
have  themselves  seen  and  heard,  with 
which  their  memory  is  still  charged, 
and  which  still  re-echoes  through  all 
their  senses.  He  practises  in  his  style 
the  philosophy  of  Bacon  and  Locke. 
With  him,  as  well  as  with  them,  the 
origin  of  every  idea  is  a  sensation. 
Every  complicated  argument,  every 
entire  conception,  has  certain  particular 
facts  for  its  only  support.  It  is  so  for 
every  structure  of  ideas,  as  well  as  for- 
a  scientific  theory.  Beneath  long  cal- 
< illations,  algebraical  formulas,  subtle 
ieductions,  written  volumes  which  con- 
tain the  combinations  and  elaborations 
of  learned  minds,  there  are  two  or  three 
sensible  experiences,  two  or  three  little 
facts  on  which  we  may  lay  our  finger,  a 
turn  of  the  wheel  in  a  machine,  a 

*  See  in  his  Essay  on  the  Life  and  Writ- 
ings of  A  ddison  (vii.  78)  ;  Macaulay' s  obser- 
vations on  the  Campaign- 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


scalpel-cut  in  a  living  boJy,an  unlooked- 
for  color  in  a  liquid.  These  are  de« 
cisive  specimens.  The  whole  substance 
of  theory,  the  whole  force  of  profit,  is 
contained  in  this.  Truth  is  here,  as  a 
nut  in  its  shell :  painful  and  ingenious 
discussion  adds  nothing  thereto  ;  it  only 
extracts  the  nut.  Thus,  if  we  would 
rightly  prove,  we  must  before  every 
thing  present  these  specimens,  insist 
upon  them,  make  them  visible  and 
tangible  to  the  reader,  as  far  as  may  be 
done  in  words.  This  is  difficult,  for 
words  are  not  things.  The  only  re- 
source of  the  writer  is  to  employ  words 
which  bring  things  before  the  eyes. 
For  this  he  must  appeal  to  the  reader's 
personal  observation,  set  out  from  his 
experience,  compare  the  unknown  ob- 
jects presented  to  him  with  the  known 
objects  which  he  sees  every  day,  place 
past  events  beside  contemporary  events. 
Macaulay  always  has  before  his  mind 
English  imaginations,  full  of  English 
images,  I  mean  full  of  the  detailed  and 
present  recollections  of  a  London  Street, 
a  dram-shop,  a  wretched  alley,  an  after- 
noon in  Hyde  Park,  a  moist,  green 
landscape,  a  white,  ivy-covered  country- 
house,  a  clergyman  in  a  white  tie,  a 
sailor  in  a  sou'-wester.  He  has  re- 
course to  such  recollections  ;  he  makes 
them  still  more  precise  by  descriptions 
and  statistics;  he  notes  colors  and 
qualities ;  he  has  a  passion  for  exact- 
ness ;  his  descriptions  are  worthy  both 
of  a  painter  and  topographer ;  he 
writes  like  a  man  who  sees  a  physical 
and  sensible  object,  and  who  at  the 
same  time  classifies  and  weighs  it.  We 
will  see  him  carry  his  figures  even  to 
moral  or  literary  worth,  assign  to  an  ac- 
tion, a  virtue,  a  book,  a  talent,  its  com- 
partment and  its  step  in  the  scale,  with 
such  clearness  and  relief,  that  we  could 
easily  imagine  ourselves  in  a  classified 
museum,  not  of  stuffed  skins,  but  of 
feeling,  suffering,  living  animals. 

Consider,  for  instance,  these  phrases, 
by  which  he  tries  to  render  visible  to 
an  English  public,  events  in  India : 

"  During  that  interval  the  business  of  a  ser- 
vant of  the  Company  was  simply  to  wring  out 
of  the  natives  a  hundred  or  two  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  as  speedily  as  possible,  that  he 
might  return  home  before  his  constitution  had 
suffered  from  the  heat,  to  marry  a  peer's 
daughter,  to  buy  rotten  boroughs  in  Cornwall, 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MA  CAUL  AY. 


637 


and  to  give  balls  in  St.  James's  Square.*  .  .  . 
There  was  still  a  nabob  of  Bengal,  who  stood 
to  the  English  rulers  of  his  country  in  the  same 
relation  in  which  Augustulus  stood  to  Odoacer, 
or  the  last  Merovingians  to  Charles  Martel  and 
Pepin.  He  lived  at  Moorshedabad,  surround- 
ed by  princely  magnificence.  He  was  ap- 
Eroached  with  outward  marks  of  reverence,  and 
is  name  was  used  in  public  instruments.  But 
in  the  government  of  the  country  he  had  less 
real  share  than  the  youngest  writer  or  cadet  in 
the  Company's  service,  t 

Of  Nuncomar,  the  native  servant  of  the 
Company,  he  writes : 

"  Of  his  moral  character  it  is  difficult  to  give 
a  notion  to  those  who  are  acquainted  with  hu- 
man nature  only  as  it  appears  in  our  island. 
What  the  Italian  is  to  the  Englishman,  what 
the  Hindoo  is  to  the  Italian,  what  the  Bengalee 
is  to  other  Hindoos,  that  was  Nuncomar  to 
other  Bengalees.  The  physical  organization  of 
the  Bengalee  is  feeble  even  to  effeminacy.  He 
lives  in  a  constant  vapour  bath.  His  pursuits 
are  sedentary,  his  iimbs  delicate,  his  move- 
ments languid.  During  many  ages  he  has 
been  trampled  upon  by  men  of  bolder  and  more 
hardy  breeds.  Courage,  independence,  verac- 
ity, are  qualities  to  which  his  constitution  and 
his  situation  are  equally  unfavourable.  His 
mind  bears  a  singular  analogy  to  his  body.  It 
is  weak  even  to  helplessness,  for  purposes  of 
manly  resistance ;  but  its  suppleness  and  its 
tact  move  the  children  of  sterner  climates  to 
admiration  not  unmingled  with  contempt.  All 
those  arts  which  are  the  natural  defence  of  the 
weak  are  more  familiar  to  this  subtle  race  than 
to  the  Ionian  of  the  time  of  Juvenal,  or  to  the 
Jew  of  the  dark  ages.  What  the  horns  are  to 
the  buffalo,  what  the  paw  is  to  the  tiger,  what 
the  sting  is  to  the  bee,  what  beauty,  according 
to  the  old  Greek  song,  is  to  woman,  deceit  is  to 
the  Bengalee.  Large  promises,  smooth  ex- 
cuses, elaborate  tissues  of  circumstantial  false- 
hood, chicanery,  perjury,  forgery,  are  the  weap- 
ons, offensive  and  defensive,  of  the  people  of 
the  Lower  Ganges.  All  those  millions  do  not 
furnish  one  sepoy  to  the  armies  of  the  Com- 
pany. But  as  usurers,  as  money-changers,  as 
sharp  legal  practitioners,  no  class  of  human 
beings  can  bear  a  comparison  with  them."  $ 

It  was  such  men  and  such  affairs,  which 
were  to  provide  Burke  with  the  amplest 
and  most  brilliant  subject  matter  for  his 
eloquence  ;  and  when  Macaulay  de- 
scribed the  distinctive  talent  of  the 
great  orator,  he  described  his  own : 

He  i'Burke)  had,  in  the  highest  degree,  that 
af-o.e  faculty  whereby  man  is  able  to  live  in  the 
past  and  in  the  future,  in  the  distant  and  in  the 
unreal.  India  and  its  inhabitants  were  not  to 
him,  as  to  most  Englishmen,  mere  names  and 
abstractions,  but  a  real  country  and  a  real  peo- 
ple. The  burning  sun,  the  strange  vegetation 
of  the  palm  and  the  cocoa-tree,  tiie  rice-field, 
th  '.  tank,  the  huge  trees,  older  than  the  Moga 


*  Macanlay,  vi.  549  ;   Warren  Hastings. 
t  Ibid.  553.  \  Ibid.  555. 


empire,  under  which  the  village  crowds  assem- 
ble ;  the  thatched  roof  of  the  peasant's  hut ; 
the  rich  tracery  of  the  m  jsque  where  the  imaum 
prays  with  his  face  to  Mecca,  the  drums,  and 
banners,  and  gaudy  idols,  the  devotee  swinging 
in  the  air,  the  graceful  maiden,  with  the  pitcher 
on  her  head,  descending  the  steps  to  the  river- 
side, the  black  faces,  the  long  beards,  the  yel- 
low streaks  of  sect,  the  turbans  and  the  flowing 
robes,  the  spears  and  the  silver  maces,  the  ele- 
phants with  their  canopies  of  state,  the  gorge- 
ous palanquin  of  the  prince,  and  the  close  litter 
of  the  noble  lady,  all  those  things  were  to  him 
as  the  objects  amidst  which  his  own  life  had 
been  passed,  as  the  objects  which  lay  on  the 
road  between  Beaconsfield  and  St.  James's 
Street.  All  India  was  present  to  the  eye  of 
his  mind,  from  the  halls  where  suitors  laid  gold 
and  perfumes  at  the  feet  of  sovereigns,  to  the 
wild  moor  where  the  gipsy  camp  was  pitched, 
from  the  bazaar,  humming  like  a  bee-hive  with 
the  crowd  of  buyers  and  sellers,  to  the  jungle 
where  the  lonely  courier  shakes  his  bunch  of 
iron  rings  to  scare  away  the  hya;nas.  He  had 
just  as  lively  an  idea  of  the  insurrection  at 
Benares  as  of  Lord  George  Gordon's  riots,  and 
of  the  execution  of  Nuncomar  as  of  the  execu* 
tion  of  Dr.  Dodd.  Oppression  in  Bengal  was 
to  him  the  same  thing  as  oppression  in  the 
streets  of  London."  * 

VI. 

Other  forms  of  his  talent  are  more 
peculiarly  English.  Macaulay  has  a 
rough  touch ;  when  he  strikes,  he 
knocks  down.  Beranger  sings : 

"  Chez  nous,  point, 
Point  de  ces  coups  de  poing 
Qui  font  tant  d'honneur  a  1'Angleterre."  t 

And  a  French  reader  would  be 
astonished  if  he  heard  a  great  historian 
treat  an  illustrious  poet  in  this  style  : 

"But  in  all  those  works  in  which  Mr.  Southey 
has  completely  abandoned  narration,  and  has 
undertaken  to  argue  moral  and  political  ques- 
tions, his  failure  has  been  complete  and  igno- 
minious. On  such  occasions  his  writings  are 
rescued  from  utter  contempt  and  derision  solely 
by  the  beauty  and  purity  of  the  English.  We 
find,  we  confess,  so  great  a  charm  in  Mr.  South- 
ey's  style  that,  even  when  he  writes  nonsense, 
we  generally  read  it  with  pleasure,  except  indeed 
when  he  tries  to  be  droll.  A  more  insufferable 
jester  never  existed.  He  very  often  attempts 
to  be  humourous,  and  yet  we  do  not  remember 
a  single  occasion  on  which 'he  has  succeeded 
further  than  to  be  quaintly  and  flippantly  dull. 
In  one  of  his  works  he  tells  us  that  Bishop 
Spratt  was  very  properly  so  called,  inasmuch 
as  he  was  a  very  small  poet.  And  in  the  book 
now  before  us  he  cannot  quote  Francis  Bugg, 
the  renegade  Quaker,  without  a  remark  on  his 
unsavoury  name.  A  wise  man  might  talk  folly 
like  this  by  his  own  fireside  ;  but  that  any 
human  being,  after  having  made  such  a  joke 


*  Ibid.  619. 

t  Beranger,    Chansons,   2   vols.    1853  ;   Lt» 
Boxeurs,  ou  L?  Anglimane. 


638 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


OOK  V. 


[BOOK 


should  write  it  down,  and  copy  it  out,  and  trans- 
mit it  to  the  printer,  and  correct  the  proof-sheets, 
and  send  it  forth  into  the  world,  is  enough  to 
make  us  ashamed  of  our  species."  * 

We  may  imagine  that  Macaulay  does 
not  treat  the  dead  better  than  the 
living.  Thus  he  speaks  of  Archbishop 
Laud : 

"  The  severest  punishment  which  the  two 
Houses  could  have  inflicted  on  him  would  have 
been  to  set  him  at  liberty  and  send  him  to  Ox- 
ford. There  he  might  have  staid,  tortured  by 
his  own  diabolical  temper,  hungering  for  Pun- 
tans  to  pillory  and  mangle,  plaguing  the  Cava- 
liers,for  want  of  somebody  else  to  plague  with  his 
peevishness  and  absurdity,  performing  grimaces 
and  antics  in  the  cathedral,  continuing  that 
incomparable  diary,  which  we  never  see  with- 
out forgetting  the  vices  of  his  heart  in  the  im- 
becility of  his  intellect,  minuting  down  his 
dreams,  counting  the  drops  of  blood  which  fell 
from  his  nose,  watching  the  direction  of  the 
salt,  and  listening  for  the  note  of  the  screech- 
owls.  Contemptuous  mercy  was  the  only  venge- 
ance which  it  became  the  Parliament  to  take 
on  such  a  ridiculous  old  bigot."  t 

While  he  jests  he  remains  grave,  as  do 
almost  all  the  writers  of  his  country. 
Humor  consists  in  saying  extremely 
comical  things  in  a  solemn  tone,  and 
in  preserving  a  lofty  style  and  ample 
phraseology,  at  the  very  moment  when 
the  author  is  making  all  his  hearers 
laugh.  Such  is  the  beginning  of  an 
article  on  a  new  historian  of  Burleigh  : 

"  The  work  of  Dr.  Nares  has  filled  us  with 
astonishment  similar  to  that  which  Captain 
Lemuel  Gulliver  felt  when  first  he  landed  in 
Brobdingnag,  and  saw  corn  as  high  as  the  oaks 
in  the  New  Forest,  thimbles  as  large  as  buckets, 
and  wrens  of  the  bulk  of  turkeys.  The  whole 
book,  and  every  component  part  of  it,  is  on  a 
gigantic  scale.  The  title  is  as  long  as  an  ordi- 
nary preface  ;  the  prefatory  matter  would  fur- 
nish put  an  ordinary  book :  and  the  book 
contains  as  much  reading  as  an  ordinary  library. 
We  cannot  sum  up  the  merits  of  the  stupen- 
dous mass  of  paper  which  lies  before  us  better 
than  by  saying  that  it  consists  of  about  two 
thousand  closely  printed  quarto  pages,  that  it 
occupies  fifteen  hundred  inches  cubic  measure, 
and  that  it  weighs  sixty  pounds  avoirdupois. 
Such  a  book  might,  before  the  deluge,  have 
been  considered  as  light  reading  by  Hilpah  and 
Shalum.  But  unhappily  the  life  of  man  is 
now  threescore  years  and  ten  ;  and  we  cannot 
but  think  it  somewhat  unfair  in  Dr.  Nares  to 
demand  from  us  so  large  a  portion  of  so  short 
an  existence."  % 

This  comparison,  borrowed  from 
Swift,  is  a  mockery  in  Swift's  taste. 

*  Macaulay,  v.  333  ;  Southey's  Colloquies  on 
Society. 

t  Macaulay,  v.  204  ;  ffallam's  Constitutional 
History* 

$  Macaulay,  v.  587;  Burleigh  and  his  Times. 


Mathematics  become  in  English  hands 
an  excellent  means  of  raillery  ;  and  we 
remember  how  the  Dean,  comparing 
Roman  and  English  generosity  by  num- 
bers, overwhelmed  Marlborough  by  a 
sum  in  addition.  Humor  employs 
against  the  people  it  attacks,  positive 
facts,  commercial  arguments,  odd  con- 
trasts drawn  from  ordinary  life.  Thii 
surprises  and  perplexes  the  reader, 
without  warning  ;  he  falls  abruptly  into 
some  familiar  and  grotesque  detail ;  the 
shock  is  violent;  he  bursts  out  laugh- 
ing without  being  much  amused;  the 
trigger  is  pulled  so  suddenly  and  so 
roughly,  that  it  is  like  a  knockdown 
blow.  For  instance,  Macaulay  is  re- 
futing those  who  would  not  print  the 
indecent  classical  authors  : 

"  We  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that,  in  a 
world  so  full  of  temptations  as  this,  any  gentle- 
man whose  life  would  have  been  virtuous  if  he 
had  not  read  Aristophanes  and  Juvenal  will  be 
made  vicious  by  reading  them.  A  man  who, 
exposed  to  all  the  influences  of  such  a  state  of 
society  as  that  in  which  we  live,  is  yet  afraid  of 
exposing  himself  to  the  influence  of  a  few 
Greek  or  Latin  verses,  acts,  we  think,  much 
like  the  felon  who  begged  the  sheriffs  to  let  him 
have  an  umbrella  held  over  his  head  from  the 
door  of  Newgate  to  the  gallows,  because  it  was 
a  drizzling  morning,  and  he  was  apt  to  take 
cold."  * 

Irony,  sarcasm,  the  bitterest  kinds  of 
pleasantry,  are  the  rule  with  English- 
men. They  tear  when  they  scratch.  To 
be  convinced  of  this,  we  should  compare 
French  scandal,  as  Moliere  represents 
it  in  the  Misanthrope,  with  English 
scandal  as  Sheridan  represents  it,  imi- 
tating Moliere  and  the  Misanthrope. 
Celimene  pricks,  but  does  not  wound ; 
Lady  Sneerwell's  friends  wound,  and 
leave  bloody  marks  on  all  the  reputa- 
tions which  they  handle.  The  raillery, 
which  I  am  about  to  give,  is  one  of 
Macaulay's  tenderest: 

*'They  (the  ministers)  therefore  gave  the 
command  to  Lord  Galway,  an  experienced  vet- 
eran, a  man  who  was  in  war  what  iVi  oliere's 
doctors  were  in  medicine,  who  thought  it  much 
more  honourable  to  fail  according  to  rule, than  to 
succeed  by  innovation,  and  who  would  have  been 
very  much  ashamed  of  himself  if  he  had  taken 
Monjuich  by  means  so  strange  as  those  which 
Peterborough  employed.  This  great  command- 
er conducted  the  campaign  of  1707  in  the  most 
scientific  manner.  On  the  plain  of  Almanza  he 
encountered  the  army  of  the  Bourbons.  He 
drew  up  his  troops  according  to  the  methods 


*  Macaulay,  vi.  491  ;  Comic  Dramatists  oj 
the  Restoration. 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTOR  Y—MACA ULA  Y. 


639 


prescribed  by  the  best  writers,  and  in  a  few 
hours  lost  eighteen  thousand  men,  a  hundred 
and  twenty  standards,  all  his  baggage  and  all 
his  artillery."  * 

These  incivilities  are  all  the  stronger, 
because  the  ordinary  tone  is  noble  and 
serious. 

Hitherto  we  have  seen  only  the 
reasoner,  the  scholar,  the  orator,  and 
the  wit :  there  is  still  in  Macaulay  a 
poet ;  and  if  we  had  not  read  his  Lays  of 
Ancient  Rome,  it  would  suffice  to  read  a 
few  of  his  periods,  in  which  the  imagi- 
nation, long  held  in  check  by  the  se- 
verity of  the  proof,  breaks  out  suddenly 
in  splendid  metaphors,  and  expands 
into  magnificent  comparisons,  worthy 
by  their  amplitude  of  being  introduced 
into  an  epic : 

"  Ariosto  tells  a  pretty  story  of  a  fairy,  who, 
by  some  mysterious  law  of  her  nature,  was  con- 
demned to  appear  at  certain  seasons  in  the 
form  of  a  foul  and  poisonous  snake.  Those 
who  injured  her  during  the  period  of  her  dis- 
guise were  forever  excluded  from  participation 
in  the  blessings  which  she  bestowed.  But  to 
those  who,  in  spite  of  her  loathsome  aspect, 
pitied  and  protected  her,  she  afterwards  re- 
vealed herself  in  the  beautiful  and  celestial 
form  which  was  natural  to  her,  accompanied 
their  steps,  granted  all  their  wishes,  filled  their 
houses  with  wealth,  made  them  happy  in  love 
and  victorious  in  war.  Such  a  spirit  is  Liberty. 
At  times  she  takes  the  form  of  a  hateful  reptile. 
She  grovels,  she  hisses,  she  stings.  But  woe 
to  those  who  in  disgust  shall  venture  to  crush 
her!  And  happy  are  those  who,  having  dared 
to  receive  her  in  her  degraded  and  frightful 
shape,  shall  at  length  be  rewarded  by  her  in  the 
time  of  her  beauty  and  her  glory  I  "  t 

These  noble  words  come  from  the 
heart ;  the  fount  is  full,  and  though  it 
flows,  it  never  becomes  dry.  As  soon 
as  the  writer  speaks  of  a  cause  which 
he  loves,  as  soon  as  he  sees  Liberty 
rise  before  him,  with  Humanity  and 
Justice,  Poetry  bursts  forth  spontane- 
ously from  his  soul,  and  sets  her  crown 
on  the  brows  of  her  noble  sisters  : 

"The  Reformation  is  an  event  long  past. 
That  volcano  has  spent  its  rage.  The  wide 
waste  produced  by  its  outbreak  is  forgotten. 
The  landmarks  which  were  swept  away  have 
been  replaced.  The  ruined  edifices  have  been 
repaired.  The  lava  has  covered  w/th  a  rich  in- 
crustation the  fields  which  it  once  devastated, 
and,  after  having  turned  a  beautiful  and  fruitful 
garden  into  a  desert,  has  again  turned  the  des- 
ert into  a  still  more  beautiful  and  fruitful  gar- 
den. The  second  great  eruption  is  not  yet  over. 


*  Macaulay,  y.  672  ;  Lord  Mahori 's  War  of 
the  Succession  in  Spain. 
t  Macaulay,  v.  31  ;  Milton. 


The  marks  of  its  ravages  are  still  all  around 
us.  The  ashes  are  still  hot  beneath  our  feet. 
In  some  directions,  the  deluge  of  fire  still  con- 
tinues to  spread.  Yet  experience  surely  entitles 
us  to  believe  that  this  explosion,  like  that 
which  preceded  it,  will  fertilize  the  soil  which 
it  has  devastated.  Already,  in  those  parts 
which  have  suffered  most  severely,  rich  cultiva- 
tion and  secure  dwellings  have  begun  to  appear 
amidst  the  waste.  The  more  we  read  of  the 
history  of  past  ages,  the  more  we  observe  the 
signs  of  our  own  times,  the  more  do  we  fee1 
our  hearts  filled  and  swelled  up  by  a  good  h^pe 
for  the  future  destinies  of  the  human  race."  * 

I  ought,  perhaps,  in  concluding  this 
analysis,  to  point  out  the  imperfections 
caused  by  these  high  qualities ;  how 
ease,  charm,  a  vein  of  amiability,variety, 
simplicity,  playfulness,  are  wanting  in 
this  manly  eloquence,  this  solid  reason- 
ing, and  this  glowing  dialectic ;  why 
the  art  of  writing  and  classical  purity 
are  not  always  found  in  this  partisan, 
fighting  from  his  platform  ;  in  short, 
why  an  Englishman  is  not  a  French- 
man or  an  Athenian.  I  prefer  to 
transcribe  another  passage,  the  sol- 
emnity and  magnificence  of  which  will 
give  some  idea  of  the  grave  and  rich 
ornament  which  Macaulay  throws  over 
his  narrative,  a  sort  of  potent  vegeta- 
tion, flowers  of  brilliant  purple,  like 
those  which  are  spread  over  every 
page  of  Paradise  Lost  and  Childe 
Harold.  Warren  Hastings  had  re- 
turned from  India,  and  had  just  been 
placed  on  his  trial : 

"  On  the  thirteenth  of  February,  1788,  the 
sittings  of  the  Court  commenced.  There  have 
been  spectacles  more  dazzling  to  the  eye,  more 
gorgeous  with  jewellery  and  cloth  of  gold,  more 
attractive  to  grown  up  children,  than  that 
which  was  then  exhibited  at  Westminster ;  but, 
perhaps,  there  never  was  a  spectacle  so  well 
calculated  to  strike  a  highly  cultivated,  a  re- 
flecting, an  imaginative  mind.  All  the  various 
kinds  of  interests  which  belong  to  the  near 
and  to  the  distant,  to  the  present  and  to  the 
past,  were  collected  on  one  spot,  ar.d  in  one 
hour.  All  the  talents  and  all  the  accomplish- 
ments which  are  developed  by  liberty  and  civil- 
ization were  now  displayed,  with  every  advan- 
tage that  could  be  derived  both  from  co-opera- 
tion and  from  contrast.  Every  step  in  the 
proceedings  carried  the  mind  either  backward, 
through  many  troubled  centuries,  to  the  days 
when  the  foundations  of  our  constitution  were 
laid  ;  or  far  away,  over  boundless  seas  and 
deserts,  to  dusky  nations  living  under  strange 
stars,  worshipping  strange  gods,  and  writing 
strange  characters  from  right  to  left.  The 
High  Court  of  Parliament  was  to  sit,  according 
to  torms  handed  down  from  the  days  of  the 


*  Macaulay,    v.    595 ;    Burleigh    and    hit 
Times. 


640 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


Plantagenets,  on  an  Englishman  accused  of 
exercising  tyranny  over  the  lord  of  the  holy 
city  of  Benares,  and  over  the  ladies  of  the 
princely  house  of  Oude. 

"  The  place  was  worthy  of  such  a  trial.  It 
was  the  great  Hall  of  William  Rufus,  the  hall 
which  had  resounded  with  acclamations  at  the 
inauguration  of  thirty  kings,  the  hail  which 
had  witnessed  the  just  sentence  of  Bacon  and 
the  just  absolution  of  Somers,  the  hall  where 
the  eloquence  of  Straff ord  had  for  a  moment 
awed  and  melted  a  victorious  party  inflamed  with 
just  resentment, the  hall  where  Charles  had  con- 
fronted the  High  Court  of  Justice  with  the  placid 
courage  which  has  half  redeemed  his  fame. 
Neither  military  nor  civil  pomp  was  wanting. 
The  avenues  were  lined  with  grenadiers.  The 
streets  were  kept  clear  by  cavalry.  The  peers, 
robed  in  gold  and  ermine,  were  marshalled  by  the 
heralds  under  Garter  King-at-arms.  The  judges 
in  their  vestments  of  state  attended  to  give  ad- 
vice on  points  of  law.  Near  a  hundred  and 
seventy  lords,  three-fourths  of  the  Upper 
House  as  the  Upper  House  then  was,  walked 
in  solemn  order  from  their  usual  place  of 
assembling  to  the  tribunal.  The  junior  baron 
present  led  the  way,  George  Eliott,  Lord  Heath- 
field,  recently  ennobled  for  his  memorable  de- 
fence of  Gibraltar  against  the  fleets  and  armies 
of  France  and  Spain.  The  long  procession 
was  closed  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Earl  Mar- 
shal of  the  realm,  by  the  great  dignitaries,  and 
by  the  brothers  and  sons  of  the  King.  Last  of 
all  came  the  Prince  of  Wales,  conspicuous  by 
his  fine  person  and  noble  bearing.  The  grey 
old  walls  were  hung  with  scarlet.  The  long 
galleries  were  crowded  by  an  audience  such  as 
has  rarely  excited  the  fears  or  the  emulation  of 
an  orator.  There  were  gathered  together,  from 
all  parts  of  a  great,  free,  enlightened,  and  pros- 
perous empire,  grace  and  female  loveliness,  wit 
and  learning,  the  representatives  of  every 
science  and  of  every  art.  There  were  seated 
round  the  Queen  the  fair-haired  young  daugh- 
ters of  the  house  of  Brunswick.  There  the 
Ambassadors  of^  great  Kings  and  Common- 
wealths gazed  with  admiration  on  a  spectacle 
which  no  other  country  in  the  world  could  pre- 
sent. There  Siddons,  in  the  prime  of  her 
majestic  beauty,  looked  with  emotion  on  a 
scene  surpassing  all  the  imitations  of  the  stage. 
There  the  historian  of  the  Roman  Empire 
thought  of  the  days  when  Cicero  pleaded  the 
cause  of  Sicily  against  Verres,  and  when,  before 
a  senate  which  still  retained  some  show  of  free- 


age.  The  spectacle  had  allured  Reynolds  from 
that  easel  which  has  preserved  to  us  the  thought- 
ful foreheads  of  so  many  writers  and  statesmen, 
and  the  sweet  smiles  of  so  many  noble  matrons. 
It  had  induced  Parr  to  suspend  his  labours  in 
that  dark  and  profound  mine  from  which  he  had 
extracted  a  vast  treasure  of  erudition,  a  treasure 
too  often  buried  in  the  earth,  too  often  paraded 
with  injudicious  and  inelegant  ostentation,  but 
still  precious,  massive,  and  splendid.  There 
appeared  the  voluptuous  charms  of  her  to 
whom  the  heir  of  the  throne  had  in  secret 
plighted  his  faith.  There  too  was  she,  the 
beau^u!  mother  of  a  beautiful  race,  the  Saint 
Cecilia  whose  delicate  features,  lighted  up  by 


love  and  music,  art  ha-»  rescued  from  the  com- 
mon decay.  There  were  the  members  of  that 
bnliiant  society  which  quoted,  criticised,  and  ex- 
changed repartees,  under  the  rich  peacock- 
hangings  of  Mrs.  Montague.  And  there  the 
ladies  whose  lips,  more  persuasive  than  those 
of  Fox  himself,  had  carried  the  Westminster 
election  against  palace  and  treasury,  shone 
round  Georgiana,  Duchess  of  Devonshire."  * 

This  evocation  of  the  national  history, 
glory,  and  constitution,  forms  a  picture 
of  a  unique  kind.  The  species  of 
patriotism  and  poetry  which  it  reveals 
is  an  abstract  of  Macaulay's  talent- 
and  the  talent,  like  the  picture,  is 
thoroughly  English. 

VII. 

Thus  prepared,  he  entered  upon  the 
History  of  England ;  and  he  chose 
therefrom  the  period  best  suited  to  his 
political  opinions,  his  style,  his  pas- 
sion, his  knowledge,  the  national  taste, 
the  sympathy  of  Europe.  He  related 
the  establishment  of  the  English  con- 
stitution, and  concentrated  all  the  rest 
of  history  about  this  unique  event, 
"  the  finest  in  the  world,"  to  the  mind 
of  an  Englishman  and  a  politician.  He 
brought  to  this  work  a  new  method  of 
great  beauty,  extreme  power ;  its  suc- 
cess has  been  extraordinary.  When 
the  second  volume  appeared,  30,000 
copies  were  ordered  beforehand.  Let 
us  try  to  describe  this  history,  to  con- 
nect it  with  that  method,  and  that 
method  to  that  order  of  mind. 

The  history  is  universal  and  not 
broken.  It  comprehends  events  of 
every  kind,  and  treats  of  them  simul- 
taneously. Some  have  related  the 
history  of  races,  others  of  classes, 
others  of  governments,  others  of  senti- 
ments, ideas,  and  manners ;  Macaulay 
has  related  all. 

"  I  should  very  imperfectly  execute  the  task 
which  I  have  undertaken  if  I  were  merely  tc 
treat  of  battles  and  sieges,  of  the  rise  and  fall 
of  administrations,  of  intrigues  in  the  palace, 
and  of  debates  m  the  parliament.  It  will  be 
my  endeavour  to  relate  the  history  of  the  peo- 
ple as  well  as  the  history  of  the  government,  to 
trace  the  progress  of  useful  and  ornamental 
arts,  to  describe  the  rise  of  religious  sects  and 
the  changes  of  literary  taste,  to  portray  the 
manners  of  successive  generations,  and  not  to 
pass  by  with  neglect  even  the  revolutions  which 
have  taken  place  in  dress,  furniture,  repasts, 
and  public  amusements.  I  shall  cheerfully 
bear  the  reproach  of  having  descended  belovi 


*  Macaulay,  vi.  628  ;   Warren  Hastings- 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MA  CAUL  AY. 


641 


the  dignity  of  history,  if  I  can  succeed  in  plac- 
ing before  the  English  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury a  true  picture  of  the  life  of  their  ances- 
tors." * 

He  kept  his  word.  He  has  omitted 
nothing,  and  passed  nothing  by.  His 
portraits  are  mingled  with  his  narrative. 
We  find  those  of  Danby,  Nottingham, 
Shrewsbury,  Howe,  during  the  account 
of  a  session,  between  two  parliament- 
ary divisions.  Short  curious  anecdotes, 
domestic  details,  the  description  of  fur- 
niture, intersect,  without  disjointing, 
the  record  of  a  war.  Quitting  the  nar- 
rative of  important  business,  we  gladly 
look  upon  the  Dutch  tastes  of  William, 
the  Chinese  museum,  the  grottos,  the 
mazes,  aviaries,  ponds,  geometrical 
garden-beds,  with  which  he  defaced 
Hampton  Court.  A  political  disserta- 
tion precedes  or  follows  the  relation  of 
a  battle ;  at  other  times  the  author  is  a 
tourist  or  a  psychologist  before  becom- 
ing a  politician  or  a  tactician.  He  de- 
scribes the  highlands  of  Scotland,  semi- 
papistical  and  semi-pagan,  the  seers 
wrapped  in  bulls'  hides  to  await  the 
moment  of  inspiration,  Christians  mak- 
ing libations  of  milk  or  beer  to  the  de- 
mons of  the  place  ;  pregnant  women, 
girls  of  eighteen,  working  a  wretched 
patch  of  oats,  whilst  their  husbands  or 
fathers,  athletic  men,  basked  in  the 
sun  ;  robbery  and  barbarities  looked 
upon  as  honorable  deeds  ;  men  stabbed 
from  behind  or  burnt  alive  ;  repulsive 
food,  coarse  oats,  and  cakes  made  of  the 
blood  of  a  live  cow,  offered  to  guests 
as  a  mark  of  favor  and  politeness  ;  in- 
fected hovels  where  men  lay  on  the  bare 
ground,  and  where  they  woke  up  half 
smothered,  half  blinded  by  the  smoke, 
and  half  mad  with  the'  itch.  The 
next  instant  he  stops  to  mark  a  change 
in  the  public  taste,  the  horror  then  ex- 
perienced on  account  of  these  brigands' 
tereats,  this  country  of  wild  rocks  and 
barren  moors;  the  admiration  now  felt 
for  this  land  of  heroic  warriors,  this 
countiy  of  grand  mountains,  seething 
waterfalls,  picturesque  defiles.  He 
finds  in  the  progress  of  physical  welfare 
the  causes  of  this  moral  revolution, 
and  concludes  that,  if  we  praise  moun- 
tains and  an  uncivilized  life,  it  is  because 
we  are  satiated  with  security.  He  is 

*  Macaulay,  i.  2  ;  History  of  England  before 
Vie  Restoration,  ch,  i. 


successively  an  economist,  a  literary 
man,  a  publicist,  an  artist,  a  historian, 
a  biographer,  a  story-teller,  even  * 
philosopher ;  by  this  diversity  of  parts 
he  imitates  the  diversity  of  human  life, 
and  presents  to  the  eyes,  heart,  mind, 
all  the  faculties  of  man,  the  complete 
history  of  the  civilization  of  his  country. 
Others,  like  Hume,  have  tried  or  are 
trying  to  do  it.  They  set  forth  now  re- 
ligious matters,  a  little  further  political 
events,  then  literary  details,  finally 
general  considerations  on  the  change 
of  society  and  government,  believing 
that  a  collection  of  histories  is  history, 
and  that  parts  joined  endwise  are  a  body. 
Macaulay  did  not  believe  it  and  he  did 
well.  Though  English,  he  had  the 
spirit  of  harmony.  So  many  accumu- 
lated events  form  with  him  not  a  total, 
but  a  whole.  Explanations,  accounts, 
dissertations,  anecdotes,  illustrations, 
comparisons,  allusions  to  modern 
events,  every  thing  is  connected  in  his 
book.  It  is  because  every  thing  is  con- 
nected in  his  mind.  He  had  a  most 
lively  consciousness  of  causes ;  and 
causes  unite  facts.  By  them,  scattered 
events  are  assembled  into  a  single 
event ;  they  unite  them  because  they 
produce  them,  and  the  historian,  who 
seeks  them  all  out,  cannot  fail  to  per- 
ceive or  to  feel  the  unity  which  is  their 
effect.  Read,  for  instance,  the  voyage 
of  James  II.  to  Ireland :  no  picture  is 
more  curious.  Is  it,  however,  nothing 
more  than  a  curious  picture  ?  When 
the  king  arrived  at  Cork,  there  were  no 
horses  to  be  found.  The  country  is  a 
desert.  No  more  industry,  cultivation, 
civilization,  since  the  English  and  Prot- 
estant colonists  were  driven  out,  rob- 
bed, and  slain.  James  was  received 
between  two  hedges  of  half-naked  Rap- 
parees,  armed  with  skeans,  stakes,  and 
half-pikes  ;  under  his  horse's  feet  they 
spread  by  way  of  carpet  the  rough 
frieze  mantles,  such  as  the  brigands 
and  shepherds  wore.  He  was  offered 
garlands  of  cabbage  stalks  for  crowns 
of  laurel.  In  a  large  district  he  only 
found  two  carts.  The  palace  of  the 
lord-lieutenant  in  Dublin  was  so  ill 
built,  that  the  rain  drenched  the  rooms. 
The  king  left  for  Ulster  ;  the  French 
officers  thought  they  were  travelling 
"  through  the  deserts  of  Arabia."  The 
Count  d'Avaux  wrote  to  the  French 


642 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


court,  that  to  get  one  truss  of  hay  they 
had  to  send  five  or  six  miles.  At 
Charlemont,  with  great  difficulty,  as  a 
matter  of  favor,  they  obtained  a  bag  of 
oatmeal  for  the  French  legation.  The 
superior  officers  lay  in  dens  which  they 
would  have  thought  too  foul  for  their 
dogs.  The  Irish  soldiers  were  half- 
savage  marauders,  who  could  only 
shout,  cut  throats,  and  disband.  Ill 
fed  on  potatoes  and  sour  milk,  they 
cast  themselves  like  starved  men  on 
the  great  flocks  belonging  to  the  Prot- 
estants. They  greedily  tore  the  flesh 
of  oxen  and  sheep,  and  swallowed  it 
half  raw  and  half  rotten.  For  lack  of 
kettles  they  cooked  it  in  the  skin. 
When  Lent  began,  the  plunderers 
generally  ceased  to  devour,  but  con- 
tinued to  destroy.  A  peasant  would 
kill  a  cow  merely  in  order  to  get  a  pair 
of  brogues.  At  times  a  band  slaught- 
ered fifty  or  sixty  beasts,  took  the 
skins,  and  left  the  bodies  to  poison  the 
air.  The  French  ambassador  reckoned 
that  in  six  weeks,  there  had  been  slain 
50,000  horned  cattle,  which  were  rot- 
ting on  the  ground.  They  counted 
the  number  of  the  sheep  and  lambs 
slain  at  400,000.  Cannot  the  result  of 
the  rebellion  be  seen  beforehand  ? 
What  could  be  expected  of  these  glut- 
tonous serfs,  so  stupid  and  savage  ? 
What  could  be  drawn  from  a  devastated 
land,  peopled  with  robbers  ?  To  what 
kind  of  discipline  could  these  maraud- 
ers and  butchers  be  subjected  ?  What 
resistance  will  they  make  on  the  Boyne, 
when  they  see  William's  old  regiments, 
the  furious  squadrons  of  French  ref- 
ugees, the  enraged  and  insulted  Prot- 
estants of  Londonderry  and  Ennis- 
killen,  leap  into  the  river  and  run  with 
uplifted  swords  against  their  muskets  ? 
They  will  flee,  the  king  at  their  head  ; 
and  the  minute  anecdotes  scattered 
amidst  the  account  of  receptions,  voy- 
ages, and  ceremonies,  will  have  an- 
nounced the  victory  of  the  Protestants, 
The  history  of  manners  is  thus  seen  to 
be  involved  in  the  history  of  events ; 
the  one  is  the  cause  of  the  other,  and 
the  description  explains  the  narrative. 
It  is  not  enough  to  see  some  causes  ; 
we  must  see  a  great  many  of  them. 
Every  event  has  a  multitude.  Is  it 
enough  for  me,  if  I  wish  to  understand 
the  action  of  Marlborough  or  of  James, 


to  be  reminded  of  a  disposition  or  a 
quality  which  explains  it  ?  No ;  for, 
since  it  has  for  a  cause  a  whole 
situation  and  a  whole  character,  I 
must  see  at  one  glance,  and  in  ab- 
stract, the  whole  character  and  situa- 
tion which  produced  it.  Genius  con- 
centrates. It  is  measured  by  the  num- 
ber of  recollections  and  ideas  which  it 
assembles  in  one  point.  That  which 
Macaulay  has  assembled  is  enormous. 
I  know  no  historian  who  has  a  surer, 
better  furnished,  better  regulated  mem- 
ory. When  he  is  relating  the  actions 
of  a  man  or  a  party,  he  sees  in  an  in- 
stant all  the  events  of  his  history,  and 
all  the  maxims  of  his  conduct ;  he  has 
all  the  details  present ;  he  remembers 
them  every  moment,  and  a  great  many 
of  them.  He  has  forgotten  nothing ;  he 
runs  through  them  as  easily,  as  com- 
pletely, as  surely,  as  on  the  day  when 
he  enumerated  or  wrote  them.  No 
one  has  so  well  taught  or  known  his- 
tory. He  is  as  much  steeped  in  it  as 
his  personages.  The  ardent  Whig  or 
Tory,  experienced,  trained  to  business, 
who  rose  and  shook  the  House,  had 
not  more  numerous,  better  arranged, 
more  precise  arguments.  He  did  not 
better  know  the  strength  and  weakness 
of  his  cause  ;  he  was  not  more  familiar 
with  the  intrigues,  rancors,  variation 
of  parties,  the  chances  of  the  strife, 
individual  and  public  interests.  The 
great  novelists  penetrate  the  soul  of 
their  characters,  assume  their  feelings, 
ideas,  language  ;  it  seems  as  if  Balzac 
had  been  a  commercial  traveller,  a  fe- 
male door-keeper,  a  courtesan,  an  old 
maid,  a  poet,  and  that  he  had  spent 
his  life  in  being  each  of  these  person- 
ages :  his  existence  is  multiplied,  and 
his  name  is  legion.  With  a  different 
talent,  Macaulay  has  the  same  power : 
an  incomparable  advocate,  he  pleads 
an  infinite  number  of  causes  ;  and  he 
is  master  of  each  cause,  as  fully  as  his 
client.  He  has  answers  for  all  objec- 
tions, explanations  for  all  obscurities, 
reasons  for  all  tribunals.  He  is  ready 
at  every  moment,  and  on  all  parts  of 
his  case.  It  seems  as  if  he  had  been 
Whig,  Tory,  Puritan,  Member  of  the 
Privy  Council,  Ambassador.  He  is 
not  a  poet  like  Michelet ;  he  is  not  a 
philosopher  like  Guizot ;  but  he  pos- 
sesses so  well  all  the  oratorical  powers, 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MA  CAUL  AY. 


643 


he  accumulates  and  arranges  so  many 
facts,  he  holds  them  so  closely  in  his 
hand,  he  manages  them  with  so  much 
ease  and  vigor,  that  he  succeeds  in  re- 
composing  the  whole  and  harmonious 
woof  of  history,  not  losing  or  separat- 
ing one  thread.  The  poet  reanimates 
the  dead ;  the  philosopher  formulates 
creative  laws ;  the  orator  knows,  ex- 
pounds, and  pleads  causes.  The  poet 
resuscitates  souls,  the  philosopher 
composes  a  system,  the  orator  redis- 
poses  chains  of  arguments  ;  but  all 
three  march  towards  the  same  end  by 
different  routes,  and  the  orator  as  well 
as  his  rivals,  and  by  other,  means  than 
his  rivals,  reproduces  in  his  work  the 
unity  and  complexity  of  life. 

A  second  feature  of  this  history  is 
clearness.  It  is  popular  ;  no  one  ex- 
plains better,  or  so  much,  as  Macaulay. 
It  seems  as  if  he  were  making  a  wager 
with  his  reader,  and  said  to  him  :  Be 
as  absent  in  mind,  as  stupid,  as  ignorant 
as  you  please  ;  in  vain  you  will  be  ab- 
sent in  mind,  you  shall  listen  to  me  ;  in 
vain  you  will  be  stupid,  you  shall  under- 
stand ;  in  vain  you  will  be  ignorant, 
you  shall  learn.  I  will  repeat  the  same 
idea  in  so  many  different  forms,  I  will 
make  it  sensible  by  such  familiar  and 
precise  examples,  I  will  announce  it  so 
clearly  at  the  beginning,  I  will  resume 
it  so  carefully  at  the  end,  I  will  mark 
the  divisions  so  well,  follow  the  order 
of  ideas  so  exactly,  I  will  display  so 
great  a  desire  to  enlighten  and  con- 
vince you,  that  you  cannot  help  being 
enlightened  and  convinced.  He  cer- 
tainly thought  thus,  when  he  was  pre- 
paring the  following  passage  on  the  law 
which,  for  the  first  time,  granted  to 
Dissenters  the  liberty  of  exercising 
their  worship : 

"  Of  all  the  Acts  that  have  ever  been  passed 
by  Parliament,  the  Toleration  Act  is  perhaps 
that  which  most  strikingly  illustrates  the  pecu- 
liar vices  and  the  peculiar  excellences  of  Eng- 
lish legislation.  The  science  of  Politics  bears 
in  one  respect  a  close  analogy  to  the  science  of 
Mechanics.  The  mathematician  can  easily 
demonstrate  that  a  certain  power,  applied  by 
means  of  a  certain  lever  or  of  a  certain  system 
of  pulleys,  will  suffice  to  raise  a  certain  weight. 
But  his  demonstration  proceeds  on  the  sup- 
position that  the  machinery  is  such  as  no  load 
will  bend  or  break.  If  the  engineer,  who  has 
to  lift  a  great  mass  of  real  granite  by  the  in- 
strumentality of  real  timber  and  real  hemp, 
should  absolutely  rely  on  the  propositions 
which  he  finds  in  treatises  on  Dynamics,  and 


should  make  no  allowance  for  the  imperfection 
of  his  materials,  his  whole  apparatus  of  beams, 
wheels,  and  ropes  would  soon  come  down  in 
ruin,  and,  with  all  his  geometrical  skill,  he 
would  be  found  a  far  inferior  builder  to  those 
painted  barbarians  who,  though  they  never 
heard  of  the  parallelogram  of  forces,  managed 
to  pile  up  Stonehenge.  What  the  engineer  is 
to  the  mathematician,  the  active  statesman  is 
to  the  contemplative  statesman.  It  is  indeed 
most  important  that  legislators  and  administra- 
tors should  be  versed  in  the  philosophy  of 
government,  as  it  is  most  important  that  the 
architect  who  has  to  fix  an  obelisk  on  its  pe- 
destal, or  to  hang  a  tubular  bridge  over  an 
estuary,  should  be  versed  in  the  philosophy  of 
equilibrium  and  motion.  But,  as  he  who  has 
actually  to  build  must  bear  in  mind  many 
things  never  noticed  by  D'Alembert  and  Euler, 
so  must  he  who  has  actually  to  govern  be  per- 
petually guided  by  considerations  to  which  no 
allusion  can  be  found  in  the  writings  of  Adam 
Smith  or  Jeremy  Bentham.  The  perfect  law- 
giver is  a  just  temper  between  the  mere  man 
of  theory,  who  can  see  nothing  but  general 
principles,  and  the  mere  man  of  business,  who 
can  see  nothing  but  particular  circumstances. 
Of  lawgivers  in  whom  the  speculative  element 
has  prevailed  to  the  exclusion  of  the  practical, 
the  world  has  during  the  last  eighty  years  been 
singularly  fruitful.  To  their  wisdom  Europe 
and  America  have  owed  scores  of  abortive  con- 
stitutions, scores  of  constitutions  which  have 
lived  just  long  enough  to  make  a  miserable 
noise,  and  have  then  gone  off  in  convulsions. 
But  in  English  legislation  the  practical  element 
has  always  predominated,  and  not  seldom  jin- 
duly  predominated,  over  the  speculative.  To 
think  nothing  of  symmetry  and  much  of  con- 
venience ;  never  to  remove  an  anomaly  merely 
because  it  is  an  anomaly ;  never  to  innovate 
except  when  some  grievance  is  felt ;  never  to 
innovate  except  so  far  as  to  get  rid  of  the  griev- 
ance ;  never  to  lay  down  any  proposition  of 
wider  extent  than  the  particular  case  for  which 
it  is  necessary  to  provide  ;  these  are  the  rules 
which  have,  from  the  age  of  John  to  the  age  of 
Victoria,  generally  guided  the  deliberations  of 
our  two  hundred  and  fifty  Parliaments."  * 

Is  the  idea  still  obscure  or  doubtful  ? 
Does  it  still  need  proofs,  illustrations  ? 
Do  we  wish  for  any  thing  more  ?  You 
answer,  No ;  Macaulay  answers,  Yes. 
After  the  general  explanation  comes 
the  particular  ;  after  the  theory,  the 
application ;  after  the  theoretical  clenon- 
stration,  the  pratical.  We  would  fain 
stop  ;  but  he  proceeds  : 

"The  Toleration  Act  approaches  very  near 
to  the  idea  of  a  great  English  law.  To  a  jur- 
ist, versed  in  the  theory  of  legislation,  but  not 
intimately  acquainted  with  the  temper  of  the 
sects  and  parties  into  which  the  nation  was 
divided  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  th.it 
Act  would  seem  to  be  a  mere  chaos  of  absurd- 
ities and  contradictions.  It  will  not  bear  to  be 
tried  by  sound  general  principles.  Nay,  it  will 


*  Macaulay,  ii.  463,   History  of  England^ 
ch.  xi. 


644 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V, 


not  bear  to  be  tried  by  any  principle,  sound  or 
unsound.  The  sound  principle  undoubtedly 
is,  that  mere  theological  error  ought  not  to  be 
punished  by  the  civil  magistrate.  This  prin- 
ciple the  Toleration  Act  not  only  does  not  rec- 
ognise, but  positively  disclaims.  Not  a  single 
one  of  the  cruel  laws  enacted  against  noncon- 
formists by  the  Tudors  or  the  Stuarts  is  re- 
pealed, Persecution  continues  to  be  the  gen- 
../al  rule.  Toleration  is  the  exception.  Nor 
is  this  .all.  The  freedom  which  is  given  to 
conscience  is  given  in  the  most  capricious  man- 
ner. A  Quaker,  by  making  a  declaration  of 
faith  in  general  terms,  obtains  the  full  benefit 
of  the  Act  without  signing  one  of  the  thirty- 
nine  Articles.  An  Independent  minister,  who 
is  perfectly  willing  to  make  the  declaration  re- 
quired from  the  Quaker,  but  who  has  doubts 
about  six  or  seven  of  the  Articles,  remains  still 
subject  to  the  penal  laws.  Howe  is  liable  to 
punishment  if  he  preaches  before  he  has  sol- 
emnly declared  his  assent  to  the  Anglican  doc- 
trine touching  the  Eucharist.  Penn,  who  al- 
together rejects  the  Eucharist,  is  at  perfect 
liberty  to  preach  without  making  any  declara- 
tion whatever  on  the  subject. 

"  These  are  some  of  the  obvious  faults  which 
must  strike  every  person  who  examines  the 
Toleration  Act  by  that  standard  of  just  reason 
which  is  the  same  in  all  countries  and  in  all 
ages.  P.ut  these  very  faults  may  perhaps  ap- 
pear to  be  merits,  when  we  take  into  considera- 
tion the  passions  and  prejudices  of  those  for 
whom  the  Toleration  Act  was  framed.  This 
law,  abounding  with  contradictions  which  every 
smatterer  in  political  philosophy  can  detect, 
did  what  a  law  framed  by  the  utmost  skill  of 
the  greatest  masters  of  political  philosophy 
might  have  failed  to  do.  That  the  provisions 
which  have  been  recapitulated  are  cumbrous, 
puerile,  inconsistent  with  each  other,  incon- 
sistent with  the  true  theory  of  religious  liberty, 
must  be  acknowledged.  All  that  can  be  said 
in  their  defence  is  this  ;  that  they  removed  a 
vast  mass  of  evil  without  shocking  a  vast  mass 
of  prejudice  ;  that  they  put  an  end,  at  once  and 
for  ever,  without  one  division  in  either  House 
of  Parliament,  without  one  riot  in  the  streets, 
with  scarcely  one  audible  murmur  even  from 
the  classes  most  deeply  tainted  with  bigotry,  to 
a  persecution  which  had  raged  during  four  gen- 
erations, which  had  broken  innumerable  hearts, 
which  had  made  innumerable  firesides  deso- 
late, which  had  filled  the  prisons  with  men  of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy,  which  had 
driven  thousands  of  those  honest,  diligent  and 
god-fearing  yoeman  and  artisans,  who  are  the 
true  strength  of  a  nation,  to  seek  a  refuge  be- 
yond the  ocean  among  the  wigwams  of  red  In- 
dians and  the  lairs  of  panthers.  Such  a  de- 
fence, however  weak  it  may  appear  to  some 
shallow  speculators,  will  probably  be  thought 
complete  /  y  statesmen."  * 

What  I  find  complete  in  this,  is  the 
art  of  developing.  This  antithesis  of 
ideas,  sustained  by  the  antithesis  of 
words,  the  symmetrical  periods,  the 
expressions  designedly  repeated  to 
attract  attention,  the  exhaustion  of 

*  Macaulay,  ii.  465,  History  of  England, 
en.  xi. 


proof,  set  before  our  eyes  the  special- 
pleader's  and  oratorical  talent,  which, 
we  just  before  encountered  in  the  art 
of  pleading  all  causes,  of  employing  an 
infinite  number  of  methods,  of  master- 
ing them  all  and  always,  during  every 
incident  of  the  lawsuit.  The  final 
manifestation  of  a  mind  of  this  sort  are 
the  faults  into  which  its  talent  draws  it. 
By  dint  of  development,  he  protracts. 
More  than  once  his  explications  are 
commonplace.  He  proves  what  all 
allow.  He  makes  clear  what  is  already 
clear.  In  one  of  his  works  there  is  a 
passage  on  the  necessity  of  reactions 
which  reads  like  the  verbosity  of  a 
clever  schoolboy.  Other  passages,  ex- 
cellent and  novel,  can  only  be  read 
with  pleasure  once.  On  the  second 
reading  they  appear  too  true  ;  we  have 
seen  it  all  at  a  glance,  and  are  wearied. 
I  have  omitted  one-third  of  the  passage 
on  the  Act  of  Toleration,  and  acute 
minds  will  think  that  I  ought  to  have 
omitted  another  third. 

The  last  feature,  the  most  singular, 
the  least  English  of  this  History,  is, 
that  it  is  interesting.  Macaulay  wrote, 
in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  several  vol- 
umes of  Essays ;  and  every  one  knows 
that  the  first  merit  of  a  reviewer  or  a 
journalist  is  to  make  himself  readable. 
A  thick  volume  naturally  bores  us  ;  it 
is  not  thick  for  nothing  ;  its  bulk  de- 
mands at  the  outset  the  attention  of 
him  who  opens  it.  The  solid  binding, 
the  table  of  contents,  the  preface,  the 
substantial  chapters,  drawn  up  like 
soldiers  in  battle-array,  all  bid  us  take 
an  armchair,  put  on  a  dressing-gown, 
place  our  feet  on  the  fender,  and  study  ; 
we  owe  no  less  to  the  grave  man  who 
presents  himself  to  us,  armed  with  600 
pages  of  text  and  three  years  of  reflec- 
tion. But  a  newspaper  which  we  glance 
at  in  a  club,  a  review  which  we  finger 
in  a  drawing-room  in  the  evening,  be- 
fore sitting  down  to  dinner,  must  needs 
attract  the  eyes,  overcome  absence  of 
mind,  conquer  readers.  Macaulay  at- 
tained, through  practice,  this  gift  of 
readableness,  and  he  retains  in  his  His- 
tory the  habits  which  he  acquired  in 
periodicals.  He  employs  every  means 
of  keeping  up  attention,  good  or  indif- 
ferent, worthy  or  unworthy  of  his  great 
talents  ;  amongst  others,  allusion  to 
actual  circumstances.  You  may  have 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MA  CAUL  AY. 


645 


heard  the  saying  of  an  editor,  to  whom  ' 
Pierre  Leroux  offered  an  article  on 
God.  "  God  !  there  is  no  actuality 
about  it  !  "  Macaulay  profits  by  this 
remark.  He  never  forgets  the  actual. 
If  he  mentions  a  regiment,  he  points 
out  in  a  few  lines  the  splendid  deeds 
which  it  has  done  since  its  formation 
up  to  our  own  day :  thus  the  officers  of 
this  regiment,  encamped  in  the  Crimea, 
stationed  at  Malta,  or  at  Calcutta,  are 
obliged  to  read  his  History.  He  relates 
the  reception  of  Schomberg  in  the 
House  :  who  is  interested  in  Schom- 
berg ?  Forthwith  he  adds  that  Wel- 
lington, a  hundred  years  later,  was 
received,  under  like  circumstances, 
with  a  ceremony  copied  from  the  first  : 
what  Englishman  is  not  interested  in 
Wellington  ?  He  relates  the  siege  of 
Londonderry,  he  points  out  the  spot 
which  the  ancient  bastions  occupy  in 
the  present  town,  the  field  which  was 
covered  by  the  Irish  camp,  the  well  at 
which  the  besiegers  drank  :  what  citi- 
zen of  Londonderry  can  help  buying 
his  book  ?  Whatever  town  he  comes 
upon,  he  notes  the  changes  which  it 
has  undergone,  the  new  streets  added, 
the  buildings  repaired  or  constructed, 
the  increase  of  commerce,  the  introduc- 
tion of  new  industries  :  hence  all  the 
aldermen  and  merchants  are  con- 
strained to  subscribe  to  his  work. 
Elsewhere  we  find  an  anecdote  of  an 
actor  and  actress  :  as  the  superlative 
degree  is  interesting,  he  begins  by  say- 
ing that  William  Mountford  was  the 
most  agreeable  comedian,  that  Anne 
Bracegirdle  was  the  most  popular 
actress  of  the  time.  If  he  introduces  a 
statesman,  he  always  announces^  him 
by  some  great  word  :  he  was  the  most 
insinuating,  or  the  most  equitable,  or 
the  best  informed,  or  the  most  invete- 
rately  debauched,  of  all  the  politicians 
jf  the  clay.  But  Macaulay's  great 
qualities  serve  him  as  well  in  this  mat- 
ter as  his  literary  machinery,  a  little  too 
manifest,  a  little  too  copious,  a  little  too 
coarse.  The  astonishing  number  of 
details,  the  medley  of  psychological  and 
moral  dissertations,  descriptions,  rela- 
tions, opinions,  pleadings,  portraits, 
beyond  all,  good  composition  and  the 
continuous  stream  of  eloquence,  seize 
and  retain  the  attention  to  the  end. 
We  have  hard  work  to  finish  a  volume 


of  Lingard  or  Robertson  ;  we  should 
have  hard  work  not  to  finish  a  volume 
of  Macaulay. 

Here  is  a  detached  narrative  which 
shows  very  well,  and  in  the  abstract, 
the  means  of  interesting  which  he  em- 
ploys, and  the  great  interest  which  he 
excites.  The  subject  is  the  Massacre 
of  Glencoe.  Macaulay  begins  by  de- 
scribing the  spot  like  a  traveller  who 
has  seen  it,  and  points  it  out  to  the 
bands  of  tourists  and  dilettanti,  histo- 
rians and  antiquarians,  who  every  year 
start  from  London : 

"  Mac  Ian  dwelt  in  the  mouth  of  a  ravine 
situated  not  far  from  the  southern  shore  of 
Loch  Leven,  an  arm  of  the  sea  which  deeply 
indents  the  western  coast  of  Scotland,  and 
separates  Argyleshire  from  Inverness-shire. 
Near  his  house  were  two  or  three  small  ham- 
lets inhabited  by  his  tribe.  The  whole  popu- 
lation which  he  governed  was  not  supposed  to 
exceed  two  hundred  souls.  In  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  little  cluster  of  villages  was  some 
copsewood  and  some  pasture  land  :  but  a  little 
further  up  the  defile  no  sign  of  population  or 
of  fruitfulness  was  to  be  seen.  In  the  Gaelic 
tongue,  Glencoe  signifies  the  Glen  of  Weep- 
ing :  and,  in  truth,  that  pass  is  the  most  dreary 
and  melancholy  of  all  the  Scottish  passes,  the 
very  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  Mists 
and  storms  brood  over  it  through  the  greater 
part  of  the  finest  summer  ;  and  even  on  those 
rare  days  when  the  sun  is  bright,  and  when 
there  is  no  cloud  in  the  sky,  the  impression 
made  by  the  landscape  is  sad  and  awful.  The 
path  lies  along  a  stream  which  issues  from  the 
most  sullen  and  gloomy  of  mountain  pools. 
Huge  precipices  of  naked  stone  frown  on  both 
sides.  Even  in  July  the  streaks  of  snow  may 
often  be  discerned  in  the  rifts  near  the  sum- 
mits. All  down  the  sides  of  the  crags  heaps 
of  ruin  mark  the  headlong  paths  of  the  tor- 
rents. Mile  after  mile  the  traveller  looks  in 
vain  for  the  smoke  of  one  hut,  or  for  one  hu- 
man form  wrapped  in  a  plaid,  and  listens  in 
vain  for  the  bark  of  a  shepherd's  dog  or  the 
bleat  of  a  lamb.  Mile  after  mile  the  only 
sound  that  indicates  life  is  the  faint  cry  of  a 
bird  of  prey  from  some  storm-beaten  pinnacle 
of  rock.  The  progress  of  civilisation,  which 
has  turned  so  many  wastes  into  fields  yellow 
with  harvests  or  gay  with  apple  blossoms,  has 
only  made  Glencoe  more  desolate.  All  the 
science  and  industry  of  a  peaceful  age  can  ex- 
tract nothing  valuable  from  that  wilderness  : 
but,  in  an  age  of  violence  and  rapine,  the  wil- 
derness itself  was  valued  on  account  of  the 
shelter  which  it  afforded  to  the  plunderer  and 
his  plunder."  * 

The  description,  though  very  beautiful, 
is  written  for  effect.  The  final  anti- 
thesis explains  it ;  the  author  has  made 
it  in  order  to  show  that  the  Macdonalds 

*  Macaulay,  iii.  513,  History  of  Englandt 
ch.  xviii. 


646 


were  the  greatest  brigands  of  the 
country. 

The  Master  of  Stair,  who  represented 
William  III.  in  Scotland,  relying  on 
the  fact  that  Mac  Ian  had  not  taken 
the  oath  of  allegiance  on  the  appointed 
day,  determined  to  destroy  the  chief 
and  his  clan.  He  was  not  urged  by 
hereditary  hate  nor  by  private  interest ; 
he  was  a  man  of  taste,  polished  and 
amiable.  He  did  this  crime  out  of 
humanity,  persuaded  that  there  was  no 
other  way  of  pacifying  the  Highlands. 
Thereupon  Macaulay  inserts  a  disserta- 
tion of  four  pages,  very  well  written, 
full  of  interest  and  knowledge,  whose 
diversity  affords  us  rest,  which  leads  us 
over  all  kinds  of  historical  examples, 
and  moral  lessons : 

"  We  daily  see  men  do  for  their  party,  for 
their  sect,  for  their  country,  for  their  favourite 
schemes  of  political  and  social  reform,  what 
they  would  not  do  to  enrich  or  to  avenge  them- 
selves. At  a  temptation  directly  addressed  to 
pur  private  cupidity  or  to  our  private  animos- 
ity, whatever  virtue  we  have  takes  the  alarm. 
But  virtue  itself  may  contribute  to  the  fall  of 
him  who  imagines  that  it  is  in  his  power,  by 
violating  some  general  rule  of  morality,  to  con- 
fer an  important  benefit  on  a  church,  on  a  com- 
monwealth, on  mankind.  He  silences  the  re- 
monstrances of  conscience,  and  hardens  his 
heart  against  the  most  touching  spectacles  of 
misery,  by  repeating  to  himself  that  his  inten- 
tions are  pure,  that  his  objects  are  noble,  that 
he  is  doing  a  little  evil  for  the  sake  of  a  great 
good.  By  degrees  he  comes  altogether  to  for- 
get the  turpitude  of  the  means  in  the  excel- 
lence of  the  end,  and  at  length  perpetrates 
without  one  internal  twinge  acts  which  would 
shock  a  buccaneer.  There  is  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  Dominic  would,  for  the  best  arch- 
bishopric in  Christendom,  have  incited  fero- 
cious marauders  to  plunder  and  slaughter  a 
peaceful  and  industrious  population,  that  Ever- 
ard  Digby  would,  for  a  dukedom,  have  blown  a 
large  assembly  of  people  into  the  air,  or  that 
Robespierre  would  have  murdered  for  hire  one 
of  the  thousands  whom  he  murdered  from 
philanthropy."  * 

Do  we  not  recognize  here  the  English- 
man brought  up  on  psychological  and 
moral  essays  and  sermons,  who  involun- 
tarily and  every  instant  spreads  one 
over  the  paper  ?'  This  species  of  litera- 
ture is  unknown  in  French  lecture- 
rooms  and  reviews  ;  this  is  why  it  is 
unknown  in  French  histories.  When 
we  wish  to  enter  English  history,  we 
have  only  to  step  down  from  the  pulpit 
and  the  newspaper. 

*  Macaulay,  iii.  519  ;  History  of  England, 
ch.  xviii. 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


I  do  not  transcribe  the  sequel  of  the 
explanation,  the  examples  of  James  V., 
Sixtus  V.,  and  so  many  others,  whom 
Macaulay  cites  to  find  precedents  for 
the  Master  of  Stair.  Then  follows  a 
very  circumstantial  and  very  solid  dis- 
cussion, to  prove  that  William  III.  was 
not  responsible  for  the  massacre.  It  is 
clear  that  Macaulay's  object  here  as  else- 
where, is  less  to  draw  a  picture  than  to 
suggest  a  judgment.  He  desires  that 
we  should  have  an  opinion  on  the 
morality  of  the  act,  that  we  should  at- 
tribute it  to  its  real  authors,  that  each 
should  bear  exactly  his  own  share,  and 
no  more.  A  little  further,  when  the 
question  of  the  punishment  of  the  crime 
arises,  and  William,  having  severely 
chastised  the  executioners,  contents 
himself  with  recalling  the  Master  of 
Stair,  Macaulay  writes  a  dissertation  of 
several  pages  to  consider  this  injustice 
and  to  blame  the  king  Here,  as  else- 
where, he  is  still  an  orator  and  a  moral- 
ist ;  nothing  has  more  power  to  in- 
terest an  English  reader.  Happily  for 
us,  he  at  length  becomes  once  more  a 
narrator  ;  the  petty  details  which  he 
then  selects  fix  the  attention,  and  place 
the  scene  before  our  eyes  : 

"  The  sight  of  the  red  coats  approaching 
caused  some  anxiety  among  the  population  of 
the  valley.  John,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Chief, 
came,  accompanied  by  twenty  clansmen,  to 
meet  the  strangers,  and  asked  what  this  visit 
meant.  Lieutenant  Lindsay  answered  that  the 
soldiers  came  as  friends,  and  wanted  nothing 
but  quarters.  They  were  kindly  received,  and 
were  lodged  under  the  thatched  roofs  of  the 
little  community.  Glenlyon  and  several  of  his 
men  were  taken  into  the  house  of  a  tacksman 
who  was  named,  from  the  cluster  of  cabins  over 
which  he  exercised  authority,  Inverriggen. 
Lindsay  was  accommodated  nearer  to  the 
abode  of  the  old  chief.  Auchintriater,  one  of 
the  principal  men  of  the  clan,  who  goverr.ed 
the  small  hamlet  of  Auchnaion,  found  room 
there  for  a  party  commanded  by  a  serjeant 
named  Barbour.  Provisions  were  liberally 
supplied.  There  was  no  want  of  beef,  which 
had  probably  fattened  in  distant  pastures  :  nor 
was  any  payment  demanded :  for  in  hospital- 
ity, as  in  thievery,  the  Gaelic  marauders 
rivalled  the  Bedouins.  During  twelve  days  the 
soldiers  lived  familiarly  with  the  people  ot  the 
glen.  Old  Mac  Ian,  who  had  before  felt  n.any 
misgivings  as  to  the  relation  in  which  lie  stood 
to  the  government,  seems  to  have  been  pleased 
with  the  visit.  The  officers  passed  much  of 
their  time  with  him  and  his  family.  The  long 
evenings  were  cheerfully  spent  by  the  peat  fire 
with  the  help  of  some  packs  of  cards  which  had 
found  their  way  to  that  remote  corner  of  the 
world,  and  of  some  French  brandy  which  was 
probably  part  of  James'  farewell  gift  to  lug 


CHAP.  III.]      CRITICISM  AND  HISTORY— MACAULAY. 


647 


highland  supporters-  Glenlyon  appeared  to  be 
warmly  attached  to  his  niece  and  her  husband 
Alexander.  Every  day  he  came  to  their  house 
to  take  his  morning  draught.  Meanwhile  he 
observed  with  minute  attention  all  the  avenues 
bv  which,  when  the  signal  for  the  slaughter 
rfhould  be  given,  the  Macdonalds  might  at- 
tempt to  escape  to  the  hills  ;  and  he  reported 
ihe  result  of  his  observations  to  Hamilton.  .  .  . 
"  The  night  was  rough.  Hamilton  and  his 
troops  made  slow  progress,  and  were  long  after 
their  time.  While  they  were  contending  with 
the  wind  and  snow,  Glenlyon  was  supping  and 

E  laying  at  cards  with  those  whom  he  meant  to 
utcher  before  daybreak.     He  and  Lieutenant 
Lindsay  had  engaged  themselves  to  dine  with 
he  old  Chief  on  the  morrow. 

"  Late  in  the  evejiing  a  vague  suspicion  that 
Borne  evil  was  intended  crossed  the  mind  of 
the  Chief's  eldest  son.  The  soldiers  were  evi- 
dently in  a  restless  state  ;  and  some  of  them 
uttered  strange  exclamations.  Two  men,  it  is 
said,  were  overheard  whispering.  '  I  do  not 
like  this  job,'  one  of  them  muttered  ;  '  I  should 
be  glad  to  fight  the  Macdonalds.  But  to  kill 
men  in  their  beds — '  '  We  must  do  as  we  are 
bid,'  answered  another  voice.  '  If  there  is  any- 
thing wrong,  our  officers  must  answer  for  it.' 
John  Macdonald  was  so  uneasy,  that,  soon  af- 
ter midnight,  he  went  to  Glenlyon's  quarters. 
Glenlyon  and  his  men  were  all  up,  and  seemed 
to  be  getting  their  arms  ready  for  action. 
John,  much  alarmed,  asked  what  these  prepa- 
rations meant.  Glenlyon  was  profuse  of  friend- 
ly assurances.  '  Some  of  Glengarry's  people 
have  been  harrying  the  country.  We  are  get- 
ting ready  to  march  against  them.  You  are 
quite  safe.  Do  you  think  that,  if  you  were  in 
any  danger,  I  should  not  have  given  a  hint  to 
your  brother  Sandy  and  his  wife  ? '  John's 
suspicions  were  quieted.  He  returned  to  his 
house,  and  lay  down  to  rest."  * 

On  the  next  day,  at  five  in  the  morning, 
the  old  chieftain  was  assassinated,  his 
men  shot  in  their  beds  or  by  the  fire- 
side. Women  were  butchered  ;  a  boy, 
twelve  years  old,  who  begged  his  life 
on  his  knees,  was  slain  ;  they  who  fled 
half-naked,  women  and  children,  died 
of  cold  and  hunger  in  the  snow. 

These  precise  details,  these  soldiers' 
conversations,  this  picture  of  evenings 
by  the  fireside,  give  to  history  the  ani- 
mation and  life  of  a  novel.  And  still 
the  historian  remains  an  orator:  for 
he  has  chosen  all  these  facts  to  exhibit 
the  perfidy  of  the  assassins  and  the 
horrible  nature  of  the  massacre  ;  and 
he  will  make  use  of  them  later  on,  to 
demand,  with  all  the  power  and  passion 
of  logic,  the  punishment  of  the  crimi 
nals. 

VIII. 

Thus  this  History,  whose  qualities 

*  Macaulay,  iii.  526 ;  History  of  England, 
ch.  xviii. 


seem  so  little  English,  bears  throughout 
the  mark  of  genuine  English  talent. 
Universal,  connected,  it  embraces  all  the 
facts  in  its  vast,  undivided,  and  unbroken 
woof.  Developed,  abundant,  it  enlight- 
ens obscure  facts,  and  opens  up  to  the 
most  ignorant  the  most  complicated 
questions.  Interesting,  varied,  it  at- 
tracts and  preserves  the  attention.  It 
has  life,  clearness,  unity,  qualities  which 
appear  to  be  wholly  French.  It  seems 
as  if  the  author  were  a  popularizer 
e  Thiers,  a  philospher  like  Guizot. 
artist  like  Thierry.  The  truth  is, 
that  he  is  an  orator,  and  that  after  the 
fashion  of  his  country  :  but,  as  he  pos- 
sesses in  the  highest  degree  the  orato- 
rical faculties,  and  possesses  them  with 
a  national  tendency  and  instincts,  he 
seems  to  supplement  through  them  the 
faculties  which  he  has  not.  He  is  not 
genuinely  philosophical :  the  medioc- 
rity of  his  earlier  chapters  on  the  an- 
cient history  of  England  proves  this 
sufficiently  ;  but  his  force  of  reasoning, 
his  habits  of  classification  and  order, 
bestow  unity  upon  his  History.  He  is 
not  a  genuine  artist;  when  he  draws 
a  picture,  he  is  always  thinking  of 
proving  something ;  he  inserts  disserta- 
tions in  the  most  interesting  and  affect- 
ing places ;  he  has  neither  charm, 
lightness,  vivacity,  nor  finesse,  but  a 
marvellous  memory,  vast  knowledge, 
an  ardent  political  passion,  a  great 
legal  talent  for  expounding  and  plead- 
ing every  cause,  a  precise  knowledge  of 
precise  and  petty  facts  which  rivet  the 
attention,  charm,  diversify,  animate, 
and  warm  a  narrative.  He  is  not  sim- 
ply a  popularizer  ;  he  is  too  ardent, 
too  eager  to  prove,  to  conquer  belief, 
to  beat  down  his  foes,  to  have  only  the 
limpid  talent  of  a  man  who  explains 
and  expounds,  with  no  other  end  than 
to  explain  and  expound,  which  spreads 
light  throughout,  and  never  spreads 
heat ;  but  he  is  so  well  provided  with 
details  and  reasons,  so  anxious  to  con- 
vince, so  rich  in  his  expositions,  that 
he  cannot  fail  to  be  popular.  By  this 
breadth  of  knowledge,  this  power  of 
reasoning  and  passion,  he  has  produced 
one  of  the  finest  books  of  the  age, 
whilst  manifesting  the  genius  of  his 
nation.  This  solidity,  this  energy,  this 
deep  political  passion,  these  moral 
prepossessions,  these  oratrical  habits. 


648 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


this  limited  philosophical  power,  this 
somewhat  uniform  style,  without  flex- 
ibility or  sweetness,  this  eternal  gravity, 
this  geometrical  progress  to  a  settled 
end,  announce  in  him  the  English 
mind.'  But  if  he  is  English  to  the 
French,  he  is  not  so  to  his  nation.  The 
animation,  interest,  clearness,  unity  of 
jnis  narrative,  astonish  them.  They 
think  him  brilliant,  rapid,  bold;  it  is, 
they  say,  a  French  mind.  Doubtless 
he  is  so  in  many  respects :  if  he  un- 
derstands Racine  badly,  he  admires 
Pascal  and  Bossuet;  his  friends  say 
that  he  used  daily  to  read  Madame  de 
Sevigne'.  Nay,  more,  by  the  structure 
of  his  mind,  by  his  eloquence  and 
rhetoric,  he  is  Latin;  so  that  the  inner 
structure  of  his  talent  places  him 
amongst  the  classics  ;  it  is  only  by  his 
lively  appreciation  of  special,  complex 
and  sensible  facts,  by  his  energy  and 
fierceness,  by  the  rather  heavy  richness 
of  his  imagination,  by  the  depth  of 
his  coloring,  that  he  belongs  to  his 
race.  Like  Addison  and  Burke,  he 
resembles  a  strange  graft,  fed  and 
transformed  by  the  sap  of  the  national 
stock.  At  all  events,  this  judgment  is 
the  strongest  mark  of  the  difference 
between  the  two  nations.  To  reach  the 
English  intellect,  a  Frenchman  must 
make  two  voyages.  When  he  has 
crossed  the  first  interval,  which  is  wide, 
he  comes  upon  Macau!  ay.  Let  him 
re-embark;  he  must  accomplish  a 
second  passage,  just  as  long,  to  arrive 
at  Carlyle  for  instance, — a  mind  funda- 
mentally Germanic,  on  the  genuine 
English  soil. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


iisiflrjr  —  Carlgle. 


WHEN  we  ask  Englishmen,  especially 
those  under  forty,  who  amongst  them 
are  the  great  thinkers,  they  first  mention 
Carlyle;  but  at  the  same  time  they 
advise  us  not  to  read  him,  warning  us 
that  we  will  not  understand  him  at  all. 
Then,  of  course,  we  hasten  to  get  the 
twenty  volumes  of  Carlyle  —  criticism, 
history,  pamphlets,  fantasies,  philoso- 
phy ;  we  read  them  with  very  strange 
emotions,  contradicting  every  morning 


our  opinion  of  the  night  before.  We 
discover  at  last  that  we  are  in  pres- 
ence of  a  strange  animal,  a  relic  of  a 
lost  family,  a  sort  of  mastodon,  who 
has  strayed  in  a  world  not  made  for 
him.  We  rejoice  in  this  zoological 
good  luck,  and  dissect  him  with  minute 
curiosity,  telling  ourselves  that  we  shall 
probably  never  find  another  like  him. 

§  i. — STYLE  AND  MIND. 

We  are  at  first  put  out.  All  is  new 
here — ideas,  style,  tone,  the  shape  of 
the  phrases,  and  the  very  vocabulary. 
He  takes  every  thing  in  a  contrary 
meaning,  does  violence  to  every  thing, 
to  expressions  as  well  as  to  things. 
With  him  paradoxes  are  set  down  for 
principles;  common  sense  takes  the 
form  of  absurdity.  We  are,  as  it  were, 
carried  into  an  unknown  world,  whose 
inhabitants  walk  head  downwards,  feet 
in  the  air,  dressed  in  motley,  as  great 
lords  and  maniacs,  with  contortions, 
jerks,  and  cries;  we  are  grievously 
stunned  by  these  extravagant  and  dis- 
cordant sounds ;  we  want  to  stop  our 
ears,  we  have  a  headache,  we  are 
obliged  to  decipher  a  new  language. 
We  see  upon  the  table  volumes  which 
ought  to  be  as  clear  as  possible — The 
History  of  the  French  Revohition,  for 
instance;  and  there  we  read  these 
headings  to  the  chapters  :  "  Realized 
Ideals  —  Viaticum  —  Astraea  Redux — • 
Petition  in  Hieroglyphs — Windbags — 
Mercury  de  Breze — Broglie  the  War- 
God."  We  ask  ourselves  what  con- 
nection there  can  be  between  these 
riddles  and  such  simple  events  as  we 
all  know.  We  then  perceive  that 
Carlyle  always  speaks  in  riddles. 
"  Logic-choppers "  is  the  name  he 
gives  to  the  analysts  of  the  eighteenth 
century  ;  "  Beaver  science "  is  his 
word  for  the  catalogues  and  classifica- 
tions of  our  modern  men  of  science  ; 
"  Transcendental  moonshine  "  signifies 
the  philosophical  and  sentimental 
dreams  imported  from  Germany.  The 
religion  of  the  "  rotatory  calabash  " 
means  external  and  mechanical  relig- 
ion.* He  cannot  be  contented  with  a 

*  Because  the  Kalmucks  put  written  prayers 
into  a  calabash  turned  by  the  wind,  which  in 
their  opinion  produces  a  perpetual  adoration. 
In  the  same  way  are  the  prayer-mills  of  Thibet 
used. 


CHAP.  IV.]      PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


649 


simple  expression  ;  he  employs  figures 
at  every  step  ;  he  embodies  all  his 
ideas  ;  he  must  touch  forms.  We  see 
that  he  is  besieged  and  haunted  by 
brilliant  or  gloomy  visions;  every 
thought  with  him  is  a  shock  ;  a  stream 
vi  misty  passion  comes  bubbling  into 
bis  overflowing  brain,  and  the  torrent 
of  images  breaks  forth  and  rolls  on 
amidst  every  kind  of  mud  and  mag- 
nificence. He  cannot  reason,  he  must 
paint.  If  he  wants  to  explain  the  em- 
barrassment of  a  young  man  obliged  to 
choose  a  career  amongst  the  lusts  and 
doubts  of  the  age,  in  which  we  live,  he 
tells  you  of 

"  A  world  all  rocking  and  plunging,  like  that 
old  Roman  one  when  the  measure  of  its  in- 
iquities was  full ;  the  abysses,  and  subterranean 
and  supernal  deluges,  plainly  broken  loose  ;  in 
the  wild  dim-lighted  chaos  all  stars  of  Heaven 
gone  out.  No  star  of  Heaven  visible,  hardly 
now  to  any  man  ;  the  pestiferous  fogs  and  foul 
exhalations  grown  continual,  have,  except  on 
the  higest  mountain-tops,  blotted  out  all  stars  : 
will-o'-wisps,  of  various  course  and  colour,  take 
the  place  of  stars.  Over  the  wild  surging  chaos, 
in  the  leaden  air,  are  only  sudden  glares  of  rev- 
olutionary lightning  ;  then  mere  darkness,  with 
philanthropistic  phosphorescences,  empty  me- 
teoric lights ;  here  and  there  an  ecclesiastical 
luminary  still  hovering,  hanging  on  to  its  old 
quaking  fixtures,  pretending  still  to  be  a  Moon 
or  Sun, — though  visibly  it  is  but  a  Chinese 
Lantern  made  of  paper  mainly,  with  candle-end 
foully  dying  in  the  heart  of  it."  * 

Imagine  a  volume,  twenty  volumes, 
made  up  of  such  pictures,  united  by 
exclamations  and  apostrophes ;  even 
history — that  of  the  French  Revolution 
— is  like  a  delirium.  Carlyle  is  a  Puri- 
tan seer,  before  whose  eyes  pass  scaf- 
folds, orgies,  massacres,  battles,  and 
who,  beset  by  furious  or  bloody  phan- 
toms, prophesies,  encourages,  or  curses. 
If  we  do  not  throw  down  the  book 
from  anger  or  weariness,  we  will  be- 
c?~e  dazrd  ;  our  ideas  leave  us,  night- 
mare seizes  us,  a  medley  of  grinning 
and  ferocious  figures  whirl  about  in 
our  head ;  we  hear  the  howls  of  in- 
surrection, cries  of  war  ;  we  are  sick  ; 
we  are  like  those  hearers  of  the  Cov- 
enanters, whom  the  preaching  filled 
with  disgust  or  enthusiasm,  and  who 
broke  the  head  of  their  prophet,  if 
thuy  did  not  take  him  for  their  leader. 
These  violent  outbursts  will  seem 
to  us  still  more  violent  if  we  mark 

*  The  Life  of  John  Sterling,  ch.  v. ;  A  Pro- 
fession. 


the  breadth  of  the  field  which  they 
traverse.  From  the  sublime  to  the 
ignoble,  from  the  pathetic  to  the  gro- 
tesque, is  but  a  step  with  Carlyle.  At 
one  and  the  same  time  he  touches  the 
two  extremes.  His  adorations  end  in 
sarcasms.  The  Universe  is  for  him 
an  oracle  and  a  temple,  as  well  as  a 
kitchen  and  a  stable.  He  moves  free- 
ly about,  and  is  at  his  ease  in  mysticism, 
as  well  as  in  brutality.  Speaking  of 
the  setting  sun  at  the  North  Cape,  he 
writes : 

"  Silence  as  of  death  ;  for  Midnight,  even  in 
the  Arctic  latitudes,  has  its  character  :  nothing 
but  the  granite  cliffs  ruddy-tinged,  the  peace- 
able gurgle  of  that  slow-heaving  Polar  Ocean, 
over  which  in  the  utmost  North  the  great  Sun 
hangs  low  and  lazy,  as  if  he  too  were  slumber- 
ing. Yet  is  his  cloud-couch  wrought  of  crimson 
and  cloth-pf-gold  ;  yet  does  his  light  stream 
over  the  mirror  of  waters,  like  a  tremulous  fire- 
pillar,  shooting  downwards  to  the  abyss,  and 
hide  itself  under  my  feet.  In  such  moments, 
Solitude  also  is  invaluable  ;  for  who  would 
speak,  or  be  looked  on,  when  behind  him  lies 
all  Europe  and  Africa,  fast  asleep,  except  the 
watchmen  ;  and  before  him  the  silent  Immen- 
sity, and  Palace  of  the  Eternal,  whereof  our 
Sun  is  but  a  porch-lamp  ? "  * 

Such  splendors  he  sees  whenever  he 
is  face  to  face  with  nature.  No  one 
has  contemplated  with  a  more  power- 
ful emotion  the  silent  stars  which  roll 
eternally  in  the  pale  firmament  and 
envelop  our  little  world.  No  one  has 
contemplated  with  more  of  religious 
awe  the  infinite  obscurity  in  which  our 
slender  thought  appears  for  an  instant 
like  a  gleam,  and  by  our  side  the 
gloomy  abyss  in  which  the  hot  frenzy 
of  life  is  to  be  extinguished.  His  eyes 
are  habitually  fixed  on  this  vast  Dark- 
ness, and  he  paints  with  a  shudder  of 
veneration  and  hope  the  effort  which 
religions  have  made  to  pierce  it : 

"  In  the  heart  of  the  remotest  mountains 
rises  the  little  Kirk  ;  the  Dead  all  slumbering 
round  it,  under  their  white  memorial  stones,  'in 
hope  of  a  happy  resurrection  ; ' — dull  wert  thou, 
O  Reader,  if  never  in  any  hour  (say  of  moaning 
midnight,  when  such  Kirk  hung  spectral  in  the 
sky,  and  Being  was  as  if  swallowd  up  of  Dark- 
ness) it  spoke  to  thee— things  unspeakable,  that 
went  to  thy  soul's  soul.  Strong  was  he  that 
had  a  Church,  what  we  can  call  a  Church  :  he 
stood  thereby,  though  '  in  the  centre  of  Im- 
mensities, in  the  conflux  of  Eternities,'  yet  man- 
"ke  towards  God  and  man:  the  vague  shoreless 


*  Sartor  Resartus,  1868,  bk.  ii.  ch.   viii.  ; 
Centre  of  Indifference. 
28 


650 


Universe  had  become  for  him  a  firm  city,  and 
dwelling  which  he  knew."  * 

Rembrandt  alone  has  beheld  these 
sombre  visions  drowned  in  shade, 
.  traversed  by  mystic  rays  :  look,  for  ex- 
ample, at  the  church  which  he  has 
painted ;  glance  at  the  mysterious 
floating  apparition,  full  of  radiant  forms, 
which  he  has  set  in  the  summit  of  the 
heavens,  above  the  stormy  night  and 
the  terror  which  shakes  mortality.! 
The  two  imaginations  have  the  same 
painful  grandeur,  the  same  scintilla- 
tions, the  same  agony,  and  both  sink 
with  like  facility  into  triviality  and 
crudeness.  No  ulcer,  no  filth,  is  re- 
pulsive enough  to  disgust  Carlyle.  On 
occasion  he  will  compare  the  politician 
who  seeks  popularity  to  "  the  dog  that 
was  drowned  last  summer,  and  that 
floats  up  and  down  the  Thames  with 
ebb  and  flood.  .  .  .  You  get  to  know 
him  by  sight .  .  .  with  a  painful  oppres- 
sion of  nose.  .  .  Daily  you  may  see 
him,  .  .  .  and  daily  the  odor  of  him  is 
getting  more  intolerable."  J  Absurdi- 
ties, incongruities,  abound  in  his  style. 
When  the  frivolous  Cardinal  de  Lo- 
menie  proposed  to  convoke  a  Plenary 
Court,  he  compares  him  to  "  trained 
canary  birds,  that  would  fly  cheerfully 
with  lighted  matches  and  fire  cannon  ; 
fire  whole  powder  magazines. "§  At 
need,  he  turns  to  funny  images.  He 
ends  a  dithyramb  with  a  caricature  :  he 
bespatters  magnificence  with  eccentric 
and  coarse  language :  he  couples  poetry 
with  puns : 

"  The  Genius  of  England  no  longer  soars 
Sunward,  world  defiant,  like  an  Eagle  through 
the  storms,  '  mewing  her  mighty  youth,'  as 
John  Milton  saw  her  do  :  the  Genius  of  Eng- 
land, much  liker  a  greedy  Ostrich  intent  on 
provender  and  a  whole  skin  mainly,  stands  with 
its  other  extremity  Sunward  ;  with  its  Ostrich- 
head  stuck  into  the  readiest  bush,  of  old  Church- 
tippets,  King-cioaks,  or  what  other  '  sheltering 
Fallacy  '  there  may  be,  and  so  awaits  the  issue. 
The  issue  has  been  slow  ;  but  it  is  now  seen  to 
have  been  inevitable.  No  Ostrich,  intent  on 
gross  terrene  provender,  and  sticking  its  head 
into  Fallacies,  but  will  be  awakened  one  day, — 
in  a  terrible  a-posteriori  manner  if  not  other- 
wise !"|l 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


*  History  of  the  French  Revolution,  bk.  i. 
ch.  ii.  ;  Realized  Ideals. 

t  In  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi. 

%  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  1850}  Stump  Ora- 
tor, 35. 

§  The  French  Revolution,  \.  bk.  iii.  ch.  vii.  ; 
Internecine. 

II  Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches,  iii.  x.  ; 
the  end. 


With  such  buffoonery  he  concludes  his 
best  book,  never  quitting  his  tone  of 
gravity  and  gloom,  in  the  midst  of 
anathemas  and  prophecies.  He  needs 
these  great  shocks.  He  cannot  remain 
quiet,  or  stick  to  one  literary  province 
at  a  time.  He  leaps  in  unimpeded 
jerks  from  one  end  of  the  field  of  ideas 
to  the  other ;  he  confounds  all  styles, 
jumbles  all  forms,  heaps  together  pa- 
gan allusions,  Bible  reminiscences,  Ger 
man  abstractions,  technical  terms, 
poetry,  slang,  mathematics,  physiology, 
archaic  words,  neologies.  There  is 
nothing  he  does  not  tread  down  and 
ravage.  The  symmetrical  constructions 
of  human  art  and  thought,  dispersed 
and  upset,  are  piled  under  his  hands 
into  a  vast  mass  of  shapeless  ruins, 
from  the  top  of  which  he  gesticulates 
and  fights,  like  a  conquering  savage. 

II. 

This  kind  of  mind  produces  humor, 
a  word  untranslatable  in  French,  be- 
cause in  France  they  have  not  the  idea. 
Humor  is  a  species  of  talent  which 
amuses  Germans,  Northmen ;  it  suits 
their  mind,  as  beer  and  brandy  suit  their 
palate.  For  men  of  another  race  it  is 
disagreeable  ;  they  often  find  it  too 
harsh  and  bitter.  Amongst  other 
things,  this  talent  embraces  a  taste  for 
contrasts.  Swift  jokes  with  the  seri- 
ous mien  of  an  ecclesiastic,  performing 
religious  rites,  and  develops  the  most 
grotesque  absurdities,  like  a  convinced 
man.  Hamlet,  shaken  with  terror  and 
despair,  bristles  with  buffooneries. 
Heine  mocks  his  own  emotions,  even 
whilst  he  displays  them.  These  men 
love  travesties,  put  a  solemn  garb  over 
comic  ideas,  a  clown's  jacket  over  grave 
ones.  Another  feature  of  humor  is 
that  the  author  forgets  the  public  for 
whom  he  writes.  He  tells  us  that  he 
does  not  care  for  us,  that  he  needs 
neither  to  be  understood  nor  approved, 
that  he  thinks  and  amuses  himself  by 
himself,  and  that  if  his  taste  and  ideas 
displease  us  we  have  only  to  take  our- 
selves off.  He  wishes  to  be  refined 
and  original  at  his  ease  ;  he  is  at  home 
in  his  book,  and  with  closed  doors,  he 
gets  into  his  slippers,  dressing-gown, 
often  with  his  feet  in  the  air,  sometimes 
without  a  shirt.  Carlyle  has  a  style  of 
his  own,  and  marks  his  idea  in  his  own 


CHAP.  IV.]      PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


6SI 


fashion ;  it  is  our  business  to  under- 
stand it.  He  alludes  to  a  saying  of 
Goethe,  or  Shakspeare,  or  to  an  anec- 
dote which  strikes  him  at  the  moment  ; 
so  much  the  worse  for  us  if  we  do  not 
know  it.  He  shouts  when  the  fancy 
takes  him  ;  the  worse  for  us  if  our  ears 
do  not  like  it.  He  writes  on  the  ca- 
price of  his  imagination,  with  all  the 
starts  of  invention  ;  the  worse  for  us  if 
our  mind  goes  at  a  different  pace.  He 
catches  on  the  wing  all  the  shades,  all 
the  oddities  of  his  conception ;  the 
worse  for  us  if  ours  cannot  reach  them. 
A  last  feature  of  humor  is  the  irruption 
of  violent  joviality,  buried  under  a 
heap  of  sadness.  Absurd  incongruity 
appears  unexpected.  Physical  nature, 
hidden  and  oppressed  under  habits  of 
melancholic  reflection,  is  laid  bare  for 
an  instant.  We  see  a  grimace,  a 
clown's  gesture,  then  every  thing  re- 
sumes its  wonted  gravity.  Add  lastly 
the  unforeseen  flashes  of  imagination. 
The  humorist  covers  a  poet ;  suddenly, 
in  the  monotonous  mist  of  prose,  at  the 
end  of  an  argument,  a  vista  opens  up  ; 
beautiful  or  ugly,  it  matters  not ;  it  is 
enough  that  it  strikes  our  eyes.  These 
inequalities  fairly  paint  the  solitary, 
energetic,  imaginative  German,  a  lover 
of  violent  contrasts,  based  on  personal 
and  gloomy  reflection,  with  sudden  up- 
wellings  of  physical  instinct,  so  differ- 
ent from  the  Latin  and  classical  races, 
races  of  orators  or  artists,  where  they 
never  write  but  with  an  eye  to  the  public, 
where  they  relish  only  consequent 
ideas,  are  only  happy  in  the  spectacle 
of  harmonious  forms,  where  the  fancy 
is  regulated,  and  voluptuousness  ap- 
pears natural.  Carlyle  is  profoundly 
German,  nearer  to  the  primitive  stock 
than  any  of  his  contemporaries,  strange 
and  unexampled  in  his  fancies  and  his 
pleasantries;  he  calls  himself  "a  be- 
mired  aurochs  or  urus  of  the  German 
woods,  .  .  .  the  poor  wood-ox  so  be- 
mired  in  the  forests."*  For  instance, 
his  first  book  Sartor  Resartus,  which  is 
a  clothes-philosophy,  contains,  &  propos 
of  aprons  and  breeches,  metaphysics, 
politics,  psychology.  Man,  according 
to  him,  is  a  dressed  animal.  Society 
has  clothes  for  its  foundation.  "  How, 
without  Clothes,  could  we  possess  the 
master-organ,  soul's  seat,  and  true 
*  Life  of  Sterling. 


pineal  gland  of  the  Body  social :  I 
mean,  a  PURSE:  "* 

"  To  the  eye  of  vulgar  Logic,"  says  he, 
*' what  is  man?  An  omnivorous  Biped  thai 
wears  Breeches.  To  the  eye  of  Pure  Reason 
what  is  he  ?  A  Soul,  a  Spirit,  and  divine  Ap- 
parition. Round  his  mysterious  ME  there 
lies,  under  all  those  wool-rags,  a  Garment  of 
Flesh  (or  of  Senses)  contextured  in  the  Loom 
of  Heaven  ;  whereby  he  is  revealed  to  his  like, 
and  dwells  with  them  in  UNION  and  DIVISION  ; 
and  sees  and  fashions  for  hie. self  a  Universe, 
with  azure  Starry  Spaces,  and  long  Thousands 
of  Years.  Deep-hidden  is  he  under  that  strange 
Garment ;  amid  Sounds  and  Colours  and  Forms, 
as  it  were,  swathed-in,  and  inextricably  over- 
shrouded  :  yet  it  is  skywoven,  and  worthy  of  a 
God."  t 

The  paradox  continues,  at  once  eccen- 
tric and  mystical,  hiding  theories  under 
follies,  mixing  together  fierce  ironies, 
tender  pastorals,  love-stories,  explo- 
sions of  rage,  and  carnival  pictures.  He 
says  well : 

"  Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  incident  in 
Modern  History  is  not  the  Diet  of  Worms,  still 
less  the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  Wagram,  Water- 
loo, Peterloo,  or  any  other  Battle  ;  but  an  in- 
cident passed  carelessly  over  by  most  Histo- 
rians, and  treated  with  some  degree  of  ridicule 
by  others :  namely,  George  Fox's  making  to 
himself  a  suit  of  Leather,"  % 

For,  thus  clothed  for  the  rest  of  his 
life,  lodging  in  a  tree  and  eating  wild 
berries,  man  could  remain  idle  and  in- 
vent Puritanism,  that  is,  conscience- 
worship,  at  his  leisure.  This  is  how 
Carlyle  treats  the  ideas  which  are  dear- 
est to  him.  He  jests  in  connection  with 
the  doctrine,  which  was  to  employ  his 
life  and  occupy  his  whole  soul. 

Should  we  like  an  abstract  of  his 
politics,  and  his  opinion  about  his  coun- 
try? He  proves  that  in  the  modern 
transformation  of  rel igions  two  pri  ncipal 
sects  have  risen,  especially  in  England  ; 
the  one  of  "  Poor  Slaves,"  the  other  of 
Dandies.  Of  the  first  he  says  : 

"  Something  Monastic  there  appears  to  be  in 
their  Constitution  :  we  find  them  bound  by  the 
two  Monastic  Vows,  of  Poverty  and  Obedience; 
which  Vows,  especially  the  former,  it  is  said, 
they  observe  with  great  strictness  ;  nay,  as  I 
have  understood  it,  they  are  pledged,  and  be  it 
by  any  solemn  Nazarene  ordination  or  not,  ir* 
revocably  consecrated  thereto,  even  before 
birth.  That  the  third  Monastic  Vow,  of  Chas- 
tity, is  rigidly  enforced  among  them,  I  find  no 
ground  to  conjecture. 


*  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  i.  ch.  x.  ;  Pure  Rea 
son.  t  Ibid. 

J .Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  i.;  Incident  in  Modern 
History. 


652 

"  Furthermore,  they  appear  to  imitate  the 
Dandiacal  Sect  in  their  grand  principle  of  wear- 
ing a  peculiar  Costume-  .  .  .  Their  raiment 
consists  of  innumerable  skirts,  lappets,  and  ir- 
regular wings,  of  all  cloths  and  of  all  colours  ; 
through  the  labyrinthic  intricacies  of  which 
their  bodies  are  introduced  by  some  unknown 
process.  It  is  fastened  together  by  a  multiplex 
combination  of  buttons,  thrums,  and  skewers  ; 
to  which  frequently  is  added  a  girdle  of  leather, 
of  hempen  or  even  of  straw  rope,  round  the 
loins.  To  straw  rope,  indeed,  they  seem  par- 
tial, and  often  wear  it  by  way  of  sandals.  .  .  . 

One  might  fancy  them  worshippers  of  Her- 
tha,  or  the  Earth  :  for  they  dig  and  affection- 
ately work  continually  in  her  bosom  ;  or  else, 
shut  up  in  private  Oratories,  meditate  and  man- 
ipulate the  substances  derived  from  her  ;  seldom 
looking  up  towards  the  Heavenly  Luminaries, 
and  then  with  comparative  indifference.  Like 
the  Druids,  on  the  other  hand,  they  live  in  dark 
dwellings  ;  often  even  breaking  their  glass-win- 
dows, where  they  find  such,  and  stuffing  them 
up  with  pieces  of  raiment,  or  other  opaque  sub- 
stances, till  the  fit  obscurity  is  restored.  .  .  . 

"  In  respect  of  diet  they  have  also  their  ob- 
servances. All  Poor  Slaves  are  Rhizophagous 
(or  Root-eaters) ;  a  few  are  Ichthyophagous, 
and  use  Salted  Herrings  ;  other  animal  food 
they  abstain  from  ;  except  indeed,  with  perhaps 
some  strange  inverted  fragment  of  a  Brahmin- 
ical  feeling,  such  animals  as  die  a  natural  death. 
Their  universal  sustenance  is  the  root  named 
Potato,  cooked  by  fire  alone.  .  .  .  In  all  their 
Religious  Solemnities,  Potheen  is  said  to  be 
an  indispensable  requisite,  and  largely  con- 
sumed." * 

Of  the  other  sect  he  says : 

"  A  certain  touch  of  Manicheism,  not  indeed 
in  the  Gnostic  shape,  is  discernible  enough  : 
also  (for  human  Error  walks  in  a  cycle,  and  re- 
appears at  intervals)  a  not-inconsiderable  resem- 
blance to  that  Superstition  of  the  Athos  Monks, 
who  by  fasting  from  all  nourishment,  and  look- 
ing intensaiy  for  a  length  of  time  into  their  own 
navels,  came  to  discern  therein  the  true  Apoc- 
alypse of  Nature,  and  Heaven  Unveiled.  To 
my  own  surmise,  it  appears  as  if  this  Dandiacal 
Sect  were  but  a  new  modification,  adapted  to 
the  new  time,  of  that  primeval  Superstition, 
Self-worship*  .  .  . 

"  They  affect  great  purity  and  separatism  ; 
distinguish  themselves  by  a  particular  costume 
(whereof  some  notices  were  given  in  the  earlier 
part  of  this  Volume) ;  likewise,  so  far  as  pos- 
sible, by  a  particular  speech  (apparently  some 
broken  Lingua-franco.,  or  English-French)  ; 
and,  on  the  whole,  strive  to  maintain  a  true 
Nazarene  deportment,  and  keep  themselves  un- 
spotted from  the  world." 

(t  They  have  their  Temples,  whereof  the 
chief,  as  the  Jewish  Temple  did,  stands  in  their 
metropolis  ;  and  is  named  Almack's,  a  word  of 
uncertain  etymology.  They  worship  principally 
by  night ;  and  have  their  Highpriestsand  High- 
iriestesses,  who,  however,  do  not  continue  for 
_.fe.  The  rites,  by  some  supposed  to  be  of  the 
Menadic  sort,  or  perhaps  with  an  Eleusinian  or 


MODERN  A  U IVORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


pi- 
ta 


*  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  iii.  ch.  x.  J  The  Da 
diacal  Body, 


Cabiric  character,  are  held  strictly  secret.  Nc% 
are  Sacred  Books  wanting  to  the  Sect ;  these 
they  call  Fashionable  Novels:  however,  the 
Canon  is  not  completed,  and  some  are  canon- 
ical, and  others  not."  *  ... 

Their  chief  articles  of  faith  are  : 

"  r.  Coats  should  have  nothing  of  it  A  tri- 
angle about  them  ;  at  the  same  time,  wrinkles 
behind  should  be  carefully  avoided. 

"  2.  The  collar  is  a  very  important  point :  it 
should  be  low  behind,  and  slightly  rolled. 

"  3.  No  licence  of  fashion  can  allow  a  man 
of  delicate  taste  to  adopt  the  posterial  luxuri- 
ance of  a  Hottentot. 

"  4.  There  is  safety  in  a  swallow-tail. 

"  5.  The  good  sense  of  a  gentleman  is  no- 
where more  finely  developed  than  in  his  rings. 

"  6.  Itis  permitted  to  mankind,  under  certain 
restrictions,  to  wear  white  waistcoats. 

"  7.  The  trousers  must  be  exceedingly  tight 
across  the  hips. 

"  All  which  Propositions  I,  for  the  present, 
content  myself  with  modestly  but  peremptorily 
and  irrevocably  denying."  f 

This  premised,  he  draws  conclusions  : 

"  I  might  call  them  two  boundless  and  indeed 
unexampled  Electric  Machines  (turned  by  the 
'  Machinery  of  Society '),  with  batteries  of  op- 
posite quality  ;  Drudgism  the  Negative,  Dandy- 
ism the  Positive  :  one  attracts  hourly  towards 
it  and  appropriates  all  the  Positive  Electricity 
of  the  nation  (namely,  the  Money  thereof)  ;  the 
other  is  equally  busy  with  the  Negative  (that  is 
to  say  the  Hunger),  which  is  equally  potent. 
Hitherto  you  see  only  partial  transient  sparkles 
and  sputters :  but  wait  a  little,  till  the  entire 
nation  is  in  an  electric  state  ;  till  your  whole 
vital  Electricity,  no  longer  healthfully  Neutral, 
is  cut  into  two  isolated  portions  of  Positive  and 
Negative  (of  Money  and  of  Hunger)  ;  and 
stands  there  bottled-up  in  two  World- Batteries  ! 
The  stirring  of  a  child's  finger  brings  the  two 
together  ;  and  then — What  then  ?  The  Earth 
is  but  shivered  into  impalpable  smoke  by  that 
Doom's-thunderpeal :  the  Sun  misses  one  of 
his  Planets  in  Space,  and  thenceforth  there  are 
no  eclipses  of  the  Moon.  Or  better  still,  I  might 
liken—"  J 

He  stops  suddenly,  and  leaves  you  to 
your  conjectures.  This  bitter  pleas- 
antry is  that  of  an  enraged  or  despair- 
ing man,  who  designedly,  and  simply 
by  reason  of  the  violence  of  his  pas- 
sion, would  restrain  it  and  force  him- 
self to  laugh ;  but  whom  a  sudden 
shudder  at  the  end  reveals  just  as  he 
is.  In  one  place  Carlyle  says  that 
there  is,  at  the  bottom  of  the  English 
character,  underneath  all  its  habits  of 
calculation  and  coolness,  an  inextin- 
guishable furnace : 

"  Deep  hidden  it  lies,  far  iown  in  the  centre, 
like  genial  central  fire,  with  stratum  after  stra- 


'  Ibid. 


t  Ibid. 


1 1  bid. 


CHAP.  IV.]     PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


turn  of  arrangement,  traditionary  method,  com- 
posed productiveness,  all  built  above  it,  vivified 
and  rendered  fertile  by  it  :  justice,  clearness, 
silence,  perseverance  unhasting,  unresting  dil- 
igence, hatred  of  disorder,  hatred  of  injustice, 
•which  is  the  worst  disorder,  characterise  this 
people  :  the  inward  fire  we  say,  as  all  such  fires 
would  be,  is  hidden  in  the  centre.  Deep  hid- 
den, but  awakenable,  but  immeasurable  ;  let  no 
man  awaken  it." 

It  is  a  fire  of  extraordinary  fierceness, 
as  the  rage  of  devoted  Berserkirs,  who, 
once  rushing  to  the  heat  of  the  battle, 
felt  no  more  their  wounds,  and  lived, 
fought,  and  killed,  pierced  with  strokes, 
the  least  of  which  would  have  been 
mortal  to  an  ordinary  man.  It  is  this 
destructive  frenzy,  this  rousing  of  in- 
ward unknown  powers,  this  loosening 
of  a  ferocity,  enthusiasm,  and  imagi- 
nation disordered  and  not  to  be  bridled, 
which  appeared  in  these  men  at  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,  and 
a  remnant  of  which  still  endures  in 
Carlyle.  Here  is  a  vestige  of  it,  in  a 
passage  almost  worthy  of  Swift,  which 
is  the  abstract  of  his  customary  emo- 
tions, and  at  the  same  time  his  con- 
clusion on  the  age  in  which  we  live  : 

"  Supposing  swine  (I  mean  four-footed 
swine),  of  sensibility  and  superior  logical  parts, 
had  attained  such  culture  ;  and  could,  after  sur- 
vey and  reflection,  jot  down  for  us  their  notion 
of  the  Universe,  and  of  their  interest  and  duties 
there, — might  it  not  well  interest  a  discerning 
public,  perhaps  in  unexpected  ways,  and  give  a 
stimulus  to  the  languishing  book-trade?  The 
votes  of  all  creatures,  it  is  understood  at  pres- 
ent, ought  to  be  had  ;  that  you  may  '  legislate  ' 
for  them  with  better  insight.  '  How  can  you 
govern  a  thing,'  say  many,  '  without  first  asking 
its  vote  ? '  Unless,  indeed,  you  already  chance 
to  know  its  vote, — and  even  something  more, 
namely,  what  you  are  to  think  of  its  vote  ;  what 
it  wants  by  its  vote  ;  and,  still  more  important, 
what  Nature  wants, — which  latter,  at  the  end  of 
the  account, — the  only  thing  that  will  be  got ! — 
— Pig  Propositions,  in  a  rough  form,  are  some- 
what as  follows : 

"  i.  The  Universe,  so  far  as  sane  conjecture 
can  go;  is  an  immeasurable  Swine's-trough, 
consisting  of  solid  and  liquid,  and  of  other 
contrasts  and  kinds  ;— especially  consisting  of 
attainable  and  unattainable,  the  latter  in  im- 
mensely greater  quantities  for  most  pigs. 

"  2.  Moral  evil  is  unattainability  of  Pig's- 
wash  ;  moral  good,  attainability  of  ditto. 

"  3.  '  What  is  Paradise,  or  the  State  of  In- 
nocence ?  '  Paradise,  called  also  State  of  In- 
nocence, Age  of  Gold,  and  other  names,  was 
(according  to  Pigs  of  weak  judgment)  unlimited 
attainability  of  Pig's-wash  ;  perfect  fulfilment 
of  one's  wishes,  so  that  the  Pig's  imagination 
could  not  outrun  reality  ;  a  fable  and  an  impos- 
sibility, as  Pigs  of  sense  now  see. 

"  4.  '  Define  the  Whole  Duty  of  Pigs.'  It 
is  the  mission  of  universal  Pighuod,  and  the 


duty  of  all  Pigs,  at  all  times,  to  diminish  the 
quantity  of  unattainable  and  increase  that  of  at 
lainable.  All  knowledge  and  device  and  effort 
ought  to  be  directed  thither  and  thither  only  : 
Pig  science,  Pig  enthusiasm  and  Devotion 
have  this  one  aim.  It  is  the  Whole  Duty  oi 
Pigs. 

"  5.  Pig  Poetry  ought  to  consist  of  universa, 
recognition  of  the  excellence  of  Pig's-wash  and 
ground  barley,  and  the  felicity  of  Pigs  whose 
trough  is  in  order,  and  who  have  had  enough  : 
Hrumph ! 

"  6.  The  Pig  knows  the  weat'"  er  ;  he  ought 
to  look  out  what  kind  of  weather  it  will  be. 

"7.  'Who  made  the  Pig?'  Unknown  — 
perhaps  the  Pork-butcher. 

"  8.  '  Have  you  Law  and  Justice  in  Pigdom  ?' 
Pigs  of  observation  have  discerned  that  there 
is,  or  was  once  supposed  to  be,  a  thing  called 
justice.  Undeniably  at  least  there  is  a  senti- 
ment in  Pig-nature  called  indignation,  revenge, 
etc.,  which,  if  one  Pig  provoke  another,  comes 
out  in  a  more  or  less  destructive  manner  :  hence 
laws  are  necessary,  amazing  quantities  of  laws. 
For  quarrelling  is  attended  with  loss  of  blood, 
of  life,  at  any  rate  with  frightful  effusion  of  the 
general  stock  of  Hog's-wash,  and  ruin  (tem- 
porary ruin)  to  large  sections  of  the  universal 
Swine's  trough :  wherefore  let  justice  be  ob- 
served, that  so  quarrelling  be  avoided. 

"  9.  '  What  is  justice  ? '  Your  own  share  of 
the  general  Swine's-trough,  not  any  portion  of 
my  share. 

"  10.  '  But  what  is  'my '  share  ?  '  Ah  !  there, 
in  fact,  lies  the  grand  difficulty ;  upon  which 
Pig  science,  meditating  this  long  while,  can 
settle  absolutely  nothing.  My  share — hrumphl 
— my  share  is,  on  the  whole,  whatever  I  can 
contrive  to  get  without  being  hanged  or  sent  to 
the  hulks."  * 

Such  is  the  mire  in  which  he  plunges 
modern  life,  and,  beyond  all  others,  Eng- 
lish life ;  drowning  at  the  same  time,  and 
in  the  same  filth,  the  positive  mind,  the 
love  of  comfort,  industrial  science, 
Church,  State  philosophy  and  law.  This 
cynical  catechism,  thrown  in  amidst  furi- 
ous declamations,  gives,  I  think,  the 
dominant  note  of  this  strange  mind  :  it 
is  this  mad  tension  which  constitutes 
his  talent ;  which  produces  and  explains 
his  images  and  incongruities,  his  laugh- 
ter and  his  rages.  There  is  an  Eng- 
lish expression  which  cannot  be  trans- 
lated into  French,  but  which  depicts 
this  condition,  and  illustrates  the  whole 
physical  constitution  of  the  i  ace  :  His 
blood  is  up.  In  fact,  the  cold  and 
phlegmatic  temperament  covers  the 
surface ;  but  when  the  roused  blood 
has  swept  through  the  veins,  the  fevered 
animal  can  only  be  glutted  by  devasta- 
tion, and  be  satiated  by  excess. 

*  Latter-Day  Pamphlets^  1850 :  Jesuitism, 
28. 


654 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BooK  V 


III. 


It  seems  as  though  a  soul  so  violent, 
so  enthusiastic, so  savage,  so  abandoned 
to  imaginative  follies,  so  entirely  with- 
out taste,  order,  and  measure,  would  be 
capable  only  of  rambling,  and  expend- 
ing itself  in  hallucinations,  full  of  sor- 
row and  danger.  In  fact,  many  of 
those  who  had  this  temperament,  and 
who  were  his  genuine  forefathers — the 
Norse  pirates,  the  poets  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  the  Puritans  of  the 
seventeenth — were  madmen,  hurting 
others  and  themselves,  bent  on  devas- 
tating things  and  ideas,  destroying  the 
public  security  and  their  own  heart. 
Two  entirely  English  barriers  have  re- 
strained and  directed  Carlyle  :  the  sen- 
timent of  actuality,  which  is  the  posi- 
tive spirit,  and  of  the  sublime,  which 
makes  the  religious  spirit ;  the  first 
turned  him  to  real  things,  the  other 
furnished  him  with  the  interpretation 
of  real  things  :  instead  of  being  sickly 
and  visionary,  he  became  a  philosopher 
and  a  historian. 

IV. 

We  must  read  his  history  of  Crom- 
well to  understand  how  far  this  senti- 
ment of  actuality  penetrates  him  ;  with 
what  knowledge  it  endows  him  ;  how 
he  rectifies  dates  and  texts;  how  he 
verifies  traditions  and  genealogies ; 
how  he  visits  places,  examines  the 
trees,  looks  at  the  brooks,  knows  the 
agriculture,  prices,  the  whole  domestic 
and  rural  economy,  all  the  political  and 
literary  circumstances  ;  with  what  mi- 
nuteness, precision,  and  vehemence  he 
reconstructs  before  his  eyes  and  before 
ours  the  external  picture  of  objects  and 
affairs,  the  Internal  picture  of  ideas  and 
emotions.  And  it  is  not  simply  on  his 
part  conscience,  habit,  or  prudence, 
but  need  and  passion.  In  this  great 
obscure  void  of  the  past,  his  eyes  fix 
upon  the  rare  luminous  points  as  on  a 
treasure.  The  black  sea  of  oblivion 
has  swallowed  up  the  rest :  the  million 
thoughts  and  actions  of  so  many  million 
beings  have  disappeared,  and  no  power 
will  make  them  rise  again  to  the  light. 
These  few  points  subsist  alone,  like  the 
summits  of  the  highest  rocks  of  a  sub- 
merged continent.  With  what  ardor, 
what  deep  feeling  for  the  destroyed 


worlds,  of  whkh  these  rocks  are  the 
remains,  does  the  historian  lay  upon 
them  his  eager  hands,  to  discover  from 
their  nature  and  structure  some  revela- 
tion of  the  great  drowned  regions,  which 
no  eye  shall  ever  see  again  !  A  number, 
a  trifling  detail  about  expense,  a  petty 
phrase  of  barbarous  Latin,  is  priceless 
in  the  sight  of  Carlyle.  I  should  like 
you  to  read  the  commentary  with  which 
he  surrounds  the  chronicle  of  the  monk 
Jocelin  of  Brakelond,  *  to  show  you 
the  impression  which  a  proved  fact 
produces  on  such  a  soul  ;  all  the  at- 
tention and  emotion  that  an  old  bar- 
barous word,  a  bill  from  the  kitchen, 
summons  up: 

"  Behold,  therefore,  this  England  of  the 
year  1200  was  no  chimerical  vacuity  or  dream- 
land, peopled  with  mere  vaporous  Fantasms, 
Rymer's  Fcedera,  and  Doctrines  of  the  Con- 
stitution ;  but  a  green  solid  place,  that  grew 
corn  and  several  other  things.  The  sun  shone 
on  it ;  the  vicissitude  of  seasons  and  human 
fortunes.  Cloth  was  woven  and  worn  ;  ditches 
were  dug,  furrow-fields  ploughed,  and  houses 
built.  Day  by  day  all  men  and  cattle  rose  to 
labour,  and  night  by  night  returned  home  weary 
to  their  several  lairs.  .  .  .  The  Dominus  Rex, 
at  departing,  gave  us  '  thirteen  sterlingiij  one 
shilling  and  one  penny,  to  say  a  mass  for  him. 
.  .  .  For  king  Lackland  -was  there,  verily  he. 
.  .  .  There,  we  say,  is  the  grand  peculiarity  ; 
the  immeasurable  one  ;  distinguishing  to  a 
really  infinite  degree,  the  poorest  historical 
Fact  from  all  Fiction  whatsoever.  '  Fiction,' 
'  Imagination,'  '  Imaginative  poetry,'  etc.  etc., 
except  as  the  vehicle  for  truth,  or  is  fact  of  some 
sort  .  .  .  what  is  it  ?  t  ...  And  yet  these 
grim  old  walls  are  not  a  dilettantism  and  dubiety; 
they  are  an  earnest  fact.  It  was  a  most  real 
and  serious  purpose  they  were  built  for  !  Yes, 
another  world  it  was,  when  these  black  ruins, 
white  in  their  new  mortar  and  fresh  chiselling, 
first  saw  the  sun  as  walls,  long  ago.  .  .  .  Their 
architecture,  belfries,  land-carucates  ?  Yes, — 
and  that  is  but  a  small  item  of  the  matter. 
Does  it  never  give  thee  pause,  this  other  strange 
item  of  it,  that  men  then  had  a  so^tl, — not  by 
hearsay  alone,  and  as  a  figure  of  speech  ;  but 
as  a  truth  that  they  knew  and  practically  went 
upon !  "  $ 

And  then  he  tries  to  resuscitate  this  soul 
before  our  eyes  ;  for  this  is  his  special 
feature,  the  special  feature  of  every  his- 
torian who  has  the  sentiment  of  actual- 
ity,to  understand  that  parchments,  walls, 
dress,  bodies  themselves,  are  only  cloaks 
and  documents ;  that  the  true  fact  is  the 
inner  feeling  of  men  who  have  lived, 
that  the  only  important  fact  is  the  state 
and  structure  of  their  soul,  that  the 

*  In  Past  and  Present,  bk.  ii. 

t  Ibid.  ch.  i.  ;  Jocelin  of  Brakelond. 

%.  Ibid,  ch,  ii.  ;  St.  Edmondsbury. 


CHAP.  IV.]      PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


6SS 


first  and  sole  business  is  to  reach  that 
inner  feeling,  for  that  all  else  diverges 
from  it.  We  must  tell  ourselves  this 
fact  over  and  over  again  ;  history  is  but 
the  history  of  the  heart;  we  have  to 
search  out  the  feelings  of  past  gener- 
ations, and  nothing  else.  This  is  what 
Carlyle  perceives  ;  man  is  before  him, 
risen  from  the  dead ;  he  penetrates  with- 
in him,  sees  that  he  feels,  suffers,  and 
wills,  in  that  special  and  individual 
manner,  now  absolutely  lost  and  ex- 
tinguished, in  which  he  did  feel,  surfer, 
and  will.  And  he  looks  upon  this 
sight,  not  coldly,  like  a  man  who  only 
half  sees  things  in  a  gray  mist,  indis- 
tictly  and  uncertain,  but  with  all  the 
force  of  his  heart  and  sympathy,  like  a 
convinced  spectator,  for  whom  past 
things,  once  proved,  are  as  present  and 
visible  as  the  corporeal  objects  which 
his  hand  handles  and  touches,  at  the 
very  moment.  He  feels  this  fact  so 
clearly,  that  he  bases  upon  it  all  his 
philosophy  of  history.  In  his  opinion, 
great  men,  kings,  writers,  prophets,  and 
poets,  are  only  great  in  this  sense :  "  It 
is  the  property  of  the  hero,  in  every 
time,  in  every  place,  in  every  situation, 
that  he  comes  back  to  reality  ;  that  he 
stands  upon  things,  and  not  shows  of 
things."  *  The  great  man  discovers 
some  unknown  or  neglected  fact,  pro- 
claims it ;  men  hear  him,  follow  him  ; 
and  this  is  the  whole  of  history.  And 
not  only  does  he  discover  and  proclaim 
it,  but  he  believes  and  sees  it.  He  be- 
lieves it,  not  as  hearsay  or  conjecture, 
like  a  truth  simply  probable  and  handed 
down ;  he  sees  it  personally,  face  to 
face  with  absolute  and  indomitable 
faith  ;  he  deserts  opinion  for  conviction, 
tradition  for  intuition.  Carlyle  is  so 
steeped  in  his  process,  that  he  imputes 
it  to  all  great  men.  And  he  is  not 
wrong,  for  there  is  none  more  potent. 
Wherever  he  penetrates  with  this  lamp, 
he  carries  a  light  not  known  before. 
Ht  pierces  mountains  of  paper  erudi- 
tion, and  enters  into  the  hearts  of  men. 
Everywhere  he  goes  beyond  political 


and  conventional  history.     He  divines 
characters,  comprehends   the 
extinguished  ages,  feels  better  than  any 


ie  spiril 
er  than 

Englishman,  better  than  Macaulay  him 
self,  the  great  revolutions  of  the  soul. 
He  is  almost  German  in  his  power  of 

*  Lectures  on  Heroes^  1868. 


imagination,  his  antiquarian  perspica> 
city,  his  broad  general  views,  and  yet 
he  is  no  dealer  in  guesses.  The  na- 
tional common  sense  and  the  energetic 
craving  for  profound  belief  retain  him 
on  the  limits  of  supposition;  when  he 
does  guess,  he  gives  it  for  what  it  is 
worth.  He  has  no  taste  for  hazardous 
history.  He  rejects  hearsay  and  le- 
gends ;  he  accepts  only  partially,  and 
under  reserve,  the  Germanic  etymolo- 
gies and  hypotheses.  He  wishes  to 
draw  from  history  a  positive  and  active 
law  for  himself  and  us.  He  expels 
and  tears  away  from  it  all  the  doubtful 
and  agreeable  additions  which  scien- 
tific curiosity  and  romantic  imagination 
accumulate.'  He  puts  aside  this  par- 
asitic growth  to  seize  the  useful  and 
solid  wood.  And  when  he  has  seized 
it,  he  drags  it  so  energetically  before 
us,  in  order  to  make  us  touch  it,  he 
handles  it  in  so  violent  a  manner,  he 
places  it  under  such  a  glaring  light,  he 
illuminates  it  by  such  coarse  contrasts 
of  extraordinary  images,  that  we  are 
infected,  and  in  spite  of  ourselves  reach 
the  intensity  of  his  belief  and  vision. 

He  goes  beyond,  or  rather  is  carried 
beyond  this.  The  facts  seized  upon  by 
this  vehement  imagination  are  melted 
in  it  as  in  a  fire.  Beneath  this  fury  of 
conception,  every  thing  wavers.  Ideas, 
changed  into  hallucinations,  lose  their 
solidity,  realities  are  like  dreams  ;  the 
world,  appearing  in  a  nightmare,  seems 
no  more  than  a  nightmare  ;  the  attesta- 
tion of  the  bodily  senses  loses  its  weight 
before  inner  visions  as  lucid  as  itself. 
Man  finds  no  longer  a  difference  be- 
tween his  dreams  and  his  perceptions. 
Mysticism  enters  like  smoke  within  the 
overheated  walls  of  a  collapsing  imagin- 
ation. It  was  thus  that  it  once  pene- 
trated into  the  ecstasies  of  ascetic  Hin- 
doos, and  into  the  philosophy  of  our 
first  two  centuries.  Throughout,  the 
same  state  of  the  imagination  has  pro- 
duced the  same  teaching.  The  Puri- 
tans, Carlyle's  true  ancestors,  were  in- 
clined to  it.  Shakspeare  reached  it  by 
the  prodigious  tension  of  his  poetic 
dreams,  and  Carlyle  ceaselessly  repeats 
after  him  that  "  we  are  such  stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  of."  This  real  world, 
these  events  so  harshly  followed  up, 
circumscribed,  and  handled,  are  to  him 
only  apparitions  ;  the  universe  is  di- 


656 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


vine.  "  Thy  daily  life  is  girt  with  won- 
der, and  based  on  wonder;  thy  very 
blankets  and  breeches  are  miracles.  .  . . 
The  unspeakable  divine  signficance, 
full  of  splendor,  and  wonder,  and  ter- 
ror, lies  in  the  being  of  every  man  and 
of  every  thing ;  the  presence  of  God 
who  made  every  man  and  thing." 

"  Atheistic  science  babbles  poorly  of  it,  with 
scientific  nomenclatures,  experiments,  and 
what-not,  as  if  it  were  a  poor  dead  thing,  to 
be  bottled  up  in  Leyden  jars,  and  sold  over 
counters  ;  but  the  natural  sense  of  man,  in  all 
times,  if  he  will  honestly  apply  his  sense,  pro- 
claims it  to  be  a  living  thing,  ah,  an  unspeak- 
able, godlike  thing  ;  towards  which  the  best 
attitude  for  us,  after  never  so  much  science,  is 
awe,  devout  prostration  and  humility  of  soul ; 
worship  if  not  in  words,  then  in  silence."  * 

In  fact,  this  is  the  ordinary  position  of 
Carlyle.  It  ends  in  wonder.  Beyond 
and  beneath  objects,  he  perceives  as  it 
were  an  abyss,  and  is  interrupted  by 
shudderings.  A  score  of  times,  a  hun- 
dred times  in  the  History  of  the  French 
Revolution,  we  have  him  suspending  his 
narrative,  and  falling  into  a  reverie. 
The  immensity  of  the  black  night  in 
which  the  human  apparitions  rise  for 
an  instant,  the  fatality  of  the  crime 
Which,  once  committed,  remains  at- 
tached to  the  chain  of  events  as  by  a 
link  of  iron,  the  mysterious  conduct 
which  impels  these  floating  masses  to  an 
unknown  but  inevitable  end,  are  the 
great  and  sinister  images  which  haunt 
him.  He  dreams  anxiously  of  this  fo- 
cus of  existence,  of  which  we  are  only 
the  reflection.  He  walks  fearfully 
amongst  this  people  of  shadows,  and 
tells  himself  that  he  too  is  a  shadow. 
He  is  troubled  by  the  thought  that 
these  human  phantoms  have  their  sub- 
stance elsewhere,  and  will  answer  to 
eternity  for  their  short  passage.  He 
exclaims  and  trembles  at  the  idea  of 
this  motionless  world,  of  which  ours  is 
but  the  mutable  figure.  He  divines  in 
It  something  august  and  terrible.  For 
he  shapes  it,  and  he  shapes  our  world 
according  to  his  own  mind ;  he  defines 
it  by  the  emotions  which  he  draws  from 
it,  and  figures  it  by  the  impressions 
which  he  receives  from  it.  A  moving 
chaos  of  splendid  visions,  of  infinite 
perspectives,  stirs  and  boils  within  him 
at  the  least  event  which  he  touches ; 

*  Lectures  on  Heroes,  i. ;  The  Hero  as  Di- 
vinity. 


ideas  abound,  violent,  mutually  jostling,, 
driven  from  all  sides  of  the  horizon 
amidst  darkness  and  flashes  of  light- 
ning ;  his  thought  is  a  tempest,  and  he 
attributes  to  the  universe  the  magnifi- 
cence, the  obscurities,  and  the  terrors 
of  a  tempest.  Such  a  conception  is 
the  true  source  of  religious  and  moral 
sentiment.  The  man  who  is  penetra- 
ted by  them  passes  his  life,  like  a  Puri- 
tan, in  veneration  and  fear.  Carlyle 
passes  his  in  expressing  and  impress- 
ing veneration  and  fear,  and  all  his 
books  are  preachings. 

V. 

Here  truly  is  a  strange  mind,  and 
one  which  makes  us  reflect.  Nothing 
is  more  calculated  to  manifest  truths 
than  these  eccentric  beings.  It  will  not 
be  time  misspent  to  discover  the  true 
position  of  this  mind,  and  to  explain, 
for  what  reasons,  and  in  what  measure, 
he  must  fail  to  possess,  or  must  attain 
to,  beauty  and  truth. 

As  soon  as  we  wish  to  begin  to  think, 
we  have  before  us  a  whole  and  distinct 
object — that  is,  an  aggregate  of  details 
connected  amongst  themselves,  and 
separated  from  their  surroundings. 
Whatever  the  object,  tree,  animal,  sen- 
timent, event,  it  is  always  the  same  ;  it 
always  has  parts,  and  these  parts  al- 
ways form  a  whole  :  this  group,  more 
or  less  vast,  comprises  others,  and  is 
comprised  in  others,  so  that  the  small- 
est portion  of  the  universe  is,  like  the 
entire  universe,  a  group.  Thus  the 
whole  employment  of  human  thought 
is  to  reproduce  groups.  According  as 
a  mind  is  fit  for  this  or  not,  it  is  capa- 
ble or  incapable.  According  as  it  can 
reproduce  great  or  small  groups,  it  is 
great  or  small.  According  as  it  can 
produce  complete  groups,  or  only  some 
of  their  parts,  it  is  complete  or  partial. 

What  is  it,  then,  to  reproduce  a 
group  ?  It  is  first  to  separate  there- 
from all  the  parts,  then  to  arrange  them 
in  ranks  according  to  their  resemblances, 
then  to  form  these  ranks  into  families, 
lastly  to  combine  the  whole  under 
some  general  and  dominant  mark ;  in 
short,  to  imitate  the  hierarchical  classi- 
fications of  science.  But  the  task  is 
not  ended  there  :  this  hierarchy  is  not 
an  artificial  and  external  arrangement, 


CHAP.  IV.]      PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


but  a  natural  and  internal  necessity. 
Things  are  not  dead,  but  living  ;  there 
is  in. them  a  force  which  produces  and 
organizes  this  group,  which  binds  to- 
gether the  details  and  the  whole,  which 
repeats  the  type  in  all  its  parts.  It  is  this 
force  which  the  mind  must  reproduce 
in  itself,  with  all  its  effects ;  it  must  per- 
ceive it  by  rebound  and  sympathy :  this 
force  must  engender  in  the  mind  the  en- 
tire group,  and  must  be  developed  with- 
in it  as  without  it :  the  series  of  internal 
ideas  must  imitate  the  series  of  exter- 
nal ;  the  emotion  must  follow  the  con- 
ception, vision  must  complete  analysis; 
the  mind  must  become,  like  nature, 
creative.  Then  only  can  we  say  :  We 
know. 

All  minds  take  one  or  other  of  these 
routes,  and  are  divided  by  them  into 
two  great  classes,  corresponding  to  op- 
posite temperaments.  In  the  first  are 
the  plain  men  of  science,  the  popular- 
izers,  orators,  writers — in  general,  the 
classical  ages  and  the  Latin  races ;  in 
the  second  are  the  poets,  prophets,  com- 
monly the  inventors — in  general,  the 
romantic  ages  and  the  Germanic  races. 
The  first  proceed  gradually  from  one 
idea  to  the  next :  they  are  methodical 
and  cautious  ;  they  speak  for  the  world 
at  large,  and  prove  what  they  say  ;  they 
divide  the  field  which  they  would  tra- 
verse into  preliminary  sections,  in  order 
to  exhaust  their  subject;  they  march 
on  straight  and  level  roads,  so  as  to  be 
sure  never  to  fall;  they  proceed  by 
transitions,  enumerations,  summaries  ; 
they  advance  from  general  to  still  more 
general  conclusions ;  they  form  the 
exact  and  complete  classification  of 
a  group.  When  they  go  beyond  sim- 
ple analysis,  their  whole  talent  con- 
sists in  eloquently  pleading  a  thesis. 
Amongst  the  contemporaries  of  Car- 
lyle,  Macaulay  is  the  most  complete 
model  of  this  species  of  mind.  The 
others,  after  having  violently  and  con- 
fusedly rummaged  amongst  the  details 
of  a  group,  rush  with  a  sudden  spring 
into  the  mother-notion.  They  see  it 
then  in  its  entirety  ;  they  perceive  the 
powers  which  organize  it ;  they  repro- 
duce it  by  divination  ;  they  depict  it 
abridged  by  the  most  expressive  and 
strangest  words ;  they  are  not  capable 
of  decomposing  it  into  regular  series, 
they  always  perceive  in  a  lump.  They 


think  only  by  sudden  concentrations  of 
vehement  ideas.  They  have  a  vision  of 
distant  effects  or  living  actions ;  they 
are  revealers  or  poets.  Michelety 
amongst  the  French,  is  the  best  exam- 
ple of  this  form  of  intellect,  and  Car- 
lyle is  an  English  Michelet. 

He  knows  it,  and  argues  plausibly 
that  genius  is  an  intuition,  an  insight  : 
"  Our  Professor's  method  is  not,  in  any 
case,  that  of  common  school  Logic, 
where  the  truths  all  stand  in  a  row,  each 
holding  by  the  skirts  of  the  other ;  but 
at  best  that  of  practical  Reason,  pro- 
ceeding by  large  Intuition  over  whole 
systematic  groups  and  kingdoms ; 
whereby  we  might  say,  a  noble  com- 
plexity, almost  like  that  of  Nature, 
reigns  in  his  Philosophy,  or  spiritual 
Picture  of  Nature  :  a  mighty  maze,  yet, 
as  faith  whispers,  not  without  apian."  * 
Doubtless,  but  disadvantages  neverthe- 
less are  not  wanting ;  and,  in  the  first 
place,  obscurity  and  barbarism.  In 
order  to  understand  him,  we  must  study 
laboriously,  or  else  have  precisely  the 
same  kind  of  mind  as  he.  But  few 
men  are  critics  by  profession,  or  natur- 
al seers  ;  in  general,  an  author  writes 
to  be  understood,  and  it  is  annoying  to 
end  in  enigmas.  On  the  other  hand, 
this  visionary  process  is  hazardous : 
when  we  wish  to  leap  immediately  into 
the  inner  and  generative  idea,  we  run 
the  risk  of  falling  short ;  the  gradual 
progress  is  slower,  but  more  sure.  The 
methodical  people,  so  much  ridiculed 
by  Carlyle,  have  at  least  the  advantage 
over  him  in  being  able  to  verify  all  their 
steps.  Moreover,  these  vehement  di- 
vinations and  assertions  are  very  often 
void  of  proof.  Carlyle  leaves  the  read- 
er to  search  for  them :  the  reader  at 
times  does  not  search  for  them,  and  re- 
fuses to  believe  the  soothsayer  on  his 
word.  Consider,  again,  that  affecta- 
tion infallibly  enters  into  this  style.  It 
must  assuredly  be  inevitable,  since 
Shakspeare  is  full  of  it.  The  simple 
writer,  prosaic  and  rational,  can  always 
reason  and  stick  to  his  prose  ;  his  inspi- 
ration has  no  gaps,  and  demands  no 
efforts.  On  the  contrary,  prophecy  is  a 
violent  condition  which  does  not  sus- 
tain itself.  When  it  fails,  it  is  replaced 
by  grand  gesticulation.  Carlyle  gets 

*  Sartor  Resartus,   bk.   i.  ch.  viii.  J    Th* 
World  out  of  Clothes. 

28* 


658 


up  the  stean  in  order  to  continue  glow- 
ing. He  struggles  hard;  and  this 
forced,  perpetual  epilepsy  is  a  most 
shocking  spectacle.  We  cannot  endure 
a  man  who  wanders,  repeats  himself, 
returns  to  oddities  and  exaggerations 
which  he  had  already  employed  ; 
makes  a  jargon  of  them,  declaims,  ex- 
claims, and  makes  it  a  point,  like  a 
wretched  bombastic  comedian,  to  upset 
our  nerves.  Finally,  when  this  species 
of  mind  coincides  in  a  lofty  mind 
with  the  habits  of  a  gloomy  preacher, 
it  results  in  objectionable  manners. 
Many  will  find  Carlyle  presumptuous, 
coarse  ;  they  will  suspect  from  his  the- 
ories, and  also  from  his  way  of  speak- 
ing, that  he  looks  upon  himself  as  a 
great  man,  neglected,  of  the  race  of  he- 
roes ;  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  human 
race  ought  to  put  themselves  in  his 
hands,  and  trust  him  with  their  busi- 
ness. Certainly  he  lectures  us,  and 
with  contempt.  He  despises  his  epoch ; 
he  has  a  sulky,  sour  tone  ;  he  keeps 
purposely  on  stilts.  He  disdains  ob- 
jections. In  his  eyes,  opponents  are 
not  up  to  his  form.  He  abuses  his 
predecessors :  when  he  speaks  of  Crom- 
well's biographers,  he  takes  the  tone  of 
a  man  of  genius  astray  amongst  pe- 
dants. He  ha-s  the  superior  smile,  the 
resigned  condescension  of  a  hero  who 
feels  himself  a  martyr,  and  he  only 
quits  it,  to  shout  at  the  top  of  his  voice, 
like  an  ill-bred  plebeian. 

All  this  is  redeemed,  and  more,  by 
rare  merits.  He  speaks  truly :  minds 
like  his  are  the  most  fertile.  They  are 
almost  the  only  ones  which  make  dis- 
coveries. Pure  classifiers  do  not  in- 
vent ;  they  are  too  dry.  "  To  know  a 
thing,  what  we  can  call  knowing,  a  man 
must  first  love  the  thing,  sympathize 
with  it."  "  Fantasy  is  the  organ  of  the 
Godlike,  the  understanding  is  indeed 
,hy  window  ;  too  clear  thou  canst  not 
make  it ;  but  fantasy  is  thy  eye,  with 
its  color-giving  retina,  healthy  or  dis- 
eased." In  more  simple  language,  this 
means  that  every  object,  animate  or  in- 
animate, is  gifted  with  powers  which 
constitute  its  nature  and  produce  its 
development;  that,  in  order  to  know  it, 
we  must  recreate  it  in  ourselves,  with 
the  train  of  its  potentialities,  and  that 
we  only  know  it  entirely  by  inwardly 
perceiving  all  its  tendencies,  and  in- 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


wardly  seeing  all  its  effects.  And 
verily  this  process,  whidi  is  the  imita- 
tion of  nature,  is  the  omy  one  by  which 
we  can  penetrate  nature;  Shakspeare 
had  it  as  an  nstinct,  and  Goethe  as  a 
method.  There  is  none  so  powerful  or 
delicate,  so  fitted  to  the  complexity  of 
things  and  to  the  structure  of  our  mind. 
There  is  none  more  proper  to  renew 
our  ideas,  to  withdraw  us  from  formulas, 
to  deliver  us  from  the  prejudices  with 
which  education  involves  us,  to  over- 
throw the  barriers  in  which  our  sur- 
roundings enclose  us.  It  is  by  this  that 
Carlyle  escaped  from  conventional 
English  ideas,  penetrated  into  the 
philosophy  and  science  of  Germany,  to 
think  out  again  in  his  own  manner  the 
Germanic  discoveries,  and  to  give  an 
original  theory  of  man  and  of  the 
universe. 

§  2. — VOCATION. 

It  is  from  Germany  that  Carlyle  has 
drawn  his  greatest  ideas.  He  studied 
there,  he  knows  perfectly  its  literature 
and  language,  he  sets  this  literature  in 
the  highest  rank,  he  translated  Jf7//z,?/;tt 
Meister,  he  wrote  upon  the  German 
writers  a  long  series  of  critical  articles, 
he  has  just  written  a  life  of  Frederick 
the  Great.  He  is  the  best  accredited 
and  most  original  of  the  interpreters 
who  have  introduced  the  German  mind 
into  England.  This  is  no  small  thing 
to  do,  for  it  is  in  such  a  work  that  every 
thinking  person  is  now  laboring. 

I. 

From  1780  to  1830  Germany  has  pro- 
duced all  the  ideas  of  our  historic  age ; 
and  for  half  a  century  still,  perhaps  for 
a  whole  century,  our  great  work  will  be 
to  think  them  out  again.  The  thoughts 
which  have  been  born  and  have 
blossomed  in  a  country,  never  fail  to 
propagate  themselves  in  neighboring 
countries,  and  to  be  engrafted  there  for 
a  season.  That  which  is  happening  to 
us  has  happened  twenty  times  already 
in  the  world ;  the  growth  of  the  mind 
has  always  been  the  same,  and  we  may, 
with  some  assurance,  foresee  for  the 
future  what  we  observe  in  the  past.  At 
certain  times  appears  an  original  form 
of  mind,  which  produces  a  philosophy, 
a  literature,  an  art,  a  science,  and 


CHAP.  IV.]      PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


659 


which,  having  renewed  the  form  of 
man's  thought,  slowly  and  infallibly 
renews  all  his  thoughts.  All  minds 
which  seek  and  find  are  in  the  current ; 
they  only  advance  through  it :  if  they 
oppose  it,  they  are  checked ;  if  they 
deviate,  they  are  slackened:  if  they 
assist  it,  they  are  carried  beyond  the 
rest.  And  the  movement  goes  on  so 
long  as  there  remains  any  thing  to  be 
discovered.  When  art  has  given  all 
its  works,  philosophy  all  its  theories, 
science  all  its  discoveries,  it  stops ; 
another  form  of  mind  takes  the  sway, 
or  man  ceases  to  think.  Thus  at  the 
Renaissance  appeared  the  artistic  and 
poetic  genius,  which,  born  in  Italy  and 
carried  into  Spain,  was  there  ex- 
tinguished after  a  century  and  a  half  in 
the  universal  extinction,  and  which, 
with  other  characteristics,  transplanted 
into  France  and  England,  ended  after  a 
hundred  years  in  the  refinements  of 
mannerists  and  the  follies  of  sectarians, 
having  produced  the  Reformation,  con- 
firmed free  thought,  and  founded 
science.  Thus  with  Dryden  in  Eng- 
land, and  with  Malherbe  in  France, 
was  born  the  oratorical  and  classical 
spirit,  which,  having  produced  the 
literature  of  the  seventeenth  century 
and  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth, 
dried  up  under  the  successors  of  Vol- 
taire and  Pope,  and  died  after  two 
hundred  years,  having  polished  Europe 
and  raised  the  French  Revolution. 
Thus  at  the  end  of  the  last  century 
arose  the  philosophic  German  genius, 
which,  having  engendered  a  new  meta- 
physics, theology,  poetry,  literature, 
linguistic  science,  an  exegesis,  erudition, 
descends  now  into  the  sciences,  and 
continues  its  evolution.  No  more 
original  spirit,  more  universal,  more 
fertile  ir.  consequences  of  every  scope 
and  species,  more  capable  of  transform- 
ing and  reforming  every  thing,  has  ap- 
•jeared  for  three  hundred  years.  It  is 
jf  the  same  order  as  that  of  the  Re- 
naissance and  of  the  Classical  Age.  It, 
like  them,  connects  itself  with  the  great 
works  of  contemporary  intelligence, 
appears  in  all  civilized  lands,  is  propa- 
gated with  the  same  inward  qualities, 
but  under  different  forms.  It,  like 
them,  is  one  of  the  epochs  of  the 
world's  history.  It  is  encountered  in 
the  same  civilization  and  m  the  same 


races.  We  may  then  conjecture,  with- 
out too  much  rashness,  that  it  will  have 
a  like  duration  and  destiny.  We  thus 
succeed  in  fixing  with  some  precision 
our  place  in  the  endless  stream  of 
events  and  things.  We  know  that  we 
are  almost  in  the  midst  of  one  of  the 
partial  currents  which  compose  it.  We 
can  perceive  the  form  of  mind  which 
directs  it,  and  seek  beforehand  the 
ideas  to  which  it  conducts  us. 

II. 

Wherein  consists  this  form  ?  In  the 
power  of  discovering  general  ideas.  No 
nation  and  no  age  has  possessed  it  in 
so  high  a  degree  as  the  Germans.  This 
is  their  governing  faculty;  it  is  by  this 
power  that  they  have  produced  all  that 
they  have  done.  This  gift  is  properly 
that  of  comprehension  (Begreifen).  By 
it  we  find  the  aggregate  conceptions 
(Begrijfe] ;  we  reduce  under  one  ruling 
idea  all  the  scattered  parts  of  a  sub- 
ject ;  we  perceive  under  the  divisions 
of  a  group  the  common  bond  which 
unites  them  ;  we  conciliate  objections  ; 
we  bring  down  apparent  contrasts  to  a 
profound  unity.  It  is  the  pre-eminent 
philosophical  faculty;  and,  in  fact,  it  is 
the  philosophical  faculty  which  has  im- 
pressed its  seal  on  all  their  works.  By 
itf  they  vivified  dry  studies,  which 
seemed  only  fit  to  occupy  pedants  of 
the  academy  or  seminary.  By  it,  they 
divined  the  involuntary  and  primitive 
logic  which  created  and  organized 
languages,  the  great  ideas  which  are 
hidden  at  the  bottom  of  every  work  of 
art,  the  secret  poetic  emotions  and 
vague  metaphysical  intuitions  which 
engendered  religions  and  myths.  By 
it,  they  perceived  the  spirit  of  ages, 
civilizations,  and  races,  and  transformed 
into  a  system  of  laws  the  history  which 
was  but  a  heap  of  facts.  By  it,  they 
rediscovered  or  renewed  the  sense  of 
dogmas,  connected  God  with  the  world, 
man  with  nature,  spirit  with  matter, 
perceived  the  successive  chain  and  the 
original  necessity  of  the  forms,  whereof 
the  aggregate  is  the  universe.  By  it, 
they  created  a  science  of  linguistics,  a 
mythology,  a  criticism,  an  aesthetics,  an 
exegesis,  a  history,  a  theology  and 
metaphysics,  so  new  that  they  continued 
long  incomprehensible,  and  could  onl) 


66o 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BooK  V 


be  expressed  by  a  special  language. 
And  this  bent  was  so  dominant,  that  it 
subjected  to  its  empire  even  art  and 
poetry.  The  poets  by  it  have  become 
erudite,  philosophical;  they  constructed 
their  dramas,  epics,  and  odes  after  pre- 
arranged theories,  and  in  order  to 
manifest  general  ideas.  They  rendered 
moral  theses,  historical  periods,  sen- 
sible ;  they  created  and  applied 
aesthetics ;  they  had  no  artlessness,  or 
made  their  artlessness  an  instrument  of 
reflection  ;  they  loved  not  their  charac- 
ters for  themselves ;  they  ended  by 
transforming  them  into  symbols ;  their 
philosophical  ideas  broke  every  instant 
out  of  the  poetic  shape  in  which  they 
tried  to  enclose  them  ;  they  have  been 
all  critics,*  bent  on  constructing  or  re- 
constructing, possessing  erudition  and 
method,  attracted  to  imagination  by  art 
and  study,  incapable  of  producing  living 
beings  unless  by  science  and  artifice, 
really  systematical  men,  who,  to  express 
their  abstract  conceptions,  employed, 
in  place  of  formulas,  the  actions  of  per- 
sonages and  the  music  of  verse. 

III. 

From  this  aptitude  to  conceive  the 
aggregate,  one  sole  idea  could  be  pro- 
duced— the  idea  of  aggregates.  In  fact, 
all  the  ideas  worked  out  for  fifty  years 
in  Germany  are  reduced  to  one  only, 
that  of  development  (Entwickelung], 
which  consists  in  representing  all  the 
parts  of  a  group  as  jointly  responsible 
and  complemental,  so  that  each  necessi- 
tates the  rest,  and  that,  all  combined 
they  manifest,  by  their  succession  and 
their  contrasts,  the  inner  quality  which 
assembles  and  produces  them.  A  score 
of  systems,  a  hundred  dreams,  a  hun- 
dred thousand  metaphors,  have  various- 
ly figured  or  disfigured  this  fundamental 
idea.  Despoiled  of  its  trappings,  it 
merely  affirms  the  mutual  dependence 
which  unites  the  terms  of  a  series,  anc 
attaches  them  all  to  some  abstrac 
property  within  them.  If  we  apply  i 
to  Nature,  we  come  to  consider  the 
world  as  a  scale  of  forms,  and,  as  i 
were,  a  succession  of  conditions,  havim 
in  themselves  the  reason  for  their  suc- 
cession and  for  their  existence,  contain 
ing  in  their  nature  the  necessity  for 

*  Goethe,  the  greatest  of  them  all. 


heir  decay  and  their  limitation,  com 
>osing  by  their  union  an  indiv.sible 
vhole,  which,  sufficing  for  itself,  ex- 
laustingall  possibilities,  and  connecting 
all  things,  from  time  and  space  to  ex- 
stence  and  thought,  resembles  by  its 
larmony  and  its  magnificence  some 
•mnipotent  and  immortal  god.  If  we 
apply  it  to  man,  we  come  to  consider 
sentiments  and  thoughts  as  natural  and 
necessary  products,  linked  amongst 
;hemselves  like  the  transformations  of 
an  animal  or  plant ;  which  leads  us  to 
conceive  religions,  philosophies,  litera- 
:ures,  all  human  conceptions  and  emo- 
tions, as  necessary  series  of  a  state  of 
mind  which  carries  them  away  on  its 
passage,  which,  if  it  returns,  brings 
them  back,  and  which,  if  we  can  repro- 
duce it,  gives  us  in  consequence  the 
means  of  reproducing  them  at  will. 
These  are  the  two  doctrines  which  run 
through  the  writings  of  the  two  chief 
thinkers  of  the  century,  Hegel  and 
Goethe.  They  have  used  them  through- 
out as  a  method,  Hegel  to  grasp  the 
formula  of  every  thing,  Goethe  to  ob- 
tain the  vision  of  every  thing ;  they 
steeped  themselves  therein  so  thorough- 
ly, that  they  have  drawn  thence  their 
inner  and  habitual  sentiments,  their 
morality  and  their  conduct.  We  may 
consider  them  to  be  the  two  philo- 
sophical legacies  which  modern  Ger- 
many has  left  to  the  human  race. 

IV. 

But  these  legacies  have  not  been  un- 
mixed, and  this  passion  for  aggregate 
views  has  marred  its  proper  work  by  its 
excess.  It  is  rarely  that  the  mind  can 
grasp  aggregates  :  we  are  imprisoned 
in  too  narrow  a  corner  of  time  and 
space  ;  our  senses  perceive  only  the  sur- 
face of  things  ;  our  instruments  have 
but  a  small  scope  ;  we  have  only  been 
experimentalizing  for  three  centuries; 
our  memory  is  short,  and  the  docu- 
ments by  which  we  dive  into  the  past 
are  only  doubtful  lights,  scattered  over 
an  immense  region,  which  they  show 
by  glimpses  without  illuminating  them. 
To  bind  together  the  small  fragments 
which  we  are  able  to  attain,  we  have 
generally  to  guess  the  causes,  or  to  em. 
ploy  general  ideas  so  vast,  that  they 
might  suit  all  facts  ;  we  must  have  re- 


CHAP.  IV.]     PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


66 1 


course  either  to  hypothesis  or  abstrac- 
tion, invent  arbitrary  explanations,  or 
be  lost  in  vague  ones.  These,  in  fact, 
are  the  two  vices  which  have  corrupted 
German  thought.  Conjecture  and  for- 
mula have  abounded.  Systems  have 
multiplied,  some  above  the  others,  and 
broken  out  into  an  inextricable  growth, 
into  which  no  stranger  dare  enter,  hav- 
ing found  that  every  morning  brought 
a  new  budding,  and  that  the  definitive 
discovery  proclaimed  over-night  was 
about  to  be  choked  by  another  infallible 
discovery,  capable  at  most  of  lasting 
till  the  morning  after.  The  public  of 
Europe  was  astonished  to  see  so  much 
imagination  and  so  little  common  sense, 
pretensions  so  ambitious  and  theories  so 
hollow,  such  an  invasion  of  chimerical 
existences  and  such  an  overflow  of  use- 
less abstractions,  so  strange  a  lack  of 
discernment  and  so  great  a  luxuriance 
of  irrationality.  The  fact  was,  that 
folly  and  genius  flowed  from  the  same 
source;  a  like  faculty,  excessive  and 
all-powerful,  produced  discoveries  and 
errors.  If  to-day  we  behold  the  work- 
shop of  human  ideas,  overcharged  as  it 
is  and  encumbered  by  its  works,  we 
may  compare  it  to  some  blast-furnace, 
a  monstrous  machine  which  day  and 
night  has  flamed  unwearingly,  half  dark- 
ened by  choking  vapors,  and  in  which 
the  raw  ore,  piled  heaps  on  heaps,  has 
descended  bubbling  in  glowing  streams 
into  the  channels  in  which  it  has  be- 
come hard.  No  other  furnace  could 
have  melted  the  shapeless  mass,  crust- 
ed over  with  the  primitive  scoriae  ;  this 
obstinate  elaboration  and  this  intense 
heat  were  necessary  to  overcome  it. 
Now  the  heavy  castings  burden  the 
earth ;  their  weight  discourages  the 
hands  which  touch  them  ;  if  we  would 
turn  them  to  some  use,  they  defy  us  or 
break  :  as  they  are,  they  are  of  no  use  ; 
and  yet  as  they  are,  they  are  the  ma- 
terial for  every  tool,  and  the  instrument 
of  every  work  ;  it  is  our  business  to 
cast  them  over  again.  Every  mind 
must  carry  them  back  to  the  forge, 
purify  them,  temper  them,  recast  them, 
and  extract  the  pure  metal  from  the 
rough  mass. 

V. 

But  every  mind  will  re-forge  them 
according  to  its  own  inner  warmth ;  for 


every  nation  has  its  original  genius,  in 
which  it  moulds  the  ideas  elsewhere 
derived.  Thus  Spain,  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  renewed  in 
a  different  spirit  Italian  painting  and 
poetry.  Thus  the  Puritans  and  Jan- 
senists  thought  out  in  new  shapes  prim- 
itive Protestantism;  thus  the  French 
of  the  eighteenth  century  widened  and 
put  forth  the  liberal  ideas,  which  the 
English  had  applied  or  proposed  in 
religion  and  politics.  It  is  so  in  the 
present  day.  The  French  cannot  at 
once  reach,  like  the  Germans,  lofty 
aggregate  conceptions.  They  can  only 
march  step  by  step,  starting  from  con- 
crete ideas,  rising  gradually  to  abstract 
ideas,  after  the  progressive  methods 
and  gradual  analysis  of  Condillac  and 
Descartes.  But  this  slower  route  leads 
almost  as  far  as  the  other ;  and,  in  ad- 
dition, it  avoids  many  wrong  steps.  It  is 
by  this  route  that  we  succeed  in  correct- 
ing and  comprehending  the  views  of 
Hegel  and  Goethe ;  and  if  we  look 
around  us,  at  the  ideas  which  are  gain- 
ing ground,  we  find  that  we  are  already 
arriving  thither.  Positivism,  based  on 
all  modern  experience,  and  freed  since 
the  death  of  its  founder  from  his  social 
and  religious  fancies,  has  assumed  a 
new  life,  by  reducing  itself  to  noting 
the  connection  of  natural  groups  and 
the  chain  of  established  sciences.  On 
the  other  hand,  history,  novels,  and 
criticism,  sharpened  by  the  refinements 
of  Parisian  culture,  have  made  us  ac- 
quainted with  the  laws  of  human 
events  ;  nature  has  been  shown  to  be 
an  order  of  facts,  man  a  continuation 
of  nature;  and  we  have  seen  a^uperior 
mind,  the  most  delicate,  the  most  lofty 
of  our  own  time,  resuming  and  modify- 
ing the  German  divinations,  expound- 
ing in  the  French  manner  every  thing 
which  the  science  of  myth,  religion, 
and  language  had  stored  up,  beyond 
the  Rhine,  during  the  last  sixty  years.* 

VI. 

The  growth  in  England  is  more 
difficult;  for  the  aptitude  for  general 
ideas  is  less,  and  the  mistrust  of  general 
ideas  is  greater :  they  reject  at  once  all 
that  remotely  or  nearly  seems  capable 
of  injuring  practical  morality  or  estab- 
lished dogma.  The  positive  spirit 
*  M.  Rerun. 


662 


MODERN  A  UTIIORS. 


[BooK  V 


seems  as  if  it  must  exclude  all  German 
ideas  ;  and  yet  it  is  the  positive  spirit 
which  introduces  them.  Thus  theo- 
logians,* having  desired  to  represent 
to  themselves  with  entire  clearness  and 
certitude  the  characters  of  the  New 
Testament,  have  suppressed  the  halo 
and  mist  in  which  distance  enveloped 
them ;  they  have  figured  them  with 
their  garments,  gestures,  accent,  all  the 
shades  of  emotion  of  their  style,  with 
the  species  of  imagination  which  their 
age  has  imposed,  amidst  the  scenery 
which  they  have  looked  upon,  amongst 
the  remains  of  former  ages  before  which 
they  have  spoken,  with  all  the  circum- 
stances, physical  or  moral,  which  learn- 
ing and  travel  can  render  sensible,  with 
all  the  comparisons  which  modern 
physiology  and  psychology  could  sug- 
gest ;  they  have  given  us  their  precise 
and  demonstrated,  colored  and  graphic 
idea  ;  they  have  seen  these  personages, 
not  through  ideas  and  as  myths,  but 
face  to  face  and  as  men.  They  have 
applied  Macaulay's  art  to  exegesis ; 
and  if  the  entire  German  erudition 
could  pass  unmutilated  through  this 
crucible,  its  solidity,  as  well  as  its  value, 
would  be  doubled. 

But  there  is  another  wholly  Ger- 
manic route  by  which  German  ideas 
may  become  English.  This  is  the  road 
which  Carlyle  has  taken ;  by  this,  re- 
ligion and  poetry  in  the  two  countries 
are  alike ;  by  it  the  two  nations  are 
sisters.  The  sentiment  of  eternal 
things  (insight)  is  in  the  race,  and  this 
sentiment  is  a  sort  of  philosophical 
divination.  At  need,  the  heart  takes 
the  place  of  the  brain.  The  inspired, 
impassioned  man  penetrates  into 
things ;  perceives  the  cause  by  the 
shock  which  he  feels  from  it ;  he  em- 
braces aggregates  by  the  lucidity  and 
velocity  of  his  creative  imagination  ;  he 
discovers  the  unity  of  a  group  by  the 
unity  of  the  emotion  which  he  receives 
from  it.  For  as  soon  as  we  create,  we 
feel  within  ourselves  the  force  which 
acts  in  the  objects  of  our  thought ;  our 
sympathy  reveals  to  us  their  sense  and 
connection  ;  intuition  is  a  finished  and 
living  analysis ;  poets  and  prophets, 
Shakspeare  and  Dante,  St.  Paul  and 
Luther,  have  been  systematic  theorists, 
without  wishing  it,  and  their  visions 
*  In  particular,  Stanley  and  Jowett. 


comprise  general  conceptions  of  man 
and  the  universe.  Carlyle's  mysticism 
is  a  power  of  the  same  kind.  He  trans- 
lates into  a  poetic  and  religious  style 
German  philosophy.  He  speaks,  like 
Fichte,  of  the  divine  idea  of  the  world, 
the  reality  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
every  apparition.  He  speaks,  like 
Goethe,  of  the  spirit  which  eternally 
weaves  the  living  robe  of  D  vinity.  He 
borrows  their  metaphors,  only  he  takes 
them  literally.  He  considers  the  god, 
which  they  consider  as  a  form  or  a  law, 
as  a  mysterious  and  sublime  being. 
He  conceives  by  exaltation,  by  pain- 
ful reverie,  by  a  confused  sentiment  of 
the  interweaving  of  existences,  that 
unity  of  nature  which  they  arrive  at  by 
dint  of  reasonings  and  abstractions. 
Here  is  a  last  route,  steep  doubtless, 
and  little  frequented,  for  reaching  the 
summits  from  which  German  thought 
at  first  issued  forth.  Methodical  anal- 
ysis added  to  the  co-ordination  of  the 
positive  sciences ;  French  criticism 
refined  by  literary  taste  and  worldly 
observation ;  English  criticism  sup- 
ported by  practical  common  sense 
and  positive  intuition  ;  lastly,  in  a  niche 
apart,  sympathetic  and  poetic  imagina- 
tion :  these  are  the  four  routes  by  which 
the  human  mind  is  now  proceeding  to 
reconquer  the  sublime  heights  to  which 
it  believed  itself  carried,  and  which  it 
has  lost.  These  routes  all  conduct 
to  the  same  summit  but  with  different 
prospects.  That  by  which  Carlyle  has 
advanced,  being  the  lengthiest,  has  led 
him  to  the  strangest  perspective.  I 
will  let  him  speak  for  himself ;  he  will 
tell  the  reader  what  he  has  seen. 

§  3. — PHILOSOPHY,   MORALITY,  AND 
CRITICISM. 

"  However  it  may  be  with  Metaphysics,  and 
other  abstract  Science  originating  in  the  Head 
( VerstaKd)  alone,  no  Life-Philosophy  (Lebens- 
philosophie),  such  as  this  of  Clothes  pretends 
to  be,  which  originates  equally  in  the  Character 
(Gemtith),  and  equally  speaks  thereto,  can 
attain  its  significance  till  the  Character  itself  is 
known  and  seen.*'  * 

Carlyle  has  related,  under  the  name  of 
Teufelsdroeckh,  all  the  succession  of 
emotions  which  lead  to  this  Life-Phi- 
losophy. They  are  those  of  a  modern 

*  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  i.  ch.  xi. ;  Prospec- 
tive. 


CHAP.  IV.]     PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


663 


Puritan ;  the  same  doubts,  despairs, 
inner  conflicts,  exaltations,  and  pangs, 
by  which  the  old  Puritans  arrived  at 
faith :  it  is  their  faith  under  other 
forms.  With  him,  as  with  them,  the 
spiritual  and  inner  man  frees  himself 
from  the  exterior  and  carnal ;  perceives 
duty  amidst  the  solicitations  of  pleas- 
ure;  discovers  God  through  the  ap- 
pearances of  nature  ;  and,  beyond  the 
world  and  the  instincts  of  sense,  sees  a 
supernatural  world  and  instinct. 

I. 

The  speciality  of  Carlyle,  as  of  every 
mystic,  is  to  see  a  double  meaning  in 
every  thing.  For  him  texts  and  ob- 
jects are  capable  of  two  interpreta- 
tions :  the  one  gross,  open  to  all,  ser- 
viceable for  ordinary  life ;  the  other 
sublime,  open  to  a  few,  serviceable  to 
a  higher  life.  Carlyle  says  : 

"  To  the  eye  of  vulgar  Logic,  what  is  man? 
An  omnivorous  Biped  that  wears  Breeches.  To 
the  eye  of  Pure  Reason  what  is  he  ?  A  Soul, 
a  Spirit,  and  divine  Apparition.  Round  his 
mysterious  ME,  there  lies,  under  all  those  wool- 
rags,  a  Garment  of  Flesh  (or  of  Senses),  con- 
textured  in  the  Loom  of  Heaven.  .  .  .  Deep- 
hidden  is  he  under  that  strange  Garment  ; 
amid  Sounds  and  Colours  and  Forms,  as  it 
were,  swathed-in,  and  inextricably  over-shroud- 
ed: yet  it  is  skywoven,  and  worthy  of  a 
God."  * 

"  For  Matter,  were  it  never  so  despicable,  is 
Spirit,  the  manifestation  of  Spirit  :  were  it  never 
so  honourable,  can  it  be  more?  The  thing 
Visible,  nay,  the  thing  Imagined,  the  thing  in 
any  way  conceived  as  Visible,  what  is  it  but  a 
Garment,  a  Clothing  of  the  higher,  celestial, 
Invisible,  '  unimaginable,  formless,  dark  with 
excess  of  bright  ?  '  "  t 

u  All  visible  things  are  emblems  ;  what  thou 
seest  is  not  there  on  its  own  account ;  strictly 
taken,  is  not  there  at  all :  Matter  exists  only 
spiritually,  and  to  represent  some  Idea,  and 
body  it  forth."  $ 

Language,  poetry,  arts,  church,  state, 
are  only  symbols : 

"  In  the  Symbol  proper,  what  we  can  call  a 
Symbol,  there  is  ever,  more  or  less  distinctly 
and  directly,  some  embodiment  and  revelation 
of  the  Infinite  ;  the  Infinite  is  made  to  blend 
itself  with  the  Finite,  to  stand  visible,  and  as  it 
were,  attainable  there.  By  Symbols,  accord- 
ingly, is  man  guided  and  commanded,  made 
hf  ppy,  made  wretched.  He  everywhere  finds 
himself  encompassed  with  Symbols,  recognised 
as  such  or  not  recognised  :  the  Universe  is  but 
one  vast  Symbol  of  God  ;  nay,  if  thou  wilt  have 
it,  what  is  man  himself  but  a  Symbol  of  God  ; 

*  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  i .  ch.  x.  ;  Pure  Rea- 
son, t  Ibid. 
J  Ibid.  bk.  i.  ch.  xi. \  Prospective. 


is  not  all  that  he  does  symbolical  ;  a  revelation 
to  Sense  of  the  mystic  god-given  force  that  is  in 
him  ?  "  * 

Let  us  rise  'ligher  still  and  regard  Time 
and  Space  those  two  abysses  which  i 
seems  nothing  could  fill  up  or  de- 
stroy, and  over  which  hover  our  life 
and  our  universe.  "  They  are  but 
forms  of  our  thought.  .  .  .  There 
is  neither  Time  nor  Space  ;  they  are 
but  two  grand  fundamental,  world- 
enveloping  appearances,  SPACE  and 
TIME.  These  as  spun  and  woven  for 
us  from  before  Birth  itself,  to  clothe 
our  celestial  ME  for  dwelling  here,  and 
yet  to  blind  it, — lie  all  embracing,  as 
the  universal  canvas,  or  warp  and 
woof,  whereby  all  minor  illusions,  in 
this  Phantasm  Existence,  weave  and 
paint  themselves."  t  Our  root  is  in 
eternity  ;  we  seem  to  be  born  and  to 
die,  but  actually,  we  are. 

"  Know  of  a  truth  that  only  the  Time-shad- 
ows have  perished,  or  are  perishable  ;  that  the 
real  Being  of  whatever  was',  and  whatever  is, 
and  whatever  will  be,  is  even  now  and  forever. 
.  .  .  Are  we  not  Spirits,  that  are  shaped  into  a 
body,  into  an  Appearance  ;  and  that  fade  away 
again  into  air  and  Invisibility  ?  "  %  "  O  Heaven, 
it  is  mysterious,  it  is  awful  to  consider  that  we 
not  only  carry  each  a  future  Ghost  within  him  ; 
but  are,  in  very  deed,  Ghosts  t  These  Limbs, 
whence  had  we  them  ;  this  stormy  Force  ;  this 
life-blood  with  its  burning  Passion  ?  They  are 
dust  and  shadow  ;  a  Shadow-system  gathered 
round  our  ME  ;  wherein,  through  some  moments 
or  years,  the  Divine  Essence  is  to  be  revealed 
in  the  Flesh. 

"  And  again,  do  we  not  squeak  and  gibber 
(in  our  discordant,  screech-owlish  debatings  and 
recriminatings)  ;  and  glide  bodeful,  and  feeble, 
and  fearful  ;  or  uproar  (pattern},  and  revel  in 
our  mad  Dance  of  the  Dead, — till  the  scent  of 
the  morning  air  summons  us  to  our  still 
Home  ;  and  dreamy  Night  becomes  awake  and 
Day?"§ 

What  is  there,  then,  beneath  all 
these  empty  appearances  ?  What  is 
this  motionless  existence,  whereof  na- 
ture is  but  the  "  changing  and  living 
robe  ? "  None  knows ;  if  the  heart 
divines  it,  the  mind  perceives  it  not. 
"  Creation,  says  one,  lies  before  us 
like  a  glorious  rainbow ;  but  the  sun 
that  made  it  lies  behind  us,  hidden 
from  us."  We  have  only  the  senti- 
ment thereof,  not  the  idea.  We  feel 
that  this  universe  is  beautiful  and  ter- 
rible, but  its  essence  will  remain  ever 

*  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  iii.  ch.  iii.;  Symbols. 
t  Ibid.  bk.   iii.   ch.    viii. ;  Natural  Super- 
naturalism,  t  Ibid.  §  Ibid. 


664 


unnamed.  We  have  only  to  fall  on 
our  knees  before  this  veiled  face  ;  won- 
der and  adoration  are  our  true  atti- 
tude: 

"  The  man  who  cannot  wonder,  who  does  not 
habitually  wonder  (and  worship),  were  he  Pres- 
ident of  innumerable  Royal  Societies,  and 
carried  the  whole  Mecanique  Celeste  and  Hegel's 
Philosophy,  and  the  epitome  of  all  Laboratories 
and  Observatories,  with  their  results,  in  his 
single  head, — is  but  a  Pair  of  Spectacles  behind 
which  there  is  no  Eye.  Let  those  who  have 
Eyes  look  through  him,  then  he  may  be  useful. 

"  Thou  wilt  have  no  Mystery  and  Mysticism; 
wilt  walk  through  thy  world  by  the  sunshine  of 
what  thou  callest  Truth,  or  even  by  the  hand- 
lamp  of  what  I  call  Attorney-Logic  :  and  '  ex- 
plain '  all,  *  account '  for  all,  or  believe  nothing 
of  it.  Nay,  thou  wilt  attempt  laughter  ;  whoso 
recognises  the  unfathomable,  all-pervading  do- 
main of  Mystery,  which  is  everywhere  under 
our  feet  and  among  our  hands  ;  to  whom  the 
Universe  is  an  oracle  and  Temple,  as  well  as  a 
Kitchen  and  Cattle-stall, — he  shall  be  a  delir- 
ious Mystic  ;  to  him  thou,  with  sniffing  charity, 
wilt  protrusively  proffer  thy  Hand-lamp,  and 
shriek,  as  one  injured,  when  he  kicks  his  foot 
through  it."  * 

"  We  speak  of  the  Volume  of  Nature  ;  and 
truly  a  Volume  it  is, — whose  Author  and  Writer 
is  God.  To  read  it !  Dost  thou,  does  man,  so 
much  as  well  know  the  Alphabet  thereof?  With 
its  Words,  Sentences,  and  grand  descriptive 
Pages,  poetical  and  philosophical,  spread  out 
through  Solar  Systems,  and  Thousands  of 
Years,  we  shall  not  try  thee.  It  is  a  Volume 
written  in  celestial  hieroglyphs,  in  the  true 
Sacred-writing ;  of  which  even  Prophets  are 
happy  that  they  can  read  here  a  line  and  there 
a  line.  As  for  your  Institutes,  and  Academies 
of  Science,  they  strive  bravely  ;  and  from  amid 
the  thick-crowded,  inextricably  intertwisted 
hieroglyphic  writing,  pick  out,  by  dexterous 
combination,  some  Letters  in  the  vulgar 
Character  and  therefrom  put  together  this  and 
the  other  economic  Recipe,  of  high  avail  in 
Practice."  ^ 

Do  we  believe,  perhaps, 

"  That  Nature  is  more  than  some  boundless 
Volume  of  such  Recipes,  or  huge,  well-nigh  in- 
exhaustible Domestic-Cookery  Book,  of  which 
the  whole  secret  will  in  this  manner  one  day 
evolve  itself  ?  "  t  .  .  . 

"  And  what  i-s  that  Science,  which  the  scien- 
tific head  alone,  were  it  screwed  off,  and  (like 
.the  Doctor's  in  the  Arabian  tale)  set  in  a  basin, 
to  keep  it  alive,  could  prosecute  without  shadow 
of  a  heart,  but  one  other  of  the  mechanical  and 
menial  handicrafts,  for  which  the  Scientific 
Head  (having  a  soul  in  it)  is  too  noble  an  organ? 
I  mean  that  Thought  without  Reverence  is  bar- 
ren, perhaps  poisonous."  § 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


*  Sartor  Resartus^  bk.  i.  ch.  x.  ;  Pure 
Reason. 

t  Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  viii. ;  Natural  Suter- 
naturalism.  %  Ibid. 

$  Ibid.  bk.  i.  ch.  x. ;  Pure  Reason* 


Let  the  scales  drop  from  our  eyes,  and 
let  us  look  : 

"  Then  sawest  thou  that  this  fair  Universe, 
were  it  in  the  meanest  province  thereof,  is  in 
very  deed  the  star-domed  City  of  God  ;  that 
through  every  star,  through  every  grass-blade, 
and  most  through  every  Living  Soul,  the  glory 
of  a  present  God  still  beams." '* 

"  Generation  after  generation  takes  to  itself 
the  form  of  a  Body  ;  and  forth-issuing  from 
Cimmerian  Night,  on  Heaven's  mission  AP- 
PEARS. What  Force  and  Fire  is  in  each  he 
expends  :  one  grinding  in  the  mill  of  Industry  ; 
one,  hunter-like,  climbing  the  giddy  Alpir.e 
heights  of  Science  ;  one  madly  dashed  in  pieces 
on  the  rocks  of  Strife,  in  war  with  his  fellow : — 
and  then  the  Heaven-sent  is  recalled  ;  his 
earthly  Vesture  falls  away,  and  soon  even  to 
Sense  becomes  a  vanished  Shadow.  Thus,  like 
some  wild-flaming,  wild-thundering  train  of 
Heaven's  Artillery,  does  this  mysterious  MAN- 
KIND thunder  and  flame,  in  long-drawn,  quick- 
succeeding  grandeur,  through  the  unknown 
Deep.  Thus,  like  a  God-created,  fire-breathing 
Spirit-host,  we  emerge  from  the  Inane  ;  haste 
stonnfully  across  the  astonished  Earth,  then 
plunge  again  into  the  Inane.  .  .  .  But  whence  ? 
— O  Heaven,  whither  ?  Sense  knows  not  ; 
Faith  knows  not  ;  only  tha.  :t  is  through  Mys- 
tery to  Mystery,  from  God  and  to  God?'  f 

II. 

This  vehement  religious  poetry, 
charged  as  it  is  with  memories  of  Mil- 
ton and  Shakspeare,  is  but  an  English 
transcription  of  German  ideas.  There 
is  a  fixed  rule  for  transposing, — that  is, 
for  converting  into  one  another  the 
ideas  of  a  positivist,  a  pantheist,  a 
spiritualist,  a  mystic,  a  poet,  a  head 
given  to  images,  and  a  head  given  to 
formulas.  We  may  mark  all  the  steps 
which  lead  simple  philosophical  con- 
ception to  its  extreme  and  violent 
state.  Take  the  world  as  science 
shows  it ;  it  is  a  regular  group  or  series 
which  has  a  law  ;  according  to  science, 
it  is  nothing  more.  As  from  the  law 
we  deduce  the  series,  we  may  say  that 
the  law  engenders  it,  and  consider 
this  law  as  a  force.  If  we  are  an  ar- 
tist, we  will  seize  in  the  aggregate  the 
force,  the  series  of  effects,  and  the  fine 
regular  manner  in  which  force  pro- 
duces the  series.  To  my  mind,  this 
sympathetic  representation  is  of  all 
the  most  exact  and  complete :  knowl- 
edge is  limited,  as  long  as  it  does  not 
arrive  at  this,  and  it  is  complete  when 
it  has  arrived  there.  But  beyond, 
there  commence  the  phantoms  which 
*  Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  viii. ;  Natural  Super  - 
naturalism*  f  Ibid. 


CHAP.  IV.]      PHILOSOPHY  AND  HIS  TOR  Y—CA  RL  YLE. 


665 


the  mind  creates,  and  by  which  it 
dupes  itself.  If  we  have  a  little  imag- 
ination, we  will  make  of  this  force  a 
distinct  existence,  situated  beyond  the 
reach  of  experience,  spiritual,  the  prin- 
ciple and  the  substance  of  concrete 
things.  That  is  a  metaphysical  exist- 
ence. Let  us  add  one  degree  to  our 
imagination  and  enthusiasm,  and  we 
will  say  that  this  spirit,  situated  beyond 
time  and  space,  is  manifested  through 
these,  that  it  subsists  and  animates 
every  thing,  that  we  have  in  it  motion, 
existence,  and  life.  When  carried  to 
the  limits  of  vision  and  ecstasy,  we  will 
declare  that  this  principle  is  the  only 
reality,  that  the  rest  is  but  appearance  : 
thenceforth  we  are  deprived  of  all  the 
means  of  defining  it ;  we  can  affirm 
nothing  of  it,  but  that  it  is  the  source 
of  things,  and  that  nothing  can  be  af- 
firmed of  it  ;  we  consider  it  as  a  grand 
unfathomable  abyss ;  we  seek,  in  order 
to  come  at  it,  a  path  other  than  that  of 
clear  ideas  ;  we  extol  sentiment,  ex- 
altation. If  we  have  a  gloomy  tem- 
perament, we  seek  it,  like  the  secta- 
rians, painfully,  amongst  prostrations 
and  agonies.  By  this  scale  of  transfor- 
mations, the  general  idea  becomes  a 
poetical,  then  a  philosphical,  then  a 
mystical  existence ;  and  German  meta- 
physics, concentrated  and  heated,  is 
changed  into  English  Puritanism. 

III. 

What  distinguishes  this  mysticism 
from  others  is  its  practicality.  The 
Puritan  is  troubled  not  only  about 
what  he  ought  to  believe,  but  about 
what  he  ought  to  do ;  he  craves  an  an- 
swer to  his  doubts,  but  especially  a  rule 
for  his  conduct ;  he  is  tormented  by 
the  notion  of  his  ignorance,  as  well  as 
by  the  horror  of  his  vices ;  he  seeks 
God,  but  duty  also.  In  his  eyes  the 
two  are  but  one  ;  moral  sense  is  the 
promoter  and  guide  of  philosophy  : 

"  Is  there  no  God,  then  :  but  at  best  an  ab- 
sentee God,  sitting  idle,  ever  since  the  first  Sab- 
bath, at  the  outside  of  his  Universe,  and  seeing 
it  go  ?  Has  the  word  Duty  no  meaning ;  is 
what  we  call  Duty  no  divine  Messenger  and 
Guide,  but  a  false  earthly  Fantasm,  made-up  of 
Desire  and  Fear,  of  emanations  from  the  gal- 
lows and  from  Dr.  Graham's  Celestial-Bed  ? 
Happiness  of  an  approving  Conscience  1  Did 
not  Paul  of  Tarsus,  whom  admiring  men  have 
since  named  Saint,  feel  that  he  was  the  '  chief 
of  sinners  ; '  and  Nero  of  Rome,  jocund  in  spirit 


(fabohlgeitwtK))  spend  much  of  his  time  in  fid- 
dling ?  Foolish  Word-monger  and  MotiTe- 
grinder,  who  in  thy  Logic-mill  hast  an  earthly 
mechanism  for  the  Godlike  itself,  and  wouldd 
fain  grind  me  out  Virtue  from  the  husks  ol 
pleasure, — I  tell  thee,  Nay  !  "  * 

There  is  an  instinct  within  us  which 
says  Nay.  We  discover  within  us 
something  higher  than  love  of  happi- 
ness,— the  love  of  sacrifice.  That  is 
the  divine  part  of  our  soul.  We  per- 
ceive in  it  and  by  it  the  God,  who 
otherwise  would  continue  ever  un- 
known. By  it  we  penetrate  an  un- 
known and  sublime  world.  There  is  an 
extraordinary  state  of  the  soul,  by  which 
it  leaves  selfishness,  renounces  picas- 
ure,  cares  no  more  for  itself,  adores  pain, 
comprehends  holiness.t 

This  obscure  beyond,  which  the 
senses  cannot  reach,  the  reason  cannot 
define,  which  the  imagination  figures 
as  a  king  and  a  person  ;  this  is  holi- 
ness, this  is  the  sublime.  "  The  hero 
is  he  who  lives  in  the  inward  sphere  of 
things,  in  the  True,  Divine,  Eternal, 
which  exists  always,  unseen  to  most, 
under  the  Temporary,  Trivial ;  his  be- 
ing is  in  that.  .  .  .  His  life  is  a  piece 
of  the  everlasting  heart  of  nature  it- 
self." \  Virtue  is  a  revelation,  hero- 
ism is  a  light,  conscience  a  philosophy  ; 
and  we  shall  express  in  the  abstract 
this  moral  mysticism,  by  saying  that 
God,  for  Carlyle,  is  a  mystery  whose 
only  name  is  the  Ideal. 

IV. 

This  faculty  for  perceiving  the  inner 
sense  of  things,  and  this  disposition  to 
search  out  the  moral  sense  of  things, 
have  produced  in  him  all  his  doctrines, 
and  first  his  Christianity.  This  Chris- 
tianity is  very  broad  :  Carlyle  takes  re- 
ligion in  the  German  manner,  after  a 
symbolical  fashion.  This  is  why  he  is 

*  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  ii.  ch.  vii.  ;  The 
Everlasting  No. 

t  "  Only  this  I  know,  If  what  thou  namest 
Happiness  be  our  true  aim, then  are  we  all  astray. 
With  Stupidity  and  sound  Digestion  man  may 
front  much.  But  what,  in  these  dull,  unimagina- 
tive days,  are  the  terrors  of  Conscience  to  the 
diseases  of  the  Liver!  Not  on  Morality,  but 
on  Cookery,  let  us  build  our  stronghold  :  there 
brandishing  our  frying-pan,  as  censer,  let  us 
offer  sweet  incense  to  the  Devil,  and  live  at  ease 
on  the  fat  things  he  has  provided  for  his  Elect  I" 
— Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  ii.  ch.  vii. 

t  Lectures  on  Heroes. 


666 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK 


called  a  Pantheist,  which  in  plain  lan- 

fuage  means  a  madman  or  a  rogue, 
n  England,  too,  he  is  exorcised.  His 
friend  Sterling  sent  him  long  disserta- 
tions, to  bring  him  back  to  a  personal 
God.  Every  moment  he  wounds  to 
the  quick  the  theologians,  who  make 
of  the  prime  cause  an  architect  or  an 
administrator.  He  shocks  them  still 
more  when  he  touches  upon  dogma  ; 
he  considers  Christianity  as  a  myth,  of 
which  the  essence  is  the  Worship  of 
Sorrow : 

"  Knowest  them  that  '  Worship  of  Sorrow  ?' 
The  Temple  thereof  founded  some  eighteen 
centuries  ago,  now  lies  in  rums,  overgrown  with 
jungle,  the  habitation  of  doleful  creatures : 
nevertheless,  venture  forward  ;  in  a  low  crypt, 
arched  out  of  falling  fragments,  thou  findest  the 
Altar  still  there,  and  its  sacred  Lamp  peren- 
nially burning."  * 

But  its  guardians  know  it  no  more.  A 
frippery  of  conventional  adornments 
hides  it  from  the  eyes  of  men.  The  Prot- 
estant Church  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, like  the  Catholic  Church  in  the 
sixteenth,  needs  a  reformation.  We 
want  a  new  Luther  : 

"  For  if  Government  is,  so  to  speak,  the  out- 
ward SKIN  of  the  Body  Politic,  holding  the 
whole  together  and  protecting  it ;  and  if  all 
your  Craft-Guilds  and  Associations  for  Industry, 
of  hand  or  of  head,  are  the  Fleshly  Clothes, 
the  muscular  and  osseous  Tissues  (lying  under 
such  SKIN),  whereby  Society  stands  and  works; 
— then  is  Religion  the  inmost  Pericardial  and 
Nervous  Tissue  which  ministers  Life  and  warm 
Circulation  to  the  whole.  .  .  . 

"  Meanwhile,  in  our  era  of  the  World,  those 
same  Church  Clothes  have  gone  sorrowfully 
out-at-elbows :  nay,  far  worse,  many  of  them 
have  become  mere  hollow  Shapes,  or  Masks, 
under  which  no  living  Figure  or  Spirit  any 
longer  dwells  ;  but  only  spiders  and  unclean 
beetles,  in  horrid  accumulation,  drive  their 
trade  ;  and  the  mask  still  glares  on  you  with 
its  glass-eyes,  in  ghastly  affectation  of  Life, — 
some  generation  and  half  after  Religion  has 
tmite  withdrawn  from  it,  and  in  unnoticed  nooks 
is  weaving  for  herself  new  Vestures,  where- 
with to  reappear  and  bless  us,  or  our  sons  or 
grandsons."  t 

Christianity  once  reduced  to  the  senti- 
ment of  abnegation,  other  religions  re- 
sume, in  consequence,  dignity  and  im- 
portance. They  are,  like  Christianity, 
forms  of  universal  religion.  "  They 
have  all  had  a  truth  in  them,  or  men 
would  not  have  taken  them  up."  \ 

*  Sartor  Resartus,  bk.  ii.ch.  ix.;  The  Ever- 
lasting Yea. 

t  Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  ii. ;  Church  Clothes. 

%  Lectures  on  Heroes^  i. ',  The  Hero  as  Di- 
vinity. 


• 


They  are  no  quacks  imposture  or 
poet's  dream.  They  are  an  existence 
more  or  less  troubled  by  the  mystery 
august  and  infinite,  which  is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  universe  : 

"  Canopus  shining  down  over  the  desert,  with 
its  blue  diamond  brightness  (that  wild  blue 
spirit-like  brightness,  far  brighter  than  we  ever 
witness  here),  would  pierce  into  the  heart  of  the 
wild  Ishmaelitish  man,  whom  it  was  guiding 
through  the  solitary  waste  there.  To  his  wild 
heart,  with  all  feelings  in  it,  with  no  speech  for 


ear,  wt  a  eengs  n  t,  wt  no  speec  or 
any  feeling,  it  might  seem  a  little  eye,  that 
Canopus,  glancing-out  on  him  from  the  great 
deep  Eternity  ;  revealing  the  inner  Splendour  to 
him."  * 

"  Grand  Lamaism,"  Popery  itself,  in 
terpret  after  their  fashion  the  senti- 
ment of  the  divine  ;  therefore  Popery 
itself  is  to  be  respected.  "  While  a 
pious  life  remains  capable  of  being  led 
by  it,  .  .  let  it  last  as  long  as  it  can."  t 
What  matters  if  people  call  it  idolatry  ? 

"  Idol  is  Eidolon,  a  thing  seen,  a  symbol.  It 
is  not  God,  but  a  symbol  of  God.  ...  Is  not 
all  worship  whatsoever  a  worship  by  Symbols, 
by  eidola,  or  things  seen  ?  .  .  .  The  most  rigor- 
pus  Puritan  has  his  Confession  of  Faith,  and 
intellectual  Representation  of  Divine  things, 
and  worships  thereby.  .  .  .  All  creeds,  litur- 
gies, religious  forms,  conceptions  that  fitly  in- 
vest religious  feelings,  are  in  this  sense  eidofot 
things  seen.  Ail  worship  whatsoever  must  pro- 
ceed by  Symbols,  by  Idols  :  —  we  may  say,  all 
Idolatry  is  comparative,  and  the  worst  Idolatry 
is  only  more  idolatrous."  t 

The  only  detestable  idolatry  is  that 
from  which  the  sentiment  has  departed, 
which  consists  only  in  ceremonies  learn- 
ed by  rote,  in  mechanical  repetition  of 
prayers,  in  decent  profession  of  formu- 
las not  understood.  The  deep  venera 
tion  of  a  monk  of  the  twelfth  century, 
prostrated  before  the  relics  of  St.  Ed- 
mund, was  worth  more  than  the  con- 
ventional piety  and  cold  philosophical 
religion  of  a  Protestant  of  to-day. 
Whatever  the  worship,  it  is  the  senti- 
ment which  gives  it  its  whole  value. 
And  this  sentiment  is  that  of  morality  : 

"  The  one  end,  essence,  and  use  of  all  relig- 
ion past,  present,  and  to  come,  was  this  only  : 
To  keep  that  same  Moral  Conscience  or  Inner 
Light  of  ours  alive  and  shining.  .  .  .  All  re- 
ligion was  here  to  remind  us,  better  or  worse, 
of  what  we  already  know  better  or  worse,  of  the 
quite  infinite  difference  there  is  between  a 
Good  man  and  a  Bad  ;  to  bid  us  love  infinitely 
the  one,  abhor  and  avoid  infinitely  the  other,— 
strive  infinitely  to  be  the  one,  and  not  to  be  tha 


*  Ibid. 
t  Ibid. 


t  Ibid.  iv. ;  The  Hero  as  Priest. 


CHAP.  IV.]      PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


66* 


other.  '  All  religion  issues  in  due  Practical 
Hero-worship.' "  * 

"  All  true  Work  is  religion  ;  and  whatsoever 
religion  is  not  Work  may  go  and  dwell  among 
the'Brahmins,  Antinomians,  Spinning  Dervish- 
es, or  where  it  will ;  with  me  it  shall  have  no 
harbour."  t 

Though  it  has  "  no  harbor "  with 
Carlyle,  it  has  elsewhere.  We  touch 
here  the  English  and  narrow  feature 
of  this  German  and  broad  conception. 
There  are  many  religions  which  are  not 
moral  ;  there  are  more  still  which  are 
not  practical.  Carlyle  would  reduce 
the  heart  of  man  to  the  English  senti- 
ment of  duty,  and  his  imagination  to 
the  English  sentiment  of  respect.  The 
half  of  human  poetry  escapes  his  grasp. 
For  if  a  part  of  ourselves  raises  us  to 
abnegation  and  virtue,  another  part 
leads  us  to  enjoyment  and  pleasure. 
Man  is  pagan  as  well  as  Christian; 
nature  has  two  faces  :  several  races, 
India,  Greece,  Italy,  have  only  compre- 
hended the  second,  and  have  had  for 
religions  merely  the  adoration  of  over- 
flowing force  and  the  ecstasy  of  grand 
imagination;  or  otherwise,  the  admira- 
tion of  harmonious  form,  with  the  cul- 
ture of  pleasure,  beauty,  and  happi- 
ness. 

V. 

His  criticism  of  literary  works  is  of 
the  same  character  and  violence,  and 
has  the  same  scope  and  the  same  lim- 
its, the  same  principle  and  the  same 
conclusions,  as  his  criticism  of  relig- 
ious works.  Carlyle  has  introduced 
the  great  ideas  of  Hegel  and  Goethe, 
and  has  confined  them  under  the  nar- 
row discipline  of  Puritan  sentiment.  \ 
He  considers  the  poet,  the  writer,  the 
artist,  as  an  interpreter  of  "  the  Divine 
Idea  of  the  World,  that  which  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  Appearance  ;  "  as  a  re- 
vealer  of  the  infinite,  as  representing 
his  century,  his  nation,  his  age  :  we  rec- 
ognize here  all  the  German  formulas. 
They  signify  that  the  artist  detects 
and  expresses  better  than  any  one,  the 
salient  and  durable  features  of  the 
world  which  surrounds  him,  so  that  we 
might  draw  from  his  work  a  theory  of 
man  and  of  nature,  together  with  a 

*  Past  and  Present,  bk.  iii.  ch.  xv. ;  Mor- 
rison Again. 

t  Ibid.  bk.  iii.  ch.  xii.;  Reward. 

J  Lectures  on  Heroes  ;  Miscellanies,  passim 


picture  of  his  race  and  of  his  time, 
This  discovery  has  renewed  criticism. 
Carlyle  owes  to  it  his  finest  views,  his 
essons  on  Shakspeare  and  Dante,  his 
studies  on  Goethe,  Dr.  Johnson,  Burns^ 
and  Rousseau.  Thus,  by  a  natural 
enthusiasm,  he  becomes  the  herald  of 
German  literature  ;  he  makes  himself 
he  apostle  of  Goethe  ;  he  has  praised 
lim  with  a  neophyte's  fervor,  to  the 
extent  of  lacking  on  this  subject  skill 
and  perspicacity  ;  he  calls  him  a  Hero, 
Presents  his  life  as  an  example  ^  to  all 
.he  men  of  o-ur  century ;  he  will  not 
see  his  paganism,  manifest  as  it  is,  and 
so  repellent  to  a  Puritan.  Through 
the  same  causes,  he  has  made  of  Jean- 
Paul  Richter,  an  affected  clown,  and 
an  extravagant  humorist,  "  a  giant,"  a 
sort  of  prophet ;  he  has  heaped  eulo- 
gy on  Novalis  and  the  mystic  dream- 
ers ;  he  has  set  the  democrat  Burns 
above  Byron ;  he  has  exalted  Dr. 
Johnson,  that  honest  pedant,  the  most 
grotesque  of  literary  behemoths.  His 
principle  is,  that  in  a  work  of  the 
ttind,  form  is  little,  the  basis  alone  is 
important.  As  soon  as  a  man  has  a 
profound  sentiment,  a  strong  convic- 
tion, his  book  is  beautiful.  A  writing, 
be  it  what  it  will,  only  manifests  the 
soul:  if 'the  soul  is  serious,  if  it  is  in- 
timately and  habitually  shaken  by  the 
grave  thoughts  which  ought  to  preoc- 
cupy a  soul  ;  if  it  loves  what  is  good, 
is  devoted,  endeavors  with  its  whole 
effort,  without  any  mental  reservation 
of  interest  or  self-love,  to  publish  the 
truth  which  strikes  it,  it  has  reached 
its  goal.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  talent ;  we  need  not  to  be  pleased 
by  beautiful  forms  ;  our  sole  object  is 
to  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the 
sublime  ;  the  whole  destiny  of  man  is 
to  perceive  heroism  ;  poetry  and  art 
have  no  other  employment  or  merit. 
*We  see  how  far  and  with  what  excess 
Carlyle  possesses  the  Germanic  sen- 
timent, why  he  loves  the  mystics,  hu- 
morists, prophets,  illiterate  writers, 
and  men  of  action,  spontaneous  poets, 
all  who  violate  regular  beauty  through 

K'gnorance,  brutality,  folly,  or  deliberate- 
y.  He  goes  so  far  as  to  excuse  the 
rhetoric  of  Dr.  Johnson,  because  John- 
son was  loyal  and  sincere  ;  he  does  not 
distinguish  in  him  the  literary  man 
from  the  practical ;  he  avoids  seeing 


668 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


the  classic  declaimer,  a  strange  com- 
pound of  Scaliger,  Boileau,  and  La 
Harpe,  majestically  decked  out  in  the 
Ciceronian  gown,  in  order  to  see  only  a 
man  of  faith  and  conviction.  Such  a 
habit  prevents  a  man  seeing  one  half 
of  things.  Carlyle  speaks  with  scorn- 
ful indifference  *  of  modern  dilettan- 
tism, seems  to  despise  painters,  admits 
no  sensible  beauty.  Wholly  on  the 
side  of  the  authors,  he  neglects  the 
artists  ;  for  the  source  of  art  is  the 
sentiment  of  form  ;  and  the  greatest 
artists,  the  Italians,  the  Greeks,  did 
not  know,  like  their  priests  and  poets, 
any  beauty  beyond  that  of  voluptu- 
ousness and  force.  Thence  also  it 
comes  that  he  has  no  taste  for  French 
literature.  The  exact  order,  the  fine 
proportions,  the  perpetual  regard  for 
the  agreeable  and  proper,  the  harmoni- 
ous structure  of  clear  and  consecutive 
ideas,  the  delicate  picture  of  society, 
the  perfection  of  style, — nothing  which 
moves  us,  has  attraction  for  him.  His 
mode  of  comprehending  life  is  too  far 
removed  from  ours.  In  vain  he  tries 
to  understand  Voltaire,  all  he  can  do 
is  to  slander  him  : 

"  We  find  no  heroism  of  character  in  him, 
from  first  to  last ;  nay,  there  is  not,  that  we 
know  of,  one  great  thought  in  all  his  six-and- 
thirty  quartos.  ...  He  sees  but  a  little  way 
into  Nature  ;  the  mighty  All,  in  its  beauty  and 
infinite  mysterious  grandeur,  humbling  the  small 
•me  into  nothingness,  has  never  even  for  mo- 
ments been  revealed  to  him  ;  only  this  and  that 
other  atom  of  it,  and  the  differences  and  discrep- 
ancies of  these  two,  has  he  looked  into  and 
noted  down.  His  theory  of  the  world,  his  pic- 
ture of  man  and  man's  life  is  little  ;  for  a  poet 
and  philosopher,  even  pitiful.  '  The  Divine 
idea,  that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  appear- 
ance,' was  never  more  invisible  to  any  man. 
He  reads  history  not  with  the  eyes  of  a  devout 
seer,  or  even  of  a  critic,  but  through  a  pair  of 
mere  anticatholic  spectacles.  It  is  not  a  mighty 
drama  enacted  on  the  theatre  of  Infinitude, 
with  suns  for  lamps  and  Eternity  as  a  back- 
ground, .  .  .  but  a  poor  wearisome  debating- 
club  dispute,  spun  through  ten  centuries,  be- 
tween the  Encyclopedie  and  the  Sorbonne.  .  .  . 
God's  Universe  is  a  larger  patrimony  of  St. 
Peter,  from  which  it  were  well  and  pleasant  to 
hunt  out  the  Pope.  .  .  .  The  still  higher  praise 
of  having  had  a  right  or  noble  aim  cannot  be 
conceded  him  without  many  limitations,  and 
may,  plausibly  enough,  be  altogether  denied.  . . . 
The  force  necessary  for  him  was  nowise  a  great 
and  noble  one  ;  but  small,  in  some  respects  a 
mean  one,  to  be  nimbly  and  seasonably  put  into 
use.  The  Ephesian  temple,  which  it  had  em- 
ployed many  wise  heads  and  strong  arms  for  a 

*  Life  of  Sterling. 


lifetime  to  build,  could  be  ««built  by  one  mad- 
man, in  a  single  hour."  * 

These  are  big  words;  we  will  not  employ 
the  like.  I  will  simply  say,  that  if  a 
man  were  to  judge  Carlyle,  as  a  French 
man,  as  he  judges  Voltaire  as  an  Eng- 
lishman, he  would  draw  a  different 
picture  of  Carlyle  from  that  which  I 
am  trying  here  to  draw. 

VI. 

This  trade  of  calumny  was  in  vcgue 
fifty  years  ago ;  in  fifty  more  it  will 
probably  have  altogether  ceased.  The 
French  are  beginning  to  comprehend 
the  gravity  of  the  Puritans ;  perhaps 
the  English  will  end  by  comprehending 
the  gayety  of  Vpltaire  :  the  first  are 
laboring  to  appreciate  Shakspeare ; 
the  second  will  doubtless  attempt  to 
appreciate  Racine.  Goethe,  the  mas- 
ter of  all  modern  minds,  knew  well 
how  to  appreciate  both.f  The  critic 
must  add  to  his  natural  and  national 
soul  five  or  six  artificial  and  acquired 
souls,  and  his  flexible  sympathy  must 
introduce  him  to  extinct  or  foreign 
sentiments.  The  best  fruit  of  criti- 
cism is  to  detach  ourselves  from  our- 
selves, to  constrain  us  to  make  allow- 
ance for  the  surroundings  in  which  we 
live,  to  teach  us  to  distinguish  objects 
themselves  through  the  transient  ap- 
pearances, with  which  our  character 
and  our  age  never  fail  to  clothe  them. 
Each  person  regards  them  through 
glasses  of  diverse  focus  and  hue,  and 
no  one  can  reach  the  truth  save  by 
taking  into  account  the  form  and  tint 
which  his  glasses  give  to  the  objects 
which  he  sees.  Hitherto  we  have  been 
wrangling  and  pummelling  one  another, 
— this  man  declaring  that  things  are 
green,  another  that  they  are  yellow  ; 
others,  again,  that  they  are  red ;  each 
accusing  his  neighbor  of  seeing  wrong, 
and  being  disingenuous.  Now,  at  last, 
we  are  learning  moral  optics  ;  we  are 
finding  that  the  color  is  not  in  the  ob- 
jects, but  in  ourselves ;  we  pardon  our 
neighbors  for  seeing  differently  from 
us  ;  we  recognize  that  they  may  see 
red  what  to  us  appears  blue,  green 
what  to  us  appears  yellow ;  we  can 
even  define  the  kind  of  glasses  which 

*  Critical  and  Miscellaneous  Essays,  4  vols.; 
i.  Voltaire. 
t  See  this  double  praise  in  U^ilhel-m  Meister* 


CHAP.  IV.]     PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


669 


produces  yellow,  and  the  kind  which 

E  reduces  green,  divine  their  effects 
•om  their  nature,  predict  to  people  the 
tint  under  which  the  object  we  are 
about  to  present  to  them  will  appear, 
construct  beforehand  the  system  of 
every  mind,  and  perhaps  one  day  free 
ourselves  from  every  system.  "  As  a 
poet,"  said  Goethe,  "  I  am  apolytheist ; 
as  a  naturalist,  a  pantheist ;  as  a  moral 
man,  a  deist ;  and  in  order  to  express 
my  mind,  I  need  all  these  forms."  In 
fact,  all  these  glasses  are  serviceable, 
for  they  all  show  us  some  new  aspect 
of  things.  The  important  point  is  to 
have  not  one,  but  several,  to  employ 
each  at  the  suitable  moment,  not  to 
mind  the  particular  color  of  these 
glasses,  but  to  know  that  behind  these 
million  moving  poetical  tints,  optics 
only  prove  transformations  governed  by 
a  law. 

§  4. — CONCEPTION  OF  HISTORY. 
I. 

"  Universal  History,  the  history  of  what  man 
has  accomplished  in  this  world,  is  at  bottom  the 
History  of  the  Great  Men  who  have  worked 
here.  They  were  the  leaders  of  men,  these 
great  ones  ;  the  modellers,  patterns,  and  in  a 
wide  sense  creators,  of  whatsoever  the  general 
mass  of  men  contrived  to  do  or  to  attain  ;  all 
things  that  we  see  standing  accomplished  in  the 
world  are  properly  the  outer  material  result,  the 
practical  realisation  and  embodiment  of 
Thoughts  that  dwelt  in  the  Great  Men  sent 
into  the  world ;  the  soul  of  the  whole  world's 
history,  it  may  justly  be  considered,  were  the 
history  of  these.  * 

Whatever  they  be,  poets,  reformers, 
writers,  men  of  action,  revealers,  he 
gives  them  all  a  mystical  character  : 

"  Such  a  man  is  what  we  call  an  original 
man  ;  he  comes  to  us  at  first-hand.  A  mes- 
senger he,  sent  from  the  Infinite  Unknown  with 
tidings  to  us.  .  .  .  Direct  from  the  Inner  Fact 
of  things  ; — he  lives,  and  has  to  live,  in  daily 
communion  with  that.  Hearsays  cannot  hide 
it  from  h'm  ;  he  is  blind,  homeless,  miserable, 
following  hearsays  ;  //  glares  in  upon  him.  .  .  . 
It  is  from  the  heart  of  the  world  that  he  comes; 
he  is  portion  of  the  primal  reality  of  things."  f 

In  vain  the  ignorance  of  his  age  and 
his  own  imperfections  mar  the  purity 
of  his  original  vision  ;  he  ever  attains 
some  immutable  and  life-giving  truth  ; 
for  this  truth  he  is  listened  to,  and  by 

*  Lectures  on  Heroes,  i.  ;  The  Hero  as  Di- 
vinity. 

t  Ibid.  ii. ;  The  Hero  as  Prophet. 


this  truth  he  is  powerful.  That  which 
he  has  discovered  is  immortal  and  effi- 
cacious : 

"  The  works  of  a  man,  bury  them  under  what 
guano-mountains  and  obscene  owl-droppings 
you  will,  do  not  perish,  cannot  perish.  What 
of  Heroism,  what  of  Eternal  Light  was  in  a 
Man  and  his  Life,  is  with  very  great  exactness 
added  to  the  Eternities  ;  remains  for  ever  a  new 
divine  portion  of  the  Sum  of  Things."  * 

"  No  nobler  feeling  than  this  of  admiration 
for  one  higher  than  himself  dwells  in  the  breast 
of  man.  It  is  to  this  hour,  and  at  all  hours,  the 
vivifying  influence  in  man's  life.  Religion  I 
find  stand  upon  it.  ...  What  therefore  is 
loyalty  proper,  the  life-breath  of  all  society,  but 
an  effluence  of  Hero-worship,  submissive  ad- 
miration for  the  truly  great  ?  Society  is  founded 
on  Hero-worship."  f 

This  feeling  is  the  deepest  part  of  man. 
It  exists  even  in  this  levelling  and  de- 
structive age :  "  I  seem  to  see  in  this 
indestructibility  of  Hero-worship  the 
everlasting  adamant  lower  than  which 
the  confused  wreck  of  revolutionary 
things  cannot  fall."  \ 

II. 

We  have  here  a  German  theory,  but 
transformed,  made  precise,  thickened 
after  the  English  manner.  The  Ger- 
mans said  that  every  nation,  period, 
civilization,  had  its  idea;  that  is  its 
chief  feature,  from  which  the  rest  were 
derived;  so  that  philosophy,  religion, 
arts,  and  morals,  all  the  elements  of 
thought  and  action,  could  be  deduced 
from  some  original  and  fundamental 
quality,  from  which  all  proceeded  and 
in  which  all  ended.  Where  Hegel 
proposed  an  idea,  Carlyle  proposes  a 
heroic  sentiment.  It  is  more  palpable 
and  moral.  To  complete  his  escape 
from  the  vague,  he  considers  this  sen- 
timent in  a  hero.  He  must  give  to  ab- 
stractions a  body  and  soul ;  he  is  not 
at  ease  in  pure  conceptions,  and  wishes 
to  touch  a  real  being. 

But  this  being,  as  he  conceives  it,  is 
an  abstract  of  the  rest.  For  according 
to  him,  the  hero  contains  and  repre- 
sents the  civilization  in  which  he  is 
comprised ;  he  has  discovered,  pro- 
claimed or  practised  an  original  con- 
ception, and  in  this  his  age  has  followed 
him.  The  knowledge  of  a  heroic  sen- 
timent thus  gives  us  a  knowledge  of  a 

*  Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches,  iii.  part 
x.  ;  Death  oftlie  Protector. 

t  Lectures  on  Heroes,  i.  ;  The  Hero  as  Di* 
vinity.  \  Ibid. 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V, 


whole  age.  By  this  method  Carlyle 
has  emerged  beyond  biography.  He 
has  rediscovered  the  grand  views  of  his 
masters.  He  has  felt,  like  them,  that 
a  civilization,  vast  and  dispersed  as  it 
is  over  time  and  space,  forms  an  indi- 
visible whole.  He  has  combined  in  a 
system  of  hero-worship  the  scattered 
fragments  which  Hegel  united  by  a  law. 
He  has  derived  from  a  common  senti- 
ment the  events  which  the  Germans 
derived  from  a  common  definition.  He 
has  comprehended  the  deep  and  distant 
connection  of  things,  such  as  bind  man 
to  his  time,  such  as  connect  the  works 
of  accomplished  thought  with  the  stut- 
tering^ of  infant  thought,  such  as  link 
the  wise  inventions  of  modern  consti- 
tutions to  the  disorderly  furies  of  prim- 
itive barbarism  : 

"  Silent,  with  closed  lips,  as  I  fancy  them, 
unconscious  that  they  were  specially  brave  ; 
defying  the  wild  ocean  with  its  monsters,  and 
all  men  and  things  ; — progenitors  of  our  own 
Blakes  and  Nelsons.  .  .  .  Hrolf  or  Rollo.  Duke 
of  Normandy,  the  wild  Sea-king,  has  a  share  in 
governing  England  at  this  hour."  * 

"  No  wild  Saint  Dominies  and  Thebai'd 
Eremites,  there  had  been  no  melodious  Dante; 
rough  Practical  Endeavour,  Scandinavian  and 
other,  from  Odin  to  Walter  Raleigh,  from  Uifila 
to  Cranmer,  enabled  Shakspeare  to  speak.  Nay, 
the  finished  Poet,  I  remark  sometimes,  is  a 
symptom  that  his  epoch  itself  has  reached  per- 
fection and  is  finished  ;  that  before  long 
there  will  be  a  new  epoch,  new  Reformers 
needed."  t 

His  great  poetical  or  practical  works 
only  publish  or  apply  this  dominant 
idea  ;  the  historian  makes  use  of  it,  to 
rediscover  the  primitive  sentiment 
which  engenders  them,  and  to  form  the 
aggregate  conception  which  unites 
them. 

III. 

Hence  a  new  fashion  of  writing  his- 
tory. Since  the  heroic  sentiment  is  the 
cause  of  the  other  sentiments,  it  is  to 
this  the  historian  must  devote  himself. 
Since  it  is  the  source  of  civilization, 
the  mover  of  revolutions,  the  master 
and  regenerator  of  human  life,  it  is  in 
this  that  he  must  observe  civilization, 
revolutions,  and  human  life.  Since  it 
is  the  spring  of  every  movement,  it  is 
by  this  that  we  shall  understand  every 

*  Lectures  on  Heroes,  i.  ;   The  Hero  as  Di- 
vinity. 
t  Ibid.  iv.  ;  The  Hero  as  Priest. 


movement.  Let  the  metaphysicians 
draw  up  deductions  and  formulas,  or 
the  politicians  expound  situations  and 
constitutions.  Man  is  not  an  inert 
being,  moulded  by  a  constitution,  nor  a 
lifeless  being  expressed  by  formula  ; 
he  is  an  active  and  living  soul,  capable 
of  acting,  discovering,  creating,  devo- 
ting himself,  and  before  all,  of  daring ; 
genuine  history  is  an  epic  of  heroism. 
This  idea  is,  in  my  opinion,  brilliant 
and  luminous.  For  men  have  not  done 
great  things  without  great  emotions. 
The  first  and  sovereign  motive  of  an 
extraordinary  revolution  is  an  extraor- 
dinary sentiment.  Then  we  see  appear 
and  swell  a  lofty  and  all-powerful  pas- 
sion, which  has  burst  the  old  dykes, 
and  hurled  the  current  of  things  into  a 
new  bed.  All  starts  from  this,  and  it 
is  this  which  we  must  observe.  Let  us 
leave  metaphysical  formulas  and  politi- 
cal considerations,  and  regard  the  inner 
state  of  every  mind.  Let  us  quit  bare 
narrative,  forget  abstract  explanations, 
and  study  impassioned  souls.  A  revo- 
lution is  only  the  birth  of  a  great  senti- 
ment. What  is  this  sentiment,  how  is 
it  bound  to  others,  what  is  its  degree, 
source,  effect,  how  does  it  transform 
the  imagination,  understanding,  com- 
mon inclinations  ;  what  passions  feed 
it,  what  proportion  of  folly  and  reason 
does  it  embrace — these  are  the  main 
questions.  If  anyone  wishes  to  repre- 
sent to  me  the  history  of  Buddhism,  he 
must  show  me  the  calm  despair  of  the 
ascetics  who,  deadened  by  the  contem- 
plation of  the  infinite  void,  and  by  the 
expectation  of  final  annihilation,  attain 
in  their  monotonous  quietude  the  senti- 
ment of  universal  fraternity.  If  any 
one  wishes  to  represent  to  me  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity,  he  must  show  me 
the  soul  of  a  Saint  John  or  Saint  Paul, 
the  sudden  renewal  of  the  conscience, 
the  faith  in  invisible  things,  the  trans- 
formation of  a  soul  penetrated  by  the 
presence  of  a  paternal  God,  the  irrup- 
tion of  tenderness,  generosity,  abnega- 
tion, trust,  and  hope,  which  rescued  the 
wretches  oppressed  under  the  Roman 
tyranny  and  decline.  To  explain  a 
revolution,  is  to  write  a  partial  psy- 
chology ;  the  analysis  of  critics  and  the 
divination  of  artists  are  the  only  in- 
struments which  can  attain  to  it :  if  we 
would  have  it  precise  and  profound,  we 


CHAP.  IV.]     PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


671 


must  ask  it  of  those  who,  through 
their  profession  or  their  genius,  possess 
a  knowledge  of  the  soul — Shakspeare, 
Saint-Simon,  Balzac,  Stendhal.  This 
is  why  we  may  occasionally  ask  it  of 
Carlyle.  And  there  is  a  history  which 
we  may  ask  of  him  in  preference  to  all 
others,  that  of  the  Revolution  which 
had  conscience  for  its  source,  which 
set  God  in  the  councils  of  the  state, 
which  imposed  strict  duty,  which  pro- 
voked severe  heroism.  The  best  his- 
torian of  Puritanism  is  a  Puritan. 

IV. 

The  history  of  Cromwell,  Carlyle's 
masterpiece,  is  but  a  collection  of  let- 
ters and  speeches,  commented  on  and 
united  by  a  continuous  narrative.  The 
impression  which  they  leave  is  extraor- 
dinary. Grave  constitutional  histories 
hang  heavy  after  this  compilation.  The 
author  wished  to  make  us  comprehend 
a  soul,  the  soul  of  Cromwell,  the  great- 
est of  the  Puritans,  their  chief,  their 
abstract,  their  hero,  and  their  model. 
His  narrative  resembles  that  of  an  eye- 
witness. A  covenanter  who  should 
have  collected  letters,  scraps  of  news- 
papers, and  daily  added  reflections, 
interpretations,  notes,  and  anecdotes, 
might  have  written  just  such  a  book. 
At  last  we  are  face  to  face  with  Crom- 
well. We  have  his  words,  we  can  hear 
his  tone  of  voice  ;  we  seize,  around 
each  action,  the  circumstances  which 
produced  it  :  we  see  him  in  his  tent,  in 
council,  with  the  proper  background, 
with  his  face  and  costume  :  every  detail, 
the  most  minute,  is  here.  And  the 
sincerity  is  as  great  as  the  sympathy  ; 
the  biographer  confesses  his  ignorance, 
the  lack  of  documents,  the  uncertainty  ; 
he  is  perfectly  loyal  though  a  poet  and 
a  sectarian.  With  him  we  simultaneous- 
ly restrain  and  give  free  play  to  our 
conjectures  ;  and  we  feel  at  every  step, 
amidst  our  affirmations  and  our  reser- 
vations, that  we  are  firmly  planting  our 
feet  upon  the  truth.  Would  that  all 
history  were  like  this,  a  selection  of 
texts  provided  with  a  commentary  !  I 
would  exchange  for  such  a  history  all 
the  regular  arguments,  all  the  beautiful 
colorless  narrations,  of  Robertson  and 
Hume.  I  can  verify  the  judgment  of 
the  author  whilst  reading  this  ;  I  no 
more  think  after  him,  but  for  myself  ; 


the  historian  does  not  obtrude  himself 
between  me  and  his  subject.  I  see  a 
fact,  and  not  an  account  of  a  fact  ;  the 
oratorical  and  personal  envelope,  with 
which  a  narrative  covers  the  truth, 
disappears  ;  I  can  touch  the  truth  itself. 
And  this  Cromwell,  with  the  Puritans, 
comes  forth  from  the  test,  recreated 
and  renewed.  We  divined  pretty  well 
already  that  he  was  not  a  mere  man 
of  ambition,  a  hypocrite,  but  we  took 
him  for  a  fanatic  and  hateful  dispu- 
tant. We  considered  these  Puritans  as 
gloomy  madmen,  shallow  brains,  and 
full  of  scruples.  Let  us  quit  our 
French  and  modern  ideas,  and  enter 
into  these  souls :  we  shall  find  there 
something  else  than  hypochondria, 
namely,  a  grand  sentiment — am  I  a  just 
man?  And  if  God,  who  is  perfect 
justice,  were  to  judge  me  at  this  mo- 
ment, what  sentence  would  he  pass 
upon  me  ? — Such  is  the  original  idea  of 
the  Puritans,  and  through  them  came 
the  Revolution  into  England.  The 
feeling  of  the  difference  there  is  be- 
tween good  and  evil,  filled  for  them  all 
time  and  space,  and  became  incarnate, 
and  expressed  for  them,  by  such  words 
as  Heaven  and  Hell.  They  were  struck 
by  the  idea  of  duty.  They  examined 
themselves  by  this  light,  severely  and 
without  intermission  ;  they  conceived 
the  sublime  model  of  infallible  and  com- 
plete virtue  ;  they  were  imbued  there- 
with ;  they  drowned  in  this  absorbing 
thought  all  worldly  prejudices  and  all 
inclinations  of  the  senses ;  they  con- 
ceived a  horror  even  of  imperceptible 
faults,  which  an  honest  mind  will  excuse 
in  itself ;  they  exacted  from  themselves 
absolute  and  continuous  perfection,  and 
they  entered  into  life  with  a  fixed  re- 
solve to  suffer  and  do  all,  rather  than 
deviate  one  step.  We  laugh  at  a  revolu- 
tion about  surplices  and  chasubles ; 
there  was  a  sentiment  of  the  divine 
underneath  all  these  disputes  about 
vestments.  These  poor  folk,  shop- 
keepers and  farmers,  believed,  with  all 
their  heart,  in  a  sublime  and  terrible 
God,  and  the  manner  how  to  worship 
Him  was  not  a  trifling  thing  for  them : 
"  Suppose  now  it  were  some  matter  of  vital 
concernment,  some  transcendent  matter  (as 
Divine  worship  is),  about  which  your  whole 
soul,  struck  dumb  with  its  excess  of  feeling, 
knew  not  how  to  form  itself  into  'utterance  at 
all,  and  preferred  formless  silence  to  any  utter- 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


ance  there  possible, — what  should  we  say  of  a 
man  coming  forward  to  represent  or  utter  it  for 
you  in  the  way  of  upholsterer-mummery  ?  Such 
a  man, — let  him  depart  swiftly,  if  he  love  him- 
self !  You  have  lost  your  only  son  ;  are  mute, 
struck  down,  without  even  tears :  an  importu- 
nate man  importunately  offers  to  celebrate 
Funeral  Games  for  him  in  the  manner  of  the 
Greeks."  * 

This  has  caused  the  Revolution,  and 
not  the  Writ  of  Shipmoney,  or  any 
other  political  vexation.  "  You  may 
take  my  purse,  .  .  .  but  the  Self  is 
mine  and  God  my  Maker's."  t  And  the 
same  sentiment  which  made  them  rebels 
made  them  conquerors.  Men  could 
not  understand  how  discipline  could 
exist  in  an  army  in  which  an  inspired 
corporal  would  reproach  a  lukewarm 
general.  They  thought  it  strange  that 
generals,  who  sought  the  Lord  with 
tears,  had  learned  administration  and 
strategy  in  the  Bible.  They  wondered 
that  madmen  could  be  men  of  business. 
The  truth  is,  that  they  were  not  mad- 
men, but  men  of  business.  The  whole 
difference  between  them  and  practical 
men  whom  we  know,  is  that  they  had  a 
conscience  ;  this  conscience  was  their 
flame  ;  mysticism  and  dreams  were  but 
the  smoke.  They  sought  the  true,  the 
just ;  and  their  long  prayers,  their  nasal 
preachings,  their  quotations  from  the 
Bible,  their  tears,  their  anguish,  only 
mark  the  sincerity  and  ardor  with  which 
they  applied  themselves  to  the  search. 
They  read  their  duty  in  themselves  ; 
the  Bible  only  aided  them.  At  need 
they  did  violence  to  it,  when  they  wish- 
ed to  verify  by  texts  the  suggestions  of 
their  own  hearts.  It  was  this  sentiment 
of  duty  which  united,  inspired,  and  sus- 
tained them,  which  made  their  discip- 
line, courage,  and  boldness ;  which 
raised  to  ancient  heroism  Hutchinson, 
Milton,  and  Cromwell  ;  which  instiga- 
ted all  decisive  deeds,  grand  resolves, 
marvellous  successes,  the  declaration 
of  war,  the  trial  of  the  king,  the  purge 
of  Parliament,  the  humiliation  of  Eu- 
rope, the  protection  of  Protestantism, 
the  sway  of  the  seas.  These  men  are 
the  true  heroes  of  England  ;  they  dis- 
play, in  high  relief,  the  original  charac- 
teristics and  noblest  features  of  Eng- 
land— practical  piety,  the  rule  of  con- 
science, manly  resolution,  indomitable 

*  Lectures  on  Heroes,  vi.  ;    The  Hero  as 
King.  t  Ibid.       , 


energy.  They  founded  England,  in 
spite  of  the  corruption  of  the  Stuarts 
and  the  relaxation  of  modern  manners, 
by  the  exercise  of  duty,  by  the  practice 
of  justice,  by  obstinate  toil,  by  vindica- 
tion of  right,  by  resistance  to  oppres- 
sion, by  the  conquest  of  liberty,  by  the 
repression  of  vice.  They  founded 
Scotland,  they  founded  the  United 
States  :  at  this  day  they  are,  by  their 
descendants,  founding  Australia  and 
colonizing  the  world.  Carlyle  is  so 
much  their  brother,  that  he  excuses  or 
admires  their  excesses — the  execution 
of  the  king,  the  mutilation  of  Parlia- 
ment, their  intolerance,  inquisition,  the 
despotism  of  Cromwell,  the  theocracy 
of  Knox.  He  sets  them  before  us  as 
models,  and  judges  both  past  and  pres- 
ent by  them  alone. 

V. 

Hence  he  saw  nothing  but  evil  in  the 
French  Revolution.  He  judges  it  as 
unjustly  as  he  judges  Voltaire,  and  for 
the  same  reasons.  He  understands  our 
manner  of  acting  no  better  than  our 
manner  of  thinking.  He  looks  for 
Puritan  sentiment ;  and,  as  he  does  not 
find  it,  he  condemns  us.  The  idea  of 
duty,  the  religious  spirit,  self-govern- 
ment, the  authority  of  an  austere  con- 
science, can  alone,  in  his  opinion,  re- 
form a  corrupt  society  ;  and  none  of 
all  these  are  to  be  met  with  in  French 
society.  The  philosophy  which  has 
produced  and  guided  the  Revolution 
was  simply  destructive,  proclaiming  no 
other  gospel  but  "  that  a  lie  cannot  be 
believed  !  Philosophy  knows  only  this: 
Her  other  relief  is  mainly  that  in  spirit- 
ual, supra-sensual  matters,  no  belief  is 
possible."  The  theory  of  the  Rights 
of  Man,  borrowed  from  Rousseau,  is 
only  a  logical  game,  a  pedantry  almost 
as  opportune  as  a  "  Theory  of  Irregular 
Verbs."  The  manners  in  vogue  were 
the  epicurism  of  Faublas.  The  m  >ral- 
ityin  vogue  was  the  promise  of  univer- 
sal happiness.  Incredulity,  hollow  rant, 
sensuality,  were  the  mainsprings  of  this 
reformation.  Men  let  loose  their  in- 
stincts and  overturned  the  barriers. 
They  replaced  corrupt  authority  by 
unchecked  anarchy.  In  what  could  a 
jacquerie  of  brutalized  peasants  impel- 
led by  atheistical  arguments,  end  ? 


CHAP.  IV.]     PHILOSOPHY  AND  HISTORY— CARLYLE. 


673 


"  For  ourselves,  we  answer  that  French  Rev- 
olution means  here  the  open  violent  Rebellion, 
and  Victory,  of  disimprisoned  Anarchy  against 
corrupt,  worn-out  Authority.*  .  .  . 

"  So  thousandfold  complex  a  Society  ready 
to  burst  up  from  its  infinite  depths  ;  and  these 
men  its  rulers  and  healers,  without  life-rule  for 
themselves — other  life-rule  than  a  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  Jean  Jacques!  To  the  wisest  of 
tnem,  what  we  mus-t  call  the  wisest,  man  is  prop- 
erly an  accident  under  the  sky.  Man  is  with- 
out duty  round  him,  except  it  be  to  make  the 
Constitution.  He  is  without  Heaven  above 
aim,  or  Hell  beneath  him  ;  he  has  no  God  in 
the  world. 

"  While  hollow  languor  and  vacuity  is  the  lot 
of  the  upper,  and  want  and  stagnation  of  the 
lower,  and  universal  misery  is  very  certain, 
what  other  thing  is  certain  ?  .  .  .  What  will  re- 
main ?  The  five  unsatiated  senses  will  remain, 
the  sixth  insatiable  sense  (of  vanity)  ;  the  whole 
dcfinonitrc  nature  of  man  will  remain. 

"  Man  is  not  what  we  call  a  happy  animal  ; 
his  appetite  for  sweet  victual  is  too  enormous. 
.  .  .  (He  cannot  subsist)  except  by  girding 
himself  together  for  continual  endeavour  and 
endurance."  t 

But  set  the  good  beside  the  evil  ;  put 
down  virtues  beside  vices !  These 
skeptics  believed  in  demonstrated  truth, 
and  would  have  her  alone  for  mistress. 
These  logicians  founded  society  only 
on  justice,  and  risked  their  lives  rather 
than  renounce  an  established  theorem. 
These  epicureans  embraced  in  their 
sympathies  entire  humanity.  These 
furious  men,  these  workmen,  these 
hungry,  threadbare  peasants,  fought  on 
the»f  rentiers  for  humanitarian  interests 
and  abstract  principles.  Generosity 
and  enthusiasm  abounded  in  France, 
as  well  as  in  England  ;  acknowledge 
them  under  a  form  which  is  not  English. 
These  men  were  devoted  to  abstract 
truth,  as  the  Puritan  to  divine  truth ; 
they  followed  philosophy,  as  the  Puri- 
tans followed  religion;  they  had  for 
their  aim  universal  salvation,  as  the 
Puritans  had  individual  salvation. 
They  fought  against  evil  in  societv,  as 
the  Puritans  fought  it  in  the  soul.  They 
were  generous,  as  the  Puritans  were 
virtuous.  They  had,  like  them,  a  hero- 
ism, but  sympathetic,  sociable,  ready 
'  o  proselytize,  which  reformed  Europe, 
whilst  the  English  only  served  Eng- 
land. 

VI. 

This  exaggerated  Puritanism,  which 
revolted  Carlyle  against  the  French 

*  The  French  Revolution,  i.  bk.  vi.  ch.  i.  ; 
Make  the  Constitution.  t  Ibid. 


Revolution,  revolts  him  against  mod 
ern  England : 

"  We  have  forgotten  God  ; — in  the  most 
modern  dialect  and  very  truth  of  the  matter,  we 
have  taken  np  the  Fact  of  this  Universe  as  it  is 
not.  We  have  quietly  closed  our  eyes  to  the 
eternal  Substance  of  things,  and  opened  them 
only  to  the  Shows  and  Shams  of  things.  We 
quietly  believe  this  Universe  to  be  intrinsically 
a  great  unintelligible  PERHAPS  ;  extrinsically, 
clear  enough,  it  is  a  great,  most  extensive  Cattle- 
fold  and  Workhouse,  witli  most  extensive 
Kitchen-ranges,  Dining-tables, — whereat  he  is 
wise  who  can  find  a  place  !  All  the  Truth  of 
this  Universe  is  uncertain  ;  only  the  profit  and 
loss  of  it,  the  pudding  and  praise  of  it,  are  and 
remain  very  visible  to  the  practical  man. 

"  There  is  no  longer  any  God  for  us !  God's 
Laws  are  become  a  Greatest-Happiness  Prin- 
ciple, a  Parliamentary  Expediency  ;  the  Hea- 
vens overarch  us  only  as  an  Astronomical  Time- 
keeper ;  a  butt  for  Herschel-telescopes  to  shoot 
science  at,  to  shoot  sentimentalities  at  :  in  our 
and  old  Jonson's  dialect,  man  has  lost  the  soul 
out  of  him  ;  and  now,  after  the  due  period, — 
begins  to  find  the  want  of  it !  This  is  verily  the 
plague-spot  ;  centre  of  the  universal  Social  Gan- 
grene, threatening  all  modern  things  with 
frightful  death.  To  him  that  will  consider  it, 
here  is  the  stem,  with  its  roots  and  taproot,  with 
its  world-wide  upas-boughs  and  accursed  poison- 
exudations,  under  which  the  world  lies  writhing 
in  atrophy  and  agony.  You  touch  the  focal- 
centre  of  ail  our  disease,  of  our  frightful  nosol- 
ogy of  diseases,  when  you  lay  your  hand  on 
this.  There  is  no  religion  :  there  is  no  God  •; 
man  has  lost  his  soul,  and  vainly  seeks  antisep- 
tic salt.  Vainly :  in  killing  Kings,  in  passing 
Reform  bills,  in  French  Revolutions,  Manches- 
ter Insurrections,  is  found  no  remedy.  The 
foul  elephantine  leprosy,  alleviated  for  an  hour, 
reappears  in  new  force  and  desperateness  next 
hour."  * 

Since  the  return  of  the  Stuarts,  we  are 
utilitarians  or  skeptics.  We  believe 
only  in  observation,  statistics,  gross 
and  concrete  truths  ;  or  else  we  doubt, 
half  believe,  on  hearsay,  with  reserve. 
We  have  no  moral  convictions,  and  we 
have  only  floating  convictions.  We 
have  lost  the  mainspring  of  action  ;  we 
no  longer  set  duty  in  the  midst  of  our 
resolve,  as  the  sole  and  undisturbed 
foundation  of  life  ;  we  are  caught  by  all 
kinds  of  little  experimental  and  positive 
receipts,  and  we  amuse  ourselves  with 
all  kinds  of  pretty  pleasures,  well 
chosen  and  arranged.  We  are  egotists 
cr  dilettanti.  We  no  longer  look  on 
life  as  an  august  temple,  but  as  a  ma- 
chine for  solid  profits,  or  as  a  hall  for 
refined  amusements.  We  have  our 
rich  men,  our  manufacturers,  our  bank 

*  Past  and  Present,  bk.  iii.  ch.  i.  ;  Phf 
uomena. 

29 


674 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


ers,  who  preach  the  gospel  of  gold ; 
we  have  gentlemen,  dandies,  lords,  who 
preach  the  gospel  of  manners.  We 
overwork  ourselves  to  heap  up  guineas, 
or  else  make  ourselves  insipid  to  attain 
an  elegant  dignity.  Our  hell  is  no 
longer,  as  under  Cromwell,  the  dread 
of  being  found  guilty  before  the  just 
Judge,  but  the  dread  of  making  a  bad 
speculation,  or  of  transgressing  eti- 
quette. We  have  for  our  aristocracy 
greedy  shopkeepers,  who  reduce  life  to 
a  calculation  of  cost  and  sale-prices ;  and 
idle  amateurs,  whose  great  business  in 
life  is  to  preserve  the  game  on  their 
estates.  We  are  no  longer  governed. 
Our  government  has  no  other  ambition 
than  to  preserve  the  public  peace,  and 
to  get  in  the  taxes.  Our  constitution 
lays  it  down  as  a  principle,  that,  in 
order  to  discover  the  true  and  the  good, 
we  have  only  to  make  two  million  im- 
beciles vote.  Our  Parliament  is  a  great 
word-mill,  where  plotters  out-bawl  each 
other  for  the  sake  of  making  a  noise.* 
Under  this  thin  cloak  of  convention- 
alities and  phrases,  ominously  growls 
the  irresistible  democracy.  England 
perishes  if  she  ever  ceases  to  be  able 
to  sell  a  yard  of  cotton  at  a  farthing 
less  than  others.  At  the  least  check 
in  the  manufactures,  1,500,000  work- 

*  "  It  is  his  effort  and  desire  to  teach  this  and 
the  other  thinking  British  man  that  said  finale, 
the  advent  namely  of  actual  open  Anarchy,  can- 
not be  distant,  now  when  virtual  disguised  An- 
archy, long-continued,  and  waxing  daily,  has 
got  to  such  a  height  ;  and  that  the  one  method 
of  staving  off  the  fatal  consummation,  and 
steering  towards  the  Continents  of  the  Future, 
lies  not  in  the  direction  of  reforming  Parlia- 
ment, but  of  what  he  calls  reforming  Downing 
Street ;  a  thing  infinitely  urgent  to  be  begun, 
and  to  be  strenuously  carried  on.  To  find  a 
Parliament  more  and  more  the  express  image 
of  the  People,  could,  unless  the  People  chanced 
to  be  wise  as  well  as  miserable,  give  him  no 
satisfaction.  Not  this  at  all  ;  but  to  find  some 
sort  of  King,  made  in  the  image  of  God,  who 
could  a  little  achieve  for  the  People,  if  not  their 
spoken  wishes,  yet  their  dnmb  wants,  and  what 
they  would  at  last  find  to  have  been  their  in- 
stinctive ««//, — which  is  a  far  different  matter 
usually,  in  this  babbling  world  of  ours." — Par- 
liaments, in  Latter-Day  Pamphlets. 

"  A  king  or  leader,  then,  in  all  bodies  of  men, 
there  must  be  ;  be  their  work  what  it  may,  there 
is  one  man  here  who  by  character,  faculty,  posi- 
tion, is  fittest  of  all  to  do  it. 

"  He  who  is  to  be  my  ruler,  whose  will  is  to 
be  higher  than  my  will,  was  chosen  for  me  in 
Heaven.  Neither,  except  in  such  obedience 
to  the  Heaven-chosen,  is  freedom  so  much  as 
conceivable." 


men,*  without  work,  live  upon  public 
charity.  The  formidable  masses,  given 
up  to  the  hazards  of  industry,  urged  by 
lust,  impelled  by  hunger,  oscillates  be- 
tween the  fragile  cracking  barriers  ;  we 
are  nearing  the  final  breaking-up,  which 
will  be  open  anarchy,  and  the  democ- 
racy will  heave  amidst  the  ruins,  until 
the  sentiment  of  the  divine  and  of  duty 
has  rallied  them  around  the  worship 
of  heroism  ;  until  it  has  discovered  the 
means  of  calling  to  power  the  most 
virtuous  and  the  most  capable  ;t  until 
it  has  given  its  guidance  in  their  hands, 
instead  of  making  them  subject  to  its 
caprices  ;  until  it  has  recognized  and 
reverenced  its  Luther  and  its  Cromwell, 
its  priest  and  its  king. 

VII. 

Nowadays,  doubtless,  in  the  whole 
civilized  world,  democracy  is  swelling 
or  overflowing,  and  all  the  channels  in 
which  it  flows  are  fragile  or  temporary. 
But  it  is  a  strange  offer  to  present  for 
its  issue  the  fanaticism  and  tyranny  of 
the  Puritans.  The  society  and  spirit 
which  Carlyle  proposes,  as  models 
for  human  nature,  lasted  but  an  hour, 
and  could  not  last  longer.  The  asceti- 
cism of  the  Republic  produced  the  de- 
bauchery of  the  Restoration  ;  Harrison 
preceded  Rochester,  men  like  Bunyan 
raised  up  men  like  Hobbes ;  and*the 
sectaries,  in  instituting  the  despotism 
of  enthusiasm,  established  by  reaction 
the  authority  of  the  positive  mind  and 
the  worship  of  gross  pleasure.  Ex- 
altation is  not  stable,  and  it  cannot  be 
exacted  from  man,  without  injustice 
and  danger.  The  sympathetic  gener- 
osity of  the  French  Revolution  ended 
in  the  cynicism  of  the  Directory  and 
the  slaughters  of  the  empire.  The 
chivalric  and  poetic  piety  of  the  great 
Spanish  monarchy  emptied  Spain  of 
men  and  of  thought.  The  primacy  of 
genius,  taste  and  intellect  in  Italy,  re- 
duced her  at  the  end  of  a  century  to 
voluptuous  sloth  and  political  slavery. 
"  What  makes  the  angel  makes  the 
beast ;"  and  perfect  heroism,  like  all 
excesses,  ends  in  stupor.  Human 
nature  has  its  explosions,  but  with  in- 
tervals :  mysticism  is  serviceable  but 
when  it  is  short.  Violent  circumstances 

*  Official  Report,  1842. 

t  Latter-Day  Pamphlets  ;  Parliatnen 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


produce  extreme  conditions ;  great 
evils  are  necessary  in  order  to  raise 
great  men,  and  you  are  obliged  to  look 
for  shipwrecks  when  you  wish  to  be- 
hold rescuers.  If  enthusiasm  is  beauti- 
ful, its  results  and  its  originating  cir- 
cumstances are  sad  ;  it  is  but  a  crisis, 
and  a  healthy  state  is  better.  In  this 
respect  Carlyle  himself  may  serve  for 
a  proof.  There  is  perhaps  less  genius 
in  Macaulay  than  in  Carlyle  ;  but  when 
we  have  fed  for  some  time  on  this  ex- 
aggerated and  demoniacal  style,  this 
marvellous  and  sickly  philosophy,  this 
contorted  and  prophetic  history,  these 
sinister  and  furious  politics,  we  gladly 
return  to  the  continuous  eloquence,  to 
the  vigorous  reasoning,  to  the  moderate 
prognostications,  to  the  demonstrated 
theories,  of  the  generous  and  solid 
mind  which  Europe  has  just  lost,  who 
brought  honor  to  England,  and  whose 
place  none  can  fill. 


CHAPTER  V. 


—  Siirari  pill  * 


I. 

WHEN  at  Oxford  some  years  ago, 
during  the  meeting  of  the  British  As- 
sociation, I  met,  amongst  the  few  stu- 
dents still  in  residence,  a  young  Eng- 
lishman, a  man  of  intelligence,  with 

*  M.  Taine  has  published  this  "  Study  on 
Mill  "  separately,  and  preceded  it  by  the  fol- 
lowing note,  as  a  preface  :  —  "  When  this  Study 
firt-t  appeared,  Mr.  Mill  did  me  the  honour  to 
write  to  me  that  it  would  not  be  possible  to  give 
in  a  few  pages  a  more  exact  and  complete  no- 
tion of  the  contents  of  his  work,  considered  as 
a  body  of  philosophical  teaching,  '  But,'  he  ad- 
ded, '  I  think  you  are  wrong  in  regarding  the 
views  I  adopt  as  especially  English.  They 
were  so  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, from  the  time  of  Locke  to  that  of  the  re- 
action against  Hume.  This  reaction,  begin- 
ning in  Scotland,  assumed  long  ago  the  German 
form,  and  ended  by  prevailing  universally. 
When  I  wrote  my  book,  I  stood  almost  alone 
in  my  opinions  ;  and  though  they  have  met  with 
a  degree  of  sympathy  which  I  by  no  means  ex- 
pected, we  may  still  count  in  England  twenty  h 
priori  and  spiritualist  philosophers  for  every 
partisan  of  the  doctrine  of  Experience.' 

"  This  remark  is  very  true.  I  myself  could 
have  made  it,  having  been  brought  up  in  the 
doctrines  of  Scottish  philosophy  and  the  writ- 
ings of  Reid.  I  simply  answer,  that  there  are 
philosophers  whom  we  do  not  count,  and  that 
all  such,  whether  English  or  not,  spiritualist  or 


67S 


whom  I  became  intimate.  He  took  me 
in  the  evening  to  the  New  Museum, 
well  filled  with  specimens.  Here  short 
lectures  were  delivered,  new  models  ot 
machinery  were  set  to  work ;  ladies 
were  present  and  took  an  interest  in 
the  experiments  ;  on  the  last  day,  full 
of  enthusiasm,  God  save  the  Queen  was 
sung.  I  admired  this  zeal,  this  solidity 
of  mind,  this  organization  of  science, 
these  voluntary  subscriptions,  this  ap- 
titude for  association  and  for  labor,  this 
great  machine  pushed  on  by  so  many 
arms,  and  so  well  fitted  to  accumu- 
late, criticise,  and  classify  facts.  But 
yet,  in  this  abundance,  there  was  a 
void  ;  when  I  read  the  Transactions,  I 
thought  I  was  present  at  a  congress  of 
heads  of  manufactories.  All  these 
learned  men  verified  details  and  ex- 
changed recipes.  It  was  as  though  I 
listened  to  foremen,  busy  in  communi- 
cating their  processes  for  tanning 
leather  or  dyeing  cotton  :  general  ideas 
were  wanting.  I  used  to  regret  this  to 
my  friend  ;  and  in  the  evening,  by  his 
lamp,  amidst  that  great  silence  in 
which  the  university  town  lay  wrapped, 
we  both  tried  to  discover  its  reasons. 

II. 

One  day  I  said  to  him :  You  lack 
philosophy — I  mean  what  the  Ger- 
mans call  metaphysics.  You  have 
learned  men,  but  you  have  no  thinkers. 
Your  God  impedes  you.  He  is  the 
Supreme  Cause,  and  you  dare  not 
reason  on  causes,  out  of  respect  for 

not,  may  be  neglected  without  much  harm. 
Once  in  a  half  century,  or  perhaps  in  a  century, 
or  two  centuries,  some  thinker  appears  ;  Bacon 
and  Hume  in  England,  Descartes  and  Condil- 
lac  in  France,  Kant  and  Hegel  in  Germany. 
At  other  times  the  stage  is  unoccupied,  or  or- 
dinary men  come  forward,  and  offer  the  public 
that  which  the  public  likes — Sensualists  or 
Idealists,  according  to  the  tendency  of  the  day, 
with  sufficient  instruction  and  skill  to  pby 
leading  parts,  and  enough  capacity  to  re-set  old 
airs,  well  drilled  in  the  works  of  their  predeces- 
sors, but  destitute  of  real  invention — simple  ex- 
ecutant musicians,  who  stand  in  the  place  of 
composers.  In  Europe,  at  present,  the  stage 
is  a  blank.  The  Germans  adapt  and  alter  effete 
French  materialism.  The  French  listen  from 
habit,  but  somewhat  wearily  and  distracted ly( 
to  the  scraps  of  melody  ana  eloquent  common- 
place which  their  instructors  liavt-  repeated  t<i 
them  for  the  last  thirty  years.  In  this  deep 
silence,  and  from  among  these  dull  medioc- 
rities, a  master  comes  forward  to  speak.  Noth 
ing  of  the  sort  has  been  seen  since  Hegel." 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


676 

him.     He   is  the  most  important  per- 
sonage in  England,  and  I   see   clearly 
that    he    merits   his   position ;    for  he 
forms  part  of  your  constitution,  he  is 
the     guardian     of     your  morality,  he 
judges  in  final  appeal  on  all  questions 
whatsoever,  he  replaces  with  advantage 
the  prefects  and  gendarmes  with  whom 
the  nations  on  the  Continent  are  still 
encumbered.     Yet,  this   high  rank  has 
the   inconvenience  of  all   official   posi- 
tions ;  it  produces  a  cant,   prejudices, 
intolerance,  and  courtiers.    Here,  close 
by  us,  is  poor  Mr.  Max  Miiller,  who,  in 
order  to   acclimatize  the   study  of  San- 
scrit, was  compelled  to  discover  in  the 
Vedas   the  worship    of   a  moral  God, 
that  is  to  say,  the  religion  of  Paley  and 
Addison.     Some  time  ago,  in  London, 
I   read  a  proclamation  of   the  Queen, 
forbidding  people  to  play  cards,  even 
in  their  own  houses,  on  Sundays.  *     It 
seems  that,  if   I  were   robbed,  I  could 
not  bring  my  thief  to  justice   without 
taking   a   preliminary   religious   oath  ; 
for  the  judge  has   been  known  to  send 
a   complainant   away   who   refused   to 
take   the  oath,   deny  him  justice,  and 
insult   him   into  the   bargain.      Every 
year  when  we  read  the  Queen's  speech 
in  your  papers,  we  find  there  the   com- 
pulsory mention  of  Divine  Providence, 
which  comes  in  mechanically,  like   the 
invocation  to  the  immortal  gods  on  the 
fourth  page  of  a  rhetorical  declamation  ; 
and  you  remember  that  once,  the  pious 
phrase  having  been   omitted,  a  second 
communication   was   made    to    Parlia- 
ment for  the  express  purpose  of  sup- 
plying  it.      All   these   cavillings   and 
pedantries  indicate  to  my  mind  a  celes- 
tial monarchy  ;  naturally  it  resembles  aln 
others  ;  I  mean  that  it  relies  more  will 
ingly  on  tradition  and  custom  than   on 
examination  and  reason.     A  monarchy 
never  invited  men  to  verify  its  creden 
tials.      As  yours  is,    however,   useful, 
well  adapted  to  you,  and  moral,  you  are 
not    revolted  by  it  ;  you  submit  to   it 
will  mt  difficulty,  you  are,  at  heart,  at- 
tached to  it;  you  would  fear,  in  touch 
ing  it,  to  disturb  the    constitution  anc 
morality.     You  leave   it  in  the   clouds 
amidst  public  homage.     You  fall  back 
upon  yourselves,  confine  yourselves  tc 
matters  of  fact,  to  minute  dissections 

*  This  law  has  been  abrogated  by  an  Act  o 
Parliament. — TR. 


[BOOK  V 


o  experiments  in  the  laboratory.  You 
;o  culling  plants  and  collecting  shells, 
science  is  cU  prived  of  its  head  ;  but  all 
s  for  the  best,  for  practical  life  is  im- 
>roved,  and  dogma  remains  intact. 

III. 

You  are  truly  French,  he  answered  ; 

rou  ignore  facts,  and  all   at  once  find 

pourself  settled  in  a  theory.     I  assure 

ou  that  there  are  thinkers  amongst  us, 

and   not   far   from    hence,   at    Christ 

hurch,  for  instance.  One  of  them, 
he  professor  of  Greek,  has  spoken  so 
leeply  on  inspiration,  the  creation  and 
inal  causes,  that  he  is  out  of  favor.  " 
^ook  at  this  little  collection  which  has 
•ecently  appeared,  Essays  and  Reviews  ; 
our  philosophic  freedom  of  the  last 
century,  the  latest  conclusions  of  geol- 
ogy and  cosmogony,  the  boldness  of 
German  exegesis,  are  here  in  abstract. 
Some  things  are  wanting,  amongst 
others  the  waggeries  of  Voltaire,  the 
misty  jargon  of  Germany,  and  the  pro- 
saic coarseness  of  Comte  ;  to  my  mind, 
the  loss  is  small.  Wait  twenty  years, 
and  you  will  find  in  London  the  ideas 
of  Paris  and  Berlin. — But  they  will 
still  be  the  ideas  of  Paris  and  Berlin. 
Whom  have  you  that  is  original  ? — 
Stuart  Mill. —  Who  is  he  ? — A  political 
writer.  His  little  book  On  Liberty  is 
as  admirable  as  Rousseau's  Contrat 
Social  is  bad. — That  is  a  bold  assertion. 
— No,  for  Mill  decides  as  strongly  for 
the  independence  of  the  individual  as 
Rousseau  for  the  despotism  of  the 
State. — Very  well,  but  that  is  not: 
enough  to  make  a  philosopher.  What 
besides  is  he  ? — An  economist  who 
goes  beyond  his  science,  and  subordi- 
nates production  to  man,  instead  of: 
man  to  production. — Well,  but  this  is 
not  enough  to  make  a  philosopher.  Is. 
he  any  thing  else  ? — A  logician. — Very- 
good-;  but  of  what  school? — Of  his. 
own.  I  told  you  he  was  original. — Is. 
he  Hegelian  ?— By  no  means  ;  he  is  too 
fond  of  facts  and  proofs. — Does  he 
follow  Port-Royal  ?— Still  less  ;  he  is; 
too  well  acquainted  with  modem 
sciences. — Does  he  imitate  Condillac  ? 
— Certainly  not ;  Condillac  has  only 
taught  him  to  write  well. — Who,  then, 
are  his  friends  ? — Locke  and  Comte  in 
the  first  rank  ;  then  Hume  and  Newton. 
— Is  he  a  system-monger,  a  speculative 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


reformer  ? — He  has  too  much  sense  for 
that;  he  only  arranges  the  best  the- 
ories, and  explains  the  best  methods. 
He  does  not  attitudinize  majestically 
in  the  character  of  a  restorer  of  science  ; 
he  does  not  declare,  like  your  Germans, 
that  his  book  will  open  up  a  new  era 
for  humanity.  He  proceeds  gradually, 
somewhat  slowly,  often  creepingly, 
through  a  multitude  of  particular  facts. 
He  excels  in  giving  precision  to  an 
idea,  in  disentangling  a  principle,  in 
discovering  it  amongst  a  number  of 
different  facts  ;  in  refuting,  distinguish- 
ing, arguing.  He  has  the  astuteness, 
i Cadence,  method,  and  sagacity  of  a 
awyer. — Very  well,  you  admit  that  I 
was  right.  A  lawyer,  an  ally  of  Locke, 
Newton,  Comte,  and  Hume  ;  we  have 
here  only  English  philosophy  ;  but  no 
matter.  Has  he  reached  a  grand  con- 
ception of  the  universe  ? — Yes. — Has 
he  an  individual  and  complete  idea  of 
nature  and  the  mind  ? — Yes. — Has  he 
combined  the  operations  and  discover- 
ies of  the  intellect  under  a  single  prin- 
ciple which  puts  them  all  in  a  new 
light  ? — Yes  ;  but  we  have  to  discover 
this  principle. — That  is  your  business, 
and  I  hope  you  will  undertake  it. — But 
I  shall  fall  into  abstract  generalities'. — 
There  is  no  harm  in  that  ? — But  this 
close  reasoning  will  be  like  a  quick-set 
hedge.  We  will  prick  our  fingers  with 
it. — But  three  men  out  of  four  would 
cast  aside  such  speculations  as  idle. — 
So  much  the  worse  for  them.  For  in 
what  does  the  life  of  a  nation  or  a  cen- 
tury consist,  except  in  the  formation  of 
such  theories  ?  We  are  not  thoroughly 
men  unless  so  engaged.  If  some  dwel- 
ler in  another  planet  were  to  come 
down  here  to  ask  us  the  nature  of  our 
race,  we  should  have  to  show  him  the 
five  or  six  great  ideas  which  we  have 
formed  of  the  mind  and  the  world. 
That  alone  would  give  him  the  measure 
of  our  intelligence.  Expound  to  me 
your  theory,  and  I  shall  go  away  better 
instructed  than  after  having  seen  the 
masses  of  brick,  which  you  call  Lon- 
don and  Manchester. 

§  i. — EXPERIENCE. 

I. 

Let  us  begin,  then,  at  the  beginning, 


677 


like  logicians.  Mill  has  written  on 
logic.  What  is  logic?  It  is  a  science. 
What  is  its  object  ?  The  sciences ;  for, 
suppose  that  you  have  .traversed  the 
universe,  and  that  you  know  it 
thoroughly,  stars,  earth,  sun,  heat, 
gravity,  chemical  affinities,  the  species* 
of  minerals,  geological  revolutions, 
plants,  animals  human  events,  all  that 
classifications  and  theories  explain  and 
embrace,  there  still  remain  these  classi- 
fications and  theories  to  be  learnt.  Not 
only  is  there  an  order  of  beings,  but 
also  an  order  of  the  thoughts  which 
represent  them ;  not  only  plants  and 
animals,  but  also  botany  and  zoology  ; 
not  only  lines,  surfaces,  volumes,  and 
numbers,  but  also  geometry  and  arith- 
metic. Sciences,  then,  are  as  real  things 
as  facts  themselves,  and  therefore,  as 
well  as  facts,  become  the  subject  of 
study.  We  can  analyze  them  as  we 
analyze  facts,  investigate  their  elements, 
composition,  order,  relations,  and  ob- 
ject. There  is,  therefore,  a  science  of 
sciences;  this  science  is  called  logic, 
and  is  the  subject  of  Mill's  work.  It 
is  no  part  of  logic  to  analyze  the  opera- 
tions of  the  mind,  memory,  the  associ- 
ation of  ideas,  external  perception,  etc. ; 
that  is  the  business  of  psychology.  We 
do  not  discuss  the  value  of  such  opera- 
tions, the  veracity  of  our  conscious- 
ness, the  absolute  certainty  of  our  ele- 
mentary knowledge  ;  this  belongs  to 
metaphysics.  We  suppose  our  faculties 
to  be  at  work,  and  we  admit  their  pri- 
mary discoveries.  We  take  the  instru- 
ment as  nature  has  provided  it,  and  we 
trust  to  its  accuracy.  We  leave  to 
others  the  task  of  taking  its  mechanism 
to  pieces,  and  the  curiosity  which  criti- 
cises its  results.  Setting  out  from  its 
primitive  operations,  we  inquire  how 
they  are  added  to  each  other  ;  how 
they  are  combined  ;  how  one  is  con- 
vertible into  another ;  how,  by  dint  of 
additions,  combinations,  and  transfor- 
mations, they  finally  compose  a  system 
of  connected  and  developed  truths. 
We  construct  a  theory  of  science,  as 
others  construct  theories  of  vegetation, 
of  the  mind,  or  of  numbers.  Such  is 
the  idea  of  logic ;  and  it  is  plain  that 
it  has,  as  other  sciences,  a  real  subject- 
matter,  its  distinct  province,  its  mani- 
fest importance,  its  special  method,  and 
a  certain  future. 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


II. 

Having  premised  so  much,  we  ob- 
serve that  all  these  sciences  which  form 
the  subject  of  logic,  are  but  collections 
of  propositions,  and  that  each  proposi- 
tion merely  connects  or  separates  a 
subject  and  an  attribute,  that  is,  two 
names,  a  quality  and  a  substance  ;  that 
is  to  say,  a  thing  and  another  thing. 
We  must  then  ask  what  we  understand 
by  a  thing,  what  we  indicate  by  a 
name  ;  in  other  words,  what  it  is  we 
recognize  in  objects,  what  we  connect 
or  separate,  what  is  the  subject-matter 
of  all  our  propositions  and  all  our  sci- 
ence. There  is  a  point  in  which  all 
our  several  items  of  knowledge  resem- 
ble one  another.  There  is  a  common 
element  which,  continually  repeated, 
constitutes  all  our  ideas.  There  is,  as 
it  were,  a  minute  primitive  crystal 
which,  indefinitely  and  variously  re- 
peating itself,  forms  the  whole  mass, 
and  which,  once  known,  teaches  us  be- 
forehand the  laws  and  composition  of 
the  complex  bodies  which  it  has  form- 
ed. 

Now,  when  we  attentively  consider 
the  idea  which  we  form  of  any  thing, 
what  do  we  find  in  it  ?  Take  first  sub- 
stances, that  is  to  say,  Bodies  and 
Minds.*  This  table  is  brown,  long, 
wide,  three  feet  high,  judging  by  the 
eye  :  that  is,  it  forms  a  little  spot  in  the 
field  of  vision  ;  in  other  words,  it  pro- 
duces a  certain  sensation  on  the  optic 

*  '*  It  is  certain,  then,  that  a  part  of  our  no- 
tion of  a  body  consists  of  the  notion  of  a  num- 
ber of  sensations  of  our  own  or  of  other  sentient 
beings,  habitually  occurring  simultaneously. 
My  conception  of  the  table  at  which  I  am  writ- 
ing is  compounded  of  its  visible  form  and  size, 
which  are  complex  sensations  of  sight  ;  its  tan- 
gible form  and  size,  which  are  complex  sensa- 
tions of  our  organs  of  touch  and  of  pur  muscles  ; 
its  weight,  which  is  also  a  sensation  of  touch 
and  of  the  muscles  ;  its  colour,  which  is  a  sen- 
sation of  sight ;  its  hardness,  which  is  a  sensa- 
tion of  the  muscles  ;  its  composition,  which  is 
another  we  rd  for  all  the  varieties  of  sensation 
which  we  receive,  under  various  circumstances, 
from  the  wood  of  which  it  is  made  ;  and  so 
forth.  All  or  most  of  these  various  sensations 
frequently  are,  and,  as  we  learn  by  experience, 
always  might  be,  experienced  simultaneously, 
or  in  many  different  orders  of  succession,  at  our 
own  choice  :  and  hence  the  thought  of  any  one 
of  them  makes  us  think  of  the  others,  and  the 
whole  becomes  mentally  amalgamated  into  one 
mixed  state  of  consciousness,  which,  in  the 
language  of  Locke  and  Hartley,  is  termed  a 
Complex  Idea." — MILL'S  System  of  Logic,  4th 
ed.  2  vols.,  i.  62. 


nerve.  It  weigh  $  ten  pounds  :  that  is, 
it  would  require  to  lift  it  an  effort  less 
than  for  a  weight  of  eleven  pounds,  and 
greater  than  for  a  weight  of  nine 
pounds  ;  in  other  words,  it  produces  a 
certain  muscular  sensation.  It  is  hard 
and  square,  which  means  that,  if  first 
pushed,  and  then  run  over  by  the  hand, 
it  will  excite  two  distinct  kinds  of  mus- 
cular sensations.  And  so  on.  When 
I  examine  closely  what  I  know  of  it, 
I  find  that  I  know  nothing  else  except 
the  impressions  it  makes  upon  me. 
Our  idea  of  a  body  comprises  nothing 
else  than  this :  we  know  nothing  of  it 
but  the  sensations  it  excites  in  us ;  we 
determine  it  by  the  nature,  number, 
and  order  of  these  sensations  ;  we  know 
nothing  of  its  inner  nature,  nor  whether 
it  has  one  ;  we  simply  affirm  that  it  is 
the  unknown  cause  of  these  sensations. 
When-we  say  that  a  body  has  existed 
in  the  absence  of  our  sensations  we 
mean  simply  that  if,  during  that  time, 
we  had  been  within  reach  of  it,  we 
should  have  had  sensations  which  we 
have  not  had.  We  never  define  it  save 
by  our  present  or  past,  future  or  possi- 
ble, complex  or  simple  impressions. 
This  is  so  true,  that  philosophers  like 
Berkeley  have  maintained,  with  some 
show  of  truth,  that  matter  is  a  creature 
of  the  imagination,  and  that  the  whole 
universe  of  sense  is  reducible  to  an 
order  of  sensations.  It  is  at  least  so, 
as  far  as  our  knowledge  is  concerned  ; 
and  the  judgments  which  compose  our 
sciences,  have  reference  only  to  the  im- 
pressions by  which  things  are  manifest- 
ed to  us. 

So,  again,  with  the  mind.  We  may 
well  admit  that  there  is  in  us  a  soul, 
an  "  ego,"  a  subject  or  recipient  of  our 
sensations  and  of  our  other  modes  of 
being,  distinct  from  those  sensations 
and  modes  of  existence  ;  but  we  know 
nothing  of  it.  Mr.  Mill  says: 

"  For,  as  our  conception  of  a  body  is  that  of 
an  unknown  exciting  cause  of  sensations,  so  our 
conception  of  a  mind  is  that  of  an  unknown 
recipient,  or  percipient,  of  them  ;  and  not  of 
them  alone,  but  of  all  our  other  feelings.  As 
body  is  the  mysterious  something  which  excites 
the  mind  to  feel,  so  mind  is  the  mysterious 
something  which  feels,  and  thinks.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  give  in  the  case  of  mind,  as  we 
gave  in  the  case  of  matter,  a  particular  state- 
ment of  the  sceptical  system  by  which  its  exist- 
ence as  a  Thing  in  itself,  distinct  from  tha 
series  of  what  are  denominated  its  states,  la 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUAR  T  MILL. 


called  in  question.  But  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
mark, that  on  the  inmost  nature  of  the  thinking 
principle,  as  well  as  on  the  inmost  nature  of 
matter,  we  are,  and  with  our  faculties  must  al- 
ways remain,  entirely  in  the  dark.  All  which 
we  are  aware  of,  even  in  our  own  minds,  is  a 
certain  '  thread  of  consciousness  ;  '  a  series  of 
feelings,  that  is,  of  sensations,  thoughts,  emo- 
tions, and  volitions,  more  or  less  numerous  and 
complicated."  * 

We  have  no  clearer  idea  of  mind  than 
of  matter  ;  we  can  say  nothing  more 
about  it  than  about  matter.  So  that 
substances,  of  whatever  kind,  bodies 
or  minds,  within  or  without  us,  are 
never  for  us  more  than  tissues,  more 
or  less  complex,  more  or  less  regular, 
of  which  our  impressions  and  modes  of 
being  form  all  the  threads. 

This  is  still  more  evident  in  the 
case  of  attributes  than  of  substances. 
When  I  say  that  snow  is  white,  I  mean 
that,  when  snow  is  presented  to  my 
sight,  I  have  the  sensation  of  whiteness. 
When  I  say  that  fire  is  hot,  I  mean 
that,  when  near  the  fire,  I  have  the 
sensation  of  heat.  We  call  a  mind 
devout,  superstitious,  meditative,  or 
gay,  simply  meaning  that  the  ideas,  the 
emotions,  the  volitions,  designated  by 
these  words,  recur  frequently  in  the 
series  of  its  modes  of  being.!  When 

*  Mill's  Logic,  i.  68. 

*  "  Every  attribute  of  a  mind  consists  either 
in  being  itself  affected  in  a  certain  way,  or  af- 
fecting other  minds  in  a  certain  way.     Consid- 
ered in  itself,  we  can  predicate  nothing   of  it 
but  the  series  of  its  own  feelings.     When  we 
say  of  any  mind,  that  it  is  devout,  or  supersti- 
tious, or  meditative,  or  cheerful,  we  mean  that 
the   ideas,   emotions,   or   volitions    implied  in 
those  words,  form  a  frequently  recurring  part 
of  the  series  of  feelings,  or  states  of  conscious- 
ness,  which  fill  up  the   sentient  existence  of 
that  mind. 

"  In  addition,  however,  to  those  attributes  of 
a  mind  which  are  grounded  on  its  own  states  of 
feeling,  attributes  may  also  be  ascribed  to  it,  in 
the  same  manner  as  to  a  body,  grounded  on  the 
feelings  which  it  excites  in  other  minds-  A 
mind  does  not,  indeed,  like  a  body,  excite  sen- 
sations, but  it  may  excite  thoughts  or  emo- 
tions. The  most  important  example  of  attri- 
butes ascribed  on  this  ground,  is  the  employ- 
ment of  terms  expressive  of  approbation  or 
blame.  When,  for  example,  we  say  of  any 
character,  or  (in  other  words)  of  any  mind, 
that  it  is  admirable,  we  mean  that  the  contem- 
plation of  it  excites  the  sentiment  of  admira- 
tion ;  and  indeed  somewhat  more,  for  the  word 
implies  that  we  not  only  feel  admiration,  but 
approve  that  sentiment  in  ourselves.  In  some 
cases,  under  the  semblance  of  a  single  attri- 
bute, two  are  really  predicated  :  one  of  them,  a 
state  of  the  mind  itself  ;  the  other,  a  state  with 
which  other  minds  are  affected  by  thinking  of 


679 


we  say  that  bodies  are  heavy,  divisible, 
movable,  we  mean  simply  that,  left  to 
themselves,  they  will  fall ;  when  cut, 
they  will  separate  ;  or  when  pushed, 
they  will  move  :  that  is,  under  such 
and  such  circumstances  they  will  pro- 
duce such  and  such  a  sensation  in  our 
muscles,  or  our  sight.  An  attribute 
always  designates  a  mode  of  our  being, 
or  a  series  of  our  modes  of  being.  In 
vain  we  disguise  these  modes  by  group- 
ing, concealing  them  under  abstract 
words,  dividing  and  transforming  them, 
so  that  we  are  frequently  puzzled  to 
recognize  them:  whenever  we  pierce 
to  the  basis  of  our  words  and  ideas, 
we  find  them  and  nothing  but  them. 
Mill  says  : 

"  Take  the  following  example  :  A  generous 
person  is  worthy  of  honour.  Who  would  ex- 
pect to  recognise  here  a  case  of  co-existence 
between  phenomena?  But  so  it  is.  The  at- 
tribute which  causes  a  person  to  be  termed 
generous  is  ascribed  to  him  on  the  ground  of 
states  of  his  mind,  and  particulars  of  his  con- 
duct ;  both  are  phenomena ;  the  former  are 
facts  of  internal  consciousness,  the  latter,  so 
far  as  distinct  from  the  former,  are  physical 
facts,  or  perceptions  of  the  senses.  Worthy  of 
honour,  admits  of  a  similar  analysis.  Honour, 
as  here  used,  means  a  state  of  approving  and 
admiring  emotion,  followed  on  occasion  by  cor- 
responding outward  acts.  '  Worthy  of  honour ' 
connotes  all  this,  together  with  an  approval  of 
the  act  of  showing  honour.  All  these  are  phe- 
nomena ;  states  of  internal  consciousness,  ac- 
companied or  followed  by  physical  facts. 
When  we  say,  A  generous  person  is  worthy  of 
honour,  we  affirm  coexistence  between  the  two 
complicated  phenomena  connoted  by  the  two 
terms  respectively.  We  affirm,  that  wherever 
and  whenever  the  inward  feelings  and  outward 
facts  implied  in  the  word  generosity,  have 

Elace,  then  and  there  the  existence  and  mani- 
jstation  of  an  inward  feeling,  honour,  would 
be  followed  in  our  minds  by  another  inward 
feeling,  approval."  * 

In  vain  we  turn  about  as  we  please,  we 
remain  still  in  the  same  circle.  Whether 
the  object  be  an  attribute  or  a  sub- 
stance, complex  or  abstract,  compound 
or  simple,  its  material  is  to  us  always 
the  same ;  it  is  made  up  only  of  our 

it.  As  when  we  say  of  any  one  that  he  is  gen- 
erous. The  word  generosity  expresses  a  cer- 
tain state  of  mind,  but  being  a  term  of  praise, 
it  also  expresses  that  this  state  of  mind  excites 
in  us  another  mental  state,  called  approbation* 
The  assertion  made,  therefore,  is  twofold,  and 
of  the  following  purport:  Certain  feelings 
form  habitually  a  part  of  this  person's  sentient 
existence  ;  and  the  idea  of  those  feelings  of 
his,  excites  the  sentiment  of  approbation  in 
ourselves  or  others." — Mill's  Logic,  i.  80. 
*  I 'b id.  1 10. 


68o 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


modes  of  being.  Our  mind  is  to  na- 
ture what  a  thermometer  is  to  a  boiler  : 
we  define  the  properties  of  nature  by 
the  impressions  of  our  mind,  as  we 
indicate  the  conditions  of  the  boiling 
water  by  the  changes  of  the  thermom- 
eter. Of  both  we  know  but  condi- 
tion and  changes ;  both  are  made  up 
of  isolated  and  transient  facts;  a  thing 
is  for  us  but  an  aggregate  of  phenom- 
ena. These  are  the  sole  elements  of 
our  knowledge  :  consequently  the  whole 
effort  of  science  will  be  to  link  facts  to 
facts. 

III. 

This  brief  phrase  is  the  abstract  of 
the  whole  system.  Let  us  master  it, 
for  it  explains  all  Mill's  theories.  He 
has  defined  and  restated  every  thing 
from  this  starting-point.  In  all  forms 
and  all  degrees  of  knowledge,  he  has 
recognized  only  the  knowledge  of  facts, 
and  of  their  relations. 

Now  we  know  that  logic  has  two 
corner-stones,  the  Theories  of  Defini- 
tion and  of  Proof.  From  the  days  of 
Aristotle  logicians  have  spent  their 
time  in  polishing  them.  They  have 
only  dared  to  touch  them  respectfully, 
as  if  they  were  sacred.  At  most,  from 
time  to  time,  some  innovator  ventured 
to  turn  them  over  cautiously,  to  put 
them  in  a  better  light.  Mill  shapes, 
cuts,  turns  them  over,  and  replaces 
them  both  in  a  similar  manner  and  by 
the  same  means. 

IV. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  nowadays 
men  laugh  at  those  who  reason  on  def- 
initions ;  the  laughers  deserve  to  be 
laughed  at.  There  is  no  theory  more 
fertile  in  universal  and  important  re- 
sults ;  it  is  the  root  by  which  the  whole 
tree  of  human  science  grows  and  lives. 
For  to  define  things  is  to  mark  out 
their  nature.  To  introduce  a  new  idea 
of  definition  is  to  introduce  a  new  idea 
of  the  nature  of  things  ;  it  is  to  tell  us 
what  beings  are,  of  what  they  are  com- 
posed, into  what  elements'  they  are 
capable  of  being  resolved.  In  this 
lies  the  merit  of  these  dry  speculations; 
the  philosopher  seems  occupied  with 
arranging  mere  formulas  ;  the  fact  is 
that  in  them  he  encloses  the  universe. 


Take,  say  logicians,  an  animal,  a 
plant,  a  feeling,  a  geometrical  figure, 
an  object  or  group  of  objec  ts  of  any 
kind.  Doubtless  the  object  has  its 
properties,  but  it  has  also  its  essence. 
It  is  manifested  to  the  outer  world  by 
an  indefinite  number  of  effects  and 
qualities ;  but  all  these  modes  of  being 
are  the  results  or  products  of  its  inner 
nature.  There  is  within  it  a  certain 
hidden  substratum  which  alone  is  prim- 
itive and  important,  without  which  it 
can  neither  exist  nor  be  conceived,  and 
which  constitutes  its  being  and  our  no- 
tion of  it.  *  They  call  the  propositions 
which  denote  this  essence  definitions, 
and  assert  that  the  best  part  of  our 
knowledge  consists  of  such  proposi- 
tions. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mill  says  that 
these  kinds  of  propositions  teach  us 
nothing ;  they  show  the  mere  sense 
of  a  word,  and  are  purely  verbal,  t 
What  do  I  learn  by  being  told  that 
man  is  a  rational  animal,  or  that  a 
triangle  is  a  space  contained  by  three 
lines  ?  The  first  part  of  such  a  phrase 
expresses  by  an  abbreviative  word 
what  the  second  part  expresses  in  a 
developed  phrase.  You  tell  me  the 
same  thing  twice  over ;  you  put  the 
same  fact  into  two  different  expres- 
sions ;  you  do  not  add  one  fact  to  an- 
other, but  you  go  from  one  fact  to  its 
equivalent.  Your  proposition  is  not 
instructive.  You  might  collect  a  mil- 
lion such,  my  mind  would  remain  en- 
tirely void  ;  I  should  have  read  a  dic- 
tionary, but  not  have  acquired  a  single 
piece  of  knowledge.  Instead  of  saying 

*  According  to  idealist  logicians,  this  being 
is  arrived  at  by  examining  our  notion  of  it ;  and 
the  idea,  on  analysis,  reveals  the  essence.  Ac- 
cording to  the  classifying  school,  we  arrive  at 
the  being  by  placing  the  object  in  its  group, 
and  the  notion  is  defined  by  stating  the  genus 
and  the  difference.  Both  agree  in  bel  eving 
that  we  are  capable  of  grasping  the  essence. 

t  "  An  essential  proposition,  then,  is  ona 
which  is  purely  verbal  ;  which  asserts  of  a 
thing  under  a  particular  name,  only  what  is 
asserted  of  it  in  the  fact  of  calling  it  by  that 
name  ;  and  which  therefore  either  gives  no  in- 
formation, or  gives  it  respecting  the  name,  not 
the  thing.  Non-essential1  or  accidental  propo- 
sitions, on  the  contrary,  may  be  called  Real 
Propositions,  in  opposition  to  Verbal.  They 
predicate  of  a  thing,  some  fact  not  involved  in 
the  signification  of  the  name  by  which  the 
proposition  speaks  of  it ;  some  attribute  \\cf. 
connoted  by  that  namo." — MILL'S  Logic^  i 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


681 


that  essential  propositions  are  import- 
ant, and  those  relating  to  qualities  mere- 
ly accessory,  you  ought  to  say  that  the 
first  are  accessory,  and  the  second  im- 
portant. I  learn  nothing  by  being  told 
that  a  circle  is  a  figure  formed  by  the 
revolution  of  a  straight  line  about  one 
of  its  points  as  centre  ;  I  do  learn  some- 
thing when  told  that  the  chords  which 
subtend  equal  arcs  in  the  circle  are 
themselves  equal,  or  that  three  given 
points  determine  the  circumference. 
What  we  call  the  nature  of  a  being 
is  the  connected  system  of  facts 
which  constitutes  that  being.  The 
nature  of  a  carnivorous  mammal  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  the  property  of 
giving  milk,  and  all  its  implied  pecu- 
liarities of  structure,  are  combined  with 
the  possession  of  sharp  teeth,  instincts 
of  prey,  and  the  corresponding  facul- 
ties. Such  are  the  elements  which 
compose  its  nature.  They  are  facts 
linked  together  as  mesh  to  mesh  in  a 
net.  We  perceive  a  few  of  them  ;  and 
we  know  that  beyond  our  present 
knowledge  and  our  future  experience, 
the  network  extends  to  infinity  its  in- 
terwoven and  manifold  threads.  The 
essence  or  nature  of  a  being  is  the  in- 
definite sum  of  its  properties.  Mill 
says  : 

"  The  definition,  they  say,  unfolds  the  na- 
ture of  the  thing  :  but  no  definition  can  unfold 
its  whole  nature  ;  and  every  proposition  in 
which  any  quality  whatever  is  predicated  of 
the  thing,  unfolds  some  part  of  its  nature. 
The  true  state  of  the  case  we  take  to  be  this. 
All  definitions  are  of  names,  and  of  names 
only  ;  but  in  some  definitions  it  is  clearly  ap- 
parent, that  nothing  is  intended  except  to  ex- 
plain the  meaning  of  the  word  ;  while  in 
others,  besides  explaining  the  meaning  of  the 
word,  it  is  intended  to  be  implied  that  there 
exists  a  thing,  corresponding  to  the  word."  * 

Abandon,  then,  the  vain  hope  of  elim- 
inating from  properties  some  primi- 
tive and  mysterious  being,  the  source 
and  abstract  of  the  whole  ;  leave  enti- 
ties to  Uuns  Scotus  ;  do  not  fancy  that, 
by  probing  your  ideas  in  the  German 
f.ishion,  by  classifying  objects  accord- 
ing to  genera  and  species  like  the 
schoolmen,  by  reviving  the  nominalism 
of  the  middle  ages  or  the  riddles  of 
Hegelian  metaphysics,  you  will  ever 
supply  the  want  of  experience.  There 
are  no  definitions  of  things  ;  if  there 


«  Mill's 


iCy  i.  162. 


are  definitions,  they  only  define  namea 
No  phrase  can  tell  me  what  a  horse  is  ; 
but  there  are  phrases  which  will  in- 
form me  what  is  rne>ant  by  these  five 
letters.  No  phrase  can  exhaust  the 
inexhaustible  sum  of  qualities  which 
make  up  a  being1;  but  several  phrases 
may  point  out  the  facts  corresponding 
to  a  word.  In  this  case  definition  is 
possible,  because  we  can  always  make 
an  analysis,  which  will  enable  us  to  pass 
from  the  abstract  and  summary  term  to 
the  attributes  which  it  represents,  and 
from  these  attributes  to  the  inner  or 
concrete  feelings  which  constitute  their 
foundation.  From  the  term  "dog"  it 
enables  us  to  rise  to  the  attributes 
"  mammiferous/'  "  carnivorous,"  and 
others  which  it  represents  ;  and  from 
these  attributes  to  the  sensations  of 
sight,  of  touch,  of  the  dissecting  knife, 
on  which  they  are  founded.  It  reduces 
the  compound  to  the  simple,  the  de- 
rived to  the  primitive.  It  brings  back 
our  knowledge  to  its  origin.  It  trans- 
forms words  into  facts.  If  some  de- 
finitions, such  as  those  of  geometry, 
seem  capable  of  giving  rise  to  long 
sequences  of  new  truths,*  it  is  be- 
cause, in  addition  to  the  explanation 
of  a  word,  they  contain  the  affirmation 
of  a  thing.  In  the  definition  of  a  tri- 
angle there  are  two  distinct  proposi- 
tions,— the  one  stating  that  "  there  may 
exist  a  figure  bounded  by  three  straight 
lines  ;  "  the  other,  that  "  such  a  figure 
may  be  termed  a  triangle."  The  first 
is  a  postulate,  the  second  a  definition. 
The  first  is  hidden,  the  second  evi- 
dent ;  the  first  may  be  true  or  false, 
the  second  can  be  neither.  The  first 
is  the  source  of  all  possible  theorems 
as  to  triangles,  the  second  only  resumes 
in  a  word  the  facts  contained  in  the 
other.  The  first  is  a  truth,  the  second 

*  "The  definition  above  given  of  a  triangle 
obviously  comprises  not  one,  but  two  proposi- 
tions, perfectly  distinguishable.  T«ke  one  is, 
'  There  may  exist  a  figure  bounded  by  three 
straight  lines  ; '  the  other,  '  And  this  figure 
may  be  termed  a  triangle.'  The  former  of 
these  propositions  is  not  a  definition  at  all  ; 
the  latter  is  a  mere  nominal  definition,  or  ex- 
planation of  the  use  and  application  of  a  term. 
The  frst  is  susceptible  of  truth  or  falsehood, 
and  may  therefore  be  made  the  foundation  of  a 
train  of  reasoning.  The  latter  can  neither  U 
true  nor  false  ;  the  only  character  it  is  suscep- 
tible of  is  that  of  conformity  to  the  ordinary 
usage  of  language." — MILL'S  Logic,  i.  i6a. 
29* 


682 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK 


, 


is  a  convention ;  the  first  is  a  part  of 
science,  the  second  an  expedient  of 
language.  The  first  expresses  a  pos- 
sible relation  between  three  straight 
lines,  the  second  gives  a  name  to  this 
relation.  The  first  alone  is  fruitful 
because  it  alone  conforms  to  the  nature 
of  every  fruitful  proposition,  and  con- 
nects two  facts.  Let  us,  then,  under- 
stand exactly  the  nature  of  our  knowl- 
edge :  it  relates  either  to  words  or  to 
things,  or  to  both  at  once.  If  it  is  a 
matter  of  words,  as  in  the  definition 
of  names,  it  attempts  to  refer  words  to 
our  primitive  feelings,  that  is  to  say,  to 
the  facts  which  form  their  elements. 
If  it  relates  to  beings,  as  in  proposi- 
tions about  things,  its  whole. effort  is 
to  link  fact  to  fact,  in  order  to  connect 
the  finite  number  of  known  properties 
with  the  infinite  number  to  be  known. 
Jf  both  are  involved,  as  in  the  defini- 
tions of  names  which  conceal  a  propo- 
sition relating  to  things,  it  attempts  to 
do  both.  Everywhere  its  operation  is 
the  same.  The  whole  matter  in  any 
case  is  to  understand  each  other, — that 
is,  to  revert  to  facts,  or  to  learn, — that 
is,  to  add  facts  to  facts. 

V. 

The  first  rampart  is  destroyed ;  our 
adversaries  take  refuge  behind  the 
second — the  Theory  of  Proof.  This 
theory  has  passed  for  two  thousand 
years  for  a  substantiated,  definite,  un- 
assailable truth.  Many  have  deemed 
it  useless,  but  no  one  has  dared  to  call 
it  false.  On  all  sides  it  has  been  coir- 
sidered  as  an  established  theorem.  Let 
us  examine  it  closely  and  attentively. 
What  is  a  proof  ?  According  to  logi- 
cians, it  is  a  syllogism.  And  what  is 
a  syllogism  ?  A  group  of  three  prop- 
ositions of  this  kind:  "All  men  are 
mortal  ;  Prince  Albert  is  a  man  ;  there- 
fore Prince  Albert  is  mortal."  Here 
we  have  the  type  of  a  proof,  and  every 
complete  proof  is  conformable  to  this 
type.  Now  what  is  there,  according  to 
logicians,  in  this  proof?  A  general 
proposition  concerning  all  men,  which 
gives  rise  to  a  particular  proposition 
concerning  a  certain  man.  From  the 
first  we  pass  to  the  second,  because 
the  second  is  contained  in  the  first ; 
from  the  general  to  the  particular,  be- 
cause the  particular  is  comprised  in  the 


general.  The  second  is  but  an  instance 
of  the  first ;  its  truth  is  contained  be- 
forehand in  that  of  the  first,  and  this  is 
why  it  is  a  truth.  In  fact,  as  soon  as 
the  conclusion  is  no  longer  contained 
in  the  premisses,  the  reason  ing  is  false, 
and  all  the  complicated  rules  of  the 
middle  ages  have  been  reduced  by  the 
Port-Royalists  to  this  single  rule,  "  The 
conclusion  must  be  contained  in  the 
premisses."  Thus  the  entire  process  of 
the  human  mind  in  its  reasonings  con- 
sists in  recognizing  in  individuals  what 
is  known  of  a  whole  class  ;  in  affirming 
in  detail  what  has  been  established  for 
the  aggregate  ;  *n  laying  down  a  second 
time,  and  piecemeal,  what  has  been 
laid  down  once  for  all  at  first. 

By  no  means,  replies  Mill  ;  for  if  it 
were  so,  our  reasoning  would  be  good 
for  nothing.  It  would  not  be  a  progress 
but  a  repetition.  When  I  have  affirmed 
that  all  men  are  mortal,  I  have  affirmed 
implicitly  that  Prince  Albert  is  mortal. 
In  speaking  of  the  whole  class,  that  is 
to  say,  of  all  the  individuals  of  the 
class,  I  have  spoken  of  each  individual, 
and  therefore  of  Prince  Albert,  who  is 
one  of  them.  I  say  nothing  new,  then, 
when  I  now  mention  him  expressly. 
My  conclusion  teaches  me  nothing;  it 
adds  nothing  to  my  positive  knowledge; 
it  only  puts  in  another  shape  a  knowl- 
edge which  I  already  possessed.  It  is 
not  fruitful,  but  purely  verbal.  If,  then, 
reasoning  be  what  logicians  represent 
it,  it  is  not  instructive.  I  know  as  much 
of  the  subject  at  the  beginning  of  my 
reasoning  as  at  the  end.  I  have  trans- 
formed words  into  other  words  ;  I  have 
been  moving  without  gaining  ground. 
Now  this  cannot  be  the  case ;  for,  in 
fact,  reasoning  does  teach  us  new 
truths.  I  learn  a  new  truth  when  I 
discover  that  Prince  Albert  is  mortal, 
and  I  discover  it  by  dint  of  reasoning  ; 
for,  since  he  is  still  alive,  I  cannot  have 
learnt  it  by  direct  observation.  Thus 
logicians  are  mistaken ;  and  beyond  the 
scholastic  theory  of  syllogism,  which 
reduces  reasoning  to  substitutions  of 
words,  we  must  look  for  a  positive 
theory  of  proof,  which  shall  explain 
how  it  is  that,  by  the  process  of  reason- 
ing, we  discover  facts. 

For  this  purpc  se,  it  is  sufficient  to  ob- 
serve, that  general  propositions  are  not 
the  true  proof  of  particular  propo 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


68;, 


sitions.  They  seem  so,  but  are  not.  It 
is  not  from  the  mortality  of  all  men 
that  I  conclude  Prince  Albert  to  be 
mortal ;  the  premisses  are  elsewhere, 
and  in  the  background.  The  general 
proposition  is  but  a  memento,  a  sort  of 
abbreviative  register,  to  which  I  have 
consigned  the  fruit  of  my  experience. 
This  memento  may  be  regarded  as  a 
note-book  to  which  we  refer  to  refresh 
our  memory ;  but  it  is  not  from  the 
book  that  we  draw  our  knowledge,  but 
from  the  objects  which  we  have  seen. 
My  memento  is  valuable  only  for  the 
facts  which  it  recalls.  My  general 
proposition  has  no  value  except  for  the 
particular  facts  which  it  sums  up. 

"The  mortality  of  John,  Thomas,  and  com- 

ry,  is,  after  all,  the  whole  evidence  we  have 
the  mortality  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 
Not  one  iota  is  added  to  the  proof  by  interpo- 
lating a  general  proposition.  Since  the  indi- 
vidual cases  are  all  the  evidence  we  can  pos- 
sess, evidence  which  no  logical  form  into  which 
we  choose  to  throw  it  can  make  greater  than  it 
is  ;  and  since  that  evidence  is  either  sufficient 
in  itself,  or,  if  insufficient  for  the  one  purpose, 
cannot  be  sufficient  for  the  other  ;  I  am  un- 
abie  to  see  why  we  should  be  forbidden  to  take 
the  shortest  cut  from  these  sufficient  premisses 
to  the  conclusion,  and  constrained  to  travel  the 
'high  priori  road'  by  the  arbitrary  fiat  of 
logicians."  * 

"  The  true  reason  which  makes  us  be- 
lieve that  Prince  Albert  will  die  is,  that 
his  ancestors,  and  our  ancestors,  and 
all  other  persons  who  were  their  con- 
temporaries, are  dead.  These  facts  are 
the  true  premisses  of  our  reasoning." 
It  is  from  them  that  we  have  drawn  the 
general  proposition  ;  they  have  taught 
us  its  scope  and  truth ;  it  confines  itself 
to  mentioning  them  in  a  shorter  form  ; 
it  receives  its  whole  substance  from 
them  ;  they  act  by  it  and  through  it,  to 
lead  us  to  the  conclusion  to  which  it 
seems  to  give  rise.  It  is  only  their 
representative,  and  on  occasion  they 
do  without  it.  Children,  ignorant 
people,  animals  know  that  the  sun  will 
rise,  that  water  will  drown  them,  that 
fire  will  burn  them,  without  employing 
this  general  proposition.  They  reason, 
and  we  reason,  too,  not  from  the 
general  to  the  particular,  but  from  par- 
ticular to  particular  : 

*'  All  inference  is  from  particulars  to  par- 
ticulars ;  General  propositions  are  merely  reg- 
isters of  such  inferences  already  made,  and 


*  Mill's  Logic)  i.  211 


short  fonnulse  for  making  more :  The  majot 
premiss  of  a  syllogism,  consequently,  is  a  f  o» 
mula  of  this  description  :  and  the  conclusion  is 
not  an  inference  drawn  from  the  formula,  bu* 
an  inference  drawn  according  to  the  formula : 
the  real  logical  antecedent,  or  premisses,  being 
the  particular  facts  from  which  the  general 
aroposition  was  collected  by  induction.  Those 
facts,  and  the  individual  instances  which  sup- 
plied them,  may  have  been  forgotten ;  but  a 
record  remains,  not  indeed  descriptive  of  the 
facts  themselves,  but  showing  how  those  cases 
may  be  distinguished  respecting  which  the 
facts,  when  known,  were  considered  to  warrant 
a  given  inference.  According  to  the  indica- 
tions of  this  record  we  draw  our  conclusion  ; 
which  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  conclu- 
sion from  the  forgotten  facts.  For  this  it  is 
essential  that  we  should  read  the  record  cor- 
rectly :  and  the  rules  of  the  syllogism  are  a  set 
of  precautions  to  ensure  our  doing  so."  * 

"  If  we  had  sufficiently  capacious  memories, 
and  a  sufficient  power  of  maintaining  order 
among  a  huge  mass  of  details,  the  reasoning 
could  go  on  without  any  general  propositions  ; 
they  are  mere  formulae  for  inferring  particulars 
from  particulars."  t 

Here,  as  before,  logicians  are  mis- 
taken :  they  gave  the  highest  place  to 
verbal  operations,  and  left  the  realty 
fruitful  operations  in  the  background, 
They  gave  the  preference  to  words  over 
facts.  They  perpetuated  the  nominal- 
ism of  the  middle  ages.  They  mistook 
the  explanation  of  names  for  the  nature 
of  things,  and  the  transformation  of 
ideas  for  the  progress  of  the  mind.  It 
is  for  us  to  overturn  this  order  in  logic, 
as  we  have  overturned  it  in  science,  tc 
exalt  particular  and  instructive  facts, 
and  to  give  them  in  our  theories  thai 
superiority  and  importance  which  ouv 
practice  has  conferred  upon  them  foi 
three  centuries  past. 

VI. 

There  remains  a  kind  of  philosopli 
ical  fortress  in  which  the  Idealists 
have  taken  refuge.  At  the  origin  of  all 
proof  are  Axioms,  from  which  all 
proofs  are  derived.  Two  straight  lines 
cannot  enclose  a  space ;  two  things, 
equal  to  a  third,  are  equal  to  one  an- 
other ;  if  equals  be  added  to  equals^ 
the  wholes  are  equal.  These  are  in- 
structive propositions,  for  they  express, 
not  the  meanings  of  words,  but  the  re- 
lations of  things.  And,  moreover,  they 
are  fertile  propositions  ;  for  arithmetic, 
algebra,  and  geometry  are  all  the  result 
of  their  truth.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
are  not  the  work  of  experience,  for  wfc 

*  Mill's  Logic,  i.  218.  t  Ibid'  i-  *4o« 


684 


need  not  actually  see  with  our  eyes  two 
straight  lines  in  order  to  know  that  they 
cannot  enclose  a  space  ;  it  is  enough  for 
us  to  refer  to  the  inner  mental  concep- 
tion which  we  have  of  them ;  the  evi- 
dence of  our  senses  is  not  needed  for 
this  purpose  ;  our  belief  arises  wholly, 
with  its  full  force,  from  the  simple  com- 
parison of  our  ideas.  Moreover,  ex- 
perience follows  these  two  lines  only  to 
a  limited  distance,  ten,  a  hundred,  a 
thousand  feet ;  and  the  axiom  is  true 
for  a  thousand,  a  hundred  thousand,  a 
million  miles,  and  for  an  unlimited  dis- 
tance. Thus,  beyond  the  point  at  which 
experience  ceases,  it  is  no  longer  experi- 
ence which  establishes  the  axiom. 
Finally,  the  axiom  is  a  necessary  truth  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  contrary  is  incon- 
ceivable. We  cannot  imagine  a  space 
enclosed  by  two  straight  lines :  as  soon 
as  we  imagine  the  space  enclosed,  the 
two  lines  cease  to  be  straight ;  and  as 
soon  as  we  imagine  the  two  lines  to  be 
straight,  the  space  ceases  to  be  en- 
closed. In  the  assertion  of  axioms,  the 
constituent  ideas  are  irresistibly  drawn 
together.  In  the  negation  of  axioms, 
the  constituent  ideas  inevitably  repel 
each  other.  Now  this  does  not  happen 
with  truths  of  experience  :  they  state 
an  accidental  relation,  not  a  necessary 
connection ;  they  lay  down  that  two 
facts  are  connected,  and  not  that  they 
must  be  connected ;  they  show  us  that 
bodies  are  heavy,  not  that  they  must  be 
heavy.  Thus,  axioms  are  not,  and  can- 
not be  the  results  of  experience.  They 
are  not  so,  because  we  can  form  them 
mentally  without  the  aid  of  experience  ; 
they  cannot  be  so,  because  the  nature 
and  scope  of  their  truths  lie  beyond  the 
limits  of  experience.  They  have  an- 
other and  a  deeper  source.  They  have 
a  wider  scope,  and  they  come  from 
elsewhere. 

Not  so,  answers  Mill.  Here  again 
you  reason  like  a  schoolman  ;  you  for- 
get the  facts  concealed  behind  your 
conceptions ;  for  examine  your  first 
argument.  Doubtless  you  can  discover, 
without  making  use  of  your  eyes,  and 
by  purely  mental  contemplation,  that 
two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a 
space ;  but  this  contemplation  is  but  a 
displaced  experiment.  Imaginary  lines 
here  replace  real  lines :  you  construct 
the  figure  in  your  mind  instead  of  on 


MODERN  LIFE. 


[BOOK  V 


paper :  your  imagination  fulfils  the 
office  of  a  diagram  on  paper  :  you  trust 
to  it  as  you  trust  to  the  diagram,  and  it 
is  as  good  as  the  other  ;  for  in  regard 
to  figures  and  lines  the  imagination  ex- 
actly reproduces  the  sensation.  What 
you  have  seen  with  your  eyes  open,  you 
will  see  again  exactly  the  same  a  minute 
afterwards  with  your  eyes  closed ;  and 
you  can  study  geometrical  properties 
transferred  to  the  field  of  mental  vision, 
as  accurately  as  if  they  existed  in  the 
field  of  actual  sight.  There  are,  there- 
fore, experiments  of  the  brain  as  there 
are  ocular  ones  ;  and  it  is  after  just 
such  an  experiment  that  you  deny  to 
two  straight  lines,  indefinitely  pro- 
longed, the  property  of  enclosing  a 
space.  You  need  not  for  this  purpose 
pursue  them  to  infinity,  you  need  only 
transfer  yourself  in  imagination  to  the 
point  where  they  converge,  and  there 
you  have  the  impression  of  a  bent  line, 
that  is  of  one  which  ceases  to  be 
straight*  Your  presence  there  in  im- 
agination takes  the  place  of  an  actual 
presence  ;  you  can  affirm  by  it  what  you 
affirmed  by  your  actual  presence,  and 
as  positively.  The  first  is  only  the 
second  in  a  more  commodious  form, 
with  greater  flexibility  and  scope.  It  is 
like  using  a  telescope  instead  of  the 
naked  eye  ;  the  revelations  of  the  tele- 
scope are  propositions  of  experience  ; 
so  are  those  of  the  imagination.  As  to 
the  argument  which  distinguishes  axi- 
oms from  propositions  of  experience  un- 
der the  pretext  that  the  contraries  of  the 
latter  are  conceivable,  while  the  con- 

*  '*  For  though,  in  order  actually  to  see  that 
two  given  lines  never  meet,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  follow  them  to  infinity  ;  yet  without 
doing  so  we  may  know  that  if  they  ever  do 
meet,  or  it,  after  diverging  from  one  another, 
they  begin  again  to  approach,  this  must  take 
place  not  at  an  infinite,  but  at  a  finite  distance. 
Supposing,  therefore,  such  to  be  the  case,  we 
can  transport  ourselves  thither  in  imagination, 
and  can  frame  a  mental  image  of  the  appear- 
ance which  one  or  both  of  the  lines  must  pre- 
sent at  that  point,  which  we  may  rely  on  as 
being  precisely  similar  to  the  reality.  Now, 
whether  we  fix  our  contemplation  upon  this 
imaginary  picture,  or  call  to  mind  the  general- 
isations we  have  had  occasion  to  make  from 
former  ocular  observation,  we  learn  by  the  evi- 
dence of  experience,  that  a  line  which,  after 
diverging  from  another  straight  line,  begins  to 
approach  to  it,  produces  the  impression  on  our 
senses  which  we  describe  by  the  expression  '  a 
bent  line,'  not  by  the  expression  '  a  straight 
lie  "'— MTLL'S  Logic,  i.  364. 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


635 


traries  of  axioms  are  inconceivable,  it  is 
nugatory,  for  this  distinction  does  not 
exist.  Nothing  prevents  the  contraries 
of  certain  propositions  of  experience 
from  being  conceivable,  and  the  con- 
traries of  others  inconceivable.  That 
depends  on  the  constitution  of  our 
minds.  It  may  be  that  in  some  cases 
the  mind  may  contradict  its  experience, 
and  in  others  not.  It  is  possible  that 
in  certain  cases  our  conceptions  may 
differ  from  our  perceptions,  and  some- 
times not.  It  may  be  that,  in  certain 
cases,  external  sight  is  opposed  to  in- 
ternal, and  in  certain  others  not.  Now, 
we  have  already  seen  that  in  the  case 
of  figures,  the  internal  sight  exactly  re- 
produces the  external.  Therefore,  in 
axioms  of  figures,  the  mental  sight  can- 
not be  opposed  to  the  actual  ;  imagi- 
nation cannot  contradict  sensation.  In 
other  words,  the  contraries  of  such 
axioms  will  be  inconceivable.  Thus 
axioms,  although  their  contraries  are 
inconceivable,  are  experiments  of  a 
certain  class,  and  it  is  because  they  are 
so  that  their  contraries  are  incon- 
ceivable. At  every  point  there  results 
this  conclusion,  which  is  the  abstract  of 
the  system :  every  instructive  or  fruit- 
ful proposition  is  derived  from  experi- 
ence, and  is  simply  a  connecting  to- 
gether of  facts. 

VII. 

Hence  it  follows  that  Induction  is 
the  only  key  to  nature.  This  theory  is 
Mill's  masterpiece.  Only  so  thorough- 
going a  partisan  of  experience  could 
have  constructed  the  theory  of  Induc- 
tion. 

What,  then,  is  Induction  ? 

"  Induction  is  that  operation  of  the  mind  by 
which  we  infer  that  what  we  know  to  be  true 
in  a  particular  case  or  cases,  will  be  true  in  all 
cases  which  resemble  the  former  in  certain  as- 
signable respects.  In  other  words,  Induction 
is  the  process  by  which  we  conclude  that  what 
ts  true  of  certain  individuals  of  a  class  is  true 
of  the  whole  class,  or  that  what  is  true  at  cer- 
tain times  will  be  true  in  similar  circumstances 
at  all  times."  * 

This  is  the  reasoning  by  which,  having 
observed  that  Peter,  John  and  a  greater 
or  less  number  of  men  have  died,  we 
conclude  that  ail  men  will  die.  In 
short,  induction  connects  "  mortality  " 
with  the  quality  of  "  man  ;  "  that  is  to 
*  Mill's  Logic,  i.  315. 


say,  connects  two  general  facts  ordr 
narily  successive,  and  asserts  that  the 
first  is  the  Cause  of  the  second. 

This  amounts  to  saying  that  the 
course  of  nature  is  uniform.  But  induc- 
tion does  not  set  out  from  this  axiom, 
it  leads  up  to  it ;  we  do  not  find  it  at 
the  beginning,  but  at  the  end  of  our  re- 
searches.* Fundamentally,  experience 
presupposes  nothing  beyond  itself.  No 
&  priori  principle  comes  to  authorize  or 
guide  her.  We  observe  that  this  stone 
has  fallen,  that  this  hot  coal  has  burnt 
us,  that  this  man  has  died,  and  we  have 
no  other  means  of  induction  except  the 
addition  and  comparison  of  these  little 
isolated  and  transient  facts.  We  learn 
by  simple  practical  experience  that  the 
sun  gives  light,  that  bodies  fall,  that 
water  quenches  thirst,  and  we  have  no 
other  means  of  extending  or  criticizing 
these  inductions  than  by  other  like 
inductions.  Every  observation  and 
every  induction  draws  its  value  from 
itself,  and  from  similar  ones.  It  is  al- 
ways experience  which  judges  of  ex- 
perience, and  induction  of  induction. 
The  body  of  our  truths  has  not,  then,  a 
soul  distinct  from  it,  and  vivifying  it; 
it  subsists  by  the  harmony  of  all  its 
parts  taken  as  a  whole,  and  by  the  vital- 
ity of  each  part  taken  separately. 

"  Why  is  it  that,  with  exactly  the  same 
amount  of  evidence,  both  negative  and  posi- 
tive, we  did  not  reject  the  assertion  that  there 
are  black  swans,  while  we  should  refuse  cre- 
dence to  any  testimony  which  asserted  that  there 
were  men  wearing  their  heads  underneath  their 
shoulders?  The  first  assertion  was  more  cred- 
ible than  the  latter.  But  why  more  credible  ? 
So  long  as  neither  phenomenon  had  been  ac- 
tually witnessed,  what  reason  was  there  for 
finding  the  one  harder  to  be  believed  than  the 
other?  Apparently  because  there  is  less  con- 
stancy in  the  colours  of  animals,  than  in  the 

*  "  We  must  first  observe,  that  there  is  a 
principle  implied  in  the  very  statement  of  what 
Induction  is  ;  an  assumption  with  regard  to  the 
course  of  nature  and  the  order  of  the  universe  : 
namely,  that  there  are  such  things  in  nature  as 
parallel  cases  j  that  what  happens  once,  will 
under  a  sufficient  degree  of  similarity  of  cir« 
cumstances,  happen  again,  and  not  only  again, 
but  as  often  as  the  same  circumstances  recur. 
This,  I  say,  is  an  assumption,  involved  in 
every  case  of  induction.  And,  if  we  consult 
the  actual  course  of  nature,  we  find  that  the 
assumption  is  warranted.  The  universe,  so 
far  as  known  to  us,  is  so  constituted,  that  what- 
ever is  true  in  any  one  case,  is  true  in  all  cases 
of  a  certain  description  ;  the  only  difficulty  is, 
to  find  what  description." — MILL'S  Logic^  \» 
337- 


686 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


general  structure  of  their  internal  anatomy. 
But  how  do  we  know  this  ?  Doubtless  from 
experience.  It  appears,  then,  that  we  need 
experience  to  inform  us  in  what  degree,  and  in 
what  cases,  or  sorts  of  cases,  experience  is  to 
be  relied  on.  Experience  must  be  consulted 
in  order  to  learn  from  it  under  what  circum- 
stances arguments  iiom  it  will  be  valid.  We 
have  no  ulterior  test  to  which  we  subject  ex- 
perience in  general  ;  but  we  make  experience 
its  own  test.  Experience  testifies,  that  among 
the  uniformities  which  it  exhibits,  or  seems  to 
exhibit,  some  are  more  to  be  relied  on  than 
others ;  and  uniformity,  therefore,  may  be 
presumed,  from  any  given  number  of  instances, 
\yith  a  greater  degree  of  assurance,  in  propor- 
tion as  the  case  belongs  to  a  class  in  which  the 
uniformities  have  hitherto  been  found  more 
uniform."  * 

Experience  is  the  only  test,  and  it  is  to 
be  found  everywhere. 

Let  us  then  consider  how,  without 
any  help  but  that  of  experience,  we  can 
form  general  propositions,  especially 
the  most  numerous  and  important  of 
all,  those  which  connect  two  successive 
events,  by  saying  that  the  first  is  the 
cause  of  the  second. 

Cause  is  a  great  word  ;  let  us  ex- 
amine it.  It  carries  in  itself  a  whole 
philosophy.  From  the  idea  we  have  of 
Cause  depend  all  our  notions  of  nature. 
To  give  a  new  idea  of  Causation  is  to 
transform  human  thought  ;  and  we 
shail  see  how  Mill,  like  Hume  and 
Comte,  but  better  than  they,  has  put 
this  idea  into  a  new  shape. 

What  is  a  cause  ?  When  Mill  says 
that  the  contact  of  iron  with  moist  air 
produces  rust,  or  that  heat  dilates 
bodies,  he  does  not  speak  of  the  mys- 
terious bond  by  wnich  metaphysicians 
connect  cause  and  effect.  He  does  not 
busy  himself  with  the  intimate  force 
and  generative  virtue  which  certain 
philosophers  insert  between  the  thing 
producing  and  the  product.  Mill  says  : 

"  The  only  notion  of  a  cause,  which  the 
\heory  of  induction  requires,  is  such  a  notion 
as  can  be  gained  from  experience.  The  Law 
of  Causation,  the  recognition  of  which  is  the 
main  pillar  of  inductive  science,  is  but  the 
familiar  truth,  that  invariability  of  succession 
is  found  by  observation  to  obtain  between 
every  fact  in  nature  and  some  other  fact  which 
has  preceded  it  ;  independently  of  all  consid- 
eration respecting  the  ulterior  mode  of  produc- 
tion of  phenomena,  and  of  every  other  ques- 
tion regarding  the  nature  of  '  Things  in  them- 
selves.' "  I" 

No  other   foundation   underlies   these 

two   expressions.      We   mean   simply 

*  Mill's  Logic,  i.  351.  f  Ibid.  i.  359. 


that  everywhere,  always,  the  contact  of 
iron  with  the  moist  air  will  be  followed 
by  the  appearance  of  rust  ;  the  applica- 
tion of  heat  by  the  dilatation  of  bodies  : 
"  The  real  cause  is  the  whole  of  these 
antecedents."  *  "  There  is  no  scien- 
tific foundation  for  distinguishing  be- 
tween the  cause  of  a  phenomenon  and 
the  conditions  of  its  happening  .  .  .  The 
distinction  drawn  between  the  patient 
and  the  agent  is  purely  verbal."  "  The 
cause,  then,  philosophically  speaking, 
is  the  sum  total  of  the  conditions,  posi- 
tive and  negative,  taken  together  ;  the 
whole  of  the  contingencies  of  every 
description,  which  being  realized,  the 
consequent  invariably  follows."  t  Much 
argument  has  been  expended  on  the 
word  necessary  :  "  If  there  be  any 
meaning  which  confessedly  belongs  to 
the  term  necessity,  it  is  unconditional- 
ness.  That  which  is  necessary,  that 
which  must  be,  means  that  which  will 
be,  whatever  supposition  \ve  may  make 
in  regard  to  all  other  things."  \  This 
is  all  we  mean  when  we  assert  that  the 
notion  of  cause  includes  the  notion  of 
necessity.  We  mean  that  the  antece- 
dent is  sufficient  and  complete,  that 
there  is  no  need  to  suppose  any  addi- 
tional antecedent,  that  it  contains  all 
requisite  conditions,  and  that  no  other 
condition  need  exist.  To  follow  uncon- 
ditionally, then,  is  the  whole  notion  of 
cause  and  effect.  We  have  none  else. 
Philosophers  are  mistaken  when  they 
discover  in  our  will  a  different  type  of 
causation,  and  declare  it  an  example  of 
efficient  cause  in  act  and  in  exercise. 
We  see  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  there, 
as  elsewhere,  we  find  only  continuous 
successions.  We  do  not  see  a  fact 
engendering  another  fact,  but  a  fact 
accompanying  another.  "  Our  will," 
says  Mill,  "  produces  our  bodily  actions 
as  cold  produces  ice,  or  as  a  spark  pro- 
duces an  explosion  of  gunpowder." 
There  is  here,  as  elsewhere,  an  antece- 
dent, the  resolution  or  state  of  mind, 
and  a  consequent,  the  effort  or  physi- 
cal sensation.  Experience  connects 
them,  and  enables  us  to  foresee  that 
the  effort  will  follow  the  resolution,  as 
it  enables  us  to  foresee  that  the  explo- 
sion of  gunpowder  will  follow  the  con- 
tact of  the  spark.  Let  us  then  have 

*  Ibid.  i.  360.  t  Ibid.  i.  365. 

i  Ibid.  i.  372. 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MIL  I. 


done  with  all  these  psychological  illu- 
sions, and  seek  only,  under  the  names  of 
cause  and  effect,  for  phenomena  which 
form  pairs  without  exception  or  con- 
dition. 

Now,  to  establish  these  connections 
of  phenomena,  Mill  discovers  four 
methods,  and  only  four, — namely,  the 
Methods  of  Agreement,*  of  Difference,! 
of  Residues,  \  and  of  Concomitant 

*  "  If  we  take  fifty  crucibles  of  molten  mat- 
ter and  let  them  cool,  and  fifty  solutions  and 
let  them  evaporate,  all  will  crystallize.  Sul- 
phur, sugar,  alum,  salt — substances,  tempera- 
tures, circumstances — all  are  as  different  as 
they  can  be.  We  find  one,  and  only  one,  com- 
mon fact — the  change  from  the  liquid  to  the 
solid  state — and  conclude,  therefore,  that  this 
change  is  the  invariable  antecedent  of  crystal- 
lization. Here  we  have  an  example  of  the 
Method  of  Agreement.  Its  canon  is  : — 

"'I.  If  two  or  more  instances  of  the  phe- 
nomenon under  investigation  have  only  one 
circumstance  in  common,  the  circumstance  in 
which  alone  all  the  instances  agree,  is  the  cause 
(or  effect)  of  the  given  phenomenon.'  " — 
MILL'S  Logic,  i.  422. 

t  "  A  bird  in  the  air  breathes  ;  plunged  into 
carbonic  acid  gas,  it  ceases  to  breathe.  In 
other  words,  in  the  second  case,  suffocation 
ensues.  In  other  respects  the  two  eases  are  as 
similar  as  possible,  since  we  have  the  same 
bird  in  both,  and  they  take  place  in  immediate 
succession.  They  differ  only  in  the  circum- 
stance of  immersion  in  carbonic  acid  gas  being 
substituted  for  immersion  in  the  atmosphere, 
and  we  conclude  that  this  circumstance  is  in- 
variably followed  by  suffocation.  The  Method 
of  Difference  is  here  employed.  Its  canon 
is: — 

"  'II.  If  an  instance  in  which  the  phenoni- 
enon  under  investigation  occurs,  and  an  in- 
stance in  which  it  does  not  occur  have  every 
circumstance  in  common  save  one,  that  one 
occurring  only  in  the  former ;  the  circum- 
stance in  which  alone  the  two  instances  differ, 
is  the  effect,  or  the  cause,  or  a  necessary  part 
of  the  cause,  of  the  phenomenon.'" — MILL'S 
Logic,  i.  423. 

J  [  "  A  combination  of  these  methods  is 
sometimes  employed,  and  is  termed  the  In- 
direct Method  of  Difference,  or  the  Joint 
Method  of  Agreement  and  Difference.  It  is, 
in  fact,  a  double  employment  of  the  Method  of 
Agreement,  first  applying  that  method  to  in- 
stances in  which  the  phenomenon  in  question 
occurs,  and  then  to  instances  in  which  it  does 
not  occur.  The  following  is  its  canon  : — 

"'III.  If  two  or  more  instances  in  which 
the  phenomenon  occurs  have  only  one  circum- 
stance in  common,  while  two  or  more  instances 
in  which  it  does  not  occur  have  nothing  in 
common,  save  the  absence  of  that  circum- 
stance ;  the  circumstance  in  which  alone  the 
two  sets  of  instances  differ,  is  the  effect,  or 
the  cause,  or  a  necessary  part  of  the  cause,  of 
thi  phenomenon.'  "] — MILL'S  Logic,  i.  429. 

"  If  we  take  two  groups — one  of  antecedents 
and  one  of  consequents — and  can  succeed  in 
connecting  by  previous  investigations  all  the 


687 


Variations.*  These  are  the  only  ways 
by  which  we  can  penetrate  into  nature. 
There  are  no  other,  and  these  are 
everywhere.  And  thev  all  employ 
the  same  artifice,  th^t  is  to  say, 
elimination  ;  for,  in  fact,  induction  is 
nothing  else.  You  have  two  groups, 
one  of  antecedents,  the  other  of  con- 
sequents, each  of  them  containing  more 
or  fewer  elements,  ten,  for  example. 
To  what  antecedent  is  each  consequent 
joined  ?  Is  the  first  consequent  joined 
to  the  first  antecedent,  or  to  the  thiid, 
or  sixth  ?  The  whole  difficulty,  and 
the  only  possible  solution  lie  there.  To 
resolve  the  difficulty,  and  to  effect  the 
solution,  we  must  eliminate,  that  is, 
exclude  those  antecedents  which  are 
not  connected  with  the  consequent  we 

antecedents  but  one  to  their  respective  conse- 
quents, and  all  the  consequents  but  one  to 
their  respective  antecedents,  we  conclude  that 
the  remaining  antecedent  is  connected  to  the 
remaining  consequent.  For  example,  scientific 
men  had  calculated  what  ought  to  be  the  veloc- 
ity of  sound  according  to  the  laws  of  the  propa- 
gation of  sonorous  waves,  but  found  that  a 
sound  actually  travelled  quicker  than  their  cal- 
culations had  indicated.  This  surplus  or  resi- 
due of  speed  was  a  consequent  for  which  an 
antecedent  had  to  be  found.  Laplace  discov- 
ered the  antecedent  in  the  heat  developed  by 
the  condensation  of  each  sonorous  wave,  and 
this  new  element,  when  introduced  into  the 
calculation,  rendered  it  perfectly  accurate. 
This  is  an  example  of  the  Method  of  Residues, 
the  canon  of  which  is  as  follows  : — 

"  '  IV.  Subduct  from  any  phenomenon  such 
part  as  is  known  by  previous  inductions  to  be 
the  effect  of  certain  antecedents,  and  the  resi- 
due of  the  phenomenon  is  the  effect  of  the  re- 
maining antecedents.'  "—MILL'S  Logic,  1.431. 

*  "  Let  us  take  two  facts — as  the  presence  of 
the  earth  and  the  oscillation  of  the  pendulum, 
or  again  the  presence  of  the  moon  and  the  flow 
of  the  tide.  To  connect  these  phenomena 
directly,  we  should  have  to  suppress  the  first 
of  them,  and  see  if  this  suppression  would  oc- 
casion the  stoppage  of  the  second.  Now,  in 
both  instances,  such  suppression  is  impossible. 
So  we  employ  an  indirect  means  of  connecting 
the  phenomena.  We  observe  that  all  the 
variations  of  the  one  correspond  to  certain 
variations  of  the  other  ;  that  all  the  oscilla- 
tions of  the  pendulum  correspond  to  certain 
different  position  of  the  earth  ;  that  all  states 
of  the  tide  correspond  to  positions  of  the  moon. 
From  this  we  conclude  that  the  second  fact  is 
the  antecedent  of  the  first.  These  are  ex- 
amples of  the  Method  of  Concomitant  Varia- 
tions. Its  canon  is  : — 

"  '  V.  Whatever  phenomenon  varies  in  any 
manner  whenever  another  phenomenon  varies 
in  some  particular  manner,  is  either  a  cause  01 
an  effect  of  that  phenomenon,  or  is  connected 
with  it  through  some  fact  of  causation.'  "— 
MILL'S  Logic,  i.  435. 


683 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


are  considering.  *  But  as  we  cannot 
exclude  them  effectually,  and  as  in 
nature  the  pair  of  phenomena  we  are 
seeking  is  always  surrounded  with  cir- 
cumstances, we  collect  various  cases, 
which  by  their  diversity  enable  the  mind 
to  lop  off  these  circumstances,  and  to 
discover  the  pair  of  phenomena  distinct- 
ly. In  short,  we  can  only  perform 
induction  by  discovering  pairs  of  phe- 
nomena :  we  form  these  only  by  isola- 
tion ;  we  isolate  only  by  means  of  com- 
parisons. 

VIII. 

These  are  the  rules ;  an  example 
will  make  them  clearer.  We  will  show 
you  the  methods  in  exercise  ;  here  is 
an  example  which  combines  nearly  the 
whole  of  them,  namely,  Dr.  Well's 
theory  of  dew.  I  will  give  it  to  you  in 
Mill's  own  words,  which  are  so  clear 
that  you  must  have  the  pleasure  of 
pondering  over  them  :  "  We  must 
separate  dew  from  rain  and  the  moist- 
ure of  fogs,  and  limit  the  application 
of  ^the  term  to  what  is  really  meant, 
which  is,  the  spontaneous  appearance 
of  moisture  on  substances  exposed  in 
the  open  air  when  no  rain  or  visible  wet 
is  falling."  t  What  is  the  cause  of 
the  phenomena  we  have  thus  defined, 
and  how  was  that  cause  discovered  ? 

"  *  Now,  here  we  have  analogous  pheno- 
mena in  the  moisture  which  bedews  a  cold 
metal  or  stone  when  we  breathe  upon  it ;  that 
which  appears  on  a  glass  of  water  fresh  from 
the  well  in  hot  weather  ;  that  which  appears  on 
the  inside  of  windows  when  sudden  rain  or  hail 
chills  the  external  air  ;  that  which  runs  down 
our  walls  when,  after  a  long  frost,  a  warm 
moist  thaw  comes  on.'  Comparing  these  cases, 
we  find  that  they  all  contain  the  phenomenon 
which  was  proposed  as  the  subject  of  investiga- 
tion. Now  '  all  these  instances  agree  in  one 
point,  the  coldness  of  the  object  dewed  in  com- 

*  "  The  Method  of  Agreement,"  says  Mill 
{Logic,  i.  424),  "stands  on  the  ground  that 
whatever  can  be  eliminated,  is  not  connected 
with  the  phenomenon  by  any  law.  The  Method 
of  Difference  has  for  its  foundation,  that  what- 
ever can  not  be  eliminated,  is  connected  with 
the  phenomenon  by  a  law."  The  Method  of 
Residues  is  a  case  of  the  Method  of  Differ- 
ences. The  Method  of  Concomitant  Varia- 
tions is  another  case  of  the  same  method  ;  with 
this  distinction,  that  it  is  applied,  not  to  the 
phenomena,  but  to  their  variations. 

t  This  quotation,  and  all  the  others  in  this 
paragraph,  are  taken  from  Mill's  Logic,  i. 
451-9.  Mr.  Mill  quotes  from  Sir  John  Her- 
schel's  Discourse  on  the  Study  of  Natural 
Philosophy. 


parison  with  the  air  in  contact  with  it.'  But 
there  still  remains  the  most  important  case  of 
all,  that  of  nocturnal  dew  :  does  the  saine  cir» 
cumstance  exist  in  this  case  ?  '  Is  it  a  fact 
that  the  object  dewed  is  colder  than  the  air? 
Certainly  not,  one  would  at  first  be  inclined  to 
say  ;  for  what  is  to  make  it  so  ?  But  .  .  .  the 
experiment  is  easy ;  we  have  only  to  lay  a 
thermometer  in  contact  with  the  dewed  sub- 
stance, and  hang  one  at  a  little  distance  above 
it,  out  of  reach  of  its  influence.  The  experi- 
ment has  been  therefore  made  ;  the  question 
has  been  asked,  and  the  answer  has  been  in- 
variably in  the  affirmative.  Whenever  an  ob- 
ject contracts  dew,  it  is  colder  than  the  air.' 

"  Here  then  is  a  complete  application  of  the 
Method  of  Agreement,  establishing  the  fact  of 
an  invariable  connection  between  the  deposi- 
tion of  dew  on  a  surface,  and  the  coldness  of 
that  surface  compared  with  the  external  air 
But  which  of  these  is  cause,  and  which  effect  ? 
or  are  they  both  effects  of  something  else  ?  On 
this  subject  the  Method  of  Agreement  can  af- 
ford us  no  light :  we  must  call  in  a  more  potent 
method.  '  We  must  collect  more  facts,  or, 
which  comes  to  the  same  thing,  vary  the  cir- 
cumstances ;  since  every  instance  in  which  the 
circumstances  differ  is  a  fresh  fact :  and  espec- 
ially, we  must  note  the  contrary  or  negative 
cases,  i.e.  where  no  dew  is  produced :  '  for  a 
comparison  between  instances  of  dew  and  in- 
stances of  no  dew,  is  the  condition  necessary  to 
bring  the  Method  of  Difference  into  play. 

"  '  Now,  first,  no  dew  is  produced  on  the 
surface  of  polished  metals,  but  it  is  very  co- 
piously on  glass,  both  exposed  with  their  faces 
upwards,  and  in  some  cases  the  under  side  of  a 
horizontal  plate  of  glass  is  also  dewed.'  Here 
is  an  instance  in  which  the  effect  is  produced, 
and  another  instance  in  which  it  is  not  pro- 
duced ;  but  we  cannot  yet  pronounce,  as  the 
canon  of  the  Method  of  Difference  requires, 
that  the  latter  instance  agrees  with  the  former 
in  all  its  circumstances  except  one :  for  the 
difference  between  glass  and  polished  metals 
are  manifold,  and  the  only  thing  we  can  as  yet 
be  sure  of  is,  that  the  cause  of  dew  will  be 
found  among  the  circumstances  by  which  the 
former  substance  is  distinguished  from  the 
latter." 

To  detect  this  particular  circumstance 
of  difference,  we  have  but  one  practica- 
ble method,  that  of  Concomitant  Varia- 
tions : 

"  '  In  the  cases  of  polished  metal  and  pol- 
ished glass,  the  contrast  shows  evidently  that 
the  substance  has  much  to  do  with  the  phe- 
nomenon ;  therefore  let  the  substance  alone  be 
diversified  as  much  as  possible,  by  exposing 
polished  surfaces  of  various  kinds.  This  done, 
a  scale  of  intensity  becomes  obvious.  Those 
polished  substances  are  found  to  be  most 
strongly  dewed  which  conduct  heat  worst, 
while  those  which  conduct  well  resist  dew  most 
effectually.'  .  .  . 

"  The  conclusion  obtained  is,  that  caterii 
Paribus  the  deposition  of  dew  is  in  some  pro- 
portion to  the  power  which  the  body  possesses 
of  resisting  the  passage  of  heat ;  and  that  this, 
therefore  (or  something  connected  with  this), 
must  be  at  least  one  of  the  causes  which  assist 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


in  producing  the  deposition  of  dew  on  the  sur- 
face. 

"  '  But  if  we  expose  rough  surfaces  instead 
ot  polished,  we  sometimes  find  this  law  inter- 
fered with.  Thus,  roughened  iron,  especially 
if  painted  over  or  blackened,  becomes  dewed 
sooner  than  varnished  paper  :  the  kind  of  sur- 
face, therefore,  has  a  great  influence.  Ex- 
pose, then,  the  same  material  in  very  diversi- 
fied states  as  to  surface'  (that  is,  employ  the 
Method  of  Difference  to  ascertain  concomit- 
ance of  variations),  '  and  another  scale  of  in- 
tensity becomes  at  once  apparent ;  those  sur- 
faces which  part  with  their  heat  most  readily 
by  radiation,  are  found  to  contract  dew  most 
copiously.'  .  .  . 

"  The  conclusion  obtained  by  this  new  ap- 
plication of  the  method  is,  that  cceteris  paribus 
the  deposition  of  dew  is  also  in  some  propor- 
tion to  the  power  of  radiating  heat ;  and  that 
the  quality  of  doing  this  abundantly  (or  some 
cause  on  which  that  quality  depends)  is  another 
of  the  causes  which  promote  the  deposition  of 
dew  on  the  substance. 

"  '  Again,  the  influence  ascertained  to  exist 
of  substance  and  surface  leads  us  to  consider 
that  of  texture  ;  and  here,  again,  we  are  pre- 
sented on  trial  with  remarkable  differences, 
and  with  a  third  scale  of  intensity,  pointing  out 
substances  of  a  close  firm  texture,  such  as 
stones,  metals,  etc.,  as  unfavourable,  but  those 
of  a  loose  one,  as  cloth,  velvet,  wool,  eider- 
down, cotton,  etc.,ras  eminently  favourable  to 
the  contraction  of  dew.'  The  Method  of  Con- 
comitant Variations  is  here,  for  the  third  time, 
had  recourse  to  ;  and,  as  before,  from  neces- 
sity, since  the  texture  of  no  substance  is  abso- 
lutely firm  or  absolutely  loose.  Looseness  of 
texture,  therefore,  or  something  which  is  the 
cause  of  that  quality,  is  another  circumstance 
which  promotes  the  deposition  of  dew  ;  but 
this  third  cause  resolves  itself  into  the  first, 
viz.,  the  quality  of  resisting  the  passage  of 
heat :  for  substances  of  loose  texture  '  are  pre- 
cisely those  which  are  best  adapted  for  cloth- 
ing, or  for  impeding  the  free  passage  of  heat 
from  the  skin  into  the  air,  so  as  to  allow  their 
outer  surfaces  to  be  very  cold,  while  they  re- 
main warm  within.'  .  .  . 

"It  thus  appears  that  the  instances  in  which 
much  dew  is  deposited,  which  are  very  various, 
agree  in  this,  and,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  ob- 
serve, in  this  only,  that  they  either  radiate 
heat  rapidly  or  conduct  it  slowly  :  qualities  be- 
tween which  there  is  no  other  circumstance  of 
agreement  than  that  by  virtue  of  either,  the 
body  tends  to  lose  heat  from  the  surface  more 
rapidly  than  it  can  be  restored  from  within. 
The  instances,  on  the  contrary,  in  which  no 
dew,  or  but  a  small  quantity  of  it;  is  formed, 
ard  which  are  also  extremely  various,  agree 
(so  far  as  we  can  observe)  in  nothing  except  in 
not  having  this  same  property.  .  .  . 

"This  doubt  we  are  now  able  to  resolve. 
We  have  found  that,  in  every  such  instance, 
the  substance  must  be  one  which,  by  its  own 
properties  or  laws,  would,  if  exposed  in  the 
ni?ht,  become  colder  than  the  surrounding  air. 
The  coldness,  therefore,  bein^  accounted  for 
independently  of  the  dew,  while  it  is  proved 
that  there  is  a  connection  between  the  two,  it 
must  be  the  dew  which  depends  on  the  cold- 
ness ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  coldness  is  the 
cause  of  the  dew. 


689 


*'  This  law  of  causation,  already  so  amply  es- 
tablished, admits,  however,  of  efficient  add* 
tional  corroboration  in  no  less  than  three  ways. 
First,  by  deduction  from  the  known  laws  of 
aqueous  vapour  when  diffused  through  air  or 
any  other  gas,  and  though  we  have  not  ye*, 
come  to  the  Deductive  Method,  we  will  not 
omit  what  is  necessary  to  render  this  specula- 
tion complete.  It  is  known  by  direct  experi- 
ment that  only  a  limited  quantity  of  water  can 
remain  suspended  in  the  state  of  vapour  at 
each  degree  of  temperature,  and  that  this 
maximum  grows  less  and  less  as  the  tempera- 
ture diminishes.  From  this  it  follows  deduc- 
tively, that  if  there  is  already  as  much  vapour 
suspended  as  the  air  will  contain  at  its  existing 
temperature,  any  lowering  of  that  temperature 
will  cause  a  portion  of  the  vapour  to  be  con- 
densed, and  become  water.  But,  again,  we 
know  deductively,  from  the  laws  of  heat,  that 
the  contact  of  the  air  with  a  body  colder  than 
itself,  will  necessarily  lower  the  temperature  of 
the  stratum  of  air  immediately  applied  to  its 
surface ;  and  will  therefore  cause  it  to  part 
with  a  portion  of  its  water,  which  according^ 
will,  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  gravitation  or  co- 
hesion, attach  itself  to  the  surface  of  the  body, 
thereby  constituting  dew.  This  deductive 
proof,  it  will  have  been  seen,  has  the  advan- 
tage of  proving  at  once  causation  as  well  as  co- 
existence ;  and  it  has  the  additional  advantage 
that  it  also  accounts  for  the  exceptions  to  the 
occurrence  of  the  phenomenon,  the  cases  in 
which,  although  the  body  is  colder  than  the 
air,  yet  no  dew  is  deposited,  by  showing  that 
this  will  necessarily  be  the  case  when  the  air  is 
so  under-supplied  with  aqueous  vapour,  com- 
paratively to  its  temperature,  that  even  when 
somewhat  cooled  by  the  contact  of  the  colder 
body,  it  can  still  continue  to  hold  in  suspen- 
sion all  the  vapour  which  was  previously  sus- 
pended in  it:  thus  in  a  very  dry  summer  there 
are  no  dews,  in  a  very  dry  winter  no  hoar 
frost.  .  .  . 

"  The  second  corroboration  of  the  theory  is 
by  direct  experiment,  according  to  the  canon 
of  the  Method  of  Difference.  We  can,  by 
cooling  the  surface  of  any  body,  find  in  all 
cases  some  temperature  (more  or  less  inferior 
to  that  of  the  surrounding  air,  according  to  its 
hygrometric  condition)  at  which  dew  will  begin 
to  be  deposited.  Here,  too,  therefore,  the 
causation  is  directly  proved.  We  can,  it  is 
true,  accomplish  this  only  on  a  small  scale  ; 
but  we  have  ample  reason  to  conclude  that  the 
same  operation,  if  conducted  in  Nature's  great 
laboratory,  would  equally  produce  the  effect. 

"And,  finally,  even  on  that  great  scale  we 
are  able  to  verify  the  result.  The  case  is  one 
of  those  rare  cases,  as  we  have  shown  them  :o 
be,  in  which  nature  works  the  experiment  for 
us  in  the  same  manner  in  which  we  ourselves 
perform  it  ;  introducing  into  the  previous 
state  of  things  a  single  and  perfectly  definite 
new  circumstance,  and  manifesting  the  effect 
so  rapidly  that  there  is  not  time  for  any  other 
-naterial  charge  in  the  pre-existing  circum- 
jtances,  '  It  is  observed  that  dew  is  never 
copiously  deposited  in  situations  much  screened 
from  the  open  sky,  and  not  at  all  in  a  cloudy 
night*,  but  if  the  clouds  withdraw  even  for  a 
few  minutes,  and  leave  a  clear  opening,  a 
deposition  of  dew  presently  begins,  and  goes  on 
increasing.  .  .  .  Dew  formed  in  clear  inter- 


690 


vals  will  often  even  evaporate  again  when  the 
sky  becomes  thickly  overcast.'  The  proof, 
therefore,  is  complete,  that  the  presence  or 
absence  of  an  uninterrupted  communication 
with  the  sky  causes  the  deposition  or  non- 
deposition  of  dew.  Now,  since  a  clear  sky  is 
nothing  but  the  absence  of  clouds,  and  it  is  a 
known  property  of  clouds,  as  of  all  other  bodies 
between  which  and  any  given  object  nothing 
intervenes  but  an  elastic  fluid,  that  they  teni 
to  raise  or  keep  up  the  superficial  temperature 
of  the  object  by  radiating  heat  to  it,  we  see  at 
once  that  the  disappearance  of  clouds  will 
cause  the  surface  to  cool  ;  so  that  Nature  in 
this  case  produces  a  change  in  the  antecedent 
by  definite  and  known  means,  and  the  conse- 
quent follows  accordingly :  a  natural  experi- 
ment which  satisfies  the  requisitions  of  the 
Method  of  Difference." 

IX. 

These  four  are  not  all  the  scientific 
methods,  but  they  lead  up  to  the  rest. 
They  are  all  linked  together,  and  no 
one  has  shown  their  connection  better 
than  Mill.  In  many  cases  these  pro- 
cesses of  isolation  are  powerless  ;  name- 
ly, in  those  in  which  the  effect,  being 
produced  by  a  concourse  of  causes, 
cannot  be  reduced  into  its  elements. 
Methods  of  isolation  are  then  impracti- 
cable. We  cannot  eliminate,  and  con- 
sequently we  cannot  perform  induction. 
This  serious  difficulty  presents  itself  in 
almost  all  cases  of  motion,  for  almost 
every  movement  is  the  effect  of  a  con- 
currence of  forces  ;  and  the  respective 
effects  of  the  various  forces  are  found 
so  mixed  up  in  it  that  we  cannot  sepa- 
rate them  without  destroying  it,  so  that 
it  seems  impossible  to  tell  what  part 
each  force  has  in  the  production  of  the 
movement.  Take  a  body  acted  upon 
by  two  forces  whose  directions  form  an 
angle  :  it  moves  along  the  diagonal  ; 
each  part,  each  moment,  each  position, 
each  element  of  its  movement,  is  the 
combined  effect  of  the  two  impelling 
forces.  The  two  effects  are  so  com- 
mingled, that  we  cannot  isolate  either 
of  them,  and  refer  it  to  its  source.  In 
order  to  perceive  each  effect  separately 
we  should  have  to  consider  the  move- 
ments apart,  that  is,  to  suppress  the 
actual  movement,  and  to  replace  it  by 
others.  Neither  the  Method  of  Agree- 
ment, nor  of  Difference,  nor  of  Resi- 
dues, nor  of  Concomitant  Variations, 
which  are  all  decomposing  and  elimi- 
native,  can  avail  against  a  phenomenon 
which  by  its  nature  excludes  all  elemi- 
nation  and  decomposition.  We  must 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


therefore  evade  the  obstacle  ;  and  it  is 
here  that  the  last  key  of  nature  appears, 
the  Method  of  Deduction.  We  quit 
the  study  of  the  actual  phenomenon  to 
observe  other  and  simpler  cases ;  we 
establish  their  laws,  and  we  connect 
each  with  its  cause  by  the  ordinary 
methods  of  induction.  Then,  assuming 
the  concurrence  of  two  or  of  several  of 
these  causes,  we  conclude  from  their 
known  laws  what  will  be  their  total 
effect.  We  next  satisfy  ourselves  as  to 
whether  the  actual  movement  exactly 
coincides  with  the  movement  foretold  ; 
and  if  this  is  so,  we  attribute  it  to  the 
causes  from  which  we  have  deduced  it. 
Thus,  in  order  to  discover  the  causes  of 
the  planetary  motions,  we  seek  by  sim- 
ple induction  the  laws  of  two  causes  : 
first,  the  force  of  primitive  impul- 
sion in  the  direction  of  the  tangent  ; 
next,  an  accelerative  attracting  force. 
From  these  inductive  laws  we  deduce 
by  calculation  the  motion  of  a  body 
submitted  to  their  combined  influence  ; 
and  satisfying  ourselves  that  the  plane- 
tary motions  observed  coincide  exactly 
with  the  predicted  movements,  we  con- 
clude that  the  two  forces  in  question 
.re  actually  the  causes  of  the  planetary 
notions.  "  To  the  Deductive  Method," 
says  Mill,  "  the  human  mind  is  indebted 
for  its  most  conspicuous  triumphs  in 
the  investigation  of  nature.  To  it  we 
owe  all  the  theories  by  which  vast  and 
complicated  phenomena  are  embraced 
under  a  few  simple  laws."  Our  devia- 
tions have  led  us  further  than  the  di- 
rect path  ;  we  have  derived  efficiency 
from  imperfection. 

X. 

If  we  now  compare  the  two  methods, 
their  aptness,  function,  and  provinces, 
we  shall  find,  as  in  an  abstract,  the  his- 
tory, divisions,  hopes,  and  limits  of 
human  science.  The  first  appears  at 
the  beginning,  the  second  at  the  end. 
The  first  necessarily  gained  ascend- 
ency in  Bacon's  time,*  and  now  begins 
to  lose  it;  the  second  necessarily  lost 
ascendency  in  Bacon's  time,  and  now 
begins  to  regain  it.  So  that  science, 
after  having  passed  from  the  deductive 
to  the  experimental  state,  is  now  pass- 
ing from  the  experimental  to  the  de- 
ductive. Induction  has  for  its  province 
*  Mill's  Logic,  i.  526. 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


phenomena  which  are  capable  of  being 
decomposed,  and  on  which  we  can 
experiment.  Deduction  has  for  its  prov- 
ince indecomposable  phenomena,  or 
these  on  which  we  cannot  experiment. 
The  first  is  efficacious  in  physics,  chem- 
istry, zoology,  and  botany,  in  the  earl- 
ier stages  of  every  science,  and  also 
whenever  phenomena  are  but  slightly 
complicated,  within  our  -reach,  capable 
of  being  modified  by  means  at  our  dis- 
posal. The  second  is  efficacious  in  as- 
tronomy, in  the  higher  branches  of 
physics,  in  physiology,  history,  in  the 
higher  grades  of  every  science,  when- 
ever phenomena  are  very  complicated, 
as  in  animal  and  social  life,  or  lie  be- 
yond our  reach,  as  the  motions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  and  the  changes  of 
the  atmosphere.  When  the  proper 
method  is  not  employed,  science  is  at 
a  stand-still :  when  it  is  employed,  sci- 
ence progresses.  Here  lies  the  whole 
secret  of  its  past  and  its  present.  If  the 
physical  sciences  remained  stationary 
till  the  time  of  Bacon,  it  was  because  men 
used  deduction  when  they  should  have 
used  induction.  If  physiology  and  the 
moral  sciences  are  now  making  slow 
progress,  it  is  because  we  employ  in- 
duction when  deduction  should  be 
used.  It  is  by  deduction,  and  accord- 
ing to  physical  and  chemical  laws,  that 
we  shall  be  enabled  to  explain  physio- 
logical phenomena.  It  is  by  deduction, 
and  according  to  mental  laws,  that  we 
shall  be  enabled  to  explain  historical 
phenomena.*  And  that  which  has  be- 
come the  instrument  of  these  two 
sciences,  it  is  the  object  of  all  the 
others  to  employ.  All  tend  to  become 
deductive,  and  aim  at  being  summed 
up  in  certain  general  propositions,  from 
which  the  rest  may  be  deduced.  The 
less  numerous  these  propositions  are, 
the  more  science  advances.  The  fewer 
suppositions  and  postulates  a  science 
requires,  the  more  perfect  it  is  be- 
come. Such  a  reduction  is  its  final 
condition.  Astronomy,  acoustics,  op- 
tics, present  its  models ;  we  shall  know 

*  See  chapter  9,  book  vi.  v.  2,  478,  on  The 
Physical  or  Concrete  Deductive  Method  as 
applied  to  Sociology  ;  and  chapter  13,  book  iii., 
for  explanations,  after  Liebig,of  Decomposition* 
Respiration^  the  Action  of  Poisons^  etc.  A 
whole  book  is  devoted  to  the  logic  of  the  moral 
sciences  J  I  know  no  better  treatise  on  the  sub- 
iect. 


691 


nature  when  we  shall  have  deduced 
her  millions  of  facts  from  two  or  three 
laws. 

I  venture  to  say  that  the  theory 
which  you  have  just  heard  is*  perfect 
I  have  omitted  several  of  its  character 
istics,  but  you  have  seen  enough  to  rec 
ognize  that  induction  has  nowhere 
been  explained  in  so  complete  and  pre- 
cise a  manner,  with  such  an  abundance 
of  fine  and  just  distinctions,  with  such 
extensive  and  exact  applications,  with 
such  a  knowledge  of  the  practical 
methods  and  ascertained  results  of 
science,  with  so  complete  an  exclusion 
of  metaphysical  principles  and  arbi- 
trary suppositions,  and  in  a  spirit  more 
in  conformity  with  the  rigorous  proced- 
ure of  modern  experimental  science. 
You  asked  me  just  now  what  English- 
men have  effected  in  philosophy ;  I 
answer,  the  theory  of  Induction.  Mill 
is  the  last  of  that  great  line  of  philoso- 
phers, which  begins  at  Bacon,  and 
which,  through  Hobbes,  Newton, 
Locke,  Hume,  Herschell,  is  continued 
down  to  our  own  times.  They  have 
carried  our  national  spirit  into  philos- 
ophy ;  they  have  been  positive  and  prac- 
tical ;  they  have  not  soared  above  facts  ; 
they  have  not  attempted  out-of-the- 
way  paths ;  they  have  cleared  the  hu- 
man mind  of  its  illusions,  presump- 
tions, and  fancies.  They  have  em- 
ployed it  in  the  only  direction  in  which 
it  can  act :  they  only  wished  to  mark 
out  and  light  up  the  already  well-trod- 
den ways  of  the  progressive  sciences. 
They  have  not  been  willing  to  spend 
their  labor  vainly  in  other  than  ex- 
plored and  verified  paths  ;  they  have 
aided  in  the  great  modern  work,  the 
discovery  of  applicable  laws;  they 
have  contributed,  as  men  of  special  at- 
tainments do,  to  the  increase  of  man's 
power.  Can  you  find  many  philoso- 
phers who  have  done  as  much  ? 

XI. 

You  will  tell  me  that  our  philoso- 
pher has  clipped  his  wings  in  order  to 
strengthen  his  legs.  Certainly ;  and 
he  has  acted  wisely.  Experience  limits 
the  career  which  it  opens  to  us  ;  it  has 
given  us  our  goal,  but  also  our  boun- 
daries. We  have  only  to  observe  the 
elements  of  which  our  experience  is 


692 


composed,  and  the  facts  from  which  it 
sets  out,  to  understand  that  its  range 
is  limited.  Its  nature  and  its  method 
confine  its  progress  to  a  few  steps. 
And,  in  the  first  place,*  the  ultimate 
laws  of  nature  cannot  be  less  numer 
ous  than  the  several  distinct  species  of 
our  sensations.  We  can  easily  reduce 
a  movement  to  another  movement,  but 
not  the  sensation  of  heat  to  that  of 
smell,  or  of  color,  or  of  sound,  nor 
either  of  these  to  a  movement.  We 
can  easily  connect  together  phenomena 
of  different  degrees,  but  not  phenom- 
ena differing  in  species.  We  find  dis- 
tinct sensations  at  the  bottom  of  all 
our  knowledge,  as  simple  indecompos- 
able elements,  separated  absolutely  one 
from  another,  absolutely  incapable  of 
being  reduced  one  to  another.  Let  ex- 
perience do  what  she  will,  she  cannot 
suppress  these  diversities  which  consti- 
tute her  foundation.  On  the  other  hand, 
experience,  do  what  she  will,  cannot  es- 
cape from  the  conditions  under  which 
she  acts.  Whatever  be  her  province,  it 
is  bounded  by  time  and  space  ;  the  fact 
which  she  observes  is  limited  and  in- 
fluenced by  an  infinite  number  of  other 
facts  to  which  she  cannot  attain.  She 
is  obliged  to  suppose  or  recognize  some 
primordial  condition  from  whence  she 
starts,  and  which  she  does  notexplain.t 
Every  problem  has  its  accidental  or 
arbitrary  data :  we  deduce  the  rest 
from  these,  but  there  is  nothing  from 
which  these  can  be  deduced.  The  sun, 
the  earth,  the  planets,  the  initial  im- 
pulse of  heavenly  bodies,  the  primitive 
chemical  properties  of  substances,  are 
such  data.  J  If  we  possessed  them  all 

*  Mill's  Logic,  ii.  4. 

t  "  There  exists  in  nature  a  number  of  Per- 
manent Causes,  which  have  subsisted  ever  since 
the  human  race  has  been  in  existence,  and  for 
an  indefinite  and  probably  an  enormous  length 
of  time  previous.  The  sun,  the  earth,  and 
planets,  with  their  various  constituents,  air, 
water,  and  the  other  distinguishable  substances, 
whether  simple  or  compound,  of  which  nature 
is  made  up,  are  such  Permanent  Causes.  They 
have  existed,  and  the  effects  or  consequences 
which  they  were  fitted  to  produce  have  taken 
place  (as  often  as  the  other  conditions  of  the 
production  met),  from  the  very  beginning  of  our 
experience.  But  we  can  give  no  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  Permanent  Causes  themselves." — 
MILL'S  Logic,  i.  378. 

t  "  The  resolution  of  the  laws  of  the  heavenly 
motions  established  the  previously  unknown  ul- 
timate property  of  a  mutual  attraction  between 
all  bodies:  the  resolution,  so  far  as  it  has  yet 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


we  could  explain  every  thing  by  them, 
but  we  could  not  explain  these  them- 
selves. Mill  says  : 

"  Why  these  particular  natural  agents  existed 
originally  and  no  others,  or  why  they  are  com- 
mingled in  such  and  such  proportions,  and  dis 
tributed  in  such  and  such  a  manner  throughou* 
space,  is  a  question  we  cannot  answer.  Mort 
than  this  :  we  can  discover  nothing  regular  in 
the  distribution  itself  ;  we  can  reduce  it  to  no 
uniformity,  to  no  law.  There  are  no  means  by 
which,  from  the  distribution  of  these  causes  or 
agents  in  one  part  of  space,  we  could  conjec- 
ture whether  a  similar  distribution  prevails  in 
another."  * 

And  astronomy,  which  just  now  af- 
forded us  the  model  of  a  perfect  science, 
now  affords  us  an  example  of  a  limited 
science.  We  can  predict  the  number- 
less positions  of  all  the  planetary 
bodies  :  but  we  are  obliged  to  assume, 
beside  the  primitive  impulse  and  its 
amount,  not  only  the  force  of  attraction 
and  its  law,  but  also  the  masses  and 
distances  of  all  the  bodies  in  question. 
We  understand  millions  of  facts,  but 
it  is  by  means  of  a  hundred  facts  which 
we  do  not  comprehend  ;  we  arrive  at 
necessary  results, -but  it  is  only  by 
means  of  accidental  antecedents;  so 
that  if  the  theory  of  our  universe  were 
completed  there  would  still  remain  two 
great  voids  :  one  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  physical  world,  the  other 
at  the  beginning  of  the  moral  world  ; 
the  one  comprising  the  elements  of 
being,  the  other  embracing  the  ele- 
ments of  experience ;  one  containing 
primary  sensations,  the  other  primitive 
agents.  "  Our  knowledge,"  says  Roy- 
proceeded,  of  the  laws  of  crystallisation,  or 
chemical  composition,  electricity,  magnetism, 
etc.,  points  to  various  polarities,  ultimately  in- 
herent in  the  particles  of  which  bodies  are  com- 
Eosed  ;  the  comparative  atomic  weights  of  dif- 
irent  kinds  of  bodies  were  ascertained  by  re- 
solving, into  more  general  laws,  the  uniformities 
observed  in  the  proportions  in  which  substances 
combine  with  one  another  ;  and  so  forth.  Thus, 
although  every  resolution  of  a  complex  uni- 
formity into  simpler  and  more  elementary  laws 
has  an  apparent  tendency  to  diminish  the  num- 
ber of  the  ultimate  properties,  and  really  does 
remove  many  properties  from  the  list  ;  yet 
(since  the  result  of  this  simplify  ing  process  is  to 
trace  up  an  ever  greater  variety  of  different  ef- 
fects to  the  same  agents),  the  further  we  ad- 
vance in  this  direction,  the  greater  number  of 
distinct  properties  we  are  forced  to  recognise  in 
one  and  the  same  object  ;  the  co-existences  of 
which  properties  must  accordingly  be  ranked 
among  the  ultimate  generalities  of  nature."— 
MILL'S  Logic,  ii.  108. 
*  Ibid.  i.  378. 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


er-Collard,  "  consists  in  tracing   ignor- 
ance as  far  back  as  possible." 

Can  we  at  least  affirm  that  these  irre- 
ducible data  are  so  only  in  appearance, 
and  in  relation  to  our  mind  ?  Can  we 
say  that  they  have  causes,  like  the  de- 
rived facts  of  which  they  are  the 
causes  ?  Can  we  conclude  that  every 
event,  always  and  everywhere,  happens 
according  to  laws,  and  that  this  little 
world  of  ours,  so  well  regulated,  is  a 
sort  of  epitome  of  the  universe  ?  Can 
we,  by  aid  of  the  axioms,  quit  our 
narrow  confines,  and  affirm  any  thing  of 
the  universe  ?  In  no  wise ;  and  it  is 
here  that  Mill  pushes  his  principles  to 
their  furthest  consequences  :  for  the 
law  which  attributes  a  cause  to  every 
event,  has  to  him  no  other  foundation, 
worth,  or  scope,  than  what  it  derives 
from  experience.  It  has  no  inherent 
necessity  ;  it  draws  its  whole  authority 
from  the  great  number  of  cases  in 
which  we  have  recognized  it  to  be  true ; 
it  only  sums  up  a  mass  of  observations  ; 
it  unites  two  data,  which,  considered 
in  themselves,  have  no  intimate  con- 
nection ;  it  joins  antecedents  generally 
to  consequents  generally,  just  as  the 
law  of  gravitation  joins  a  particular 
antecedent  to  a  particular  consequent ; 
it  determines  a  couple,  as  do  all  experi- 
mental laws,  and  shares  in  their  un- 
certainty and  in  their  restrictions. 
Listen  to  this  bold  assertion : 

"  I  am  convinced  that  anyone  accustomed  to 
abstraction  and  analysis,  who  will  fairly  exert 
his  faculties  for  the  purpose,  will,  when  his 
imagination  has  once  learnt  to  entertain  the 
notion,  find  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  that  in 
some  one,  for  instance,  of  the  many  firmaments 
into  which  sidereal  astronomy  now  divides  the 
universe,  events  may  succeed  one  another  at 
random,  without  any  fixed  law  ;  nor  can  any- 
thing in  our  experience,  or  in  our  mental  nature, 
constitute  a  sufficient,  or  indeed  any,  reason  for. 
believing  that  this  is  nowhere  the  case.  The 
grounds,  therefore,  which  warrant  us  in  reject- 
ing such  a  supposition  with  respect  to  any  of 
Ihe  phenomena  of  which  we  have  experience, 
must  be  sought  elsewhere  than  in  any  supposed 
necessity  of  our  intellectual  faculties."  * 

Prac:ically,  we  may  trust  in  so  well-es- 
tablished a  law;  but 

"  In  distant  parts  of  the  stellar  regions, 
where  the  phenomena  may  be  entirely  unlike 
those  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  it  would  be 
folly  to  affirm  confidently  that  this  general 
law  prevails,  any  more  than  those  special  ones 

*  Mill's  Logic,  ii.  95. 


691| 


which  we  have  found  to  hold  universally  on  our 
own  planet.  The  uniformity  in  the  succession 
of  events,  otherwise  called  the  iawof  causation, 
must  be  received  not  as  a  law  of  the  universe, 
but  of  that  portion  of  it  only  which  is  within 
the  range  of  our  means  of  «ure  observation,  with 
a  reasonable  degree  of  extension  to  adjacent 
cases.  To  extend  it  further  is  to  make  a  sup- 
position without  evidence,  and  to  which,  in  the 
absence  of  any  ground  from  experience  for  es- 
timating its  degree  of  probability,  it  would  i>« 
idle  to  attempt  to  assign  any."  * 

We  are,  then,  irrevocably  driven  back 
from  the  infinite  ;  our  faculties  and 
our  assertions  cannot  attain  to  it ;  we 
remain  confined  in  a  small  circle  ;  our 
mind  reaches  not  beyond  its  experience ; 
we  can  establish  no  universal  and  ne- 
cessary connection  between  facts;  such  a 
connection  probably  does  not  even  exist. 
Mill  stops  here  ;  but  certainly,  by  car- 
rying out  his  idea  to  its  full  extent,  we 
should  arrive  at  the  conception  of  the 
world  as  a  mere  collection  of  facts  ;  no 
internal  necessity  would  induce  their 
connection  or  their  existence  ;  they 
would  be  simple  arbitrary,  accidentally- 
existing  facts.  Sometimes,  as  in  our 
system,  they  would  be  found  assembled 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  give  rise  to  reg- 
ular recurrences ;  sometimes  they  would 
be  so  assembled  that  nothing  of  the 
sort  would  occur.  Chance,  as  Demo- 
critus  taught,  would  be  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all  things.  Laws  would  be  the 
result  of  chance,  and  sometimes  we 
should  find  them,  sometimes  not.  It 
would  be  with  existences  as  with  num- 
bers— decimal  fractions,  for  instance, 
which,  according  to  the  chance  of  their 
two  primitive  factors,  sometimes  recur 
regularly,  and  sometimes  not.  This 
is  certainly  an  original  and  lofty  concep- 
tion. It  is  the  final  consequence  of 
the  primitive  and  dominant  idea,  which 
we  have  discovered  at  the  beginning  of 
the  system,  which  has  transformed  the 
theories  of  Definition,  of  Propositions, 
and  of  the  Syllogism  ;  which  has  re- 
duced axioms  to  experimental  truths  ; 
which  has  developed  and  perfected  the 
theory  of  induction  ;  which  has  estab- 
lished the  goal,  the  limits,  the  province, 
and  the  methods  of  science  ;  which 
everywhere,  in  nature  and  in  science, 
has  suppressed  interior  connections ; 
which  has  replaced  the  necessary  by 
the  accidental  ;  cause  by  antecedent ; 
and  which  consists  in  affirming  that 
*  Ibid.  ii.  104. 


694 


every  assertion  which  is  not  merely 
verbal  forms  in  effect  a  couple,  that  is 
to  say,  joins  together  two  facts  which 
were  separate  by  their  nature. 

§  2. — ABSTRACTION. 

I. 

An  abyss  of  chance  and  an  abyss  of 
ignorance.  The  prospect  is  gloomy  : 
no  matter,  if  it  be  true.  At  all  events, 
this  theory  of  science  is  a  theory  of 
English  science.  Rarely,  I  grant  you, 
has  a  thinker  better  summed  up  in  his 
teaching  the  practice  of  his  country  ; 
seldom  has  a  man  better  represented 
by  his  negations  and  his  discoveries  the 
limits  and  scope  of  his  race.  The  op- 
erations, of  which  he  constructs  science, 
are  those  in  which  the  English  excel  all 
others,and  those  which  he  excludes  from 
science  are  precisely  those  in  which  the 
English  are  deficient  more  than  any  other 
nation.  He  has  described  the  English 
mind  whilst  he  thought  to  describe  the 
human  mind.  That  is  his  glory,  but  it  is 
also  his  weakness.  There  is  in  your 
idea  of  knowledge  a  flaw  of  which  the 
incessant  repetition  ends  by  creating 
the  gulf  of  chance,  from  which,  accord- 
ing to  him,  all  things  arise,  and  the  gulf 
of  ignorance,  at  whose  brink,  according 
to  him,  our  knowledge  ends.  And  see 
what  comes  of  it.  By  cutting  away 
from  science  the  knowledge  of  first 
causes,  that  is,  of  divine  things,  you  re- 
duce men  to  become  skeptical,  positive, 
utilitarian,  if  they  are  are  cool-headed ; 
or  mystical,  enthusiastic,  methodistical, 
if  they  have  lively  imaginations.  In 
tms  huge  unknown  void  which  you 
place  beyond  our  little  world,  passion- 
ate men  and  uneasy  consciences  find 
room  for  all  their  dreams  ;  and  men  of 
cold  judgment,  despairing  of  arriving 
at  any  certain  knowledge,  have  nothing 
left  but  to  sink  down  to  the  search  for 
practical  means  which  may  serve  for 
the  amelioration  of  our  condition.  It 
seems  to  me  that  these  two  dispositions 
are  most  frequently  met  with  in  an 
English  mind.  The  religious  and  the 
positive  spirit  dwell  there  side  by  side, 
but  separate.  This  produces  an  odd 
medley,  and  I  confess  that  I  prefer  the 
way  in  which  the  Germans  have  recon- 
ciled science  with  faith. — But  their 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


philosophy  is  but  badly-written  poetry 
— Perhaps  so. — But  what  they  call  rea- 
son, or  intuition  of  principles,  is  onl} 
the  faculty  of  building  up  hypotheses. 
— Perhaps  so. — But  the  systems  which 
they  have  constructed  have  not  held 
their  ground  before  experience. — I  do 
not  defend  what  they  have  done. — But 
their  absolute,  their  subject,  their  ob- 
ject, and  the  rest,  are  but  big  words. — 
I  do  not  defend  their  style. —  What, 
then,  do  you  defend  ? — Their  idea  of 
Causation. — You  believe  with  them 
that  causes  are  discovered  by  a  revela- 
tion of  the  reason ! — By  no  means. — 
You  believe  with  us  that  our  knowledge 
of  causes  is  based  on  simple  experi- 
ence ? — Still  less. — You  think,  then,  that 
there  is  a  faculty,  other  than  experience 
and  reason,  capable  of  discovering 
causes  ? — Yes. — You  think  there  is  an 
intermediate  course  between  intuition 
and  observation,  capable  of  arriving  at 
principles,  as  it  is  affirmed  that  the 
first  is,  capable  of  arriving  at  truths,  as 
we  find  that  the  second  is  ? — Yes. — • 
What  is  it?  Abstraction.  Let  us  re- 
turn to  your  original  idea ;  I  will  en- 
deavor to  show  in  what  I  think  it  in- 
complete and  how  you  seem  to  me  to 
mutilate  the  human  mind.  But  my  argu- 
ment will  be  the  formal  one  of  an  advo- 
cate, and  requires  to  be  stated  at  length. 

II. 

Your  starting-point  is  good :  man,  in 
fact,  does  not  know  any  thing  of  sub- 
stances ;  he  knows  neither  minds  nor 
bodies  ;  he  perceives  only  transient, 
isolated,  internal  conditions  ;  he  makes 
use  of  these  to  affirm  and  name  ex- 
terior states,  positions,  movements, 
changes,  and  avails  himself  of  them  for 
nothing  else.  He  can  only  attain  to 
facts,  whether  within  or  without,  some- 
times transient,  when  his  impression  is 
not  repeated ;  sometimes  permanent, 
when  his  impression  many  times  re- 
peated, makes  him  suppose  that  it  will 
be  repeated  as  often  as  he  wishes  to 
experience  it.  He  only  grasps  colors, 
sounds,  resistances,  movements,  some- 
times momentary  and  variable,  some- 
times like  one  another,  and  renewed. 
To  group  these  facts  more  advanta- 
geously, he  supposes,  by  an  artifice  of 
language,  qualities  and  properties. 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


695 


We  go  even  further  than  you  :  we  think 
that  there  are  neither  minds  nor  bodies, 
but  simply  groups  of  present  or  possi- 
ble movements  or  thoughts.  We  be- 
lieve that  there  are  no  substances,  but 
only  systems  of  facts.  We  regard  the 
idea  of  substance  as  a  psychological 
illusion.  We  consider  substance,  force, 
and  all  modern  metaphysical  existences, 
as  the  remains  of  scholastic  entities. 
We  think  that  there  exists  nothing  but 
facts  and  laws,  that  is,  events  and  the 
relations  between  them  ;  and  we  recog- 
nize, with  you,  that  all  knowledge  con- 
sists first  of  all  in  connecting  or  adding 
fact  to  fact.  But  when  this  is  done,  a 
new  operation  begins,  the  most  fertile 
of  all,  which  consists  in  reducing  these 
complex  into  simple  facts.  A  splendid 
faculty  appears,  the  source  of  language, 
the  interpreter  of  nature,  the  parent  of 
religions  and  philosophies,  the  only 
genuine  distinction,  which,  according 
to  its  degree,  separates  man  from  the 
brute,  and  great  from  little  men.  I 
mean  Abstraction,  which  is  the  power 
of  isolating  the  elements  of  facts,  and 
of  considering  them  one  by  one.  My 
eyes  follow  the  outline  of  a  square,  and 
abstraction  isolates  its  two  constituent 
properties,  the  equality  of  its  sides  and 
angles.  My  fingers  touch  the  surface 
of  a  cylinder,  and  abstraction  isolates 
its  two  generative  elements,  the  idea  of 
a  rectangle,  and  of  the  revolution  of 
this  rectangle  about  one  of  its  sides  as 
an  axis.  A  hundred  thousand  experi- 
ments develop  for  me,  by  an  infinite 
number  of  details,  the  series  of  physi- 
ological operations  which  constitute 
life  ;  and  abstraction  isolates  the  law 
of  this  series,  which  is  a  round  of  con- 
stant loss  and  continual  reparation. 
Twelve  hundred  pages  teach  me  Mill's 
opinion  on  the  various  facts  of  science, 
and  abstraction  isolates  his  fundamen- 
tal idea,  namely,  that  the  only  fertile 
propositions  are  those  which  connect 
a  fact  with  another  not  contained  in  the 
first.  Everywhere  the  case  is  the  same. 
A  fact,  or  a  series  of  facts,  can  always 
be  resolved  into  its  components.  It  is 
this  resolution  which  forms  our  prob- 
lem, when  we  ask  what  is  the  nature  of 
an  object.  It  is  these  components  we 
look  for  when  we  wish  to  penetrate  into 
the  inner  nature  of  a  being.  These  we 
designate  under  the  names  of  forces, 


causes,  laws,  essences,  prin  itive  prop- 
erties. They  are  not  new  facts  added 
to  the  first,  but  an  essence  or  extract 
from  them  ;  they  are  contained  in  the 
first,  they  have  no  existence  apart  from 
the  facts  themselves.  When  we  dis- 
cover them,  we  do  not  pass  from  one 
fact  to  another,  but  from  one  to  another 
aspect  of  the  same  fact ;  from  the  whole 
to  a  part,  from  the  compound  to  the 
components.  We  only  see  the  same 
thing  under  two  forms  ;  first,  as  a  whole, 
then  as  divided  :  we  only  translate  the 
same  idea  from  one  language  into  an- 
other, from  the  language  of  the  senses 
into  abstract  language,  just  as  we  ex- 
press a  curve  by  an  equation,  or  a  cube 
as  a  function  of  its  side.  It  signifies 
little  whether  this  translation  be  diffi- 
cult or  not ;  or  that  we  generally  need 
the  accumulation  or  comparison  of  a 
vast  number  of  facts  to  arrive  at  it,  and 
whether  our  mind  may  not  often  suc- 
cumb before  accomplishing  it.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  in  this  operation, 
which  is  evidently  fertile,  instead  of 
proceeding  from  one  fact  to  another, 
we  go  from  the  same  to  the  same ;  in- 
stead of  adding  experiment  to  experi- 
ment, we  set  aside  some  portion  of  the 
first ;  instead  of  advancing,  we  pause 
to  examine  the  ground  we  stand  on. 
There  are,  thus,  fruitful  judgments, 
which,  however,  are  not  the  results  of 
experience  :  there  are  essential  propo- 
sitions, which,  however,  are  not  merely 
verbal :  there  is,  thus,  an  operation, 
differing  from  experience,  which  acts 
by  cutting  down  instead  of  by  addition  ; 
which,  instead  of  acquiring,  devotes 
itself  to  acquired  data;  and  which, 
going  farther  than  observation,  open- 
ing a  new  field  to  the  sciences,  defines 
their  nature,  determines  their  progress, 
completes  their  resources,  and  marks 
out  their  end. 

This  is  the  great  omission  of  your 
system.  Abstraction  is  left  in  the 
background,  barely  mentioned,  con- 
cealed by  the  other  operations  of  the 
mind,  treated  as  an  appendage  of  Ex- 
perience ;  we  have  but  to  re-establish 
it  in  the  general  theory,  in  order  to  re- 
form the  particular  theories  in  which 
it  is  absent. 

III. 
To  begin    with   Definitions.     Mill 


696 


teaches  that  there  is  no  definition  of 
things,  and  that  when  you  define  a 
sphere  as  the  solid  generated  by  the 
revolution  of  a  semicircle  about  its 
diameter,  you  only  define  a  name. 
Doubtless  you  tell  me  by  this  the 
meaning  of  a  name,  but  you  also  teach 
me  a  good  deal  more.  You  state  that 
all  the  properties  of  every  sphere  are 
derived  from  this  generating  formula ; 
you  reduce  an  infinitely  complex  sys- 
tem of  facts  to  two  elements ;  you 
transform  sensible  into  abstract  data  ; 
you  express  the  essence  of  the  sphere, 
'  that  is  to  say,  the  inner  and  primordial 
cause  of  all  its  properties.  Such  is  the 
nature  of  every  true  definition ;  it  is 
not  content  with  explaining  a  name, 
it  is  not  a  mere  description;  it  does 
not  simply  indicate  a  distinctive  prop- 
erty; it  does  not  limit  itself  to  that 
ticketing  of  an  object  which  will  cause 
it  to  be  distinguished  from  all  others. 
There  are,  besides  its  definition,  sev- 
eral other  ways  of  causing  the  object 
to  be  recognized ;  there  are  other 
properties  belonging  to  it  exclusively  : 
we  might  describe  a  sphere  by  saying 
that,  of  all  bodies  having  an  equal  sur- 
face, it  occupies  the  most  space  ;  or  in 
many  other  ways.  But  such  descrip- 
tions are  not  definitions  ;  they  lay 
down  a  characteristic  and  derived 
property,  not  a  generating  and  primi- 
tive one ;  they  do  not  reduce  the  thing 
to  its  factors,  and  reconstruct  it  before 
our  eyes ;  they  do  not  show  its  inner 
nature  and  its  irreducible  elements. 
A  definition  is  a  proposition  which 
marks  in  an  object  that  quality  from 
which  its  others  are  derived,  but  which 
is  not  derived  from  others.  Such  a 
proposition  is  not  verbal,  for  it  teaches 
the  quality  of  a  thing.  It  is  not  the 
affirmation  of  an  ordinary  quality,  for 
it  reveals  to  us  the  quality  which  is  the 
source  of  the  rest.  It  is  an  assertion 
of  an  extraordinary  kind,  the  most  fer- 
tile and  valuable  of  all,  which  sums  up 
ei  whole  science,  and  in  which  it  is  the 
aim  of  every  science  to  be  summed  up. 
There  is  a  definition  in  every  science, 
and  one  for  each  object.  We  do  not 
in  every  case  possess  it,  but  we  search 
for  it  everywhere.  We  have  arrived 
at  defining  the  planetary  motion  by  the 
tangential  force  and  attraction  which 
compose  it ;  we  can  already  partially 


MODERN  AU7^HORS. 


[BOOK  V 


define  a  chemical  body  by  the  notion 
of  equivalent,  and  a  living  body  by  the 
notion  of  type.  We  are  striving  to 
transform  every  group  of  phenomena 
into  certain  laws,  forces,  or  abstract 
notions.  We  endeavor  to  attain  in 
every  object  the  generating  elements, 
as  we  do  attain  them  in  the  sphere,  the 
cylinder,  the  circle,  the  cone,  and  in  all 
mathematical  loci.  We  reduce  natural 
bodies  to  two  or  three  kinds  of  movement 
— attraction,  vibration,  polarization—- 
as we  reduce  geometrical  bodies  to  two 
or  three  kinds  of  elements — the  point, 
the  movement,  the  line ;  and  we  con- 
sider our  science  partial  or  complete, 
provisional  or  definite,  according  as 
this  reduction  is  approximate  or  abso- 
lute, imperfect  or  complete. 

IV. 

The  same  alteration  is  required  in 
the  Theory  of  Proof.  According  to 
Mill,  we  do  not  prove  that  Prince  Al- 
bert will  die  by  premising  that  all  men 
are  mortal,  for  that  would  be  asserting 
the  same  thing  twice  over ;  but  from 
the  facts  that  John,  Peter,  and  others, 
in  short,  all  men  of  whom  we  have 
ever  heard,  have  died. — I  reply  that 
the  real  source  of  our  inference  lies 
neither  in  the  mortality  of  John,  Peter, 
and  company,  nor  in  the  mortality  of 
all  men,  but  elsewhere.  We  prove  a 
fact,  says  Aristotle,*  by  showing  its 
cause.  We  shall  therefore  prove  the 
mortality  of  Prince  Albert  by  showing 
the  cause  which  produces  his  death. 
And  why  will  he  die  ?  Because  the  hu- 
man body,  being  an  unstable  chemical 
compound,  must  in  time  be  resolved  ; 
in  other  words,  because  mortality  is 
added  to  the  quality  of  man.  Here 
is  the  cause  and  the  proof.  It  is  this 
abstract  law  which,  present  in  nature, 
will  cause  the  death  of  the  prince,  and 
which,  being  present  to  my  mind,  shows 
me  that  he  will  die.  It  is  this  abstract 
proposition  which  is  demonstrative  ; 
it  is  neither  the  particular  nor  the  gen- 
eral propositions.  In  fact,  the  abstract 
proposition  proves  the  others.  If  John, 
Peter,  and  others  are  dead,  it  is  because 
mortality  is  added  to  the  quality  of  man. 
If  all  men  are  dead,  or  will  die,  it  is 
still  because  mortality  is  added  to  the 
*  See  the  Posterior  Analytics,  which  are  much 
superior  to  the  Prior — Si  airioiv  Kal  irpoTepiav. 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


quality  of  man.  Here,  again,  the  part 
played  by  Abstraction  has  been  over- 
looked. Mill  has  confounded  it  with 
Experience  :  he  has  not  distinguished 
the  proof  from  the  materials  of  the 
proof,  the  abstract  law  from  the  finite 
or  indefinite  number  of  its  applications. 
The  applications  contain  the  law,  and 
the  proof,  but  are  themselves  nei- 
ther law  nor  proof.  The  examples  of 
Peter,  John,  and  others,  contain  the 
cause,  but  they  are  not  the  cause. 
It  is  not  sufficient  to  add  up  the 
cases,  we  must  extract  from  them 
the  law.  It  is  not  enough  to  experi- 
mentalize, we  must  abstract.  This  is 
the  great  scientific  operation.  Syllo- 
gism does  not  proceed  from  the  par- 
ticular to  the  particular,  as  Mill  says, 
nor  from  the  general  to  the  particular, 
as  the  ordinary  logicians  teach,  but 
from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete ;  that 
is  to  say,  from  cause  to  effect.  It  is 
on  this  ground  that  it  forms  part  of 
science,  the  links  of  which  it  makes 
and  marks  out ;  it  connects  principles 
with  effects  ;  it  brings  together  defini- 
tions and  phenomena.  It  diffuses 
through  the  whole  range  of  science 
that  Abstraction  which  definition  has 
carried  to  its  summit. 

V. 

Abstraction  explains  also  axioms. 
According  to  Mill,  if  we  know  that 
when  equal  magnitudes  are  added  to 
equal  magnitudes  the  wholes  are  equal, 
or  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  en- 
close a  space,  it  is  by  external  ocular  ex- 
periment, or  by  an  internal  experiment 
by  the  aid  of  imagination.  Doubtless  we 
may  thus  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that 
two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a 
space,  but  we  might  recognize  it  also 
in  another  manner.  We  might  repre- 
sent a  straight  line  in  imagination,  and 
we  may  also  form  a  conception  of  it  by 
reason.  We  may  either  study  its  form 
or  its  definition.  We  can  observe  it 
in  itself,  or  in  its  generating  elements. 
I  can  represent  to  myself  a  line  ready 
drawn,  but  I  can  also  resolve  it  into 
its  e  ements.  I  can  go  back  to  its  for- 
mation, and  discover  the  abstract  ele- 
ments which  produce  it,  as  I  have 
watched  the  formation  of  the  cylinder 
and  discover  the  revolution  of  the  rec- 


697 


tangle  which  generated  it.  It  will  not 
do  to  say  that  a  straight  line  is  the 
shortest  from  one  point  to  another, 
for  that  is  a  derived  property;  but  I 
may  say  that  it  is  the  line  described  by 
a  point^  tending  to  approach  towards 
another  point,  and  towards  that  point 
only :  which  amounts  to  saying  that  two 
points  suffice  to  determine  a  straight 
line  ;  in  other  words,  that  two  straight 
lines,  having  two  points  in  com- 
mon, coincide  in  their  entire  length; 
from  which  we  see  that  if  two  straight 
lines  approach  to  enclose  a  space,  they 
would  form  but  one  straight  line,  and 
enclose  nothing  at  all.  Here  is  a  second 
method  of  arriving  at  a  knowledge  of 
the  axiom,  and  it  is  clear  that  it  differs 
much  from  the  first.  In  the  first  we 
verify  ;  in  the  second  we  deduce  it.  In 
the  first  we  find  by  experience  that  it 
is  true  ;  in  the  second  we  prove  it  to 
be  true.  In  the  first  we  admit  the 
truth  ;  in  the  second  we  explain  it.  In 
the  first  we  merely  remark  that  the  con- 
trary of  the  axiom  is  inconceivable  ;  in 
the  second  we  discover  in  addition  that 
the  contrary  of  the  axiom  is  contradic- 
tory. Having  given  the  definition  of 
the  straight  line,  we  find  that  the  axiom 
that  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a 
space  is  comprised  in  it,  and  may  be 
derived  from  it,  as  a  consequent  from  a 
principle.  In  fact,  it  is  nothing  more 
than  an  identical  proposition,  which 
means  that  the  subject  contains  its 
attribute  ;  it  does  not  connect  two  sep- 
arate terms,  irreducible  one  to  the 
other ;  it  unites  two  terms,  of  which 
the  second  is  a  part  of  the  first.  It 
is  a  simple  analysis,  and  so  are  all 
axioms.  We  have  only  to  decompose 
them,  in  order  to  see  that  they  do  not 
proceed  from  one  object  to  a  differ- 
ent one,  but  are  concerned  with  one 
object  only.  We  have  but  to  re- 
solve the  notions  of  equality,  cause, 
substance,  time,  and  space  into  their 
abstracts,  in  order  to  demonstrate  the 
axioms  of  equality,  substance,  cause, 
time,  and  space.  There  is  but  one 
axiom,  that  of  identity.  The  others 
are  only  its  applications  or  its  conse- 
quences. When  this  is  admitted,  we 
at  once  see  that  the  range  of  our  mind 
is  altered.  We  are  no  longer  merely 
capable  of  relative  and  limited  knowl- 
edge, but  also  of  absolute  and  infinite 
30 


698 


knowledge  ;  we  posses  in  axioms  facts 
which  not  only  accompany  one  another, 
but  one  of  which  includes  the  other.  If, 
as  Mill  says,  they  merely  accompanied 
one  another,  we  should  be  obliged  to 
conclude  with  him,  that  perhaps  this 
might  not  always  be  the  case.  We 
should  not  see  the  inner  necessity  for 
their  connection,  and  should  only  admit 
it  as  far  as  our  experience  went ;  we 
should  say  that,  the  two  facts  being 
isolated  in  their  nature,  circumstances 
might  arise  in  which  they  would  be 
separate  ;  we  should  affirm  the  truth 
of  axioms  only  in  reference  to  our 
world  and  mind.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
the  two  facts  are  such  that  the  first 
contains  the  second,  we  should  estab- 
lish on  this  very  ground  the  necessity 
of  their  connection ;  wheresoever  the 
first  may  be  found,  it  will  carry  the 
second  with  it,  since  the  second  is  a 
part  of  it,  and  cannot  be  separated 
from  it.  Nothing  can  exist  between 
them  and  divide  them,  for  they  are  but 
one  thing  under  different  aspects. 
Their  connection  is  therefore  absolute 
and  universal;  and  we  possess  truths 
which  admit  neither  doubt  nor  limita- 
tion, nor  condition,  nor  restriction.  Ab- 
straction restores  to  axioms  their  value, 
whilst  it  shows  their  origin  ;  and  we 
restore  to  science  her  dispossessed 
dominion,  by  restoring  to  the  mind  the 
faculty  of  which  it  had  been  deprived. 

VI. 

Induction  remains  to  be  considered, 
which  seems  to  be  the  triumph  of  pure 
experience,  while  it  is,  in  reality,  the 
triumph  of  abstraction.  When  I  dis- 
cover by  induction  that  cold  produces 
dew,  or  that  the  passage  from  the  li- 
quid 1 3  the.  solid  state  produces  crys- 
talliza;ion,  I  establish  a  connection  be- 
tween two  abstract  facts.  Neither 
r:l<l,  nor  dew,  nor  the  passage  from 
tne  liquid  to  the  solid  state,  nor  crys- 
tallization, exist  in  themselves.  They 
are  parts  of  phenomena,  extracts  from 
complex  cases,  simple  elements  in- 
cluded in  compound  aggregates.  I 
withdraw  and  isolate  them ;  I  isolate 
dew  in  general  from  all  local,  tempo- 
rary, special  dews  which  I  observe  ;  I 
isolate  cold  in  general  from  all  special, 
various,  distinct  colds  which  may  be 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


produced  by  all  varieties  of  texture,  all 
diversities  of  substance,  all  inequalities 
of  temperature,  all  c  miplications  of 
circumstances.  I  join  an  abstract  an- 
tecedent to  an  abstract  consequent,  and 
I  connect  them,  as  Mill  himself  shows, 
by  subtractions,  suppressions,  elimina- 
tions; I  expel  from  the  two  groups, 
containing  them,  all  the  proximate  cir- 
cumstances ;  I  discover  the  couple  un- 
der the  surroundings  which  obscure  it; 
I  detach,  by  a  series  of  comparisons 
and  experiments,  all  the  subsidiary 
accidental  circumstances  which  have 
clung  to  it,  and  thus  I  end  by  laying  it 
bare.  I  seem  to  be  considering  twenty 
different  cases,  and  in  reality  I  only 
consider  one  ;  I  appear  to  proceed  by 
addition,  and  in  fact  I  am  performing 
subtraction.  All  the  methods  of  In- 
duction, therefore,  are  methods  of  Ab- 
straction, and  all  the  work  of  Induction 
is  the  connection  of  abstract  facts. 

VII. 

We  see  now  the  two  great  moving 
powers  of  science,  and  the  two  great 
manifestations  of  nature.  There  are 
two  operations,  experience  and  abstrac- 
tion ;  there  are  two  kingdoms,  that  of 
complex  facts  and  that  of  simple  ele- 
ments. The  first  is  the  effect,  the 
second  the  cause.  The  first  is  con- 
tained in  the  second,  and  is  deduced 
from  it,  as  a  consequent  from  its  prin- 
ciple. The  two  are  equivalent,  they 
are  one  and  the  same  thing  considered 
under  two  aspects.  This  magnificent 
moving  universe,  this  tumultuous  chaos 
of  mutually  dependent  events,  this  in- 
cessant life,  infinitely  varied  and  multi- 
plied, may  be  all  reduced  to  a  few 
elements  and  their  relations.  Our 
whole  efforts  result  in  passing  from  one 
to  the  other,  from  the  complex  to  the 
simple,  from  facts  to  laws,  from  expe- 
riences to  formulae.  And  the  reason 
of  this  is  evident;  for  this  fact  which  I 
perceive  by  the  senses  or  the  conscious- 
ness is  but  a  fragment  arbitrarily 
severed  by  my  senses  or  my  conscious- 
ness from  the  infinite  and  continuous 
woof  of  existence.  If  they  were  differ- 
ently constituted,  they  would  intercept 
other  fragments;  it  is  the  chance  of 
their  structure  which  determines  what 
is  actually  perceived.  They  are  like 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUART  MILL. 


open  compasses,  which  might  be  more 
or  less  extended ;  and  the  area  of  the 
circle  which  they  describe  is  not 
natural,  but  artificial.  It  is  so  in  two 
ways,  both  externally  and  internally. 
For,  when  I  consider  an  event,  I  isolate 
it  artificially  from  its  natural  surround- 
ings, and  I  compose  it  artificially  of 
elements  which  do  not  form  a  natural 
group.  When  I  see  a  falling  stone,  I 
separate  the  fall  from  the  anterior  cir- 
cumstances which  are  really  connected 
with  it ;  and  I  put  together  the  fall,  the 
form,  the  structure,  the  color,  the 
sound,  and  twenty  other  circumstances 
which  are  really  not  connected  with  it. 
A  fact,  then,  is  an  arbitrary  aggregate, 
and  at  the  same  time  an  arbitrary 
severing ;  *  that  is  to  say,  a  factitious 
group,  which  separates  things  con- 
nected, and  connects  things  that  are 
separate.  Thus,  so  long  as  we  only  re- 
gard nature  by  observation,  we  do  not 
see  it  as  it  is :  we  have  only  a  pro- 
visional and  illusory  idea  of  it.  Na- 
ture is,  in  reality,  a  tapestry,  of  which 
we  only  see  the  reverse  ;  this  is  why  we 
try  to  turn  it.  We  strive  to  discover 
laws  ;  that  is,  the  natural  groups  which 
are  really  distinct  from  their  surround- 
ings, and  composed  of  elements  really 
connected.  We  discover  couples  ;  that 
is  to  say,  real  compounds  and  real  con- 
nections. We  pass  from  the  accidental 
to  the  necessary,  from  the  relative  to 
the  absolute,  from  the  appearance  to 
the  reality ;  and  having  found  these 
first  couples,  we  practise  upon  them 
the  same  operation  as  we  did  upon 
facts,  for,  though  in  a  less  degree,  they 
are  of  the  same  nature.  Though 
more  abstract,  they  are  still  complex. 
They  may  be  decomposed  and  ex- 
plained. There  is  some  ulterior  reason 
for  their  existence.  There  is  some 
cause  or  other  which  constructs  and 
unites  them.  In  their  case,  as  well  as 
for  facts,  we  can  search  for  generating 
elements  into  which  they  may  be  re- 
iolved,  and  from  which  they  may  be  de- 
duced. And  this  operation  may  be 
continued  until  we  have  arrived  at  ele- 
ments wholly  simple  ;  that  is  to  say, 
such  that  their  decomposition  would 
involve  a  contradiction.  Whether  we 
can  find  them  or  not,  they  exist ;  the 

*  An  eminent  student  of  physical  science  said 
to  me  :  "  A  fact  is  a  superposition  of  laws." 


699 


axiom  or  causation  would  be  falsified  if 
they  were  absent.  There  are,  then,  in- 
decomposable elements,  from  whicr 
are  derived  more  general  laws  ;  and 
from  these,  again,  more  special  laws  ; 
and  from  these  the  facts  which  we  ob- 
serve ;  just  as  in  geometry  there  are 
two  or  three  primitive  notions,  from 
which  are  deduced  the  properties  of 
lines,  and  from  these  the  properties  of 
surfaces,  solids,  and  the  numberless 
forms  which  nature  can  produce  or  the 
mind  imagine.  We  can  now  compre- 
hend the  value  and  meaning  of  that 
axiom  of  causation  which  governs  all 
things,  and  which  Mill  has  mutilated. 
There  is  an  inner  constraining  force 
which  gives  rise  to  every  event,  which 
unites  every  compound,  which  en- 

fenders  every  actual  fact.  This  signi- 
es.  on  the  one  hand,  that  there  is  a 
reason  for  every  thing  ;  that  every  fact 
has  its  law  ;  that  every  compound  can 
be  reduced  to  simple  elements  ;  that 
every  product  implies  factors;  that 
every  quality  and  every  being  must  be 
reducible  from  some  superior  and  an- 
terior term.  And  it  signifies,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  the  product  is  equiva- 
lent to  the  factors,  that  both  are  but  the 
same  thing  under  different  aspects; 
that  the  cause  does  not  differ  in  nature 
from  the  effect ;  that  the  generating 
powrers  are  but  elementary  properties  ; 
that  the  active  force  by  which  we  repre- 
sent Nature  to  our  minds  is  but  the 
logical  necessity  which  mutually  trans- 
forms the  compound  and  the  simple, 
the  fact  and  the  law.  Thus  we  de- 
termine beforehand  the  limits  of  every 
science ;  and  we  possess  the  potent 
formula,  which,  establishing  the  invin- 
cible connection  and  the  spontaneous 
production  of  exigencies,  places  in  Na- 
ture the  moving  spring  of  Nature,  whilst 
it  drives  home  and  fixes  in  the  heart  of 
every  living  thing  the  iron  fangs  of  ne 
cessity. 

VIII. 

Can  we  arrive  at  a  knowledge  o£ 
these  primary  elements  ?  Foi  my  part, 
I  think  we  can;  and  the  reason  is,  that, 
being  abstractions,  they  are  not  beyond 
the  region  of  facts,  but  are  comprised 
in  them,  so  that  we  have  only  to  ex- 
tract them  from  the  facts.  Besides, 
being  the  most  abstract,  that  is,  the 


700 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


most  general  of  all  things,  there  are 
no  facts  which  do  not  comprise  them, 
and  from  which  we  cannot  extract 
them.  However  limited  our  experience 
may  be,  we  can  arrive  at  these  primary 
notions  ;  and  it  is  from  this  observation 
that  the  modern  German  metaphy- 
sicians have  started  in  attempting  their 
vast  constrictions.  They  understood 
that  there  are  simple  notions,  that  is  to 
say,  indecomposable  abstract  facts, 
that  the  combinations  of  these  engender 
all  others,  and  that  the  laws  for  their 
mutual  union  or  contrarieties,  are  the 
primary  laws  of  the  universe.  They 
tried  to  attain  to  these  ideas,  and  to 
evolve  by  pure  reason  the  world  as  ob- 
servation shows  it  to  us.  They  have 
partly  failed  ;  and  their  gigantic  edifice, 
factitious  and  fragile,  hangs  in  ruins, 
reminding  one  of  those  temporary 
scaffoldings  which  only  serve  to  mark 
out  the  plan  of  a  future  building.  The 
reason  is,  that  with  a  high  notion  of  our 
powers,  they  had  no  exact  view  of  their 
limits.  For  we  are  outflanked  on  all 
sides  by  the  infinity  of  time  and  space  ; 
we  find  ourselves  thrown  in  the  midst 
of  this  monstrous  universe  like  a  shell 
on  the  beach,  or  an  ant  at  the  foot  of  a 
steep  slope.  Here  Mill  is  right. 
Chance  is  at  the  end  of  all  our  knowl- 
edge, as  on  the  threshold  of  all  our 
postulates  :  we  vainly  try  to  rise,  and 
that  by  conjecture,  to  an  initial  state  ; 
but  this  state  depends  on  the  preceding 
one,  which  depends  on  another,  and  so 
on ;  and  thus  we  are  forced  to  accept  it 
as  a  pure  postulate,  and  to  give  up  the 
hope  of  deducing  it,  though  we  know 
that  it  ought  to  be  deduced.  It  is  so  in 
all  sciences,  in  geology,  natural  history, 
physics,  chemistry,  psychology,  history; 
and  the  primitive  accidental  fact  ex- 
tends its  effects  into  all  parts  of  the 
sphere  in  which  it  is  compri  >ed.  If  it 
had  been  otherwise,  we  shjuld  have 
neither  the  same  planets,  nor  the  same 
chemical  compounds,  nor  the  same 
vegetables,  nor  the  same  animals,  nor 
the  same  races  of  men,  nor,  perhaps, 
any  of  these  kinds  of  beings.  If  an  ant 
were  taken  into  another  country,it  would 
see  neither  the  same  trees,  nor  insects, 
nor  dispositions  of  the  soil,  nor  changes 
of  the  atmosphere,  nor  perhaps  any  of 
these  forms  of  existence.  There  is, 
then,  in  every  fact  and  in  every  object, 


an  accidental  and  local  part,  a  vast 
portion,  which,  like  the  rest,  depends 
on  primitive  laws,  but  not  directly,  only 
through  an  infinite  circuit  of  conse- 
quences, in  such  a  way  that  between  it 
and  the  primitive  laws  there  is  an  in- 
finite hiatus,  which  can  only  be  bridged 
over  by  an  infinite  series  of  deductions. 

Such  is  the  inexplicable  part  of 
phenomena,  and  th.'s  is  what  the  Ger- 
man metaphysicians  tried  to  explain. 
They  wished  to  deduce  from  their  ele- 
mentary theorems  the  form  of  the 
planetary  system,  the  various  laws  of 
physics  and  chemistry,  the  main  types 
of  life,  the  progress  of  human  civiliza- 
tions and  thought.  They  contorted 
their  universal  formulas  with  the  view 
of  deriving  from  them  particular  cases  , 
they  took  indirect  and  remote  conse- 
quences as  direct  and  proximate  ones  ; 
they  omitted  or  suppressed  the  great 
work  which  is  interposed  between  the 
first  laws  and  the  final  consequences ; 
they  discarded  Chance  from  their  con- 
struction, as  a  basis  unworthy  of 
science;  and  the  void  so  left,  badly 
filled  up  by  deceptive  materials,  caused 
the  whole  edifice  to  fall  to  ruins. 

Does  this  amount  to  saying,  that  in 
the  facts  with  which  this  little  corner 
of  the  universe  furnishes  us,  every 
thing  is  local  ?  By  no  means.  If  an 
ant  were  capable  of  making  experi- 
ments, it  might  attain  to  the  idea  of  a 
physical  law,  a  living  form,  a  repre- 
sentative sensation,  an  abstract  thought; 
for  a  foot  of  ground,  on  which  there  is 
a  thinking  brain,  includes  all  these. 
Therefore,  however  limited  be  the  field 
of  the  mind,  it  contains  general  facts ; 
that  is,  facts  spread  over  very  vast  ex- 
ternal territories,  into  which  its  limita- 
tion prevents  it  from  penetrating.  If 
the  ant  were  capable  of  reasoning,  it 
might  construct  arithmetic,  algebra, 
geometry,  mechanics  ;  for  a  movement 
of  half  an  inch  contains  in  the  abstract, 
time,  space,  number,  and  force,  all  the 
materials  of  mathematics :  therefore, 
however  limited  the  field  of  a  mind's 
researches  be,  it  includes  universal 
data ;  that  is,  facts  spread  over  the 
whole  region  of  time  and  space. 
Again,  if  the  ant  were  a  philosopher,  it 
might  evolve  the  ideas  of  existence,  of 
nothingness,  and  all  the  materials  of 
metaphysics ;  for  any  phenomenon, 


CHAP.  V.] 


PHILOSOPHY— STUAR  T  MILL. 


701 


terior  or  exterior,  suffices   to  present 
these    materials :    therefore,    however 
limited  the  field  of  a  mind  be,  it  con- 
tains absolute  truths  ;  that  is,  such  that 
there    is   no    object   from   which   they 
could    be    absent.       And     this    must 
necessarily  be  so ;  for  the  more  general 
a  fact  is,  the  fewer  objects  need  we  ex- 
amine to  meet  with  it.  If  it  is  universal, 
we  meet  with  it  everywhere  ;  if  it  is  ab- 
solute,  we  cannot   escape   meeting   it. 
This  is  why,  in  spite  of  the  narrowness 
of  our  experience,  metaphysics,  I  mean 
the  search  for  first  causes,  is  possible, 
but   on  condition  that  we  remain  at  a 
great   height,  that  we  do  not  descend 
into  details,  that  we  consider  only  the 
most  simple  elements  of  existence,  and 
the  most  general  tendencies  of  nature. 
If  any  one  were  to  collect  the  three  or 
four  great  ideas  in  which  our  sciences 
result,  and  the  three  or  four  kinds  of 
existence  which  make  up  our  universe  ; 
if  he  were  to  compare  those  two  strange 
quantities  which  we  call  duration  and 
extension,  those  principle  forms  or  de- 
terminations of  quantity  which  we   call 
physical     laws,    chemical    types,    and 
living    species,    and    that    marvellous 
representative  power,  the  Mind,  which, 
without    falling   into   quantity,    repro- 
duces the  other  two  and  itself ;  if  he 
discovered  among  these  three  terms — 
the     pure    quantity,    the    determined 
quantity,  and  the  suppressed  quantity  * 
— such  an  order  that  the  first  must  re- 
quire the  second,  and  the  second   the 
third ;  if  he   thus  established  that  the 
pure   quantity   is   the   necessary   com- 
mencement    of     Nature,     and     that 
Thought  is  the  extreme  term  at  which 
Nature  is  wholly  suspended  ;  if,  again, 
isolating  the  elements  of  these  data,  he 
showed   that  they   must  be  combined 
just  as   they  are   combined,   and   not 
otherwise :    If    he   proved,    moreover, 
that  there  are  no  other  elements,  and 
that  there  can  be  no  other,  he  would 
have  sketched  out  a  system   of  meta- 
physics without    encroaching    on    the 
positive  sciences,  and  have  attained  the 
source  without  being  obliged  to  descend 
to  trace  the  various  streams. 

In    my    opinion,    these    two    great 

operations,   Experience,  as   you    have 

described  it,  and  Abstraction,  as  I  have 

tried  to   define   it,  comprise  in  them- 

*  Die  aufgehobene  Quantitat. 


selves  all  the  resources  of  ';he  human 
mind,  the  one  in  its  practical,  the 
other  in  its  speculative  direction.  The 
first  leads  us  to  consider  nature  as  an 
assemblage  of  facts,  the  second  as  a 
system  of  laws  :  the  exclusive  employ- 
ment of  the  first  is  English  5  that  of  the 
second,  German.  If  there  is  a  place 
between  these  two  nations,  it  is  curs 
We  have  extended  the  English  ideas  in 
the  eighteenth  century;  and  now  we 
can,  in  the  nineteenth,  add  precision  to 
German  ideas.  Our  business  is  to  re- 
strain, to  correct,  to  complete  the  two 
types  of  mind,  one  by  the  other,  to 
combine  them  together,  to  express 
their  ideas  in  a  style  generally  under- 
stood, and  thus  to  produce  from  them 
the  universal  mind. 

IX. 

We  went  out.  As  it  ever  happens  in 
similar  circumstances,  each  had  caused 
the  other  to  reflect,  and  neither  had 
convinced  the  other.  But  our  reflec- 
tions were  short :  in  the  presence  of  a 
lovely  August  morning,  all  arguments 
fall  to  the  ground.  The  old  walls,  the 
rain-worn  stones,  smiled  in  the  rising 
sun.  A  fresh  light  rested  on  their  em- 
brasures, on  the  keystones  of  the 
cloisters,  on  the  glossy  ivy  leaves. 
Roses  and  honeysuckles  climbed  the 
walls,  and  their  flowers  quivered  and 
sparkled  in  the  light  breeze.  The 
fountains  murmured  in  the  vast  lonely 
courts.  The  beautiful  town  stood  out 
from  the  morning's  mist,  as  adorned 
and  tranquil  as  a  fairy  palace,  and  its 
robe  of  soft  rosy  vapor  was  indented, 
as  an  embroidery  of  the  Renaissance, 
by  a  border  of  towers,  cloisters,  and 
palaces,  each  enclosed  in  verdure  and 
decked  with  flowers.  The  archite  ture 
of  all  ages  had  mingled  their  ar  hes, 
trefoils,  statues,  and  columns ;  rime 
had  softened  their  tints  ;  the  sun  united 
them  in  its  light,  and  the  old  city 
seemed  a  shrine  to  which  every  age  and 
every  genius  had  successively  added  a 
jewel.  Beyond  this,  the  river  rolled  its 
broad  sheets  of  silver :  the  mowers 
stood  up  to  the  knee  in  the  high  grass 
of  the  meadows.  Myriads  of  buttercups 
and  meadow-sweets;  grasses,  bending 
under  the  weight  of  their  gray  heads, 
plants  sated  with  the  dew  of  the  night, 


702 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


swarmed  in  the  rich  soil.  Words  can- 
not express  this  freshness  of  tints,  this 
luxuriance  of  vegetation.  The  more 
the  long  line  of  shade  receded,  the 
more  brilliant,  and  full  of  life  the 
flowers  appeared.  On  seeing  them, 
virgin  and  £imid  in  their  gilded  veil,  I 
thought  of  the  blushing  cheeks  and  fine 
modest  eyes  of  a  young  girl  who  puts 
on  for  the  first  time  her  necklace  of 
jewels.  Around,  as  though  to  guard 
them,  enormous  trees,  four  centuries 
old,  extended  in  regular  lines  ;  and  I 
found  in  them  a  new  trace  of  that 
practical  good  sense  which  has  effected 
revolutions  without  committing  rav- 
ages ;  which,  while  reforming  in  all 
directions,  has  destroyed  nothing ; 
which  has  preserved  both  its  trees  and 
its  constitution,  which  has  lopped  off 
the  dead  branches  without  levelling  the 
trunk  ;  which  alone,  in  our  days,  among 
all  nations,  is  in  the  enjoyment  not  only 
of  the  present,  but  of  the  past. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


I. 

WHEN  Tennyson  published  his  first 
poems,  the  critics  found  fault  with 
them.  He  held  his  peace  ;  for  ten 
years  no  one  saw  his  name  in  a  review, 
nor  even  in  a  publisher's  catalogue.  But 
when  he  appeared  again  before  the 
public,  his  books  had  made  their  way 
alone  and  under  the  surface,  and  he 
passed  at  once  for  the  greatest  poet  of 
his  country  and  his  time. 

Men  were  surprised,  and  with  a  pleas- 
ing surprise.  The  potent  generation  of 
poets  who  had  just  died  out,  had  pass- 
ed like  a  whirlwind.  Like  their  fore- 
runners of  the  sixteenth  century,  they 
had  carried  away  and  hurried  every 
thing  to  its  extreme.  Some  had  cull- 
ed gigantic  legends,  piled  up  dreams, 
ransacked  the  East,  Greece,  Arabia, 
the  middle  ages,  and  overloaded  the 
human  imagination  with  hues  and 
fancies  from  every  clime.  Others  had 
buried  themselves  in  metaphysics  and 
moral  philosophy,  had  mused  indefa- 
tigably  on  the  condition  of  man,  and 


spent  their  lives  on  the  sublime  and 
the  monotonous.  Others,  making  a 
medley  of  crime  and  heroism,  had  con- 
ducted, through  darkness  and  flashes 
of  lightning,  a  train  of  contorted  and 
terrible  figures,  desperate  with  re- 
morse, relieved  by  their  grandeur. 
Men  wanted  to  rest  after  so  many 
efforts  and  so  much  excess.  On  the 
going  out  of  the  imaginative,  sentimen- 
tal and  Satanic  school,  Tennyson  ap- 
peared exquisite.  All  the  forms  and 
ideas  which  had  pleased  them  were 
found  in  him,  but  purified,  modulated, 
set  in  a  splendid  style.  He  completed 
an  age  ;  he  enjoyed  that  which  had 
agitated  others ;  his  poetry  was  like 
the  lovely  evenings  in  summer :  the 
outlines  of  the  landscape  are  then  the 
same  as  in  the  daytime  ;  but  the  splen- 
dor of  the  dazzling  celestial  arch  is 
dulled  ;  the  re-invigorated  flowers  lift 
themselves  up,  and  the  calm,  sun  on 
the  horixon,  harmoniously  cast  a  net- 
work of  crimson  rays  over  the  woods 
and  meadows  which  it  just  before 
burned  by  its  brightness. 

II. 

What  first  attracted  people  were 
Tennyson's  portraits  of  women.  Ade- 
line, Eleanore,  Lilian,  the  May  Queen, 
were  keepsake  characters,  from,  the 
hand  of  a  lover  and  an  artist.  The 
keepsake  is  gilt-edged,  embossed  with 
flowers  and  decorations,  richly  got  up, 
soft,  full  of  delicate  faces,  always  ele- 
gant and  always  correct,  which  we 
might  take  to  be  sketched  at  random, 
and  which  are  yet  drawn  carefully,  on 
white  vellum,  slightly  touched  by  their 
outline,  all  selected  to  rest  and  occupy 
the  soft,  white  hands  of  a  young  bride 
or  a  girl.  I  have  translated  many 
ideas  and  many  styles,  but  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  translate  one  of  these  por- 
traits. Each  word  of  them  is  like  a 
tint,  curiously  deepened  or  shaded  by 
the  neighboring  tint,  with  all  he  bold- 
ness and  results  of  the  happiest  refine- 
ment. The  least  alteration  would  ob- 
scure all.  And  there  an  art  so  just,  so 
consummate,  isneccessary  to  paint  the 
charming  prettinesses,  the  sudden  haut- 
eurs, the  half  blushes,  the  imperceptible 
and  fleeting  caprices  of  feminine  beauty. 
He  opposes,  harmonizes  them,  make: 


CHAP.  VI.] 


POE  TR  Y—  TENNYSON-. 


of  them,  as  it  were,  a  gallery.  Here  is 
the  frolicsome  child,  the  little  fluttering 
fairy,  who  claps  her  tiny  hands,  who, 

(<  So  innocent-arch,  so  cunning-simple, 
From  beneath  hergather'd  wimple 
Glancing  with  black-beaded  eyes, 
Till  the  lightning  laughters  dimple 
The  baby-roses  in  her  cheeks  ; 
Then  away  she  flies."  * 

Then  the  pensive  fair,  who  dreams, 
with  large  open  blue  eyes : 

"  Whence  that  aery  bloom  of  thine, 
Like  a  lily  which  the  sun 
Looks  thro'  in  his  sad  decline, 
And  a  rose-bush  leans  upon, 
Thou  that  faintly  smilest  still, 
As  a  Naiad  in  a  well, 
Looking  at  the  set  of  day."  t 

Anew  "  the  ever  varying  Madeline,  now 
smiling,  then  frowning,  then  joyful 
again,  then  angry,  then  uncertain  be- 
tween the  two  : 

"  Frowns  perfect-sweet  along  the  brow 
Light-glooming  over  eyes  divine, 
Like  little  clouds  sun-fringed."  % 

The  poet  returned  well  pleased  to  all 
things,  refined  and  exquisite.  He  ca- 
ressed them  so  carefully,  that  his  verses 
appeared  at  times  far-fetched,  affected, 
almost  euphuistic.  He  gave  them  too 
much  adornment  and  polishing  ;  he 
seemed  like  an  epicurean  in  style  as 
well  as  in  beauty.  He  looked  for 
pretty  rustic  scenes,  touching  remem- 
brances, curious  or  pure  sentiments. 
He  made  them  into  elegies,  pastorals, 
and  idyls.  He  wrote  in  every  accent, 
and  delighted  in  entering  into  the  feel- 
ings of  all  ages.  He  wrote  of  St. 
Agnes,  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  Ulysses, 
GEnone,  Sir  Galahad,  Lady  Clare, 
Fatima,  the  Sleeping  Beauty.  He 
imitated  alternately  Homer  and  Chau- 
cer, Theocritus  and  Spenser,  the  old 
English  poets  and  the  old  Arabian 
poets.  He  gave  life  successively  to  the 
little  real  events  of  English  life,  and 
great  fantastic  adventures  of  extinguish- 
ed chivalry.  He  was  like  those  musi- 
cians who  use  their  bow  in  the  service 
of  all  masters.  He  strayed  through 
nature  and  history,  with  no  foregone 
conclusions,  without  fierce  passion, 
bent  on  feeling,  relishing,  culling  from 
all  parts,  in  the  flower-stand  of  the 

*  Poems  by  A.  Tennyson,    7th   ed.    1851  ; 
Lilian,  5.  t  Ibid.  Adeline,  33. 

J  Ibid.  Madeline,  15. 


draw/ng-room  and  in  the  rustic  hedge- 
rows, the  rare  or  wild  flowers  whose 
scent  or  beauty  could  charm  or  amuse 
him.  Men  entered  into  his  pleasure  ; 
smelt  the  grateful  bouquets  which  he 
knew  so  well  how  to  put  together ; 
preferred  those  which  he  took  from  the 
country;  found  that  his  talent  was  no- 
where more  at  ease.  They  admired 
the  minute  observation  and  refined 
sentiment  which  knew  how  to  grasp 
and  interpret  the  fleeting  aspects  of 
things.  In  the  Dying  Swan  they  forgot 
that  the  subject  was  almost  threadbare 
and  the  interest  somewhat  slight,  that 
they  might  appreciate  such  verses  as 
this: 

"  Some  blue  peaks  in  the  distance  rose, 
And  white  against  the  cold-white  sky, 
Shone  out  their  crowning  snows. 

One  willow  over  the  river  wept,  ^ 
And  shook  the  wave  as  the  wind  did  sigh  J 
Above  in  the  wind  was  the  swallow, 
Chasing  itself  at  its  own  wild  will, 
And  far  thro'  the  marish  green  and  still 

The  tangled  water-courses  slept, 
Shot  over  with  purple,  and  green,  and  yel 
low."  * 

But  these  melancholy  pictures  did  not 
display  him  entirely  ;  men  accompanied 
him  to  the  land  of  the  sun,  toward  the 
soft  voluptuousness  of  southern  seas  ; 
they  returned,  with  an  involuntary 
fascination,  to  the  verses  in  which  he 
depicts  the  companions  of  Ulysses, 
who,  slumbering  in  the  land  of  the 
Lotos-eaters,  happy  dreamers  like  him- 
self, forgot  their  country,  and  renounc- 
ed action : 

"  A  land  of  streams !  some,  like  a  downward 

smoke, 

Slow-dropping  veils  of  thinnest  lawn,  did  go  ; 
And  some  thro'  wavering  lights  and  shadow3 

broke, 

Rolling  a  slumbrous  sheet  of  foam  below. 
They  saw  the  gleaming  river  seaward  flow 
From  the  inner  land  :  far  off,  three  mountain- 
Three  silent  pinnacles  of  aged  snow, 
Stood  sun-set  flush'd  :  and,  dew'd  with  show- 
ery drops, 

Up-clomb  the  shadowy  pine  above  the  woven 
copse.  .  .  . 

There  is  sweet  music  here  that  softer  falls 
Than  petal  from  blown  roses  on  the  grass. 
Or  night-dews  on  still  waters  between  walls 
Of  shadowy  granite,  in  a  gleaming  pass  ; 
Music  that  gentlier  on  the  spirit  lies, 
Than  tir'd  eyelids  upon  tir'd  eyes  ; 
Music  that  brings  sweet  sleep  down  from  th« 

blissful  skies. 
Here  are  cool  mosses  deep, 


*  Ibid.  The  Dying  Swan,  45. 


7°4 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


And  thro*  the  moss  the  ivies  creep, 

And  in  the  stream  the  long-leaved  flowers 

weep, 
And  from  the  craggy  ledge  the  poppy  hangs 

in  sleep.  .  .  . 

Lo  !  in  the  middle  of  the  wood, 

The  folded  leaf  is  woo'd  from  out  the  bud 

With  winds  upon  the  branch,  and  there 

Grows  green  and  broad,  and  takes  no  care, 

Sun-steep' d  at  noon,  and  in  the  moon 

Nightly  dew-fed  ;  and  turning  yellow 

Falls,  and  floats  adown  the  air. 

Lo  !  sweeten'd  with  the  summer  light, 

The  full-juiced  apple,  waxing  over  mellow, 

Drops  in  a  silent  autumn  night. 

All  its  allotted  iength  of  days, 

The  flower  ripens  in  i^s  place, 

Ripens  and  fades,  and  falls,  and  hath  no  toil, 

Fast-rooted  in  the  fruitful  soil.  .  .  . 

But,  propt  on  beds  of  amaranth  and  moly, 

How  sweet  (while  warm  airs  lull  us,  blowing 
lowly), 

With  half-dropt  eyelids  still, 

Beneath  a  heaven  dark  and  holy. 

To  watch  the  long  bright  river  drawing 
slowly 

His  waters  from  the  purple  hill — 

To  hear  the  dewy  echoes  calling 

From  cave  to  cave  thro'  the  thick-twined 
vine — 

To  watch  the  emerald-colour'd  water  falling 

Thro'  many  a  wov'n  acanthus-wreath  divine  ! 

Only  to  hear  and  see  the  far-off  sparkling 
brine, 

Only  to  hear  were  sweet,  stretch'd  out  be- 
neath the  pine."  * 

III. 

Was  this  charming  dreamer  simply 
a  dilettante  ?  Men  liked  to  consider 
him  so  ;  he  seemed  too  happy  to  admit 
violent  passions.  Fame  came  to  him 
easily  and  quickly,  at  the  age  of  thirty. 
The  Queen  had  justified  the  public 
favor  by  creating  him  Poet  Laureate.  A 
great  writer  declared  him  a  more  gen- 
uine poet  than  Lord  Byron,  and  main- 
tained that  nothing  so  perfect  had 
been  seen  since  Shakspeare.  The 
student,  at  Oxford,  put  Tennyson's 
works  between  an  annotated  Euripides 
and  a  handbook  of  scholastic  philoso- 
phy. Young  ladies  found  him  amongst 
their  marriage  presents.  He  was  said 
to  be  rich,  venerated  by  his  family, 
admired  by  his  friends,  amiable,  with- 
out affectation,  even  unsophisticated. 
He  lived  in  the  country,  chiefly  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  amongst  books  and 
flowers,  free  from  the  annoyances, 
rivalries,  and  burdens  of  society,  and 

*  Poems  by  A.  Tennyson,  yth  ed.  1851  ;  The 
Lotus-Eaters^  140. 


his  life  was  easily  imagined  to  be  a 
beautiful  dream,  as  sweet  as  th  :>se  which 
he  had  pictured. 

Yet  the  men  who  looked  closer  saw 
that  there  was  a  fire  of  passion  under 
this  smooth  surface.  A  genuine  poetic 
temperament  never  fails  in  this.  It 
feels  too  acutely  to  be  at  peace.  When 
we  quiver  at  the  least  touch,  we  shake 
and  tremble  under  great  shocks.  Al- 
ready here  and  there,  in  his  pictures  of 
country  and  love,  a  brilliant  verse  broke 
with  its  glowing  color  through  the 
calm  and  correct  outline.  He  had 
felt  that  strange  growth  of  unknown 
powers  which  suddenly  arrest  a  man 
with  fixed  gaze  before  revealed  beauty. 
The  specialty  of  the  poet  is  to  be  ever 
young,  forever  virgin.  For  us,  the 
vulgar,  things  are  threadbare ;  sixty 
centuries  of  civilization  have  worn  out 
their  primitive  freshness  ;  things  have 
become  commonplace ;  we  perceive 
them  only  through  a  veil  of  ready-made 
phrases  ;  we  employ  them,  we  no  longer 
comprehend  them  ;  we  see  in  them  no 
longer  magnificent  flowers,  but  good 
vegetables ;  the  luxuriant  primeval 
forest  is  to  us  nothing  but  a  well-planned 
and  too  well-known  kitchen  garden. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  poet,  in 
presence  of  this  world,  is  as  the  first 
man  on  the  first  day.  In  a  moment 
our  phrases,  our  reasonings,  all  the 
trappings  of  memory  and  prejudice, 
vanish  from  his  mind  ;  things  seem  new 
to  him ;  he  is  astonished  and  ravished ; 
a  headlong  stream  of  sensations  op- 
presses him  ;  it  is  the  all-potent  sap  of 
human  invention,  which,  checked  in  us, 
begins  to  flow  in  him.  Fools  call  him 
mad,  but  in  truth  he  is  a  seer :  for  we 
may  indeed  be  sluggish,  but  nature  is 
always  full  of  life ;  the  rising  sun  is  as 
beautiful  as  on  the  first  dawn ;  the 
streaming  floods,  the  teeming  flowers, 
the  trembling  passions,  the  forces  which 
hurl  onward  the  stormy  whirlwind  of 
existence,  aspire  and  strive  with  the 
same  energy  as  at  their  birth ;  the  im- 
mortal heart  of  nature  beats  yet,  heav- 
ing its  coarse  trappings,  and  its  beat- 
ings work  in  the  poet's  heart  when 
they  no  longer  echo  in  our  own.  Ten- 
nyson felt  this,  not  indeed  always ;  but 
twice  or  thrice  at  least  he  has  dared  to 
make  it  heard.  We  have  found  anew 
the  free  action  of  full  emotion,  and 


CHAP.  VI.] 


POE  TR  Y—  TENNYSON. 


recognized  the  voice  of  a  man  in  these 
verses  of  Locksley  Hall : 

"  Then  her  cheek  was  pale  and  thinner  than 

should  be  for  one  so  young, 
And  her  eyes  on  all  my  motions  with  a  mute 
observance  hung. 

And   I   said,    '  My  cousin  Amy,  speak,  and 

speak  the  truth  to  me, 
Trust  me,  cousin,  all  the  current  of  my  being 

sets  to  thee.' 

On  her  pallid   cheek  and  forehead  came  a 

colour  and  a  Hght, 
As  I  have  seen  the  rosy  red  flushing  in  the 

northern  night. 

And  she  turn'd — her  bosom  shaken   with  a 

sudden  storm  of  sighs — 
All  the  spirit  deeply  dawning  in  the  dark  of 

hazel  eyes — 

Saying,  *  I  have  hid  my  feelings,  fearing  they 
should  do  me  wrong  ; ' 

Saying,  '  Dost  thou  love  me,  cousin  ? '  weep- 
ing, *  I  have  loved  thee  long.' 

Love  took  up  the  glass  of  Time,  and  turn'd 

it  in  his  glowing  hands  ; 
Every  moment,  lightly  shaken,  ran  itself  in 

golden  sands. 

Love  took  up  the  harp  of  Life,  and  smote  on 

all  the  chords  with  might  ; 
Smote  the   chord   of   Self,   that,  trembling, 

pass'd  in  music  out  of  sight. 

Many  a  morning  on  the  moorland  did  we  hear 

the  copses  ring, 
And  her  whisper  throng'd  my  pulses  with  the 

fulness  of  the  Spring. 

Many  an  evening  by  the  waters  did  we  watch 
the  stately  ships, 

A.nd  our  spirits  rush'd  together  at  the  touch- 
ing of  the  lips. 

O  my  cousin,  shallow-hearted  I  O  my  Amy, 
mine  no  more  ! 

O  the  dreary,  dreary  moorland !  O  the  bar- 
ren, barren  shore  1 

Falser  than  all  fancy  fathoms,  falser  than  all 

songs  have  sung, 
Puppet  to  a  father's  threat,  and  servile  to  a 

shrewish  tongue ! 

Is  it  well  to  wish  thee  happy? — having  known 

me — to  decline 
On  a  range  of  lower  feelings  and  a  narrower 

heart  than  mine  1 

Yet  it  shall  be  :  thou  shall  lower  to  his  level 

day  by  day, 
What  is  fine  within  thee  growing  coarse  to 

sympathize  with  ciay. 

As  the  husband  is,  the  wife  is:  thou  art  mated 

with  a  clown, 
And  the  grossness  of  his  nature  will  have 

weight  to  drag  thee  down. 

He  will  hold  thee,  when  his  passion  shall 

have  spent  its  novel  force, 
Something  better  than  his  dog,  a  little  dearer 

than  his  horse. 


What  is  this  ?  his  eyes  art  heavy  :  think  not 

they  are  glazed  with  wine. 
Go  to  him  :  it  is  thy  duty :  kiss  him  :  take  hit 

hand  in  thine. 

It  may  be  my  lord  is  weary,  that  his  brain,  is 

overwrought : 
Soothe  him  with  thy  finer  fancies,  touch  him 

with  thy  lighter  thought. 

He  will  answer  to  the  purpose,  easy  things  to 

understand — 
Better  thou  wert  dead  before  me,  tho'  I  slew 

thee  with  my  hand  I  "  * 

This  is  very  frank  and  strong.  Maud 
appeared,  and  was  still  more  so.  In  it 
the  rapture  broke  forth  with  all  its  in- 
equalities, familiarities,  freedom,  vio- 
lence. The  correct,  measured  poet 
betrayed  himself,  for  he  seemed  to 
think  and  weep  aloud.  This  book  is 
the  diary  of  a  gloomy  young  mzr. 
soured  by  great  family  misfortunes,  by 
long  solitary  meditations,  who  gradually 
became  enamored,  dared  to  speak, 
found  himself  loved.  He  does  not. sing, 
but  speaks  ;  they  are  the  hazarded,  reck- 
less words  of  ordinary  conversation ; 
details  of  everyday  life  ;  the  description 
of  a  toilet,  a  political  dinner,  a  service 
and  a  sermon  in  a  village  church.  The 
prose  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray  did 
not  more  firmly  grasp  real  and  actual 
manners.  And  by  its  side,  most  splen- 
did poetry  abounded  and  blossomed, 
as  in  fact  it  blossoms  and  abounds  in 
the  midst  of  our  commonplaces.  The 
smile  of  a  richly-dressed  girl,  a  sunbeam 
on  a  stormy  sea,  or  on  a  spray  of 
roses,  throws  all  at  once  these 
sudden  illuminations  into  impassioned 
souls.  What  verses  are  these,  in 
which  he  represents  himself  in  his 
dark  little  garden : 

"  A  million  emeralds  break  from  the  ruby-bud- 
ded lime 

In  the  little  grove  where  I  sit — ah,  wherefore 
cannot  I  be 

Like  things  of  the  season  gay,  like  the  boun- 
tiful season  bland, 

When  the  far-off  sail  is  blown  by  the  breeze 
of  a  softer  clime? 

Half  lost  in  the  liquid  azure  bloom  of  a  crev 
cent  of  sea, 

The  silent  sapphire-spangled  marriage  ring 
of  the  land?"  t 

What  a  holiday  in  his  heart  when  he  is 
loved  !  What  madness  in  these  cries, 
that  intoxication,  that  tenderness  which 
would  pour  itself  on  all,  and  summon 

*  Poems  by    A.   Tennyson,    jth  ed.    1851  ; 
Locksley  Hall,  266. 

t  Tennyson's  Maud)  1856,  iv.  i,  p.  i$. 
30* 


706 


all  to  the  specta.cle  and  the  participa- 
tion of  his  happiness  !  How  all  is 
transfigured  in  his  eyes  ;  and  how  con- 
stantly he  is  himself  transfigured  ! 
Gayety,  then  ecstasy,  then  archness, 
then  satire,  then  disclosures,  all  ready 
movements,  all  sudden  changes,  like  a 
crackling  and  flaming  fire,  renewing 
every  moment  its  shape  and  color : 
how  rich  is  the  soul,  and  how  it  can 
live  a  hundred  years  in  a  day  !  The 
hero  of  the  poem,  surprised  and  in- 
sulted by  the  brother  of  Maud,  kills 
him  in  a  duel,  and  loses  her  whom  he 
loved.  He  flees  ;  he  is  seen  wandering 
in  London.  What  a  gloomy  contrast 
is  that  of  the  great  busy  careless  town, 
and  a  solitary  man  haunted  by  true 
grief !  We  follow  him  down  the  noisy 
thoroughfares,  through  the  yellow  fog, 
under  the  wan  sun  which  rises  above 
the  river  like  a  "dull  red  ball,"  and  we 
hear  the  heart  full  of  anguish,  deep 
sobs,  insensate  agitation  of  a  soul  which 
would  but  cannot  tear  itself  from  its 
memories.  Despair  grows,  and  in  the 
end  the  reverie  becomes  a  vision : 

"  Dead,  long  dead, 

Long  dead  ! 

And  my  heart  is  a  handful  of  dust, 
And  the  wheels  go  over  my  head, 
And  my  bones  are  shaken  with  pain, 
For  into  a  shallow  grave  they  are  thrust, 
Only  a  yard  beneath  the  street, 
And  the  hoofs  of  the  horses  beat,  beat, 
The  hoofs  of  the  horses  beat, 
Beat  into  my  scalp  and  my  brain, 
With  never  an  end  to  the  stream  of  passing 

feet, 

Driving,  hurrying,  marrying,  burying, 
Clamour  and  rumble,  and  ringing  and  clat- 
ter.* .  .  . 

0  me !  why  have  they  not  buried  me  deep 

enough  ? 

Is  it  kind  to  have  made  me  a  grave  so  rough, 
Me,  that  was  never  a  quiet  sleeper? 
Maybe  still  I  am  but  half-dead  ; 
Then  I  cannot  be  wholly  dumb  ; 

1  will  cry  to  the  steps  above  my  head, 

And  somebody,  surely,  some  kind  heart  will 

come 

To  bury  me,  bury  me 
Deeper,  ever  so  little  deeper."  f 

However,  he  revives,  and  gradually 
rises  again  War  breaks  out,  a  liberal 
and  generous  war,  the  war  against  Rus- 
sia ;  and  the  big,  manly  heart,  wounded 
by  deep  love,  is  healed  by  action  and 
courage. 

*  Tennyson's  Maud,  1856,  xxvii.  i,  p.  99. 
t  Ibid,  xxvii.  u,  p.  105. 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


"  And  I  stood  on  a  giant  deck  and  mix'd  my 

breath 

With  a  loyal  people  shouting  a  battle  cry.  .  . 
Yet  God's  just  wrath  shall  be  wre^k'd  on  a 

giant  liar  ; 

And  many  a  darkness  into  the  ligh   shall  leap, 
And  shine  in  the  sudden   making  0f  splendid 

names, 

And  noble  thought  be  freer  under  the  sun, 
And  the  heart  of  a  peoj  Je  beat  with  one  de 

sire  ; 
For  the  peace,  that  I  deem'd  no  peace,  is 

over  and  done, 
And  now  by  the  side  of  the  Black  and  tha 

Baltic  deep, 
And  deathful-grinning  mouths  of  the  fortress, 

flames 
The  blood-red  blossom  of  war  with  a  heart  of 

fire."  * 

This  explosion  of  feeling  was  the  only 
one  ;  Tennyson  has  not  again  encoun  • 
tered  it.  In  spite  of  the  moral  close, 
men  said  of  Maud  that  he  was  imitat- 
ing Byron  ;  they  cried  out  against  these 
bitter  declamations;  they  thought  that 
they  perceived  the  rebellious  accent  of 
the  Satanic  school ;  they  blamed  this 
uneven,  obscure,  excessive  style ;  they 
were  shocked  at  these  crudities  and 
incongruities  ;  they  called  on  the  poet 
to  return  to  his  first  well-proportioned 
style.  He  was  discouraged,  left  the 
storm  clouds,  and  returned  to  the 
azure  sky.  He  was  right ;  he  is  better 
there  than  anywhere  else.  A  fine  soul 
may  be  transported,  attain  at  times  to 
the  fire  of  the  most  violent  and  the 
strongest  beings:  personal  memories, 
they  say,  had  furnished  the  matter  of 
Maud  and  of  Locksley  Hall ;  with  a 
woman's  delicacy,  he  had  the  nerves 
of  a  woman.  The  fit  over,  he  fell 
again  into  his  "golden  languors,"  into 
his  calm  reverie.  After  Locksley  Hall 
he  wrote  the  Princess  ;  after  Maud  the 
Idylls  of  the  King. 


IV. 

The  great  task  of  an  artist  is  to  fin 
subjects  which  suit  his  talent.  Tenn^ 
son  has  not  always  succeeded  in  this. 
His  long  poem,  In  Memoriam,  written 
in  praise  and  memory  of  a  friend  who 
died  young,  is  cold,  monotonous,  and 
too  prettily  arranged.  He  goes  into 
mourning  ;  but,  like  a  correct  gentle- 
man, with  bran  new  gloves,  wipes  away 
his  tears  with  a  cambric  handkerchief, 
and  displays,  throughout  the  religious 
service,  which  ends  the  ceremony,  all 
*  Ibid,  xxviii.  3  and  4,  p.  108. 


c 


CHAP.  VI.] 


POETR  Y— TENNYSON. 


707 


the  compunction  of  a  respectful  and 
well-trained  layman.  He  was  to  find 
his  subjects  elsewhere.  To  be  poeti- 
cally happy  is  the  object  of  a  dilettante- 
artist.  For  this  many  things  are  neces- 
sary. First  of  all,  that  the  place,  the 
events,  and  the  characters  shall  not 
exist.  Realities  are  coarse,  and  always, 
in  some  sense,  ugly ;  at  least  they  are 
heavy ;  we  do  not  treat  them  as  we 
should  like,  they  oppress  the  fancy ;  at 
bottom  there  is  nothing  truly  sweet  and 
beautiful  in  our  life  but  our  dreams. 
We  are  ill  at  ease  whilst  we  remain 
glued  to  earth,  hobbling  along  on  our 
two  feet,  which  drag  us  wretchedly 
here  and  there  in  the  place  which  im- 
pounds us.  We  need  to  live  in  an- 
other world,  to  hover  in  the  wide-air 
kingdom,  to  build  palaces  in  the  clouds, 
to  see  them  rise  and  crumble,  to  follow 
in  a  hazy  distance  the  whims  of  their 
moving  architecture,  and  the  turns  of 
their  golden  volutes.  In  this  fantastic 
world,  again,  all  must  be  pleasant  and 
beautiful,  the  heart  and  senses  must 
enjoy  it,  objects  must  be  smiling  or 
picturesque,  sentiments  delicate  or 
lofty  ;  no  crudity,  incongruity,  brutal- 
ity, savageness,  must  come  to  sully 
with  its  excess  the  modulated  harmony 
of  this  ideal  perfection.  This  leads 
the  poet  to  the  legends  of  chivalry. 
Here  is  the  fantastic  world,  splendid  to 
the  sight,  noble  and  specially  pure,  in 
which  love,  war,  adventures,  generosity, 
courtesy,  all  spectacles  and  all  virtues 
which  suit  the  instincts  of  our  Euro- 
pean races,  are  assembled,  to  furnish 
them  with  the  epic  which  they  love, 
and  the  model  which  suits  them. 

The  Princess  is  a  fairy  tale  as  senti- 
mental as  those  of  Shakspeare.  Ten- 
nyson here  thought* and  felt  like  a 
young  knight  of  the  Renaissance.  The 
mark  of  this  kind  of  mind  is  a  super- 
abundance, as  it  were,  a  superfluity  of 
lap.  In  the  characters  of  the  Princess, 
as  in  those  of  As  You  Like  It,  there  is 
an  over-fulness  of  fancy  and  emotion. 
They  have  recourse,  to  express  their 
thought,  to  all  ages  and  lands  ;  they 
carry  speech  to  the  most  reckless  rash- 
ness;  they  clothe  and  burden  every 
idea  with  a  sparkling  image,  which 
drags  and  glitters  around  it  like  a  bro- 
cade clustered  with  jewels.  Their 
nature  is  over-rich ;  at  every  shock 


there  is  in  them  a  sort  of  rustle  of  joy 
anger,  desire ;  they  live  more  than  we. 
more  warmly  and  more  quickly.  The) 
are  ever  in  excess,  lefined,  ready  to 
weep,  laugh,  adore,  jest,  inclined  to 
mingle  adoration  and  jests,  urged  by  a 
nervous  rapture  to  opposite  extremes. 
They  sally  in  the  poetic  field  with  im- 
petuous and  ever  changing  caprice  and 
joy.  To  satisfy  the  subtlety  and  super- 
abundance of  their  invention,  they  r.eed 
fairy-tales  and  masquerades.  In  fact, 
the  Princess  is  both.  The  beautiful 
Ida,  daughter  of  King  Gama,  who  is 
monarch  of  the  South  (this  country  is 
not  to  be  found  on  the  map),  was 
affianced  in  her  childhood  to  a  beauti- 
ful prince  of  the  North.  When  the 
time  appointed  has  arrived,  she  is 
claimed.  She,  proud  and  bred  on 
learned  arguments,  has  become  irritated 
against  the  rule  of  men,  and  in  order 
to  liberate  women  has  founded  a  uni- 
versity on  the  frontiers,  which  is  to 
raise  her  sex,  and  to  be  the  colony  of 
future  equality.  The  prince  sets  out 
with  Cyril  and  Florian,  two  friends, 
obtains  permission  from  good  King 
Gama,  and,  disguised  as  a  girl,  gets  ad- 
mission to  the  maiden  precincts,  which 
no  man  may  enter  on  pain  of  death. 
There  is  a  charming  and  sportive  grace 
in  this  picture  of  a  university  for  girls. 
The  poet  gambols  with  beauty;  no 
badinage  could  be  more  romantic  or 
tender.  We  smile  to  hear  long  learned 
words  come  from  these  rosy  lips  : 

"  There  sat  along    the    forms,  like    moniing 

doves 

That  sun  their  milky  bosoms  on  the  thatch, 
A  patient  range  of  pupils."  * 

They  listen  to  historic  dissertations 
and  promises  of  a  social  revolution,  in 
"  Academic  silks,  in  hue  the  lilac,  with 
a  silken  hood  to  each,  and  zoned  with 
gold,  ...  as  rich  as  moth  from  dusk 
cocoons."  Amongst  these  girls  was 
Melissa,  a  child — 

"  A  rosy  blonde,  and  in  a  college  gown 
That  clad  her  like  an  April  daffodilly 
(Her  mother's  colour),  with  her  lips  apart, 
And  all  her  thoughts  as  fair  within  her  eyes, 
As  bottom  agates  seem  to  wave  and  float 
In. crystal  currents  of  clear  morning  seas."  t 

The  site  of  this  university  for  girls  en- 
hances the  magic  of  the  scene.  The 

*  The  Princess,  a  Medley,  i2th  ed.  1864,  ii, 
34.  \  Ibid.  ii.  46. 


708 


words  "  College  "  and  "  Faculty  "  bring 
before  the  mind  of  Frenchmen  only 
wretched  and  dirty  buildings,  which  we 
might  mistake  for  barracks  or  board- 
ing-houses. Here,  as  in  an  English 
university,  flowers  creep  up  the  porches, 
vines  cling  round  the  bases  of  the  mon- 
uments, roses  strew  the  alleys  with  their 
petals  ;  the  laurel  thickets  grow  around 
the  gates,  the  courts  pile  up  their  mar- 
ble architecture,  bossed  with  sculp- 
tured friezes,  varied  with  urns  from 
which  droops  the  green  pendage  of  the 
plants.  "  The  Muses  and  the  Graces, 
group'd  in  threes,  enring'd  a  billowing 
fountain  in  the  midst."  After  the  lec- 
ture, some  girls,  in  the  deep  meadow 
grass,  "smoothed  a  petted  peacock 
down  ;  "  others, 

"  Leaning  there  on  those  balusters,  high 
Above  the  empurpled  champaign,  drank  the 

gale 

That  blown  about  the  foliage  underneath, 
And  sated  with  the  innumerable  rose 
Beat  balm  upon  our  eyelids."  * 

At  every  gesture,  every  attitude,  we 
recognize  young  English  girls  ;  it  is 
their  brightness,  their  freshness,  their 
innocence.  And  here  and  there,  too, 
we  perceive  the  deep  expression  of 
their  large  dreamy  eyes  : 

"  Tears,  idle  tears,  I  know  not  what  they  mean, 
Tears  from  the  depth  of  some  divine  despair 
Rise  in  the  heart,  and  gather  to  the  eyes, 
In  looking  on  the  happy  Autumn-fields, 
And  thinking  of  the  days  that  are  no  more. . . 

Dear  as  remember'd  kisses  after  death, 
And  sweet  as  those  by  hopeless  fancy  feign'd 
On  lips  that  are  for  others  ;  deep  as  love, 
Deep  as  first  love,  and  wild  with  all  regret  ; 
O  Death  in  Life,  the  days  that  are  no  more."t 

This  is  an  exquisite  and  strange  volup- 
tuousness, a  reverie  full  of  delight,  and 
full,  too,  of  anguish,  the  shudder  of 
delicate  and  melancholy  passion  which 
we  have  already  found  in  Winters 
Tale  or  in  7welfth  Night. 

The  three  friends  have  gone  forth 
with  the  princess  and  her  train,  all  on 
horseback,  and  pause  "  near  a  coppice- 
feather'd  chasm," 

"  till  the  Sun 
Grew  broader  toward  his  death  and  fell,  and  all 
The  rosy  heights  came  out  above  the  lawns." 

Cyril,  heated  by  wine,  begins  to  troll  a 
careless  tavern-catch,  and  betrays  the 
secret.  Ida,  indignant,  turns  to  leave  ; 
*  The  Princess^  a  Medley,  i2th  ed.  1864,  iii. 
60.  t  Ibid.  v.  76. 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


her  foot  slips,  and  she  falls  into  the 
river  ;  the  prince  saves  her,  and  wishes 
to  flee.  But  he  is  seized  by  /he  Proc- 
tors and  brought  before  the  throne, 
where  the  haughty  maiden  stands  read) 
to  pronounce  sentence.  At  this  mo 
ment 

"...  There  rose 
A  hubbub  in  the  court  of  half  the  maids 
Gather'd  together :  ^rom  the  illumined  hall 
Long  lanes  of  splendour  slanted  o'er  a  press 
Of  snowy  shoulders,  thick  as  herded  ewes, 
And  rainbow  robes,  and  gems  and  gemlike  eyes, 
And  gold  and  golden  heads  ;  they  to  and  fro 
Fluctuated,  as  flowers  in  storm,  some  red,  some 

pale, 

All  open-mouth'd,  all  gazing  to  the  light, 
Some  crying  there  was  an  army  in  the  land, 
And  some  that  men  were  in  the  very  walls, 
And  some  they  cared  not  ;  till  a  clamour  grew 
As  of  a  new-world  Babel,  woman-built, 
And  worse-confounded  :  high  above  them  stood 
The  placid  marble  Muses,  looking  peace."  * 

The  father  of  the  prince  has  come  with 
his  army  to  deliver  him,  and  has  seized 
King  Gama  as  a  hostage.  The  prin- 
cess is  obliged  to  release  the  young 
man.  With  distended  nostrils,  waving 
hair,  a  tempest  raging  in  her  heart,  she 
thanks  him  with  bitter  irony.  She 
trembles  with  wounded  pride ;  she 
stammers,  hesitates ;  she  tries  to  con- 
strain herself  in  order  the  better  to  in- 
sult him,  and  suddenly  breaks  out  ; 

"  '  You  have  done  wall  and  like  a  gentleman, 
And  like  a  prince  :  you  have  our  thanks  for 

all  : 
And  you  look    well    too   in   your  woman's 

dress  : 

Well  have  you  done  and  like  a  gentleman. 
You  saved  our  life  :  we  owe  you  bitter  thanks: 
Better  have  died  and  spilt  our  bones  in  the 

flood- 
Then  men  had  said — but  now — Wha-t  hinders 

me 
To   take    such    bloody    vengeance    on    you 

both  ?— 
Yet  since  our  father — Wasps  in   our  good 

hive, 

You  would-be  quenchers  of  the  light  to  be, 
Barbarians,  grosser  than  your  native  bears — 

0  would  I  had  his  sceptre  for  one  hour ! 
You  that  have  dared  to  break  our  bound,  and 

gull'd 
Our  servants,  wronged  and  lied  and  thwarted 

us — 

/  wed  with  thee  !  7  bound  by  precontract 
Your  bride,  your  bondslave  !  not  tho'  ail  the 

gold 
That  veins  the  world  were  pack'd  to  make 

your  crown, 
And  every  spoken  tongue  should  lord  you. 

Your  falsehood  and  yourself  are  hateful  to  us 

1  trample  on  your  offers  and  on  you : 


*  Ibid.  iv.  99. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


POE  TR  Y—  TENNYSON. 


709 


Begone  :  we  will  not  look  upon  you  more. 
Here,  push  them  out  at  gates.'  "  * 

How  is  this  fierce  heart  to  be  softened, 
fevered  with  feminine  anger,  embittered 
by  disappointment  and^insult,  excited 
by  long  dreams  of  power  and  ascend- 
ency, and  rendered  more  savage  by  its 
virginity !  But  how  anger  becomes 
her,  and  how  lovely  she  is  !  And  how 
this  fire  of  sentiment,  this  lofty  declar- 
ation of  independence,  this  chimerical 
ambition  for  reforming  the  future,  re- 
veal the  generosity  and  pride  of  a  young 
heart,  enamored  of  the  beautiful  !  It 
is  agreed  that  the  quarrel  shall  be  set- 
tled by  a  combat  of  fifty  men  against 
fifty  other  men.  The  prince  is  con- 
quered, and  Ida  sees  him  bleeding  on 
the  sand.  Slowly,  gradually,  in  spite 
of  herself,  she  yields,  receives  the 
wounded  in  her  palace,  and  comes  to 
the  bedside  of  the  dying  prince.  Before 
his  weakness  and  his  wild  delirium  pity 
expands,  then  tenderness,  then  love  : 

"  From  all  a  closer  interest  flourish'd  up 
Tenderness  touch  by  touch,  and  last,  to  these, 
Love,  like  an  Alpine  harebell  hung  with  tears 
By  some  cold  morning  glacier  ;  frail  at  first 
And  feeble,  all  unconscious  of  itself, 
But  such  as  gather'd  colour  day  by  day."  t 

One  evening  he  returns  to  conscious- 
ness, exhausted,  his  eyes  still  troubled 
by  gloomy  visions  ;  he  sees  Ida  before 
him,  hovering  like  a  dream,  painfully 
opens  his  pale  lips,  and  "  utter'd  whis- 
peringly : " 
"  '  If  you  be,  what  I  think  you,  some  sweet 

dream, 

I  would  but  ask  you  to  fulfil  yourself: 
But  if  you  be  that  Ida  whom  I  knew, 
I  ask  you  nothing  :  only,  if  a  dream, 
Sweet  dream    be    perfect.     I   shall  die  to- 
night. 

Stoop  down  and  seem  to  kiss  me  ere  I  die.' 
.  .  .  She  turned  ;  she  paused  ; 
She  stoop'd  ;  and  out  of  languor  leapt  a  cry  ; 
Leapt    fiery    Passion    from     the    brinks   of 

death  ; 

And  I  believe  that  in  the  living  world 
My  spirit  closed  with  Ida's  at  the  lips  ; 
Till  back  I  fell,  and  from  mine  arms  she  rose 
Glowing  all  over  noble  shame  ;  and  all 
Her  falser  self  slipt  from  her  like  a  robe, 
And  left  her  woman,  lovelier  in  her  mood 
Than  in    her   mould   that  other,  when   she 

came 

From  barren  deeps  to  conquer  all  with  love  ; 
And  down  the  streaming  crystal  dropt  J  and 

she 

Far-fleeted  by  the  purple  island-sides, 
Naked,  a  double  light  in  air  and  wave."  t 


*  The  Princess,  a  Medley,  iv.  102. 

t  Ibid.  v.  163.  \  Ibid.  v.  165. 


This  is  the  accent  of  the  Renaissance, 
as  it  left  the  heart  of  Spenser  and 
Shakspeare ;  they  had  this  voluptuous 
adorati  an  of  form  and  soul,  and  this 
divine  sentiment  of  beauty. 

V. 

There  is  another  chivalry,  which  in- 
augurates the  middle  age,  as  this 
closes  it ;  sung  by  children,  as  this  by 
youths;  and  restored  in  the  Idylls  oj 
the  King,  as  this  in  the  Princess.  It  is 
the  legend  of  Arthur,  Merlin  and  the 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table.  With 
admirable  art,  Tennyson  has  modern- 
ized the  feelings  and  the  language  ; 
this  pliant  soul  takes  all  tones,  in  order 
to  give  itself  all  pleasures.  This  time 
he  has  become  epic,  antique,  and  in- 
genuous, like  Homer,  and  like  the  old 
tr onv^r es  of  the  chansons  de  Geste.  It 
is  pleasant  to  quit  our  learned  civiliza- 
tion, to  rise  again  to  the  primitive  age 
and  manners,  to  listen  to  the  peaceful 
discourse  which  flows  copiously  and 
slowly,  as  a  river  in  a  smooth  channel. 
The  distinguishing  mark  of  the  ancient 
epic  is  clearness  and  calm.  The  ideas 
were  new-born  ;  man  was  happy  and  in 
his  infancy.  He  had  not  had  time  to 
refine,  to  cut  down  and  adorn  his 
thoughts  ;  he  showed  them  bare.  He 
was  not  yet  pricked  by  manifold  lusts ; 
he  thought  at  leisure.  Every  idea  in- 
terested him  ;  he  unfolded  it  curiously, 
and  explained  it.  His  speech  never 
jerks  ;  he  goes  step  by  step,  from  one 
object  to  another,  and  every  object 
seems  lovely  to  him  :  he  pauses,  ob- 
serves, and  takes  pleasure  in  observing. 
This  simplicity  and  peace  are  strange 
and  charming  ;  we  abandon  ourselves, 
it  is  well  with  us;  we  do  not  desire 
to  go  more  quickly ;  we  fancy  we 
would  gladly  remain  thus,  and  forever. 
For  primitive  thought  is  wholesome 
thought ;  we  have  but  marred  it  by 
grafting  and  cultivation  ;  we  return  to 
it  as  our  familiar  element,  to  find  con- 
tentment and  repose. 

But  of  all  epics,  this  of  the  Round 
Table  is  distinguished  by  purity.     Ar- 
thur, the  irreproachable  king,  has  as- 
sembled 
"  A  glorious  company,  the  flower  of  men, 

To  serve  as  model  for  the  mighty  world, 

And  be  the  fair  beginning  of  a  time. 

I  made  them  lay  their  hands  in  mine  and 
swear 


7io 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


To  reverence  the  King,  as  if  he  were 

Their  conscience,  and  their  conscience  as  their 

King,  .  .  . 

To  speak  no  slander,  no,  nor  listen -to  it, 
To  lead  sweet  lives  in  purest  chastity, 
To  love  one  maiden  only,  cleave  to  her, 
And  worship  her  by  years  of  noble  deeds."  * 

There  is  a  sort  of  refined  pleasure  in 
having  to  do  with  such  a  world;  for 
there  is  none  in  which  purer  or  more 
touching  fruits  could  grow.  I  will 
show  one — "  Elaine,  the  lily  maid  of 
Astolat  " — who,  having  seen  Lancelot 
Dnce,  loves  him  when  he  has  departed, 
and  for  her  whole  life.  She  keeps  the 
shield,  which  he  has  left  in  a  tower, 
and  every  day  goes  up  to  look  at  it, 
counting  "  every  dint  a  sword  had 
beaten  in  it,  and 'every  scratch  a  lance 
had  made  upon  it,"  and  living  on  her 
dreams.  He  is  wounded:  she  goes 
to  tend  and  heal  him : 

"  She  murmur* d,  '  vain,  in  vain  :  it  cannot  be. 
He  will  not  love  me  :  how  then  ?  must   I 

die?' 

Then  as  a  little  helpless  innocent  bird, 
That  has  but  one  plain  passage  of  few  notes, 
Will  sing  the  simple  passage  o'er  and  o'er 
For  all  an  April  morning,  till  the  ear 
Wearies  to  hear  it,  so  the  simple  maid 
Went   half   the    night    repeating,    *  must   I 
die  ?  '  "  t 

At  last  she  confesses  her  secret ;  but 
with  what  modesty  and  spirit !  He 
cannot  marry  her ;  he  is  tied  to  another. 
She  droops  and  fades ;  her  father  and 
brothers  try  to  console  her,  but  she 
will  not  be  consoled.  She  is  told  that 
Lancelot  has  sinned  with  the  queen; 
she  does  not  believe  it : 

"  At  last  she  said,   '  Sweet  brothers,   yester 

night 

I  seem'd  a  curious  little  maid  again, 
As  happy  as  when  we    dwelt    among    the 

woods, 
And  when  you  used  to  take  me  with  the 

flood 

Up  the  great  river  in  the  boatman's  boat. 
Only  you  would  not  pass  beyond  the  cape 
That  hast  the  poplar  on  it ;  there  you  fixt 
Your  limit,  oft  returning  with  the  tide. 
And  yet  I  cried  because  you  would  not  pass 
Beyond  it,  and  far  up  the  shining  flood 
Until  we  found  the  palace  of  the  king. 
.  .  .  Now  shall  I  have  my  will.'  "  $ 

She  dies,  and  her  father  and  brothers 
did  what  she  asked  them  to  do : 

"  But  when  the  next  sun  brake  from  under- 
ground, 


*  Idylls  of  the  King,  1864  ;  Guinevere,  249. 
t  Ibid.  Eliine,  193.  $  Ibid.  201. 


Then,  those  two  Irethren  slowly  with  ben* 

brows 

Accompanying,  the  sad  chariot-brier 
Past  like  a  shadow  thro'  the  field,  that  shone 
Full   summer,   to  that  stream  whereon  the 

barge, 

Pall'd  all  its  length  in  blackest  samite,  "ay. 
There  sat  the  lifelong  creature  of  the  house, 
Loyal,  the  dumb  old  servitor,  on  deck, 
Winking  his  eyes,  and  twisted  all  his  face. 
So  those  two  brethren  from  the  chariot  took 
And  on  the  black  decks  laid  her  in  her  bed, 
Set  in  her  hand  a  lily,  o'er  her  hung 
The  silken  case  with  braided  blazonings 
And  kiss'd  her  quiet  brows,  and  saying  to 

her  : 

*  Sister,  farewell  for  ever,'  and  again 

*  Farewell,  sweet  sister,'  parted  all  in  tears. 
Then  rose  the  dumb  old  servitor,  and  the 

dead 
Steer'd  by  the  dumb  went  -upward  with  the 

flood- 

In  her  right  hand  the  lily,  in  her  left 
The   letter—  all  her   bright  hair    streaming 

down  — 

And  all  the  coverlid  was  cloth  of  gold 
Drawn  to  her  waist,  and  she  herself  in  white 
All  but  her  face,  and  that  clear-featured  face 
Was  lovely,  for  she  did  not  seen  as  dead 
But  fast  asleep,  and  lay  as  tho'  she  smiled."* 

Thus  they  arrive  at  Court  in  great 
silence,  and  King  Arthur  read  the  let- 
ter before  all  his  knights  and  weeping 
ladies  : 

"  Most  noble  lord,  Sir  Lancelot  of  the  Lake, 
I,  sometime  call'd  the  maid  of  Astolat, 
Come,  for  you  left  me  taking  no  farewell, 
Hither,  to  take  my  last  farewell  of  you. 
I  loved  you,  and  my  love  had  no  return, 
And  therefore  my  true  love  has  been  my 

death. 

And  •therefore  to  our  lady  Guinevere, 
And  to  all  other  ladies,  I  make  moan. 
Pray  for  my  soul,  and  yield  me  burial. 
Pray  for  my  soul  thou  too,  Sir  Lancelot, 
As  thou  art  a  knight  peerless."  t 


i  so 

iore 


Nothing   more  :    she   ends   with    this 
word,  full  of   so  sad  a  regret  and  so 
tender  an  admiration  :  we  could  hari' 
ly  find  any  thing  more  simple  or  m 
delicate. 

It  seems  as  if  an  archaeologist  might 
reproduce  all  styles  except  the  grand, 
and  Tennyson  has  reproduced  all,  even 
the  grand.  It  is  the  night  of  the  final 
battle  ;  all  day  the  tumult  of  the  mighty 
fray  "  roll'd  among  the  mountains  by 
the  winter  sea  ;  "  Arthur's  knights  had 
fallen  "  man  by  man  ;  "  he  himself  had 
fallen,  "deeply  smitten  through  the 
helm,"  and  Sir  Bedivere,  the  last  of  all 
his  knights,  bore  him  to  a  place  hard 

by, 


Ibid.  206. 


Mbid.  213. 


CHAP.  VL] 


POE  TR  Y—  TENNYSON. 


711 


"  A  chapel  nigh  the  field, 
A  broken  chancel  with  a  broken  cross, 
That  stood  on  a  dark  strait  of  barren  land. 
On  one  side  lay  the  Ocean,  and  on  one 
Lay  a  great  water,  and  the  moon  was  full."  * 

Arthur,  feeling  himself  about  to  die, 
bids  him  take  his  sword  Excalibur  "  and 
fling  him  far  into  the  middle  meer ;  " 
for  he  had  received  it  from  the  sea- 
nymphs,  and  after  him  no  mortal  must 
handle  it.  Twice  Sir  Bedivere  went 
to  obey  the  king :  twice  he  paused, 
and  came  back  pretending  that  he  had 
flung  away  the  sword;  for  his  eyes 
were  dazzled  by  the  wondrous  diamond 
setting  which  clustered  and  shone  about 
the  haft.  The  third  time  he  throws 
it: 

"  The  great  brand 

Made  lightnings  in  the  splendour  of  the  moon, 
And  flashing  round  and  round,  and  whirl' d  in 

an  arch, 

Shot  like  a  streamer  of  the  northern  morn, 
Seen  where  the  moving  isles  of  winter  shock 
By  night,  with  noises  of  the  northern  sea. 
So  flash'd  and  fell  the  brand  Excalibur  : 
But  ere  he  dipt  the  surface,  rose  an  arm 
Clothed  in  white  samite,  mystic,  wonderful, 
And  caught  him  by  the  hilt,  and  brandish'd 

him 
Three   times,   and    drew    him    under   in    the 

meer."  t 

Then  Arthur,  rising  painfully,  and 
scarce  able  to  breathe,  bids  Sir  Bedi- 
vere take  him  on  his  shoulders  and 
"  bear  me  to  the  margin."  "  Quick, 
quick  !  I  fear  it  is  too  late,  and  I  shall 
die."  They  arrive  thus,  through  "  icy 
caves  and  barren  chasms,"  to  the  shores 
of  a  lake,  where  they  saw  "  the  long 
glories  of  the  winter  moon  : " 

"  They  saw  then  how  there  hove  a  dusky  barge 
Dark  as  a  funeral  scarf  from  stem  to  stern, 
Beneath  them  ;   and  descending  they  were 

ware 
That  all  the  decks  were  dense  with  stately 

forms 
Black-stoled,  black-hooded,  like  a  dream — by 

these 
Three  Queens  with  crowns  of  gold — and  from 

them  rose 

A  cry  that  shiver'd  to  the  tingling  stars, 
And,  as  it  were  one  voice,  an  agony 
Of  lamentation,  like  a  wind,  that  shrills, 
All   night  in  a  waste  land,  where  no  one 

comes, 

Or  hath  come,  since  the  making  of  the  world. 
Then   murmur'd  Aithur:  'Place  me  in  the 

barge,' 
And  to  the  barge  they  came.    There  those 

three  Queens 

*  Poems  by  A.  Tennyson,  jth  ed.  1851;  Morte 
<T  Arthur,  189.  t  Ibid.  194. 


Put  forth  their  hands,  and  took  the  King 

and  wept. 

But  she,  that  rose  the  tallefct  of  them  all 
And  fairest,  laid  his  head  upon  her  lap, 
And  loosed  the  shatter'd  casque,  and  chafed 

his  hands 
And   call'd  him  by  his   name,  complaining 

loud.  .  .  ."* 

Before  the  barge  drifts  away,  King 
Arthur,  raising  his  slow  voice,  consoles 
Sir  Bedivere,  standing  in  sorrow  on  the 
shore,  and  pronounces  this  heroic  and 
solemn  farewell  : 

"  The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place   to 

new, 

And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one    good  custom  should  corrupt  the 

world.  .  .   . 

If  thou  shouldst  never  see  my  face  again, 
Pray  for  my  soul.     More  things  are  wrought 

by  prayer 

Than  this  world  dreams  of.  ... 
For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God. 
But  now  farewell.     I  am  going  a  long  way 
With  these  thou  seest,— if  indeed  I  go— 
(For  all  my  mind  is  clouded  with  a  doubt) 
To  the  island-valley  of  Avilion  ; 
Where  falls  not  hail,  or  rain,  or  any  snow, 
Nor  ever  wind  blows  loudly  ;  but  it  lies 
Deep-meadow'd,  happy,  fair  with  orchard- 
lawns 
And  bowery  hollows  crown'd  with  summer 

sea, 

Where    I    will    heal    me    of    my    grievous 
wound."  t 

Nothing,  I  think,  calmer  and  more 
imposing  has  been  seen  since  Goethe. 

How,  in  a  few  words,  shall  we  as- 
semble all  the  features  of  so  manifold 
a  talent  ?  Tennyson  is  a  born  poet, 
that  is,  a  builder  of  airy  palaces  and 
imaginary  castles.  But  the  individual 
passion  and  absorbing  preoccupations 
which  generally  guide  the  hands  of  such 
men  are  wanting  to  him ;  he  found  in 
himself  no  plan  of  a  new  edifice ;  he 
has  built  after  all  the  rest;  he  has 
simply  chosen  amongst  all  forms  the 
most  elegant,  ornate,  exquisite.  Of 
their  beauties  he  has  taken  but  the 
flower.  At  most,  now  and  then,  he  has 
here  and  there  amused  himself  by  de- 
signing some  genuinely  English  and 
modern  cottage.  If  in  this  choice  of 
architecture,  adopted  or  restored,  we 
look  for  a  trace  of  him,  we  shall  find  it, 
here  and  there,  in  some  more  finely 
sculptured  frieze,  in  some  more  deli 
cate  and  graceful  sculptured  rose- 
work  ;  but  we  only  find  it  marked  and 
sensible  in  the  purity  and  elevation  of 

*  Ibid.  196.  t  Ibid.  197. 


712 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V 


the  moral  emotion  which  we  carry 
away  with  us  when  we  quit  his  gallery 
of  art. 

VI. 

The  favorite  poet  of  a  nation,  it 
seems,  is  he  whose  works  a  man,  setting 
out  on  a  journey,  prefers  to  put  into  his 
pocket.  Nowadays  it  would  be  Ten- 
nyson in  England,  and  Alfred  De  Mus- 
set  in  France.  The  two  publics  differ : 
so  do  their  modes  of  life,  their  read- 
ing, and  their  pleasures.  Let  us  try  to 
describe  them ;  we  shall  better  under- 
stand the  flowers  if  we  see  them  in  the 
garden. 

Here  we  are  at  Newhaven,  or  at 
Dover,  and  we  glide  over  the  rails  look- 
ing on  either  side.  On  both  sides  fly  past 
country  houses  ;  they  exist  everywhere 
in  England,  on  the  margin  of  lakes,  on 
the  edge  of  the  bays,  on  the  summit  of 
the  hills-,  in  every  picturesque  point  of 
view.  They  are  the  chosen  abodes ; 
London  is  but  a  business-place  ;  men 
of  the  world  live,  amuse  themselves, 
visit  each  other,  in  the  country.  How 
well  ordered  and  pretty  is  this  house  ! 
If  near  it  there  was  some  old  edifice, 
abbey,  or  castle,  it  has  been  preserved. 
The  new  building  has  been  suited  to 
the  old ;  even  if  detached  and  modern, 
it  does  not  lack  style  ;  gable-ends, 
mullions,  broad-windows,  turrets  perch- 
ed at  every  corner,  have  a  Gothic  air 
in  spite  of  their  newness.  Even  this 
cottage,  though  not  very  large,  suited 
to  people  with  a  moderate  income,  is 
pleasant  to  see  with  its  pointed  roofs, 
its  porch,  its  bright  brown  bricks,  all 
covered  with  ivy.  Doubtless  grandeur 
is  generally  wanting  ;  in  these  days  the 
men  who  mould  opinion  are  no  longer 
great  lords,  but  rich  gentlemen,  well 
brought  up,  and  landholders ;  it  is 
pleasantness  which  appeals  to  them. 
But  how  they  understand  the  word  ! 
All  round  the  house  is  turf  fresh  and 
smooth  as  velvet,  rolled  every  morning. 
In  front,  great  rhododendrons  form  a 
bright  thicket,  in  which  murmur  swarms 
of  bees  ;  festoons  of  exotics  creep  and 
curve  over  the  short  grass ;  honey- 
suckles clamber  up  the  trees  ;  hundreds 
of  roses,  drooping  over  the  windows, 
shed  their  rain  of  petals  on  the  paths. 
Fine  elms,  yew-trees,  great  oaks,  jeal- 


ously  tended,  everywhere  combine 
their  leafage  or  rear  their  heads.  Trees 
have  been  brought  from  Australia  anc 
China  to  adorn  the  thickets  with  the 
elegance  or  the  singularity  of  their  for- 
eign shapes  ;  the  copper-beech  stretches 
over  the  delicate  verdure  of  the  mead- 
ows the  shadow  of  its  dark  metallic- 
hued  foliage.  How  delicious  is  the 
freshness  of  this  verdure !  How  it 
glistens,  and  how  it  abounds  in  wild 
flowers  brightened  by  the  sun  1  What 
care,  what  cleanliness,  how  every  thing 
is  arranged,  kept  up,  refined,  for  the 
comfort  of  the  senses  and  the  pleasure  of 
the  eyes  !  If  there  is  a  slope,  stream- 
lets have  been  devised  with  little  islets 
in  the  glen,  peopled  with  tufts  of  roses  ; 
ducks  of  select  breed  swim  in  the  pools, 
where  the  water-lilies  display  their  satin 
stars.  Fat  oxen  lie  in  the  grass,  sheep 
as  white  as  if  fresh  from  the  washing, 
all  kinds  of  happy  and  model  animals, 
fit  to  delight  the  eyes  of  an  amateur 
and  a  master.  We  return  to  the  house, 
and  before  entering  I  look  upon  the 
view ;  decidedly  the  love  of  English- 
men for  the  country  is  innate ;  how 
pleasant  it  will  be  from  that  parlor 
window  to  look  upon  the  setting  sun, 
and  the  broad  network  of  sunlight 
spread  across  the  woods  1  And  how 
cunningly  they  have  disposed  the 
house,  so  that  the  landscape  may  be 
seen  at  distance  between  the  hills,  and 
at  hand  between  the  trees !  We  enter. 
How  nicely  every  thing  is  got  up,  and 
how  commodious.  The  smallest  wants 
have  been  forestalled,  and  provided 
for ;  there  is  nothing  which  is  not  cor- 
rect and  perfect;  we  imagine  that 
every  thing  in  the  house  has  received  a 
prize,  or  at  least  an  honorable  mention, 
at  some  industrial  exhibition.  And 
the  attendance  of  the  servants  is  as  good 
as  every  thing  else ;  cleanliness  is  not 
more  scrupulous  in  Holland  ;  English- 
men have,  in  proportion,  three  times 
as  many  servants  as  Frenchmen  ;  not 
too  many  for  the  minute  details  of  the 
service.  The  domestic  machine  acts 
without  interruption,  without  shock, 
without  hindrance;  every  wheel  has  its 
movement  and  its  place,  and  the  com- 
fort which  it  dispenses  falls  like  honey 
in  the  mouth,  as  clear  and  as  exquis- 
ite as  the  sugar  of  a  model  refinery  when 
quite  purified. 


CHAP.  VI.] 


POE  TR  y—  TENNYSON. 


7*3 


We  converse  with  our  host.  We  very 
soon  find  that  his  mind  and  soul  have 
always  been  well  balanced.  When  he 
left  college  he  found  his  career  shaped 
out  for  him  ;  no  need  for  him  to  revolt 
against  the  Church,  which  is  half  ra- 
tional ;  nor  against  the  Constitution, 
which  is  nobly  liberal  :  the  faith  and 
law  presented  to  him  are  good,  useful, 
moral,  liberal  enough  to  maintain  and 
employ  all  diversities  of  sincere  minds. 
He  became  attached  to  them,  he  loves 
them,  he  has  received  from  them  the 
whole  system  of  his  practical  and  spec- 
ulative ideas  ;  he  does  not  waver,  he 
no  longer  doubts,  he  knows  what  he 
ought  to  believe  and  to  do.  He  is  not 
carried  away  by  theories,  dulled  by 
sloth,  checked  by  contradictions.  Else- 
where youth  is  like  water,  stagnant  or 
running  to  waste  ;  here  there  is  a  fine 
old  channel  which  receives  and  directs 
to  a  useful  and  sure  end  the  whole 
stream  of  its  activities  and  passions. 
He  acts,  works,  rules.  He  is  married, 
has  tenants,  is  a  magistrate,  becomes  a 
politician.  He  improves  and  rules  his 
parish,  his  estate,  and  his  family.  He 
founds  societies,  speaks  at  meetings, 
superintends  schools,  dispenses  justice, 
introduces  improvements;  he  employs 
his  reading,  his  travels,  his  connections, 
his  fortune,  and  his  rank,  to  lead  his 
neighbors  and  dependants  amicably  to 
some  work  which  profits  themselves 
and  the  public.  He  is  influential  and 
respected.  He  has  the  pleasures  of 
self-esteem  and  the  satisfaction  of  con- 
science. He  knows  that  he  has  author- 
ity, and  that  he  uses  it  loyally,  for  the 
good  of  others.  And  this  healthy  state 
of  mind  is  supported1  by  a  wholesome 
life.  His  mind  is  beyond  doubt  culti- 
vated and  occupied  ;  he  is  well-inform- 
ed, knows  several  languages,  has  travel- 
led, is  fond  of  all  precise  information  ; 
he  is  kept  by  his  newspapers  convers- 
ant with  all  new  ideas  and  discoveries. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  he  loves  and  prac- 
tises all  bodily  exercises.  He  rides, 
takes  long  walks,  hunts,  yachts,  ex- 
amines for  himself  all  the  details  of 
breeding  and  agriculture  :  he  lives  in 
the  open  air,  he  withstands  the  en- 
croachments of  a  sedentary  life,  which 
always  elsewhere  leads  the  modern  man 
to  agitation  of  the  brain,  weakness  of 
the  muscles,  and  excitement  of  the 


nerves.  Such  is  tl  is  elegant  and  com, 
mon-sense  society,  refined  in  comfort, 
regular  in  conduct,  whose  dilettante 
tastes  and  moral  principles  confine  it 
within  a  sort  of  flowery  border,  and  pre- 
vent it  from  having  its  attention  divert- 
ed. 

Does  any  poet  suit  such  a  society 
better  than  Tennyson  ?  Without  being 
a  pedant,  he  is  moral  ;  he  may  be  read 
in  the  family  circle  by  night ;  he  does 
not  rebel  against  society  and  life  ;  he 
speaks  of  God  and  the  soul,  nobly, 
tenderly,  without  ecclesiastical  preju- 
dice ;  there  is  no  need  to  reproach  him 
like  Lord  Byron  ;  he  has  no  violent  and 
abrupt  words,  extravagant  and  scandal 
ous  sentiments;  he  will  pervert  no- 
body. We  shall  not  be  troubled  when 
we  close  the  book;  we  may  listen 
when  we  quit  him,  without  being 
shocked  by  the  contrast,  to  the  grave 
voice  of  the  master  of  the  house,  who 
reads  evening  prayers  before  the 
kneeling  servants.  And  yet,  when  we 
quit  him,  we  keep  a  smile  of  pleasure 
on  our  lips.  The  traveller,  the  lover 
of  archaeology,  has  been  pleased  by  the 
imitations  of  foreign  and  antique 
sentiments.  The  sportsman,  the  lover 
of  the  country,  has  relished  the  little 
country  scenes  and  the  rich  rural  pic- 
tures. The  ladies  have  been  charmed 
by  his  portraits  of  women  ;  they  are  so 
exquisite  and  pure  !  He  has  laid  such 
delicate  blushes  on  those  lovely  cheeks  I 
He  has  depicted  so  well  the  changing 
expression  of  those  proud  or  candid 
eyes !  They  like  him  because  they 
feel  that  he  likes  them.  He  even  hon- 
ors them,  and  rises  in  his  nobility  to 
the  height  of  their  purity.  Young  girls 
weep  in  listening  to  him ;  certainly 
when,  a  little  while  ago,  we  heard  the 
legend  of  Elaine  or  Enid  read,  we  saw 
the  fair  heads  drooping  under  the 
flowers  which  adorned  them,  and  white 
shoulders  heaving  with  furtive  emotion. 
And  how  delicate  was  this  emotion  1 
He  has  not  rudely  trenched  upon  truth 
and  passion.  He  has  risen  to  the  height 
of  noble  and  tender  sentiments.  He  has 
gleaned  from  all  nature  and  all  history 
what  was  most  lofty  and  amiable.  He 
has  chosen  his  ideas,  chiselled  his 
words,  equalled  by  his  artifices,  success- 
es, and  versatility  of  style,  the  pleas- 
antness and  perfection  of  social  ele* 


714 


MODERN  AUTHORS. 


[BOOK  V. 


gance  in  the  midst  of  which  we  read 
him.  His  poetry  is  like  one  of  those 
gilt  and  painted  stands  in  which  flowers 
of  the  country  and  exotics  mingle  in 
artful  harmony  their  stalks  and  foliage, 
their  clusters  and  cups,  their  scents 
and  hues.  It  seems  made  expressly 
for  these  wealthy,  cultivated,  free  busi- 
ness men,  heirs  of  the  ancient  nobility, 
new  leaders  of  a  new  England.  It  is 
part  of  their  luxury  as  well  as  of  their 
morality ;  it  is  an  eloquent  confirmation 
of  their  principles,  and  a  precious  arti- 
cle of  their  drawing-room  furniture. 

We  return  to  Calais,  and  travel  to- 
wards Paris,  without  pausing  on  the 
road.  There  are  on  the  way  plenty  of 
noblemen's  castles,  and  houses  of  rich 
men  of  business.  But  we  do  not  find 
amongst  them,  as  in  England,  the 
thinking,  elegant  world,  which,  by  the 
refinement  of  its  taste  and  the  superior- 
ity of  its  mind,  becomes  the  guide  of 
the  nation  and  the  arbiter  of  the  beau- 
tiful. There  are  two  peoples  in  France: 
the  provinces  and  Paris  ;  the  one  dining, 
sleeping,  yawning,  listening  ;  the  other 
thinking,  daring,  watching,  and  speak- 
ing :  the  first  drawn  by  the  second,  as  a 
snail  by  a  butterfly,  alternately  amused 
and  disturbed  by  the  whims  and  the 
audacity  of  its  guide.  It  is  this  guide 
we  must  look  upon!  Let  us  enter 
Paris  !  What  a  strange  spectacle  1  It 
is  evening,  the  streets  are  aflame,  a 
luminous  dust  covers  the  busy  noisy 
crowd,  which  jostles,  elbows,  crushes, 
and  swarms  near  the  theatres,  behind 
the  windows  of  the  cafes.  Have  you 
remarked  how  all  these  faces  are 
wrinkled,  frowning,  or  pale  ;  how  anx- 
ious are  their  looks,  how  nervous  their 
gestures  ?  A  violent  brightness  falls 
on  these  shining  heads;  most  are 
bald  before  thirty.  To  find  pleasure 
here,  they  must  have  plenty  of  excite- 
ment :  the  dust  of  the  boulevard  settles 
on  the  ice  which  they  are  eating ;  the 
smell  of  the  gas  and  the  steam  of  the 
pavement,  the  perspiration  left  on  the 
wills  dried  up  by  the  fever  of  a  Paris- 
ian day,  "  the  human  air  full  of  impure 
rattle  " — this  is  what  they  cheerfully 
breathe.  They  are  crammed  round 
their  little  marble  tables,  persecuted 
by  the  glaring  light,  the  shouts  of  the 
waiters,  the  jumble  of  mixed  talk,  the 
monotonous  motion  of  gloomy  walkers, 


the  flutter  of  loitering  courtesans  mo-v 
ing  about  anxiously  in  the  dark. 
Doubtless  their  homes  are  not  pleas- 
ant, or  they  would  not  change  them 
for  these  bagmen's  delights.  We  climb 
four  flights  of  stairs,  and  find  ourselves 
in  a  polished,  gilded  room,  adorned 
with  stuccoed  ornaments,  plaster  statu- 
ettes, new  furniture  of  old  oak,  wif.1 
every  kind  of  pretty  nick-nack  on  the 
mantel-pieces  and  the  whatnots.  "  It 
makes  a  good  show  ; "  you  can  give  a 
good  reception  to  envious  friends  and 
people  of  standing.  It  is  an  adver- 
tisement, nothing  more ;  we  pass  half 
an-hour  there  agreeably,  and  that  is  all, 
You  will  never  make  more  than  a  house 
of  call  out  of  these  rooms ;  they  are 
low  in  the  ceiling,  close,  inconvenient 
rented  by  the  year,  dirty  in  six  months, 
serving  to  display  a  fictitious  luxury. 
All  the  enjoyments  of  these  people  are 
factitious,  and,  as  it  were,  snatched 
hurriedly;  they  have  in  them  some- 
thing unhealthy  and  irritating.  They 
are  like  the  cookery  of  their  restaurants, 
the  splendor  of  their  cafes,  the  gayety 
of  their  theatres.  They  want  them  too 
quick,  too  pungent,  too  manifold.  They 
have  not  cultivated  them  patiently,  and 
culled  them  moderately ;  they  have 
forced  them  on  an  artificial  and  heating 
soil ;  they  grasp  them  in  haste.  They 
are  refined  and  greedy ;  they  need 
every  day  a  stock  of  word-paintings, 
broad  anecdotes,  biting  railleries,  new 
truths,  varied  ideas.  They  soon  get 
bored,  and  cannot  endure  tedium. 
They  amuse  themselves  with  all  their 
might,  and  find  that  they  are  hardly 
amused.  They  exaggerate  their  work 
and  their  expense,  their  wants  and 
their  efforts.  The  accumulation  of 
sensations  and  fatigue  stretches  their 
nervous  machine  to  excess,  and  their 
polish  of  social  gayety  chips  off  twenty 
times  a  day,  displaying  an  inner  ground 
of  suffering  and  ardor. 

But  how  quick-witted  they  are,  and 
how  unfettered  is  their  mind  !  How 
this  incessant  rubbing  has  sharpened 
them  !  How  ready  they  are  to  grasp 
and  comprehend  every  thing  !  How 
apt  this  studied  and  manifold  culture 
has  made  them  to  feel  and  relish  ten- 
dernesses and  sadnesses,  unknown  to 
their  fathers,  deep  feelings,  strange  and 
sublime,  which  hitherto  seemed  foreign 


CHAP.  VI.] 


POE  TR  Y—  TENNYSON. 


to  their  race  !  This  great  city  is  cos- 
mopolitan ;  here  all  ideas  may  be  born  ; 
no  barrier  checks  the  mind  :  the  vast 
field  of  thought  opens  before  them 
without  a  beaten  or  prescribed  track. 
Use  neither  hinders  nor  guides  them  ; 
an  official  Government  and  Church  rid 
them  of  the  care  of  leading  the  nation  : 
the  two  powers  are  submitted  to,  as 
we  submit  to  the  beadle  or  the  police- 
man, patiently  and  with  chaff ;  they 
are  looked  upon  as  a  play.  In  short, 
the  world  here  seems  but  a  melodrama,  a 
subject  of  criticism  and  argument.  And 
be  sure  that  criticism  and  argument 
have  full  scope.  An  Englishman  en- 
tering on  life,  finds  to  all  great  questions 
an  answer  ready  made.  A  Frenchman 
entering  on  life'finds  to  all  great  ques- 
tions simply  suggested  doubts.  In  this 
conflict  of  opinions  he  must  create  a 
faith  for  himself,  and,  being  mostly  un- 
able to  do  it,  he  remains  open  to  every 
uncertainty,  and  therefore  to  every 
curiosity  and  to  every  pain.  In  this 
gulf,  which  is  like  a  vast  sea,  dreams, 
theories,  fancies,  intemperate,  poetic 
and  sickly  desires,  collect  and  chase 
each  other  like  clouds.  If  in  this  tu- 
mult of  moving  forms  we  seek  some 
solid  work  to  prepare  a  foundation  for 
future  opinions,  we  find  only  the  slow- 
ly-rising edifices  of  the  sciences,  which 
here  and  there  obscurely,  like  sub- 
marine polypes,  construct  of  impercept- 
ible coral  the  basis  on  which  the  belief 
of  the  human  race  is  to  rest. 

Such  is  the  world  for  which  Alfred 
de  Musset  wrote :  in  Paris  he  must  be 
read.  Read?  We  all  know  him  by 
heart.  He  is  dead,  and  it  seems  as  if 
we  daily  hear  him  speak.  A  conversa- 
tion among  artists,  as  they  jest  in  a 
studio,  a  beautiful  young  girl  leaning 
over  her  oox  at  the  theatre,  a  street 
washed  by  the  rain,  making  the  black 
pavement  shine,  a  fresh  smiling  morn- 
ing in  the  woods  of  Fontainebleau, 
every  thing  brings  him  before  us  as  if 
he  were  alive  again.  Was  there  ever 
a  more  vibrating  and  genuine  accent  ? 
This  man,  at  least,  never  lied.  He 
only  said  what  he  felt,  and  he  has  said  it 
as  he  felt  it.  He  thought  aloud.  He  made 
the  confession  of  every  man.  He  was 
not  admired,  but  loved  ;  he  was  more 
than  a  poet,  he  was  a  man.  Every  one 
found  in  him  his  own  feelings,  the  most 


transient,  the  most  familiar  ;  he  did 
not  restrict  himself,  he  gave  himself  to 
all  ;  he  possessed  the  last  virtues  which 
remain  to  us,  generosity  and  sincerity. 
And  he  had  the  most  precious  gifl 
which  can  seduce  an  old  civilization, 
youth.  As  he  said,  "  that  hot  youth,  a 
tree  with  a  rough  bark,  which  covers 
all  with  its  shadow,  prospect  and  path." 
With  what  fire  did  he  hurl  onward  love, 
jealousy,  the  thirst  of  pleasure,  all  the 
impetuous  passions  which  rise  with 
virgin  blood  from  the  depths  of  a  young 
heart,  and  how  did  he  make  them  clash 
together  !  Has  any  one  felt  them  more 
deeply  ?  He  was  too  full  of  them,  he 
gave  himself  up  to  them,  was  intoxi- 
cated with  them.  He  rushed  through 
life,  like  an  eager  racehorse  in  the 
country,  whom  the  scent  of  plants  and 
the  splendid  novelty  of  the  vast  heavens 
urge,  headlong,  in  its  mad  career, 
which  shatters  all  before  him,  and  him- 
self as  well.  He  desired  too  much  ;  he 
wished  strongly  and  greedily  to  enjoy 
life  in  one  draught,  thoroughly  ;  he  did 
not  glean  or  enjoy  it  ;  he  tore  it  off  like 
a  bunch  of  grapes,  pressed  it,  crushed 
it,  twisted  it  ;  and  he  remains  with 
stained  hands  as  thirsty  as  before.  * 
Then  broke  forth  sobs  which  found  an 
echo  in  all  hearts.  What  !  so  young, 
and  already  so  wearied !  So  many 
precious  gifts,  so  fine  a  mind,  so  deli- 
cate a  tact,  so  rich  and  varied  a  fancy, 
so  precocious  a  glory,  such  a  sudden 
blossom  of  beauty  and  genius,  and  yet 
anguish,  disgust,  tears,  and  cries  I 
What  a  mixture  !  With  the  same 
attitude  he  adores  and  curses.  Eternal 
illusion,  invincible  experience,  keep 
side  by  side  in  him  to  fight  and  tear 
him.  He  became  old,  and  remained 
young  ;  he  is  a  poet,  and  he  is  a  skeptic. 
The  Muse  and  her  peaceful  beauty, 
Nature  and  her  immortal  freshness, 
Love  and  his  happy  smile,  all  the  swarm 
of  divine  visions  barely  passed  befoie 
his  eyes,  when  we  see  approaching  with 
curses,  and  sarcasms,  all  the  spectres 
of  debauchery  and  death.  He  is  as  a 
man  in  a  festive  scene,  who  drinks  from 
a  chased  cup,  standing  up,  in  front, 
amidst  applause  and  triumphal  music, 

*  "  O  me'diocrit^  !  celui  qui  pour  tout  bien 
T'apporte  a  ce  tripot  de'gofitant  de  la  vie 
Est  bien  poltron  au  jeu  s'il  ue  dit :  Tout  ou 
rien.' 


7i6 


his  eyes  laugh'ng,  his  heart  full  of  joy, 
neated  and  excited  by  the  generous 
wine  he  quaffed,  whom  suddenly  we 
see  growing  pale  ;  there  was  poison  in 
the  cup ;  he  falls,  and  the  death-rattle 
is  in  his  throat ;  his  convulsed  feet 
beat  upon  the  silken  carpet,  and  all  the 
terrified  guests  look  on.  This  is  what 
we  felt  on  the  day  when  the  most  be- 
loved, the  most  brilliant  amongst  us, 
suddenly  quivered  from  an  unseen  at- 
tack, and  was  struck  down,  being  hardly 
able  to  breathe  amid  the  lying  splendors 
and  gayeties  of  our  banquet. 

Well !  such  as  he  was,  we  love  him 
forever  :  we  cannot  listen  to  another  ; 
beside  him,  all  seem  cold  or  false.  We 
leave  at  midnight  the  theatre  in  which 
he  had  heard  Malibran,  and  we  enter 
the  gloomy  rite  des  Monlins,  where,  on 
a  hired  bed,  his  Rolla  *  came  to  sleep 
and  die.  The  lamps  cast  flickering 
rays  on  the  slippery  pavement.  Rest- 
less shadows  march  past  the  doors,  and 
trail  along  their  dress  of  draggled  silk  to 
meet  the  passers-by.  The  windows  are 
fastened  ;  here  and  there  a  light  pierces 
through  a  half  closed  shutter,  and 
shows  a  dead  dahlia  on  the  edge  of  a 
window-sill.  To-morrow  an  organ 
will  grind  before  these  panes,  and  the 
wan  clouds  will  leave  their  droppings 
on  these  dirty  walls.  From  this 
wretched  place  came  the  most  impas- 
sioned of  his  poems  !  These  vilenesses 
and  vulgarities  of  the  stews  and  the 
lodging-house  caused  this  divine  elo- 
quence to  flow  !  it  was  these  which  at 
such  a  moment  gathered  in  this  bruised 
heart  all  the  splendors  of  nature  and 
history,  to  make  them  spring  up  in 
*  See  ante,  p.  111,  n.  i. 


MODERN  A  UTHORS. 


[BooK  V. 


sparkling  jets,  and  shine  under  the 
most  glowing  poetic  sun  that  ever  rose  1 
We  feel  pity  ;  we  think  of  that  other 
poet,  away  there  in  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
who  amuses  himself  by  dressing  up  lost 
epics.  How  happy  he  is  amongst  his 
fine  books,  his  friends,  his  honeysuckles 
and  roses !  No  matter.  De  Musset, 
in  this  wretched  abode  of  filth  and 
misery,  rose  higher.  From  the  heights 
of  his  doubt  and  despair,  he  saw  the 
infinite,  as  we  see  the  sea  from  a  storm- 
beaten  promontory.  Religions,  their 
glory  and  their  decay,  the  human  race, 
its  pangs  and  its  destiny,  all  that  is 
sublime  in  the  world,  appeared  there 
to  him  in  a  flash  of  lightning.  He  felt, 
at  least  this  once  in  his  life,  the  inner 
tempest  of  deep  sensations,  giant- 
dreams,  and  intense  voluptuousness,  the 
desire  of  which  enabled  him  to  live,  the 
lack  of  which  forced  him  to  die.  He 
was  no  mere  dilettante  ;  he  was  not 
content  to  taste  and  enjoy  ;  he  left  his 
rnark  on  human  thought ;  he  told  the 
world  what  was  man,  love,  truth,  hap- 
piness. He  suffered,  but  he  imagined  ; 
he  fainted,  but  he  created.  He  tore 
from  his  entrails  with  despair  the  idea 
which  he  had  conceived,  and  showed  it 
to  the  eyes  of  all,  bloody  but  alive. 
That  is  harder  and  lovelier  than  to  go 
fondling  and  gazing  upon  the  ideas  of 
others.  There  is  in  the  world  but  one 
work  worthy  of  a  man,  the  production 
of  a  truth,  to  which  we  devote  ourselves, 
and  in  which  we  believe.  The  people 
who  have  listened  to  Tennyson  are 
better  than  our  aristocracy  of  townsfolk 
and  bohemians  ;  but  I  prefer  Alfred 
de  Musset  to  Tennyson. 


INDEX. 


ABTCLARD,  101,102. 

Addisou,  Joseph,  383,  397,  402,  408  ;  his  life 

and  writings,  416-434,  529,  535,  623,  629, 

634  seq.,  648. 
Adhelm,  51,  54, 116. 
Agriculture,  improvement  in,  in  sixteenth 

century,  109  ;  in  the  nineteenth,  507,  574 

seq. 

Akenside,  Mark,  503. 
Alcuin,  51,  55. 
Alexander  VI.,  Pope,  240. 
Alexandrian  philosophy,  28. 
Alfred  the  Great,  51,  54. 
Alison,  Sir  Archibald,  507. 
Amory,  Thomas,  477. 
Angelo.  Michael,  115,  211,  499. 
Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  45,  seq. 
Ann  of  Cleves,  117. 
Anselm,  58. 

Anthology,  the,  129,  144. 
Arbuthnot,  Dr.  John,  445. 
Architecture,  Norman,  57,  86;  the  Tudor 

style,  110. 

Ariosto,  116,  136,  307. 
Aristocracy.  British,  in    the    nineteenth 

century,  575,  sen. 
Ark wright,  Sir  Richard,  413. 
Armada,  the,  109,  166. 
Arnold,  Dr.  Thomas,  531,  580. 
Arthur  and  Merlin,  romance  of,  58. 
Ascham,  Roger,  114,  148,241. 
Athelstun,  3<i,  46. 
Augier,  Emile,  595. 
Austen,  Jane,  530. 

B. 

BAOOX    Francis,  Lord,  148,    153-158,  257, 

L'.7»,  (>'27  8eq.j636. 
Bacon,  Roger,  102. 
Bsiin,  Alexander,  r>83. 
Bakewell,  Robert,  413. 
Bale,  John,  116. 
Balzac,  Honor*  de,  18,  599,  620 
Barclay,  Alexander,  104. 
Barclay i  John,  397. 
Barclay,  Robert,  270. 
Barrow,  Inane,  394,  399  seq. 
J!a  \-t.-r.  IJirliard.  Itto,  'J(;!»,  :SM7. 
Bayly's  (Lewis)  Practice  of  Piety,  273. 
Beattie,  James,  478.  504. 
Beauclerk,  Henry,  58. 


Beaumont,  Francis,  173,  182,  261,  263,  298. 

Becket,  Thomas  a,  69. 

Beckford,  W.,  525- 

Bede,  the  Venerable,  51. 

Bedford,  Duke  of  (John  Russell),  407. 

Beethoven,  Lewis  van,  531. 

Behn,  Mrs.  Aphra,  324,  376. 

Bell,  Currer.    See  Bronte,  Charlotte. 

Benoit  de  Sainte  Maure,  58. 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  413,  629. 

Bentley,  Richard,  403. 

Beowulf,  an  Anglo-Saxon  epic  poem,  43- 

Be  ranger,  243,  637. 

Bergmann's  translations  of  Icelandic  le- 
gends, 39. 

Berkeley,  Bishop.  403. 

Berkley,  Sir  Charles,  314. 

Berners,  Lord,  117. 

Best,  Paul,  266. 

Bible,  English.    See  Wiclif,  Tyndale. 

Bilney,  Thomas,  martyrdom  of,  253. 

Blackmore,  Sir  Richard,  361. 

Blount,  Edward,  120. 

Boccaccio,  85.  88,  383. 

Bodley,  Sir  Thomas,  148. 

Boethius,  52,  53. 

Boileau,  316,  338,  360,  381,  393,  488,  492,  668. 

Boleyn,  Ann,  117,  165. 

Bolingbroke,  Lord  (Henry  St.  John),  388, 
389,  403,  488,  623. 

Bonner,  Edmund,  256. 

Borde,  Andrew,  116. 

Borgia,  Csesar,  240,  241. 

Borgia,  Lucretia,  114,  240. 

Bossu  (or  Lebossu),  360,  428,  431. 

Bossuet,  26,  365,  498,  648. 

Boswell.  James,  480  seq. 

Bourchier.    See  Berners. 

Boyle,  the  Hon.  Robert,  403. 

Bridaine,  Father,  400. 

Britons,  ancient,  37. 

Bronte,  Charlotte  (Currer  Bell),  530,  538, 
583. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  148,  149,  152, 153,  257, 
259. 

Browning,  Mrs.,  538,  583. 

Brunanburh.  Athelstan's  victory  at,  cele- 
brated in  Saxon  song,  4i;. 

Buckingham,  2d  Duke  of  (George  Villiers), 
815,321,336,881, 

Buckinghamshire,  Duke  of  (John  Shef- 
li.-l.l),  ;;:;*. 

Buckle,  Henry  Thomas,  567  seq.,  579. 

Bulwer,530,  583. 


7i8 


INDEX. 


Bunyan,  John.  270-277,  310. 

Burke,  Edmund,  40S,  411-416,  480,  637,648. 

Burleigh,  Lord  (William  Cecil),  163,  638. 

Burnet,  Bishop,  397. 

Burney,  Francisca    (Madame    D'Arblay), 

392,413,  480,631. 
Burns,  Robert,  375  ;  sketch  of  his  life  and 

works,  510-519. 

Burton,  Robert,  110,  149-151,  257,  293. 
Busby,  Dr.  Richard,  378. 
Bute,  Lord,  387  seq.,  407. 
Butler,  Bishop,  413. 
Butler,  Samuel,  .'513,  314,  403. 
Byng,  Admiral,  3*7.  407. 
Byron,  Lord,  4(JO  ;  his  life  and  works,  538- 

564. 

C. 


N,  hymns  of,  48.  50  ;  his  metrical 

paraphrase  of  parts  01  the  Bible,  50,  51, 

116. 

Calamy,  Edmund,  270. 
Calderon.  102,  1(56,  186,  323. 
Calvin,  John.  244,  2(53,  402. 
Camderi,  William,  148. 
Campbell,  Thomas,  525,  544. 
Carew,  Thomas,  144. 
Carey,  Mr.,  526. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  20,  538,  579,  583  ;  style  and 

mind,   648  seq.  ;  vocation,  658  seq.  ;  phi- 

losophy, morality,  and  criticism,  662  seq.  ; 

conception  of  history,  668. 
Carteret,  John  (Earl  Granville),  408. 
Castlereagh,  Lord,  187. 
Catherine,  St.,  play  of,  58. 
Cellini,  Benvenuto,  31,  78,  116. 
Cervantes,  71,  97,  136,  461. 
Chalmers,  George,  56. 
Chandos,  Duke  of  (John  Brydges),  488. 
Chapman,  George,  188. 
Charles  of  Orleans,  63,  100. 
Charles  I.  of  England,  632. 
Charles  II.  and  his  court,  314  seq. 
Chateaubriand,  19,  427. 
Chatham.    See  Pitt. 
Chaucer,  74,  75,  85,  100,  383. 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  390  seq.,  480,  492. 
Chew  Chase,  ballad  of,  84. 
Chillingworth,  William,  148,  258,  259,  402. 
Christianity,  introduction  of,  into  Britain, 

47,  52. 

Chroniclers,  French,  62. 
Chronicles,  Saxon,  53. 
Cibber,  Collev,  489,  493. 
Cimbrians,  the.  39 
Clarendon,      Lord     Chancellor     (Edward 

Hyde),  148,  314. 
Clarke,  Dr.  John,  396,  403. 
Classic  spirit  in  Europe,  its  origin    and 

nature,  330-332. 

Cl  »saical  authors  translated,  113,  119. 
01  ve,  Lord,  629. 
Cderidge,  Hartley,  167. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  523  seq* 
Collier,  Jeremy,  361,  378. 
Collins,  William.  504. 
Essex,  Robert,  Earl  of,  162,  163. 
Comdey-  writers.  English,  340  seq. 
Comines,  Philippe  de,  84. 
Commerce  in  sixteenth  century,   109,  572 

seq. 
Comte,  Auguste,  676. 


Condillac,  Rtephen-Bonnot  de,  661, 676. 

Congreve,  William,  340,  345,  349-352,  392. 

Conybeare,  J.  J..  46  seq. 

Corbet.  Bishop,  258. 

Corneille.  25,  360,  367. 

Cotton,  Sir  Robert,  148. 

Court  pageantries   in   the  sixteenth  ccn 

tury,  111. 

Coventry,  Sir  John,  315. 
Coverdale,  Miles.  249. 
Cowley,  Abraham,  146,  147,  257.  277. 
Cowpe'r,  William,  520-523. 
Crabbe,  George,  522,  544. 
Cranmer,  Archbishop,  246,  251. 
Crashaw,  Richard,  257. 
Criticism  and  History,  627  seq. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  2C,  257,  266,  632,  654,  671 
Crowne,  John,  324. 
Curll,  Edmund,  494. 

D. 

DANIEL,  Samuel,  148. 

Dante,  89,  100,  102,  299,  662. 

Darwin,  Charles,  24. 

Davie,  Adam,  68. 

Davies,  Sir  John,  257. 

Daye,  John,  264. 

Decker,  Thomas,  168. 

De  Foe,  406,  457-461,  575. 

Delille,  James,  496. 

Denham,  Sir  John,  339,  340. 

Denmark,  33,  35. 

Dennis,  John,  419. 

Desc-artes,  319,  365,  661. 

Dickens,  Charles,  530,  538 ;  his  novels,  583- 

603. 

Domesday  Book,  56,  59,  73. 
Donne,  John,  145,  258. 
Dorat,  C.  J.,  493,  559. 
Dorset,  Earl  of  (Charles  Sack v 5 lie),  336. 
Drake,  Admiral,  109. 
Drake,  Dr.  Nathan,  109, 110,  162. 
Drama,  formation  of  the,  173  seq. 
Drayton,  Michael,  126  seq.,  131,  257. 
Drummond,  William,  293. 
Dryden,  John,  26,  293;  his   comedies,  321- 

323,  338  ;   his  life  and  writings,  359-386, 

419,  487,  659. 

Dude  van  t,  Madame  (George  Sand),  595. 
Dunstan,  St.,  36  seq. 
Durer,  Albert,  242,  243. 
Dyer,  Sir  Edward,  126. 

E. 

EAELE,  John,  148. 

Eddas,  the  Scandinavian,  39-41,  550. 

Edge  worth,  Maria,  619. 

Edward  VI.,  253. 

Edwy  and  P'lgiva,  story  of,  37,  38. 

Eliot.  George.     See  Evans,  Mary  A. 

England,  climate  of,  34. 

English  Constitution,  formation  of  the,  71. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  109-112.  147,  150. 

Elwin,  Rev.  Whitwell,  487,  490  seq. 

Erigena,  John  Scotus,  51,  54. 

Esmenard,  Joseph  Alphonse,  104. 

Etherege,  Sir  George,  324,  310. 

Evans,  Mary  A.  (George  Eliot),  530,  580, 

Ecky  Van,  97. 


INDEX. 


D,  Lord,  148. 
Farnese,  Pietro  Luigi,  240. 
Farquhar,  George,  340,  341,  352,  353- 
Faust,  509. 
Featley,  Dr.,  267. 
Feltham,  Owen,  148. 
Feun,  Sir  John,  109. 
Ferguson,  Dr.  Adam,  404,  629. 
Fermor,  Mrs.  Arabella,  492,  493. 
Feudalism,  the  formation  and  character 

of,  56. 

Fichte,  662. 

Fielding,  Henry,  187,  311,  469-474,  484. 
Filmer,  Sir  Robert,  405. 
Finsborough,  Battle  of,  an   Anglo-Saxon 

poem,  46. 

Fisher,  John,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  164 
252,  253. 

Flemish  artists,  108, 112. 

Fletcher,  Giles,  257. 

Fletcher,  John,  173,  182,  183, 185, 186,  261, 
263,  293. 

Ford,  John,  173,  177  seq.,  183,  184,  373. 

Fortescue,  Sir  John,  78  seq. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  408,  410  seq. 

Fox,  Henry  (1st  Lord  Holland),  388  seq. 

Fox,  George,  2fi7,  270,  310. 

Fox,  John,  245,  247  seq. 

Francis  of  Assisi,  102. 

Freeman,  Edward  A.  56. 

Frisians,  the,  33. 

Froissart,  62,  72,  85,  86,  88. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  73,  246  seq. 

Fuller,  Ihomas,  186. 

G. 

GAIMAR,  Geoffroy,  58,  67. 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  landscape  painter 

359. 

Garrick,  David,  480,  482. 
Gaskell,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  C.,  530,  583. 
Gay,  John,  353,  390,  486,  500,  501. 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  67,  89. 
German  ideas,  introduction  of,  in  Europ 

and  England,  658  seq. 
Germany,  drinking  habits  in,  241,  242. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  480. 
Gladstone.  William  Ewart,  630. 
Glencoe.  massacre  of,  645,  seq. 
Glover,  Richard,  504. 
Godwin,  William,  535. 
Godwin,    Mrs.    William.    See  Wollston< 

craft,  Mary. 

Goethe,  20,  26,  299,  302,  472,  510,  524,  551 
554,  658  seq. 

Go  d,,niith,  Oliver,  354,  406,  478-480. 

GoUziug,  121. 

Gower,  John,  06,  103. 

Grammont,  Count  de,  312,  330. 

Gray  Thomas,  5<)l. 

Greene.  Robert,  127,  129,  147, 168,  210. 

Grenv'lle,  George,  407. 

Gresset,  J.  B.  Lewis.  4H3. 

Grey,  Lady  Jane,  113.  162. 

Grostete.  Robert,  6  i,  68. 

Grote,  George,  583. 

Guirciardim,  Ludovic,  109. 

<;ui<lo.  '25. 

Guizot,  17,  75,  631 , 635,  647. 

Guy  of  Warwick,  58. 


H. 

ABINGTON,  William,  145. 
ackluyt,  Richard.  148. 
ale,  Sir  Matthew,  247. 
ales,  John,  148,  258,  259,  402. 
alifax,  Charles  Montague,  Earl  of,  417 
421,  435,  438. 

all,  Bishop  Joseph,  148,  258. 
allam,  Henry,  80,  632. 
amilton,  Anthony,  311  seq. 
amilton,  Sir  William,  583. 
ampden,  John,  631. 
Tampole,  68. 
ardyng,  John.  161. 
larrington,  Sir  John,  143. 
Garrison,  William,  109  seq.,  674. 
hartley,  David,  675. 

:astings,  Warren,  411,  629,  637  seq.,  639. 
lawes,  Stephen,  104. 
Hegel,  26,  28,  101,  629,  660  seq. 
leine,  18,  34,  208,  505,  510,  524,  531. 
[emling,  Hans,  108. 
lenry  Beauclerk,  58. 
Henry  of  Huntingdon,  38,  58. 
lenry  VIII.  and  his  Court,  161,  162,  246. 
Herbert,  George,  145. 
Herbert,  Lord,  148. 
Herder,  John  Godfrey  Ton,  20.    .- 
Herrick,  Robert,  144,  145. 
Herschel,  Sir  John,  688,  691. 
Hertford,  Earl  of,  162. 
Hervey,  Lord,  498. 
Heywood,  Mrs.  Eliza,  494. 
Heywood,  John,  116,  166. 
Higden,  Ralph,  65. 
Hill,  Aaron.  488. 

History,  philosophy  of.    See  the  Introduc- 
tion, passim. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  318-321,  374,  674,  691. 
Hogarth,  William,  484-486. 
Holinshed's  Chronicles,  111,  148, 164. 
Holland,  Lord.    See  Fox,  Henry. 
Holland,  33  seq. 
Homer  and  Spenser,  133. 
Hooker,  Richard,  148,  258  seq. 
Horn,  King,  romance  of,  58,  71. 
Hoveden,  John,  66. 
Howard,  John,  413. 
Howard,  Sir  Robert,  369. 
Howe,  John,  644. 
Hugo,  Victor,  18,  105,  385,  523,  531. 
Hume,  David,  404,  478,  641.  671,  676.  091. 
Hunter,  William,  martyrdom  of,  255,  256. 
Hutcheson,  Francis,  404,  413,  629. 
Hutchinson,  Col.  John,  672. 

I. 

IOKT,AND  and  its  legends,  36,  39. 

Independency  in  the  sixteenth  century ( 
2650tf?.y288. 

Industry,  British,  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 573  seq. 

Irish,  the  ancient,  37. 

Italian   writings  and  ideas,  taste  for,  in 
sixteenth    century,  114 ;    vices    of    the 
Italian  Renaissance,  239-241. 
J. 

JAMKS  T.  and  his  Court,  143  seq. 

James  II.,  <,:;">. 

J.-wHl,  Bishop,  165. 

Johnson, Samuel,  187,  403.  413,480-486,  489, 
490,  505,  667. 


720 

Joinville,  Sire  de,  62. 

Jones,  Inigo,  110, 188. 

Jones,  Sir  William,  480. 

Jonson.  Ben,  128, 159,  167,  186, 187,  203,  567; 
sketch  of  his  life,  186-188  ;  his  learning, 
style,  etc.,  188-191  ;  his  dramas,  191-194  ; 
his  comedies,  194-200  ;  compared  with 
Moliere,  200 ;  fanciful  comedies  and 
smaller  poems,  200-203. 

Jordaens,  Jacob,  112. 

Jowett,  Benjamin,  538,  662. 

Judith,  poem  of,  49,  50. 

Junius,  Francis,  51. 

Junius,  Letters  of,  408  seq.,  541. 

Jutes,  the,  and  their  country,  33  seq> 
K. 


INDEX. 


KEATS,  John,  553. 
Kemble,  John  M.,  J 


5,  43  seq. 


Knighton,  Henry,  83. 
Knolles,  Richard,  148. 
Knox,  John,  242,  253,  672. 
Kyd,  Thomas,  167. 

L. 

LACKLAND,  John,  72. 
La  Harpe,  668. 
Laing,  David,  187. 
Lamartine,  18,  524,  531. 
Lamb,  Charles.  523,  524. 
Laneham,  Robert,  111. 
Lanfranc,  first    Norman    Archbishop    of 

Canterbury,  58. 
Langtoft,  Peter,  66. 
Languet,  Hubert,  121. 
Latimer,  Bishop,  76,  247,  253  seq. 
Laud,  Archbishop,  25*9,  638. 
Lavergne,  Leonce  de,  34. 
Law,  William,  403. 
Layamon,  67. 
Lebossu.     See  Bossu. 
Lebrun,  Ponce  Denis  Ecouchard,  104. 
Lee,  Nathaniel,  370. 
Leibnitz,  497. 

Leigh  ton,  Dr.  Alexander,  265,287. 
Lely,  Sir  Peter,  413. 
Leo  X.,  Pope,  240 
Lessing.  Gotthold  Ephraim,  19. 
Lingard,  Dr.  John,  35. 
Locke,  John,    277,402,  404  seq.,  413,  636, 

677,  678. 

Lockhart,  John  Gibson,  526  seq. 
Lodge,  Thomas,  126,  167.  . 
Lombard,  Peter,  100,  101. 
Lomenie  de  Brienne,  Cardinal,  650. 
London  in  Henry  VIII. 's  time,  109 ;  in  the 

present  day,  572  seq. 
Longchamps,  William,  69. 
Longus,  Greek  romance  writer,  129. 
Lorris,  Guillaume  de,  62,  69. 
Loyola,  102,  108,  630. 
Ludlow,  Edmund,  266. 
Lulli,  a  renowned  Italian  composer,  365. 
Lully,  Raymond,  102. 
Luther,  Martin,  31,  108,  239,  240,  242. 
Lydgate,  John,  Abbot  of  St.  Alban's,  104, 

105. 

Lyly,  John,  120. 
Lyly,  William,  113. 

M. 
MAOAITLAY,  Thomas    Babington    (Lord) 

538  ;  his  works,  627-648. 
Machiavelli,  115. 


Mackenzie,  flenry,  503,  511. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  632. 

Macpherson,  James,  504. 

Malcolm,  Sir  John,  526. 

Malherbe,  Francis  de,  659. 

Malte-Brun,  Conrad,  33. 

Mamie ville,  Bernard,  403- 

Manners  of  the  people  in  the  sixteenth  cen« 

tury,  ill  seq. 

Marguerite  or  Navarre,  88. 
Marlborough,  Duchess  of,  498. 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  388,  406,  623. 
Marlowe,  Christopher,  true  founder  of  the 

dramatic  school,  130,  147,  167,  523  ;  his 

dramas,  168-173. 
Marston,  John,  188. 
Martyr,  Peter,  251. 

Martyrs  in  the  reign  of  Mary,  255,  256. 
Marvell,  Andrew,  377. 
Masques  under  James  I.,  Ill,  201,  202. 
Massillon,  25.'}. 

Massinger,  Philip,  167,  176  seq. 
Maundeville,  Sir  John,  67>  72. 
May,  Thomas,  270. 
Medici,  Lorenzo  de,  114. 
Melauchthon,  Philip,  245,  251. 
Merlin,  58. 

Meung,  Jean  de,  68,  103. 
Michelet,  Jules,  19,  48,  657. 
Middleton,  Thomas,  173. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  538,  579,  675-702. 
Milton,   John,   50,   132,   148,    277-284;    hia 

prose  writings,  284-293  ;  his  poetry,  293- 

307,  428,  629. 

Moliere,  131.  207,  208,  340  seq.,  466,  598. 
Mommsen,  Theodor,  27. 
Montagu,  Lady  Mary  Wortley,  469, 488,  492. 
Montesquieu,  Ch.,  28.  30. 
Moore,  Thomas,  478,  52-1  seq..  557. 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  148,  165. 
Miiller,  Max,  G76. 
Muller,  Ottfried,  20. 
Murray,  John,  431,  557,  559. 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  18,  124,  168,  190,  207,  384 

505,  524,  531,  712  seq.,  715,  716. 

N. 

NASH,  Thomas,  168. 
Nayler,  James,  266,  268,  270. 
Real's  History  of  the  Puritans, 268,  269,  287. 
Newcastle,  Duchess  of  (Margaret  Lucas), 

Newspaper,  first  daily,  507. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  396,  403,  691. 

Nicole,  Peter,  392. 

Norman  Conquest,  the,  55,  56  ;  its  effects 
on  the  national  language  and  literature, 
64  seq.,  83-85,  47. 

Normans,  the.  character  of,  57  ;  how  they 
became  French,  57 ;  their  taste  an<j 
architecture,  57, 58  ;  their  literature, 
chivalry,  and  success,  58-60  ;  their  posi- 
tion and  tyranny  in  England,  64-66,  565, 
566. 

Nott,  Dr.  John,  119. 

Novel,  the  English — its  characteristic, 
456  seq.,  the  modern  school  of  novelists, 
583  seq. 

Nut-brown  Maid,  the, — an  ancient  balladi 
118. 

O. 

GATES,  Titus,  379. 

Occam,  William,  102. 


INDEX. 


721 


Occleve.  Thomas,  103. 
Ochtn,  Bernard,  251. 
Oliphant,  Mrs.,  469. 
Olivers,  Thomas,  397. 
Orley,  Richard  van,  108. 
Orrery,  Earl  of,  488. 
Otway,  Thomas,  369,  373,  374. 
Ouseley,  Sir  William,  526. 
Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  148. 
Owen,  Dr.  John,  270. 

P. 

PAGANISM  of  poetry  and  painting  in  Italy 
in  the  sixteeth  century,  105  seq. 

Paley,  William,  402. 

Palgrave,  Sir  Francis,  34 

Parnell,  Dr.  Thomas,  486. 

Pascal,  402,  456,  498,  648. 

Pastoral  poetry,  126. 

Peele,  George,  167. 

Penn,  William,  395,  644. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  315,  317. 

Percv,  Thomai,  523. 

Perelle,  18. 

Petrarch,  85,  116, 117,  118. 

Philips,  Ambrose,  486. 

Philosophy  and  history,  648  seq 

Philosophy  and  poetry,  connection  of,  100. 

Picts.  37. 

Pickering,  Dr.  Gilbert,  360. 

Piers  Plowman's  Crede,  83. 

Piers  Ploughman,  Vision  of,  82, 83, 116. 

Pitt,  William,  first  Earl  of  Chatham,  388, 
407  seq.,  631. 

Pitt,  William  ( second  son  of  the  preced- 
ing), 408,  411,  415,  519. 

Pleiad,  the,  26. 

Pluche.  Abbe,  425. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allen,  458. 

Pope,  Alexander,  376,  417, 419,  446,  487-499, 
544,  547,  634  seq. 

Prayer-book,  English,  251,  292. 

Preaching  at  the  Reformation  period,  253. 

Presbyterians  and  Independents  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  265,  288,  289. 

Price,  Dr.,  Richard,  404,  413,  629. 

Priestley,  Dr.,  519. 

Prior,  Matthew,  486,  499. 

Proclus,  101. 

Prynne,  William,  270. 

Pulci,  an  Italian  painter,  114. 

Pultock,  Robert,  477. 

Purchas,  Samuel,  148. 

Puritans,  the,  263,  seq.,  309  seq. 

Putttmham,  George,  116,  148. 

Pym,  John,  631, 

Q. 

QUARLES,  Francis,  145,  257. 

R. 

RABELAIS,  96, 136, 159,  211,  316,  450, 477, 
Racine,  214,  360,  393,  001,  648. 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  139, 148, 103,  257. 
Rapin,  360, 
Ray,  John,  403,  404. 
Reformation  in  England  made  way  for  by 

the  Saxon  character  and  the    situation. 

of  the  Norman  Church,82-85, 105,  241  seq. 
Reid,  Thomas,  404,  413,  478,  62»,  675. 
Renaissance,   the   English  :  manners    of 

the  time,  107-116 ;  the  theatre  its  original 

product,  158  *eq. 


Renan,  Ernest,  27, 86. 

Restoration,  period  of  the,  in  England 

309  seq. ,  352. 
Revolution,  period  of  the,  in  England, 

386  seq. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  359,  413,  480. 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  71. 
Richardson,  Samuel,  311,  403,  462-469,   48C, 

486,489,503. 
Ridley,  Nicholas,  255. 
Ritson,  Joseph.    See  Robin  Hood. 
Robert  of  Brtinne,  68. 
Robert  of  Gloucester,  68. 
Robertson,  Dr.  William,  478,  486,  505,  671. 
Robespierre,  393. 

Robin  Hood  ballads,  76,  77,  112,  116. 
Rochester,  Earl  of  (John  Wilinot),  316  seq.i 

338,  422,  499,  559,  674. 
Rogers,  John,  martyrdom  of,  255. 
Rogers,  Samuel,  544- 
Roland,  Song  of,  58,  60  seq. 
Rollo,  a  Norse  leader,  57. 
Ronsard,  Peter  de,  26. 
Roscellinus,  102. 
Roscommon,  Earl  of,  338. 
Roses,  wars  of  the.  78,  79,  84,  109, 171. 
Rotheland,  Hugh  de,  66. 
Rousseau,  Jean-Baptiste,  496. 
Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  482,  493,  503,  676. 
Royer-Collard,  Pierre-Paul,  692. 
Rubens,  97,  112, 141,  186,  211,  499. 
Ruckert,  525. 
Russell,  Lord  William,  315. 

S. 

SAOHEVERELTj,  Dr.,  387,  405. 

Sackville,  Thomas  (Earl  of  Dorset),  117. 

Sacy,  Lemaistre  de,  250. 

Sadeler,  engravings  of,  121. 

St.  Alban's,  Abbot  of.    See  Lydgato,  John, 

St.  John.     See  Bolingbroke,  Lord. 

St.  Theresa,  102. 

Saint-Simon,  Duke  of,  18,  540,  600. 

Sainte-Beuve,  20. 

Saintre,  Jehan  de,  72. 

Sand,  George.    See  Dudevant,  Madame. 

Savage,  Richard,  494. 

SawtrA,  William,  84. 

Saxons,  the,  33  seq. ;   character  of    the 

race,  55  ;  contrast  with  the  Normans,  57  ; 

their  endurance,  73  atq.  ;  their  invasion 

of  England,  665,  566. 
Scaliger,  668. 
Schciling,  28. 
Schiller,  510,  524,  531. 

Scotland  in  the  seventeenth  century,  311. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,   19,    323,  359    se<i.t  430 

seq.,  478,  524,  540,  623  ;  his  novels  and 

poems,  526-531. 
Scotus,  Duns,  101  seq.,  681. 
Scud6ry,  Mademoiselle  de,  121. 
Sedley,  Sir  Charles,  145,  335. 
Selden,  John,  148. 
Seres,  William,  264. 
Settle,  Elk  an  ah,  361,  369. 
Sevigne,  Madame  de,  492,  648. 
Shadwell,  Thomas,  324,  369,  3HO. 
Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Cooper,  third  Earl 

of.  404. 
Shakspeare,  William,  117,  126,    127,  147, 

186,  363,  368  seq..  567  :  general  idea  of, 

202^-204;  his  life  and  character,  204-211  : 

hia  Btyle,  211-214 ;  and   manners,  214-217 

3* 


722 


INDEX. 


his  dramatis  personre,  217-220  ;  his  men 
of  wit.  220-222  ;  and  women,  222-224 ; 
his  villains,  224,  225;  the  principal 
characters  in  his  plays,  225-232  ;  fancy, 
imagination,— ideas  of  existence— love  ; 
harmony  between  the  artist  and  his 
work,  232-289. 
Sheffield,  John.  See  Buckinghamshire, 

Duke  of. 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  524,  535-538,  553. 
Shenstone,  William,  504. 
Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  354  seq.,  408, 

478,  544. 

Sherloek,  Bishop,  307,  402, 462. 
Shirley,  James,  167,  321. 
Sidney,  Algernon,  1  iS,  277,  315. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  117,  121-126,   148,  159, 

259,  567. 

Skelton,  John,  105,  116. 
Smart,  Christopher,  504. 
Smith,  Adam,  404,  413,  629,643. 
Smith,  Sydney,  392,  638. 
Smollett,  Tobias,  407,  474-476,  478. 
Society  in  Great  Britain  in  the  present 
day,  575  seq. ;  in  England  and  in  France, 
712  seq. 

South,  Dr.  Robert,  3y7,  399,  400-402. 
Southern,  Thomas,  370. 
Southey,  Robert,  477,  522,  525,  556,  637. 
Speed,  John,  148. 
Spelman,  Sir  Henry,  148. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  567,  583. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  117,  127,  131,   14«,  277, 
298  :  his  life,  character,  and  poet  ry,  131- 
143.  367,  567,  703,  709. 
Stanley,  Arthur  Penrhyn,  538,  662. 
Steele,  Sir  Richard,  408,  417,  623. 
Stendhal,  Count  de,  30,  57,  92. 
Sterling,  John,  649  stq- 
Sterne,  Laurence,  476-478,  503. 
Stewart,  Dugald,  413,  478,  516. 
StilliMgfleet,  Bishop,  307,  402. 
Stowe,  John.  148. 
Strafford,  Thomas   Wentwortb,   Karl   of, 

632  seq. 

Strafford,  "William,  109. 
Strype,  John,  160. 
Stubbee,  John,  110,  112,  113. 
Suckling,  Sir  John,  144, 145,  337. 


Sue,  Eugene,  601 
Surrey,  Hem 

246. 


Surrey,  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of,  116-119: 


Swift,  Jonathan,  311,  360,  403,  404,  408,  411 
seq.,  623,  638;  sketch  of  his  life,  434-439 
his  wit,  439-441;  his  pamphlets,  441-445  , 
his  poetry,  445-450 ;  his  philosophy,  etc. 
450-456. 

T. 

TAILLEFER,  59,  65. 

Tasso,  136,  139. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  148,  258,  259-263. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  332,  437,  450,  486,  629 

Teniers,  David,  529. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  538,  583,  702. 

JFhackeray,  William  M.,  530, 538;  his  novel* 

603-626. 
Theatre,  the,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  158 

after  the  Restoration,  321,  322,  340  seq. 

361  seq. 

Thibaut  of  Champagne,  63. 
Thierry,  Augustin,  19,  35,  47,  65,  647. 
Thiers,  Louie  Adolphe,  635,  647. 


Thomson,  James,  502,  503. 

Thorpe,  John,  39,  40,  42,  47. 
Tickell,  Thomas,  486. 
Tillotson,  Archbishop,  397  seq, 
Tindal,  Matthew,  403. 
Titian,  143,  211. 
Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  27. 
Toland,  John,  403. 

Toleration  Act,  the,  643,  644. 

Tomkins,  Thomas,  256. 

Townley,  James,  359. 

Turner,  Sharon,  43,  46  seq- 
rutchin,  John,  494. 
Tyiidale,  William,  249  seq.,  253,  263. 

U. 

JRFE,  Honor6  d%  121,  185. 
Usher,  James,  148. 


VANBRTJGH,  Sir  John,  340-353. 
Vane,  Sir  Harry,  315. 
Vega,  Lope  de,  102,  166, 186,  323. 
Village  feasts  of   sixteenth  century  de- 
scribed. 112,  113. 

Villehardouin,  a  French  chronicler,  62,  72. 
Villiers,  George.     See  Buckingham. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  25. 
Voltaire,  25,  482,  496,  557,  668. 
Vos,  Martin  de,  121. 


W. 


WAGE,  Robert,  58,  59  seq.,  65. 

Waldenses,  the,  102. 

Waller,  Edmund,  145,  277,  321,  336-338, 488L 

Walpole,  Horace,  492. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  387,  390. 

Walton,  Isaac,  130,  148. 

Warburton,  Bishop,  403. 

Warner,  William,  130. 

Warton,  Thomas,  66,  65,  66,  69, 103.  523. 

Watt,  James,  413. 

Watteau,  Anthony,  492. 

Watts,  Isaac.  504. 

Webster,  John.  173,  177  seq.,    186,  373. 

Wells,  Dr.  William  Charles,  683. 

Wesley,  John,  396,  397. 

Wetherell,  Elizabeth,  580, 

Wharton,  Lord,  498. 

Whitefield,  George,  396,  397. 

Wiclif,  John,  83,  171,  246,  249. 

Wilkes,  John,  407. 

William  III.,  332.  566. 

William  of  Malmesbury,  58. 

William  the  Conqueror,  59  seq. 

Windham,  William,  408. 

Witenagemote,  the,  42. 

Wither,  George,  258. 

Wollaston,  William  Hyde,  629. 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  105,  247. 

Wollstonecraft,  Mary  (Mrs.  Godwin),  18- 

Wordsworth,  William,  523,  532-535. 

Wortley,  Lady  Mary.    See  Montagu,  Lafiy 

Mary. 

Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  116, 117. 
Wycherley,  William,  26,  324,  329,  335,  340, 

348,  374,  422. 

Y. 

YONGE,  Charlotte  Mary,  680. 
Young,  Arthur.  413. 
Young,  Edward,  504. 


, 


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